The purchase of my house closed on March 9, 2020. The world was shutting down, no toilet paper on store shelves, the streets becoming more and more still on my morning commute. Days before the close, I went to yoga on a Sunday morning at the kundalini studio near my house, and I was the only one who showed up for the class.
Shar, the teacher, guided me through the kriya, and then at the end we spoke about what came up for me. I told her about how lonely I was, going through this house buying process without a partner, as the world was about to enter a similar state of isolation that I was already feeling on the inside.
I had begun a sadhana (which is the yogic word for daily spiritual practice) doing the Subagh (or Sobagh) Kriya. I was not doing it absolutely daily, but I did it several times each week. The Subagh Kriya is for prosperity, and anyone who teaches it will remind you that there are many forms of riches and prosperity. They will direct you to put your mind on what prosperity means to you.
I’ll link to the kriya here so you can see what it is like. The word, “Har,” is chanted repeatedly. Har means, “God as the creative infinity,” and the intention of the mantra is to affirm our ability to co-create with God, or the Universe, or whatever name works for the power that is outside us and bigger than us.
At this point, I’d guess I’ve spent more than a hundred hours with that kriya, but as I was getting ready to buy my house, I had only been in the practice for a couple of months, imagining the life I wanted to create. Shar was delighted to hear how soon this big piece of my own idea of prosperity appeared after starting that sadhana.
That day, she looked at me with fierce, glittering eyes and said, “You will learn to become very good company for yourself in that space.”
It felt like a prophecy.
The idea of being very good company for myself began to figure into my own definition of prosperity. I had a direction, something to work for that did not require a partner or family nearby. And since that time I have come back to that over and over again.
I learned to be good company for myself during long weeks last summer when R was away with his dad. I learned to create little moments of play and luxury. I learned to go to yoga even when I didn’t feel like it because my body would be thankful and repay me in some small way later.
I learned to feed myself delicious food and put my hands in the soil when I needed a friend. I learned to sit and write long letters to myself on the nights when I could not sleep. I learned to watch TV. I learned to listen for which internal voice was talking, that damn inner critic so often so loud. I learned to take something to help me sleep when I needed it.
I learned to be less afraid of myself, my choices, my desires. I learned to climb to the roof to look at the stars or watch the sunset for no one’s benefit other than my own. I took myself on dates and vacations. I bought myself nice clothes and allowed myself to change them multiple times a day, so I could wear the right costume to the dog park or the grocery store.
I watched over myself and held my own hair back as I leaned over the toilet on nights of horrifically big feelings. I watched myself panic that something inside of me might be irreversibly broken. I reminded myself that the morning comes. It always comes. And I gently put myself to sleep in the dawn light, made myself a cup of coffee when my son awoke or it was time to go to work, after a night too short.
This is prosperity–to become very good company for myself!
Sat nam.
But also a throwback poem for the man at the dog park who also considers his costume. He has my heart.
