Appearances Can be Deceiving

One day in yoga class I was doing the downward dog position and I noted to the teacher that I could touch my heels to the mat, and another participant chimed in, saying that she could also touch her heels to the mat. I expected the teacher to encourage us by saying, "Well done," or something similar. Instead she discouraged us by saying that the position was more about the alignment of shoulders and arms. She seemed to be allowing her ego to get in the way of her responsibilities as a teacher. And it was in that moment that I suddenly had a clear vision of who this woman really was, as a person. And I didn't like what I was seeing.

She wasn't just my yoga teacher; she was also my friend. So after this incident, I continued to think about it and mull it over.

Many months later, living in a different place, a different country, doing yoga in my own quiet room in my quiet house in the still, yet vast and living forest, I was in the downward dog position and I remembered the incident with the yoga teacher and how I had known then who she was. And suddenly I realized that I hadn't known at all who she was. I had known the energy that she was expressing. I had known the energy vibration that she was filled with and was sending out to me. That's all. It was an energy vibration. It was a choice in the moment to express that energy vibration rather than some other energy vibration.

And that is what we are doing all the time - radiating energy - this instead of that, or that instead of this. That is what she was doing in that moment. And I didn't like her energy output at all. I didn't like the choice that she made, the vibration that was emanating from her. At all. But that says nothing about Her. She is God also. She is pure love. As am I. As are we all.

Her energy in the moment might be any one of a vast variety of things - need, fear, uncertainty, ego concerns, anxiety, selfishness, selflessness, peace, joy, superiority, domination, submission.... all kinds of things come across through our energy vibrations. But that is not who we are.

And when we quiet and become intentional in our radiance of energy, we get to choose consciously what energy we will send out. And if we choose to do so, we can send out the energy of our vast, illimitable, ineffable beingness, without distortion, without any ripples on the surface of that infinite pool of beingness.

Or we can breathe, breathe deeply, clear our consciousness and see the true beingness of those who stand before us, oh-so-human in their energy outputs, but so much more than what they happen to be expressing in that moment.

So much more.

Appearances can be deceiving.