“There is a Light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest heavens. This is the Light that shines in our hearts.”
~ CHANDOGYA UPANISHAD (Yogic Source text)

Greetings & Namaste,

In the spirit of peace and healing, I welcome you all to this place, here and now.  I am happy you have made your way to this remarkable and essential project, Because You’re Beautiful, that has been created to reflect back to us who we really are, why we are here and what is really available to us at this birthing time of great awakening and healing on our planet Earth.

I have known Toni Childs more than half my life, she has lived with my family, I have worked with her, seen her on top of the world, seen her heal and have seen that she shows up as a real, living, loving being. She is my sister (from another mother!) and my friend. She lives close to her heart and she shares the beauty of her being through her voice. I am in awe and solidarity of her vision and strength, as well as those of all the great beings she is bringing together with this project. I am deeply honored and grateful to be a part of this and I acknowledge the opportunity to connect with you all.

Each time I sit to write some of this piece, I feel so much energy flowing through me, it is hard to contain. There are many things I would like to share, but in this first connection I will try to keep it simple and just give the essence of what I want to share. But I don’t know if I will be able to resist the tremendous energy that is pouring through my being as I write this. Then if you are able to relate, to connect, then as time goes forward we can go deeper together.

First let me share a little about myself and my background, what has brought me to this place. My spiritual journey began at a young age. I was inspired by magical and philosophical books that my father had around and I was fortunate to meet my first dharma teacher when I was a teenager growing up in California. I have been blessed to study with many teachers from different healing and spiritual traditions and I am grateful to all of them. They each showed me that what I was seeking was inside me and that I needed to experience the teachings as my own truth, only then would those teachings become truth for me. The guided me in that something inside me would activate and awaken through these teachings and transform my life and the lives of others. This has been my direct experience and it is continuing to be true daily and it keeps unfolding deeper and deeper layers of fulfillment, peace and healing.  I offer my deepest gratitude and love to all of my teachers and the keepers of sacred wisdom on planet earth.

Most of my teachers and inspiration have been primarily from the Yoga, Tantric and Buddhist traditions, but I have also been blessed to study with many healers and teachers from other sacred wisdom traditions, as well. I honor all forms of universal light, love and truth as one. I have no time for dogma or that which limits life, love and freedom. I believe in the power of love and positivity and that we can create a peaceful, sustainable and awakened consciousness on planet Earth. I believe that all children are born beautiful and special. And, that we each have a you-nique voice, truth and life to live and that as we step into our own power and light we transform the world around us. It is my belief and direct experience that we are all one, we are all interconnected through our breath, our spirit, our common future and our Mother Earth – we are all her children.

Life is a journey; it is the ultimate story, the story of becoming. It is what has brought us all together here. We are all searching. We are all here on a journey, looking for answers, trying to put the pieces of our life together in some way, to find the whole, to find out who we truly are, why we are here or perhaps just to be safe, happy & peaceful or to have fulfillment in life. In some way, we are all searching. The teachings of Yoga and all the great spiritual traditions on the planet earth have expressed that “what we seek is within”, that each one of us has an inner source of infinite energy, creativity and joy and that we are all an essential part of this cosmos and unique in our expression or as I like to say ‘you-nique’! This piece is actually not written to your mind or your intellect, but to your being, to the energy, the intelligence that is flowing inside of you as life, as emotion, as energy to feed and nourish that part of you, the deep one who lives inside. We are energetic beings in an energetic universe. This universe actually does not operate on logic, at least human logic. It is beyond our logic. Look at what the last 2,000 years of human logic has created! In simplicity for now, I would offer you that there is another system of logic that has been used by the mystics on our planet since the beginning of time. It is what they call in Tantra “spherical logic” or circular logic. It sees the whole as a whole, sees all parts as connected and sacred and seeks to integrate the whole including the straight line. This logic is considered connected to the feminine, the Divine feminine. It is the sacred intelligence of our beloved Mother Earth – “Gaia”, it is the wisdom of the Yogi’s, the Mayans, the Native Americans and it is the wisdom of our inner self. According to this logic, we each have both male and female in us. We are after all mother/father, we are right and left brain, logic and emotion. We may value or relate to one side of our being more, but according to science it is only a difference of 1 chromosome. You are either 51% female / 49% male or the reverse. You are two parts that make a whole. If one part is suppressed or dismembered, shunned etc, we are incomplete. If both sides are honored valued and embraced, we are whole. We live in a time where the male logic (intellect) and energy (activity/aggression) have run the show and you can see what has been created! This time is the awakening of the sacred feminine, the submerged part of our being, our emotion, our feeling, our love, our compassion and our real beauty, our deep beauty. That is what this whole project is about. You are beautiful, you are unique and you are essential to this cosmos.

I ask you to feel in your heart … are the words I am speaking ringing true inside you? Can you feel the power of your inner spirit?

Most of us have been taught to live inside of our minds, our intellects, to only trust our logic. Often we lose all trust and connection to our bodies, our breath and our emotions. No wonder we get sick. This piece is only a reminder to remember who you are and why you are here. It is a doorway to the process of re-connection to all of you, to your sacred self, to your humanity, your compassion and your beauty! And, to experience the truth of who you are. They say in India that “God is truth”, in the West we say “the truth shall set you free”. There is one catch to truth, no one owns it, it is not fixed and it is limitless. In the Sikh tradition they say magically “sat nam” which means, I am truth. Truth can only be experienced. Your truth can only be lived, danced and sung. Your truth is living close to your being & your heart and declaring that to the world. As you do that you activate and radiate the inner spirit, which you are, and the world transforms.

