She started by guiding us through a chant from the Upanishads:

Which translates as:

"From untruth lead us to truth/

From darkness lead us to light/

From death lead us to immortality..."

She told us to allow ourselves to feel the longing, the longing to awaken to our highest self. And to remember as the poet Kabir once said that "God is in our longing."

Sally spoke about how important it is to come together as a group, as a community and practice. How when we are present in a group, in a satsang, then the scattered consciousness can actually come together and expand. I thought this was a very kind and powerful way to remind us to be present, to be here, to be in the now, without over stressing the point. Sally has a gentle way about her and yet she is as lucid and sharp as diamond.

So she welcomed us, she welcomed us as a group and she welcomed our longing. What a beautiful beginning.

Then she spoke about enlightenment  and offered several definitions:

#1. (from a Zen master) "Enlightenment is a relaxed mind."

#2. (from Swami Muktananda) "Enlightenment is the total complete identification with yourself as God."

#3. (from Sally) "Seeing, realizing and experiencing the truth of ourselves and reality in all facets, in its beauty, and experiencing it as oneness with ourselves."

We then did a long meditation on awareness. "Notice your body/ Notice the room/ Notice your awareness..."

Favorite part was when she asked us during meditation: "Is your awareness inside this room? Or is the room inside your awareness?"

That reminded me of Kabir's poem: "Everyone knows the drop is inside the ocean but not everyone knows that the ocean is inside the drop..." I had a few moments during the meditation where I felt myself going through the tattvas. I felt myself very earthy, very in my body, very sensory-like and then I felt myself slowly becoming more and more subtle... It's a fascinating journey of devolution and evolution...

There was a lot said in this workshop and it's hard to put it all into words.

But I will end with the most powerful exercise we did, in my opinion.

We worked with a partner and one person, the questioner asked the other person over and over, "Who are you?" "Who are you?" And the questioner just answered whatever came to their mind.

My partner was a radiant woman named Penny. And when she asked me I kind of "knew" the right answer for we have done similar exercises like this through the 7+ years I've been studying with Sally. However I approached this as if I didn't know. So I just started to answer:

(Who are you?)

Maria Cristina Jimenez

(Who are you?)

a woman

(Who are you?)

Puerto Rican

(Who are you?)

a yogi

(Who are you?)

a yoga teacher

(Who are you?)

a meditator

(Who are you?)

single

(Who are you?)

someone who's gained weight

(Who are you?)

tired

(Who are you?)

someone who doesn't have a lot of money

(Who are you?)

tired

(Who are you?)

nervous

(Who are you?)

angry

(Who are you?)

silence

(Who are you?)

love

(Who are you?)

unconditional love

(Who are you?)

a daughter

(Who are you?)

space

(Who are you?)

everyone in the room

(Who are you?)

the ocean

(Who are you?)

space

(Who are you?)

you

(Who are you?)

You!

(Who are you?)

Penny

(Who are you?)

Penny

~

And at this point we organically stopped and we both had tears in our eyes. I loved how I went through a journey of outer, physical layers starting with my name, my ethnicity, my profession and I went deeper and deeper through the layers until I connected to a subtler essence of my being, even ending with a complete identification with my partner. 

I love how I started so specific with my name and I ended with her name. Wow. Quite unbelievable to experience something so raw that we read about as yogis every day (ie, we are all one.) To actually experience it. Unbelievable.

Wonderful Sally.

Love you Sally.

Jai Sally.