“If ya got no love…”

“If ya got no love, then you’re with the wrong…” Rock DJ by Robbie Williams

How did you finish the lyric? (It’ll be at the end. No spoilers per se, but I cut it off there on purpose.)

Love is a funny thing. As Huey Lewis & the News called it, “…a curious thing…make one man weep, make another man sing.” 

Self-love can be hard to come by. Many of us seek validation from outside sources: money, fame, prestige, the latest and greatest, arm candy, or a partner. Or name-your-own-vice. What a fun board game that’d be! How can we be true to ourselves, and tap into that extrinsic nature of who we really are? This is where the Anandamayakosha, or the Bliss Body, comes into play. 

It is deeper than Santosha, or contentment, but that’s a good place to start. We need to learn to like ourselves before we can learn to love ourselves. Kinda a “crawl before you walk” deal. (Unless you’re Meat Loaf: “ya gotta learn to dance before you learn to crawl.”) I digress…a lot.

One must learn to love one’s self enough that outside schtuff is not necessary. Eventually, hopefully, the detrius of one’s life, in theory anyway, becomes very “take it or leave it”. At a training, we were led through a shelf meditation by the incomparable Joseph Le Page. It was a pretty indescribable, ne surreal, experience, but here goes nuttin’. Please note that I am taking a lot of liberties with this. Any errors in recollection or conclusions drawn are my own. 

It was a guided meditation where you “walk” through a scene. You begin to shed layers – first the, ahem, easy stuff, like material possessions. No car, no house, no baubles, you get the idea. Then, it gets a little gritty. Shed your interpersonal conflicts, your body, your labels – parent, partner, job, yogi, religiousness, etc. Finally, the really stubborn stuff, the you you think of yourself as: your personality, and finally your meat tube. You placed things on a shelf as you walk by, getting lighter with each step. What’s left? This is to really drive home the differences between purusha and prakriti. A gross oversimplification is that purusha is the Soul, the self, pure consciousness. Prakriti is that which is created, nature, the “creatrix” (the female energy.) 

What’s left is beyond your essence. Sorta-but-not-really what makes you, you. Methinks it’s Brahman, the Absolute. “…our own true being, whose nature is all-pervading oneness…encompasses and transcends all the koshas.” (The Yoga Toolbox.) 
You cannot have one without the other. We need to be in touch with who we really are, but creature comforts are cool, too. While it’s nice to be at one with, uh, oneself, and with the Universe, polite society says we must live indoors, wear clothes, and get to work on time. We are trying to return to purusha, but the road is littered with shiny objects. Buy! Buy! Buy! Replace with the latest and greatest. Planned obsolescence. In the 20th century, you cannot get by without at least *some* stuff, but how much do we reeeeeallly need? And if/when we *do* get to purusha, how do we not get complacent? The purushans didn’t know how good they had it til consumerism came along. And so it goes, cyclically, like most things. Chicken-egg much?

“If ya got no love, then you’re with the wrong…” The wrong philosophy? The wrong partner? The wrong job? Examine what’s not working, and how to tweak or abandon it to start anew. Learn to love yourself, it’s “the greatest love of all,” belted out the late, great Whitney Houston. 

Robbie Williams’ clubby beat intones, “If ya got no love, then you’re with the wrong man…it’s time to move your body.” Move your body alright, towards whatever your heart’s longing for. Leave your credit card at home…”don’t need no money to ride this train.” (Thanks Mr. Lewis…and the News).

The rest of the song, Rock DJ, is quite deep…just kidding! It’s a danceable derp fest with some pretty questionable lyrics. Like the lyric, the video goes too far. We don’t need men, we need ourselves! 

If this resonated with you, please feel free to comment below or drop me an email. Until our mats unfurl again, be well.

-M