Chapter 29: Your Sacred Journey

As I read the last chapter in The Four Desires, I began to read more slowly. This is my usual pattern when a book is really amazing and I don’t want it to end. In these last three pages Rod no longer gives us instructions or practices.  Instead, he offers the wisdom of tradition.  “Effort never goes to waste, there is no failure”—Bhagaved Gita. 

I spent some time at the Himalayan Institute this past summer where my husband and I primarily worked in the garden with some amazing people. Pinned up inside of the shed were vedic gardening mantras.   There was a mantra for planting seeds, a mantra for watering, and a mantra for weeding. I thought to myself, wow there is a mantra for everything you do.

I got a copy of these mantras and downloaded them to my iPod.  The next day I was in the garden listening to the mantra for watering as I walked around dragging the hose and watering around the fence. I had made it about half way around the garden just chanting and watering, completely captured by the present. My thought was “this is why there is a mantra for everything”; to keep us engaged and present.

Your sacred journey is a reminder of all that you already are. To step into your own shoes and walk gracefully, looking back only when necessary and always moving forward.

Rod says “The more you are attuned to your soul, the more easily it can lead you to a fulfillment far beyond what most of us imagine possible. That place is the fulfillment of dharma, the convergence of fate and destiny—a destination that awaits us and which can only be reached though the sum of our efforts.”

All the practices in The Four Desires attune us to the sound of the soul. Like the mantra that kept me present, connected to the simple task of watering the plants, living one’s dharma is the ever-present melody of your soul’s purpose.

“May we walk together, talk together, and understand each other. Like bright beings joined in right thinking, may we share our bounty with each other”—Rig Veda

I wish you all constant engagement in this process, the potential to live your lives with fearlessness.  Listen to the sound of your soul with respect and love, following its guidance.

Aloha,
Chanti

Learn more about Rod Stryker and ParaYoga at RodStryker.com 
Read The Four Desires book review on Elephant Journal.
The Four Desires: YouTube talks with Rod Stryker
Read other discussions about The Four Desires
Instructions: How the book club works
Rod Stryker travels to the largest spiritual pilgrimage in history in 2013. I’ll be there. Will you?