Doing It Your Way

Teri Degler • August 31, 2021

Some lines from my friend Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s world renowned poem “The Invitation” inspired me to make a Facebook post a few months ago, and I am still thinking about it. The lines from the poem are:


I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire with me
and not shrink back…


In the post I wrote that, for me, this line always makes me think about living life with the fiery kind of passion that leads you to grasp everything that passes by with both hands, burying your face in it, feeling it – even when it really, really hurts…

But this line also speaks to me about being authentic, being the “you” you truly are – no phoniness, no fakery – just being the most genuine person you can possibly be and being a person who reacts to whatever is going on around you with a sincerity that flows out of your deepest, most innermost being. This is standing in the centre of a fire for me, a fire that burns away all the dross…


Even as a teenager I held this up as a kind of goal in life – I wanted to be “real”; I wanted to be “me”…. And even though this is a standard I fall far short of much of the time, it has remained one of the deepest, most abiding principles I try to live my life by. But, funnily enough, until I initiated that Facebook conversation, I had never, ever asked myself WHY this was so important to me. If I thought about it at all, I just thought of being authentic as a good thing and being unauthentic as a bad thing. Being authentic was “on” the spiritual path. Being unauthentic was “off” the spiritual path.


But when I started asking myself the question of why this was so, I had this great revelation. (Like many of my great revelations this one now seems so obvious to me I’m chagrined to admit it that it had never occurred to me before!) And it really is obvious: The more authentic we are, the closer we are to expressing our true self – and that true self is, of course, the divine within.


It makes me smile when I think of myself as a teenager, passionately – and I do mean passionately! – determined to be an “individual”, to live my life “my way”, to be “true to my self”. Because in those days I was a really hardcore atheist; never realizing for a moment that I was already on the path that Shakti – that divine feminine force the ancient yogis say is the evolutionary energy – was leading me down. And that is, of course, the path she is leading us all down – whether we know it or not, whether we believe it or not – the one that leads to the ultimate Realization that the real you, the very core of you, is a divine you, a radiant, holy you…



Tags: , 

New book on Gopi Krishna launched

By Teri Degler • June 21, 2023
Gopi Krishna—A Biography: Kundalini, Consciousness and Our Evolution to Enlightenment

Blast the Rubble

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Blast the Rubble from the Pathway to Joy Yesterday a young woman was talking to me about her boyfriend breaking up with her. She was hurt and sad about the break-up but it seemed to me she was even sadder about how this was going to affect her in the future. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I am going to start putting up walls.” Up to this point in her life she said, “I have gone into every relationship with a completely open heart – no holds barred; just absolutely open to exploring all the possibilities….” She was not, she thought, going to be able to do that anymore. “That’s what happens, you know,” she said as only a 20-something can say to a seemingly clueless 60-something, “people reach a point where they put up walls. They do it to protect themselves.” This probably doesn’t seem to be a particularly startling insight to most of us. But what I think was truly insightful about this young woman’s observation was that she was truly and deeply lamenting it. These carefully constructed, impenetrable rock and mortar constructions were going to limit her: close off her openness; curtail her spontaneous joy. As long as these walls existed she would not be able to feel love, to experience it, to be awash in it the way she once had. And even if a time might come when she’d feel safe enough to tear them down, she would find rubble strewn over pathways that once would have been free and easy traveling… We all know that erecting walls doesn’t just keep us from feeling hurt; it does to our emotions exactly what chopping off the red from one end of a rainbow and violet from the other would do to our vision. But we might not think about the fact that it also restricts our creative ability. It’s like one of those laws you had to memorize in high school chemistry class: The degree to which you suppress your emotions is inversely proportional to the degree to which you are able to express yourself. In my workshops I sometimes say, “There’s no art without heart”. Corny as this saying may be, it remains true. So let us examine ourselves. Ask a hard question: “Do I truly feel with the intensity that I once did?” If the answer is no, be brave, seek out old hidden walls, tear them down, and clear the rubble from the pathways to your heart. Then take up paintbrush, pen, drum, or dancing shoes and express your Self.

Body Love

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Body Love, Oh Body Love I’ve been going to the same gym for many, many years. In the women’s section there is a large, wide-rimmed whirlpool. Women loll about, stretch out, submerge themselves, or just dangle their feet in the hot, bubbling water. Almost everyone is naked. Some are towel-less; some are towel-wrapped. This distinction does not blur over time. The women who are happy naked, remain happily naked. The women who are not, are not. I am among the latter. For many women there is not any great significance to being in this group. Some are just naturally modest; for others it’s cultural or just a way of being raised. There is, however, a great significance to being in the other group. All of these women are, to one degree or another, comfortable with their bodies. Some are trim, fit, and slim. There are even a few who preen a bit – not in any sexual way – but as if to say, “Hey, I’ve busted my butt to get this butt, and I’m proud of it!” Others are frankly, honestly, openly, unashamedly obese – and, as I slip up my towel and slide my body down in a move so carefully orchestrated that it leaves not an inch of naked flesh exposed – how I envy them. Once submerged, the tune of that old Supreme’s song “Baby Love” often comes to me. Only the words aren’t baby love; they are body love, oh body love, I need you, oh how I need you. The irony of the fact that I still don’t completely accept my physical self is that I have spent the last three decades of my life working at being in my body. The idea that the body is a temple is fundamental to my spiritual practice. It is based on the ancient yoga philosophy that says the human body is a microcosm of the cosmos and, as such, is being propelled along its spiritual path by the Divine – known, in this tradition, as Shakti. The human body is, in this sense, a container for creative force of the cosmos. A spiritual path like this shouts out the need for being able to be in and thus experience the body. I have come to believe that this is true, not just for my path, but for all spiritual paths. Elements of Christianity, Judaism, and many other traditions teach the idea that the Holy Spirit – call it prāna, chi, ruach ha-kodesh – is the power of the divine that is with us, the power that calls us, moves us…. Clearly the more comfortable we are with our bodies, the more easily we can be in them – feeling and responding to this holy force.
Show More
Share by: