The Deification of Consciousness

One of the most revered Hindu Gods, Lord Shiva, the deification of Consciousness itself, has five aspects, creator, sustainer, destroyer, concealer and reveler. Those last two; concealer and revealer are key to remember when considering consciousness and learning. In my fifteen years of practice and thirteen of teaching I have had my potential revealed to me in flashes, at those times when I was deep in the fire of practice, held by a loving, rigorous teacher who had been in the fire of practice herself. When I forget and slack off in my practice that potential is once again obscured.

A grace bestowed on us all is the impulse to grow, and personally, to humbly recognize when I’ve slacked and return bravely to the fire of practice and the desire to live my potential, to recognize, in the midst of the burning, that I am not my body, I am not my mind, I am that. I am an emanation of the grace that breathes me and nothing more.