As life is, truth is. It can never be systematized, institutionalized, rationalized, packaged and homogenized as a one size fits all, a rationalizing of what has come to pass – that misses the whole thing! All of the sacred wisdom teachings of our history are all saying the same thing – that you are it, you are the one, the chosen one (we all are), you are a child of the cosmos, you are beautiful, you are you-nique, you have never happened on the planet Earth before and life wants you here, that is why you are here! The source of your energy is within, it is your spirit. Your body and mind are finite but your spirit is infinite, eternal. When we source our energy from outside we lose energy (inspiration, creativity, vitality, etc), when we re-connect to the source of energy within and learn to live from that source connection we co-create with the Spirit, with the creative power of life. Our journey is to re-connect to that source, to know who we truly are and why we are here.

If you look deeply you will see that the essence of spiritual truth is one. You will find no arguments among the great sages and saints of the Vedas, Kabala, Shamans, Sufi’s, and Christian Mystics etc. They all taught love, kindness, tolerance and compassion. They taught service to humanity and to the Divine. It is only the misguided actions and intentions of fools in all traditions who have distorted these original teachings and used them for selfish or ideological ends. “Fools” may seem a harsh word for an article like this, but I feel it is true. Look at this foolishness that has happened on our beautiful planet. How many wars have been fought in the name of Religion? I ask you, “who would Jesus bomb? Buddha? Mother Mary? Ammachi? Dalai Lama?” Of course the answer is clear, no ONE! And yet there has been war every day since Jesus was alive on the planet earth. The foolishness (to put it mildly, as it is actually too polite of a word) is also found in the way that we poison our food and then eat it (we even give it to our babies!); we poison the water then drink it; we poison the air then breathe it. In fact we should not call it “foolishness”, as it is actually “madness!”

Do you see? What we call normal, the acceptable, going along with the program … is madness. By doing that, by believing what we are taught without awareness, we keep the madness alive. We need to awaken that part of us that is sleeping that has been hypnotized. We need to re-connect to the source of our life inside of us, the source of wisdom, creativity and energy that is in each one of us.

Let us teach our children that all of life is sacred, that they are unique, to keep the connection to their breath and spirit, that their emotions are their life energy and power. That each one is a part of God/Goddess’ creation.

I see that we have a choice going forward – to live in the consciousness of the madness that has been offered as normal: fear, corruption, war, violence and disrespect, that has been prevalent in world affairs these last thousands of years. Do you know that there has been war everyday on earth since Jesus was alive?! Over 3,000 wars in 2,000 years! Or we can choose a new consciousness of Love, Unity, non-violence and prosperity for all.  This is the sacred vision I hold in my heart, no matter what the outer world says.

I have collected many labels for the work I do and who I am, but I do not let them define me. I know that who I am and what I do are beyond any label or description. I teach Yoga, meditation and healing, but honestly I feel that I am holding a sacred space only. And in that safe and sacred space, people re-connect to themselves, to their breath, their bodies, their hearts and their spirits.

Yoga is one of the most ancient technologies of re-connection to the source energy that exists on planet Earth and it comes from the Vedic tradition, which is the oldest holistic system of knowledge. As a word, Yoga means ‘union’ or ‘uniting’ as in the present tense.  Yoga is the process and experience of re-connection. Of course we are never really disconnected, but that is another piece. I would also like to add that Yoga is universal as all great spiritual traditions and sacred wisdom are. For me there is no difference in the essence of Yoga, Kabala, Sufism, Shamanism, Wicca, etc. Truth is one; each just explains in their own way and focuses on a specific pathway or pathways to have the experience of re-connection.

The quote at the beginning of this piece is from a Yogic source text many thousands of years old called, Chandogya Upanishad, and it conveys beautifully for me what is the most essential knowledge and truth on the planet Earth: that what we are searching for is already inside of each of us. The brightest most sacred truth, the light that leads to fulfillment itself is inside our own hearts.

This is, of course, nothing new. It is the essence of all spiritual paths, teachings and techniques. From Jesus to Krishna to Buddha to all of the many saints in all traditions, both male and female, that have reminded us to look inside, to see who we really are. But somehow we cannot hear, it is too hard or too easy, we are taught and practice to look for ourselves in the outer world. That means we outsource our inner truth to the world. We are taught to compare ourselves to others, to society and to the world. We lose ourselves in that process. Have you ever seen an ugly child? I would say that there has never been one. We are all you-nique expressions of the cosmic energy and we are all beautiful in our own way. What is essential is that we look inside and activate.

Science is now showing that our own thoughts and emotions have a direct effect on our DNA (genetic code). That our biology is not fixed, but constantly changing. This is the teaching of the mystics, the sacred seers. We live in an energetic universe where that energy is alive, intelligent and responding to our every thought, action and word. When we consciously participate with that energy / intelligence we raise our frequency and that of the space around us. May you realize and activate the light and beauty within and shine it out to our beautiful planet and may we create peace, justice and healing for our race.

Thank you for being present to this. I hope in some way it has touched a part of you that needs to be reached. We are sacred mirrors for each other to awaken at this time. Whatever you have been taught, told and conditioned that you are, know that you are beyond all those things. May you reclaim your magic, your light, your power and your beauty always and in all ways.

In the next piece we will go into some practices and techniques of re-connection…

Jai Jagadambe and Blessed BE !
Saul David Raye
Topanga, California 9/09

* Jai Jagadambe means – Victory / Blessings to the Mother of the Universe