John Lennon’s Sacred Text | Mark Whitwell
Mark Whitwell | Heart of Yoga
“I feel in the big picture the fact that John and I met was to do this song” — Yoko Ono.
Thank you Yoko. Thank you John. I think it may be the most important song in human history so far.
Thank you Annie Leibowitz for taking this photo. John Lennon and Yoko Ono demonstrated in their union the natural state of life: that strength is utterly receptive. They lived the polarity principle of Yoga by which two are revealed as one, in which one partner can say to the other, “You are my power.” Their song expressed their union and their life together demonstrated it.
As we have said, Truth has been expressed in all times and in all geographies. Truth is obviously available as the condition of reality itself, so it is expressed in a vast array of language and cultural form, including our own worldwide popular culture.
There have always been reality realizers among us who shared their realization so that their lovers could realize reality too. We need to remember them in the ‘every day,’ the ‘mundane,’ as we go about our ‘usual life.’
We are grateful for the women and men who have grasped the fact that they live in and as reality itself, life as it actually is, the power of the cosmos that beats your heart and moves your breath and Sex, and that you do too. We need the intervention of such ones to replace the mass patterning and vulgar limitation on Life. Music is a particularly potent form by which Life breaks through the social patterning.
The whole world acknowledges The Beatles who revealed their very personal spiritual investigations to the public without reserve. They brought forth into the world the gift of love and an intelligence that went way beyond the restrictions of the usual life. But also willing to express their tortured hearts in the pain and grief of the usual life. They began a revolution in popular culture that will never stop.
I met Paul McCartney and was able to express to him that The Beatles had ended hierarchy and the imposition of power in society by showing that a working class hero was something to be. And by staying ordinary in the midst of their super world fame. He accepted it graciously:
“We didn’t set out to do that,” he said, “but I see what you mean. Thank you very much for saying that.”
These are loved songs of our time, along with many others, are as worthy of great attention/ great meditation as all other sacred texts of the wisdom traditions. You may hear them today with new ears and with an “unfiltering” mind — not just noise in the background that music is often reduced to.
Likewise, we may hear all other chosen sacred text of the wisdom traditions “hearing old voices with new ears.” The sacred texts such as Bhagavad Gita are the utterances of avatars and rishis, the seers of the Veda. These texts are like the sun arising every morning to refresh and empower our life. They are an endless source of refreshment and clarity
Make this part of your daily practice. Body, breath and sacred text…in that order. Do your Yoga and then listen to your music without distraction. Yoga has always been there as what you do in response to what has inspired you. It is your response to Grace, the practical whole-body action of receiving the blessings of text.
Your inhalation sacrificed to the exhalation and vice versa deals with the demons and reveals the hridaya heart, the source of all nurturing, the source of all Life on Earth. This is the place in your body where all opposites arise from and return to: where the inhalation perfectly merges with the exhalation, where strength is utterly receptive, where above meets below, where left meets right, where male meets female, is the hridaya heart. This is the first cell of Life that appeared when you appeared, the place from where all new life comes through in a perfect nurturing harmony of the cosmos.
What we are is reality/ life itself. All that is going on is reality/ life itself. No matter how convoluted or dissociated we seem to be within the patterned mental role-play of society, we are always, life itself. My teacher U.G. would say, “Listen Mark Whitwell, nobody can give this to you, and nobody can take it away.”
We enjoy the clarity and power of sacred music knowing that what is being expressed cannot be absent from our own skin, breath, and Sex. The secrets of the universe are in us, as us.
Thank you devotees of Life. Your daily Yoga is your participation in the one reality that is arising as god, guru, spouse, body, music, text and everything. The unitary movement of Life in and as all forms.
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