Esoteric Yoga – the cycle of return
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Esoteric Yoga – the cycle of return
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven[1]
Every day Nature presents us with the miraculous unfolding of myriads of cycles as they express through their moments of movement and then return to their repose, only to unfold further an even grander moment of expression for us all to behold. In the annual turn of the seasons, we witness the plant and animal kingdoms in their re-birth in the Spring, we see them mature through Summer and Autumn and observe their inward repose in Winter, to re-awaken and repeat the cycle the following Spring.
Masses of animals migrate every year, travelling vast distances from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere and back –– animals as majestic as the humpback whale[2] and as delicate and petite as the bar tailed godwit bird[3] are impulsed to respond to an inner calling we have labelled ‘instinct,’ which has them in annual cycles of motion and then repose.
Within our human body, we live, walk and breathe in cycles: our blood pulses through our arteries and veins in regular rhythm, coordinated by the beating of our heart; our every inhalation and exhalation is a consistent cycle not one of us could live without; our hormones follow their unique cycles with adrenal hormones being more active in the day, whilst our melatonin supports our nightly repose and its ‘twin’ hormone, serotonin, impulses our daily activity.
When we gaze upwards we marvel at the waxing and waning of the Moon in its monthly cycle and see its effects on the ocean’s tides on Earth, as well as observing how we, as a humanity, respond to this monthly perambulation. We clock and measure the movements of the planets in our solar system, including our own planet Earth, whose annual orbit forms the basis of our calendar and our relationship with Time.
Within all of these and so many more cycles, we observe and wonder about our own human cycle of birth, life, death and, for many, re-birth. And it is so very natural for us to wonder, to ponder and to ask if, in all of these exquisite and divinely synchronised movements, there is a grander, all-encompassing cycle in which we are all participants.
Does this pondering feel so natural because innately, deep within ourselves, we do have a sense that we are indeed part of a profound cycle, the cycle that will see us returning to this inner essence, to who we are in truth? Holding this as a possibility, we would then need to consider how to connect with it in a tangible, graspable and real way – a way that would confirm and even expand our understanding of the truth, the nature and the quality of this Cycle of Return.
In a very real sense, Esoteric Yoga is founded upon the science of our re-connection. This yoga supports us in surrendering to our Cycle of Return – a movement inwards and backwards to who we are – returning to the state of being long ago abandoned in favour of the delights, pleasures and quandaries of our individualistically created realities.
With Esoteric Yoga, one of our first re-connections is with our physical body. Esoteric Yoga supports us to re-imprint our relationship with our body – to be tender, caring and loving with it so that the delicateness we are naturally comes to the fore of our awareness. This quality of delicateness allows us to feel and then to express the impulses of our esoteric – the aspect of us which is in connection with our Soul.
The divine beauty of these esoteric impulses is that we begin to feel, to live and to be in union with the magnificence of our own cycles. We start to sense our connection with the grander cycles we have long observed outside of us and we feel how we are indeed a significant part of all that is. Everything we have marvelled at, everything we have observed in awe and wonder – we now sense we are in relationship with it all and, through the movements of energy, everything is in relationship with us.
Through the practice of Esoteric Yoga, this Cycle of Return, and our part in it, is naturally revered and honoured as we re-connect with our essence. In this connection we begin to feel that there truly is a purpose for us all and that this purpose has a specific and divine timing to it. Moreover, we are all on this Cycle of Return together, back to who we all are, as Souls.
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Yoga, Connection, Cycles, Essence
