Fall is a time of year when deep reflection seems to naturally occur. There is a natural purging on several levels; maybe clutter in our home, clothing, or matters of the heart. It is time when we can reflect on the seeds we have panted this past year and see what has taken growth and what is dead, dying, or needs some weeding.
Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods. ~Ralph Waldo EmersonI quickly found that yoga asana, pranayama, and meditation consistently led me to a place of quiet contemplation where I could dismantle the armor I had worn for so many years. Through this peeling away of patterned thinking and limiting beliefs, the true nature of who I was, was revealed. Filled with self-acceptance and love as I exited off my mat and into my life at that time, each step reflected a different truth. And as much as I tried to maintain the peaceful, compassionate feelings which arose during my practice, eventually I would be filled with judgments, disparaging remarks, and the pain of feeling unloved and unlovable, the yogi girl standing proud just minutes before shrunk away from the reflection of who stood outside. I believed I was the opinion one person had of me. Someone I trusted and loved, had over time twisted me into harsh knots and turned me into something I was not, and never wanted to be.
Yoga soon taught me the script I had been repeating over and over throughout the previous three to five years bound my entire identity. The equation seemed logical and simple enough. The dynamic of our human experience, however, is not. We are a complex web of thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that are based on past experiences and which inform future ones. In yogic terms, these binding experiences come from the ahamkara (ego mind), the Self shaped by the sensations, thoughts, and emotions that validate (or threaten) who we believe we are. Until we learn to discriminate between Truth and ego/stories, our relationship to our Self and hence our actions, will lead us to suffering and unhappiness. When we use the discriminative mind (Buddhi or witness mind) to observe ourselves, change begins to occur.
Transformation rarely comes in one fair swoop, but rather slowly eases its way in without much fanfare. Similarly, each time I came to the mat my stories dissipated a little more and the voice of my soul and of God arose in a whisper. The practice taught me how to feel without reacting, to watch without the commentary, to lean into the joyful bliss that was possible and apparent on the mat. As written in the Bhagavad Gita, “when the mind comes to rest, restrained by the practice of yoga, and when beholding the self by the self, [she] is content in the self” (6:20). Through the practice, and over time, God’s voice and my soul’s voice spoke louder and more clearly.
As seen through Western-world eyes, present day yoga has primarily become a practice of postures made bright and shiny on Instagram, diluting yoga’s deep and transformative benefits. In it’s oldest and truest form however, yoga has always been therapeutic. The technologies of yoga (pranayama, bhanda, mudra, meditation, asana) written about in ancient texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika lay a path to lead us back to our place of wholeness, connected with and to God. We might think of these technologies as a window through which to watch – they allow us to see inside. Through that opening, we grow in our ability to cultivate love, compassion, self-acceptance and change.
The yoga didn’t necessarily change my body; it changed my heart and mind by creating a wider spectrum of who I thought I was and helped the stories (samskara) dissolve. On the mat, my breath moved into the darker places where normally I would hide or let’s face it IGNORE; I could feel the light inside; I could finally see myself for the fullness and wholeness I was and who God created me to be, not just the stories of someone else or the drama of those years that slowly creeped in to define me. The transformation I experienced, as a result of yoga, worked on and through me without me even understanding the philosophical or academic principles of the practice. Yet it happened!
So, how did it happen?
The Yoga Sutras state, “The practical means for attaining higher consciousness consist of three components: self-discipline and purification (tapas), self study (svadhyaya), and devotion (Isvara-pranidhana). These practices cultivate an attitude conducive to being absorbed in Spirit and minimize the power of primal causes of suffering” (II 1 and II 2). As most of us can attest to, just coming to the mat some days takes discipline; the various yoga technologies each require a tenacious attitude to practice and watch what happens. Through the course of exploration and discovery on the mat, yoga strengthens our ability to be with what we see and feel and teaches us to open and soften to what is seen without pushing it away or suppressing it. In short, the practice teaches us to lean into trust and Truth. We have to be willing to DO THE WORK.
Practicing yoga – and living – deeply means to understand the depth of our choices and align our actions with the Truth of our nature (God’s truth, not the reality we create); to use the witness mind/space derived out of the practice as a guidepost on the path of transformation. The practices on the mat teach us how to experience surface and depth; to learn to watch the fluctuations inside without reacting; to allow the energies to rise and fall over and over without attaching story; to experience ourselves in a much deeper and powerful way. From the place of ego, seeing only what’s on the surface, we see and feel pain, fear, angst, suffering. When we view the surface from a place of depth (witness), we can see – and accept – the whole spectrum.
Yoga is experienced in that mind which has ceased to identify itself with its vacillating waves of perception. When this happens, the Seer is revealed, resting in its own essential nature, and one realizes the True Self ~Yoga Sutras, I,1-3
With another new year just 11 or so weeks away, it’s easy for most of us to fall back into habitual thinking of guilt, shame, and fear we think we will dissolve our inner demons and resolve us to change. We zealously plan to join the gym and promise to work out, eat healthier, end harmful relationships, stop additive behaviors, take more time for ourselves, lower stressors in our lives, the impending January resolution list goes on and on. And while these are admirable and worthwhile goals, the fact is, most people give up on their resolutions and themselves within six weeks of January 1st. Rather than outwardly focusing our attention on what we want, we can use yoga to direct our attention inside, to cultivate a compassionate and loving relationship to ourselves, to explore the nature of our true being. We need to embrace the notion yoga does not wish to eradicate the inner demons and for us to completely change, rather yoga wants us to uncover and discover what was ALWAYS THERE; IT IS WHO GOD CREATED YOU TO BE. There is so much to be thankful for and look forward to. In this way, yoga is not about gurus on some far off Indian mountaintop or those with insane number of followers on Instagram – it’s a path that leads us back to our SOUL and connects us back to GOD…..And from THAT place, transformation happens. Let’s get to it! Look within. Do the work. Transform.
Onward & upward….
