We’ve been talking about
qualities of Lakshmi, and second only to abundance, the quality she is most
known for is beauty, and her beauty has “an unmistakable set of qualities. It is sweet, ripe, symmetrical and pleasing…cultivated,
nourished and polished.” (Awakening Shakti, Sally
Kempton). Think Kate Middleton rather than Sophia Vergara.
We often think of beauty as
external because it is experienced through the senses. But the beauty that Lakshmi represents is a
quality that arises from a state of being, the physical representation is just
a “result”. For example a beautiful
flower is the result of all the forces of nature coming aligning to make it so.
When everything doesn’t come together in
this exact particular way there is less fullness and radiance, and the flower is
small, droopy, maybe brown around the edges. It is the same with people - we
have all met people that aren’t striking physically yet exude a radiant
brilliance because of who they are. And vice versa.
In Awakening Shakti Sally
Kempton writes “Lakshmi’s gift are enhanced through a certain effort and
craft.” In our case, when we practice yoga with mindfulness and good alignment
we invoke Lakshmi. Last week we talked about sufficiency, and beauty is one of
the “effects” of feeling your own innate “enough-ness”. When you have the inner experience of
abundance and beauty you know Lakshmi is with you, expressing herself as you.
I love that line from the
movie Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.” – it’s so true, as proven by
teenagers throughout time (just kidding!). You can really replace pretty much any quality
instead of “stupid”, and for this week’s practice I changed it to “Beauty is as
beauty does”. In an alignment based yoga
practice, action is more important than form. What we do is so much more
important than how we look. Beauty is expressed by the heart's
desire to connect with our deepest essence, and when that connection is made,
to radiate the light that we connect to from the core of our being and express
it with every action, whether it’s a yoga pose or a corporate speech, baking a
cake or paving a road. It can be brought
to every single thing we do.
I shared a story in class this week of being in class with a wonderful teacher a few years back. He was demonstrating Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, which he taught and showed masterfully. When he sent us off to do the pose, a woman in the front of the class was practicing a much deeper form of the pose, which was also very beautiful. The teacher pointed to her and called out across the room “I want you all to know that that is what I feel like in this pose.” We all laughed, but it was such a beautiful lesson of this concept. We work towards the pose, we do the best we can possibly do in that moment and then we just let it shine – we don’t let it be diminished by whatever else might be going on around us. That is real beauty.
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| Eka Pada Rajakapotasana |
Beauty "happens"
when you are most authentically yourself, when you are expressing without
reservation who you really are, bringing forth the unique qualities that make
you inherently, beautifully you. When you
cultivate a beautiful practice, whether it’s on the mat or the way you interact
with people, or even do your job with the highest artistry, you connect with all
the pleasing and graceful qualities of Lakshmi and bring her charm and
brilliancy to everything you do.
May we all let the inherent beauty
inside ourselves reveal itself with every act, with every breath, in all we do.
