Changing You, Unchanging You?
The Anahata Chakra Mudra is used in Tantric Yoga and Japanese Martial Arts to open the heart center. Anahata means “un-struck sound,” and this mudra is a gateway into the silent openness of the human heart.
I had the great privilege of studying with Sensei Wataru Ohashi (the founder of the Ohashiatsu Institute and Method of Shiatsu) from 1997 – 2005, and he was one of the most influential people in my life, and one of my greatest mentors.
One day in class he shared a discussion he had with his friends the previous evening at dinner. Ohashi has always been an avid fan and lover of all forms of dance, particularly ballet. He was at dinner with friends and he shared with them that he had just bought tickets to see the ballet Swan Lake at American Ballet Theatre (New York). He told them that he had seen the Ballet Swan Lake over 100 times (over 100 performances!), yes, Ohashi was prone to exaggeration, but please bear with me to make my point!
One of his friends, incredulous, asked him why on earth he would want to see it again. The gentleman said to Ohashi, “The music is the same, the costumes are much the same, and the choreography is also pretty similar. Why on earth would you want to see the same ballet again?” And Ohashi replied, “Because I’m different.”
“Because I’m different.”
Different every day. Ohashi was making the point that each one of us is different every single day. We may have the same job, see the same people, do the same kind of work, but every single day we are new and different.
Most of us don’t have a high level of awareness of the subtleties and nuances of this truth.
Each day is a new beginning and if we are open we can feel new feelings, think new thoughts, embrace new images, and live a new life.
Each day we are truly born again and have a completely fresh, new slate on which we can create a new experience for ourselves.
So today I encourage you to notice the ways in which you might be different from yesterday, or last week, or last year, or 5 years ago, etc.
When we tune into the particular vibration of this day and this moment, it allows us to experience everything as if it were the first time. (The craft of the actor!)
At our center, our soul is eternal and unchanging, but all of the other aspects of ourselves are constantly changing – this is the nature of how energy moves through us.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: “Do not say, “It is morning,” and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.” – Rabindranath Tagore
