Plies (pronounced “plee-ayz”)

On my path to enlightenment, I have found great value in always coming back to the basics. This weekend, I hosted and attended “The Awakening” program developed by the Global Institute For Transformation (GIFT). The Awakening is designed to awaken us from our unconscious sleep and allow us to take a conscious look at ourselves. This is the fourth time I have attended this program. I am always amazed at how much I get from the experience. It’s as if the more I awaken, the more I awaken!

As I encourage others to attend this program, a common response that I get from people is that they have done this program or that, they have read this book or that, they have been on the path for years, they are already awake, yada yada yada. It’s as if they believe that having woken up once, you are awake all your life! Just stop a moment and think about how we sleep – literally. We sleep every night and wake up every day. And we do this over and over again. Suppose we were to decide one day that now that we are awake we should just stay awake for the rest of our lives: do you know what would happen? Yes, we would stay awake for the rest of our lives, but it would be very short lives – for we would soon die!

And so it is with our awakening to the truths of our being. The danger in focusing on the external of doing courses, reading books, attending workshops, etc. is that we forget that awakening to enlightenment is an ongoing, never ending process. The awakening is not in the reading, attending, studying – it is in the practice! At every stage, we must come back to the basics – otherwise we will forget them.

My sister Carole, reminded me of this when she used the analogy of ballet. Every ballet class throughout the world, be it at the New York City Ballet, the Kirov in Russia or my daughter’s ballet class in Jamaica, starts with plies. A plie is the movement of bending the knees while keeping the back straight. Every class starts with the basics. Every ballerina knows that to master ballet, you must master plies. And that the work of mastering the plies never ends.

Being awake, being committed to one’s own conscious evolution, means being open to new learning about new things, but also about things that we think we already know. It also means being open to “becoming like little children again” to quote the Master Teacher Jesus. It means finding wonder in the plie – over and over again. It means finding wonder in a blade of grass; a bird perched at the top of a tree; a crystal clear blue sky; the sound of the gardener clipping the hedge. Wonder in everything, every experience, every person, every moment – for that is how we learn and grow. That is the path.