I was doing Qi Gong the other day with my friend and teacher Satya. She led us in a movement called Stepping out of Samskara. This level of Qi Gong is called medical qi gong and each group of three movements is designed to address a medical condition. Stepping out of samskara was part of a group of movements designed to address paralysis from an accident. She suggested that we send the energy of the movements to someone who had experienced paralysis from an accident if we hadn’t experienced that ourselves. That made me think. I think of Samskara as conditioning or our personality strategy or our small self. It’s who we are when we forget our divine self.
I believe we are two selves. Our divine self or spirit or universal energy or essence in the Enneagram. It means all of who we are and all of what we could be. This unified self is available to us and always with us even when we forget all of who we really are. When we forget all of who we are and rely on the personality strategies or patterns or formations we have developed to survive in our families of origin, that could be called small self. Big Self is the unified self that includes the small self and is more than that.
So doing Qi gong it came to me that samskara is paralysis. The paralysis of samskara. This paralysis is from an accident. The accident of thinking we are less than who we truly are. Stepping out of samskara means recognizing the mistake we make when we think we Are only our egos. I know I have an ego or personality self and that part of me can be running the show. I recognize the futility of working on my personality with my personality. That’s when I know I need to ask for help from Big Self. That is, for me, what prayer is.
When I recognize the paralysis of samskara I want to be kind to myself. I might be certain there is something wrong with me or that I am a loser or lost in blaming myself or someone else. Judging myself for my accidental paralysis into my conditioning is two steps away from connection with my higher self. Big Self loves all of me unconditionally and that is the movement I am seeking.
I ask for help from all of who I am. Please help me. I am then more able to recognize and validate what I am feeling and comfort myself. Please help me to accept myself as I am. Please help me to chose the perspective that represents kindness to myself and others. Please help me to find a smile, find the good, focus on the bigger picture. Often what comes to me is a release from taking things so personally and a deeper understanding of my part of what’s been going on that is troubling me. I can move out of automatic pilot and make choices that reflect clear thinking.
What if another way to look at the paralysis of samskara is when the prefrontal cortex or reasoning brain is taken over by the amygdala or fight flight or freeze response. You could say we flip our lids. We are frozen or paralyzed into a reaction that doesn’t involve clear thinking. According to neuroscience, it takes seven seconds or three deep breaths to reengage the prefrontal cortex. Three deep breaths to remember who we really are. In that way the reasoning brain is a pathway to the expansiveness of the divine self or Big Self. Three deep breaths to ask for help.
Big Self includes it all. When I am more identified with Big Self, usually after asking for help, I can feel more connected to my own body and more present. From that place I can more clearly get the sense that all living things are interconnected. The paralysis of samskara can be a vehicle for me to move beyond it. I can embrace the paralysis of samskara as a pathway to open up to all of who I am. I can recognize that the paralysis or stuckness I feel is an accident. I can recognize my mistake and ask for help. I can move beyond paralysis by embracing my paralyzed self. Please help me to remember who I can be in the midst of my forgetting. May we all learn and grow more and more each day into all of who we are.
Thank you for listening.
