On The Topic of Love: Protecting Your Ojas Through Commitment and Openness.
“Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.” - Mahatma Gandhi
I am constantly being surrounded by like-minded and conscious community everywhere I go, whether it’s in Peru, Guatemala or my recent home, California. I have begun to observe myself and others in different relationship dynamics and would love to share my view on relationships to perhaps give you insight into your dharma in a positive and healthful way.
I recently went to a micro-festival and village building event this past month… it was my first conscious festival ever! I was thoroughly excited to attend leadership and building workshops, meet and network with new people, and explore my spirituality. While I was there, for the first time in my life – I danced with men in an intimate way that felt safe, secure and supportive in my process of trust, surrender and acceptance of the present moment. I wasn’t jealous when the same guy who danced with me went and danced with another girl intimately, and wasn’t even fazed when talking about sexuality and Tantra in an open, raw and authentic way with other men. Things that I was sheltered from as a child and that were taught as taboo, were now out and the open and were finally being defined and put to words for me.
I felt so free and opened to connect heart to heart in a conscious and loving way through the expression of my feelings in conversation and my love language of touch through dance. After these magical nights of dancing, conversing and reflecting, I felt closer to stepping into a role of teaching others how to love unconditionally and without expectation.
Ever since I healed my relationship with my father, my perspective has shifted on my relationship with men (those who identify as such) and what a romantic relationship looks like. An intimate and supportive relationship is one that breaks down ambiguous and closed off emotional walls to create healthy, opened and honest communication that meets and exceeds each others’ needs and is in alignment with our purpose and spiritual growth in this life. Some of Kula’s co-founders and facilitators are a beautiful expression of this - see below!!
Protecting our Ojas
I have been single my whole life, and feel that that has given me the focus I have needed for my own personal and spiritual development as well as a better understanding of my purpose as both a healer and a teacher.
However, I am also opened to a relationship that supports my work in the spiritual field if Spirit allows for it. A grounded partner who would challenge and expand my own spirituality while serving as a complement to me in the healing arts. I am waiting for the right person who is in alignment with the heart, mind, gut and sexual energies of the body to preserve my ojas.
Ojas is our subtle energetic body that is built from the fuel we feed our bodies and the healthy use of our senses and is what gives us our vitality, health, strength, and resiliency to deal with the stressors in our lives. It’s also sometimes called our kundalini energy, the light and energetic force of the universe and Spirit lying within us at the base of our spines. It’s what keeps us calm when shit hits the fan … and what gives us our glow, our energy and what fuels a consistent state of bliss in our daily lives.
When we enter into ecstatic states, such as when we are at a festival dancing, or engaging in plant medicines – we deplete our ojas and expend our energy. Shukra dhatu, our subtle sexual energy and tissues of the body, is the raw material needed to create ojas. When we engage in sexual activity, shukra and ojas are depleted, resulting in it being more difficult to create ojas when we don’t have the raw material of shukra available. When we are suffering from disease in our lives, we tend to be low in ojas and should protect our energy from entering into these ecstatic states, or even engaging in sexual activity altogether.
So what does this have to do with being single or being in a committed relationship to fulfill our purpose?
If we are aware of our ojas, we can harness it to achieve our purpose in this life and break free from our karmic cycles, our samskaras or tendencies that don’t serve our Spirits. We can use our resiliency and health to travel, to explore, to share, to connect, to grow and to share our whole selves to discover new depths of ourselves and shed our egos to become closer to the Divine within. And our relationships can play a large or small role in the development of our discovery of our dharma and the Divine.
Exploration of Love
And so, reflecting on relationships and our dharma, I am asking a few questions of inquiry for you to better understand what your relational needs are:
1. Do I need a committed and conscious relationship to thrive right now, or is my freedom and openness in being single serving my ojas and my discovery of my dharma?
2. Am I in a relationship right now that supports my spiritual growth and the healthy balance of my ojas? How can I use open and honest communication to allow this relationship to better serve my needs?
3. Do I have a healthy balance between what intimacy and sexuality are in my thoughts, actions and words? How am I expressing my sexual needs in a controlled way that is not depleting but energizing and necessary for the growth of my soul?
At the end of the day, it comes down to how are we living to express our best selves, and to properly manage our ojas in order to achieve enlightenment in this life (if you’re a yogi like me and believe in this stuff). When we are high on the consciousness spectrum, we also should be mindful of the people that come into our lives at specific times to teach us lessons, to gain insight and to show us a different way of being and living.
I choose not to judge or criticize and to be a witness and observe what an intimate relationship looks like in my life – one with commitment, with consciousness, with open expression of feelings and needs, and one that is secure in its foundation of support, care and is aiming towards the ultimate goal of unconditional love.
So I encourage you to look at your relationships around you and value those in your life for this time, the here and the now. I challenge you to become even more aware of how these people could best serve your mind, heart, gut and sexual energy and to communicate that to them through your thoughts, words and actions.
Peace & Love,
Jill xx
Jill is a health enthusiast passionate about holistic living through being conscious of the mind, body and spirit connection. She is a free-spirited yoga teacher and sound healer that embraces any adventure that comes her way, whether that is rock climbing, paddle boarding, waterfall rappelling, cliff jumping or learning a new inversion. She finds balance and inspiration in her happy place of being in nature and swimming in the ocean. She ensures that everything she does is in alignment with her truth – to share her heart with others in a vulnerable way in order to spread positivity and unconditional love and light.
She loves to travel and learn from other cultures and the experiences of new people she meets along the way. She loves to be creative through writing, flowing through yoga sequences, playing the harp, and learning new things. Her bold and bright spirit leads the way in helping shape her simple, community-based and nomadic life where she can inspire, teach and motivate others to live with mindfulness and purpose.