"The modalities of awakened doing are Acceptance, Enjoyment, and Enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all–from the most simple task to the most complex."
"Modality means the underlying energy frequency that flows into what you do and connects your actions with the awakened consciousness that is emerging into this world." Eckhart Tolle
From day to day, week to week, year to year, there will always be tasks to complete, challenges to overcome, difficult experiences to work through, and hopefully many positive and pleasant happenings that outweigh the harder moments.
Eckhart Tolle is reminding us of the importance of remaining present with either acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm regardless of what we are faced with. He’s also highlighting it’s not about trying to remain continually blissful in the ‘high vibe’ lane but working with acceptance and peace during the less pleasant activities or times. And that can only come with awareness and practice, so let us look at and work with those three modalilties.
ACCEPTANCE
As we know, not all situations in life are easy to enjoy or be enthused about which is where acceptance comes in. At least through acceptance, an unwanted or challenging moment, can lead to being more at peace with the present moment. From that state of less resistance one may find greater ease in moving forward and find channels of processing that which needs to be accepted through softening, surrendering, forgiving, hope, new perceptions and creative ideas etc.
ENJOYMENT
Making the enjoyment of being and doing our goal is a sure way to find and feel greater happiness. It’s about dropping out of the ego minded state and into the heart centre, bringing joy into the activity as opposed to seeking joy externally. Finding joy in the present moment, even in what might originally be perceived mundane, helps lead us towards pleasing contentment. It’s an active state of being open minded, curious and looking for the positives. If you’re feeling removed from joy then that’s okay stick with acceptance.
ENTHUSIASM
When you’re operating from the heart with joy, aligned with your truth and living with greater presence, it is fertile ground for increased energy, inspiration and creativity. Here enter waves of enthusiasm. With the journey of joy being the focus, in this uplifted and energized state, great things can happen. It’s dynamic, it’s flowing, it’s expansive but it’s also not permanent, which is a healthy element. Peak states are unsustainable, so when enthusiasm ebbs it gives space for other states of consciousness to lead, like acceptance and enjoyment for example.
YOGA INTEGRATION: PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Our yoga practice is a great place to work with these states of being. They can act as anchor points for us to find more presence in each moment.
Choose one and work with that as you move through the Asana practice.
Let’s say if you decide upon Acceptance then for each posture and each transition silently repeat ‘Acceptance’ during both the in and out breath.
Explore ways to find physical and mental acceptance, accepting your fitness challenges, your bodies limitations, both your favourite and least favourite postures and your possible distracted mind.
With Acceptance a softening has to be invited in and expressed to help cultivate that inner peace, so try practising with more of that, both in mind and body.
The same approach applies with Enjoyment and Enthusiasm, silently breath them in and out.
Become curious and interested about these conscious states and actively find ways to enjoy or be enthused about different aspects of the practice.
It doesn’t matter so much which modality you choose to be present with but rather making sure when engaged in activity you have increased awareness around that choice and take action in that direction.
A New Earth contains a wealth of treasures to help improve your own life, the lives of others and the world at large, hence the title, so I encourage you to give it a read.
Peace + Love,
Amy x
Enjoyed reading this? Check out the “Spanda – Pulsation, Expansion + Contraction” blog post.
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