There are two basic emotional states that one can dwell into One would spend one’s entire life ricocheting between these two Love and the lack thereof One would waste time searching for the former Only to realise, one opens the door for the latter
Many years have passed Many more, if I were to survive Shall I experience a long life Will mine be different?
All these years, mine has been bouncing back and forth between freedom and loneliness Which one should I let go first? My complex battle to gain freedom has not been easy I shall not let it go, yet I feel empty Life is miserable, shall I be free or remain lonely?
In my ongoing project of 100 poems of agony, written in October 2018
I am speechless. No words to utter yet, a million words linger. Floating above my eyes, inside my brain. I can’t let them out. You know when things came as a surprise. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad, your first reaction is just an extreme shock. Like some strangers just put a high voltage ECT on your brain and there you go, seizure comes.
Be it in a parallel universe or another life, I wish to meet him one more time.
Right now, I don’t know how to identify with my feelings, emotions and thoughts. I think I am numbing them again. For long, I convinced myself that I would not live long. Will I be right or was I wrong? I am 28 years old now, does it make my life long enough to live? I am in the second series of ashtanga practice, does it mean that I have spent enough time trying to salvage the true nature of beings? I don’t know.
I wish to leave the world with no trace – no trauma to people who care for me unconditionally. But I can’t if I end my life abruptly.
What I know is that I have mental health issues. They come and go. Like people. And I can’t control how people do things to me so do these thoughts – I can’t control how they are intruding my brain each second. It is a struggle but deep down I know it is not endless. They will end. Suffering will stop. Someday.
My favourite authors, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath committed suicide. Woolf ended her life a bit later but Plath earlier. Suicides take significant impacts on loved ones; family, friends and others. I wish to leave the world with no trace – no trauma to people who care for me unconditionally. But I can’t if I end my life abruptly. I want to give up but at the same time I want to survive. I am tired of getting hurt, feeling broken hearted but at the same time I am waiting for the right person to come and give me back my shine.
My life is a contrast between the two opposite extremes trying to take over one another. Maybe one day, the winner will take it all. Maybe just like quantum physics, my life will defy the construct of this competition. Some of my particles might have ended up in another galaxy or heaven or hell but here I am on planet earth because most of my subatomic particles are mostly here.
On another note, I miss someone. I wish I could really tell that person honestly that I miss him very much without sounding too desperate. He’s far away in another continent, another time zone that I have never been to. But maybe some of his subatomic particles were attached to my body that I carry everyday with me. Maybe someday when our approximation matches, I will meet him again. Be it in a parallel universe or another life, I wish to meet him one more time. If you are that person and you read this, you know this is a very well unabridged version of my message for you.
For one, life is an endless pursuit Of a cocktail of things Of which are all impermanent
When one wakes up One realises that it is a futile pursuit One notices that immaturity But one shall not seek a revenge Against oneself
‘Til then one is merely scratching The limited perception – misleading One into believing what is love and loving
Something is missing, one realises But one will not be able to fill that with another Be it a person or a thing or some low being This landscape is puzzling Until one day, that aha moment comes One is just the one who is watching
i sighed heavily finally i was done for the day shower is ready it calls yet, i slumped my body into bed the scorching sun didn’t raise me a little
the last three hours i confronted myself just me, my body and my bloody emotions i surrendered those frustrating temptations to go further, be better, more refined
but what is more refined than manageable emotions what is more still than roots of equanimuous tree in bodhgaya
i lie down i want to leave my body i know how it feels like oh! so light though gravity pulls me to the other side
my eyeballs are still strolling i want to do so much more my mind saying thus shall i postpone me dying?
I have just lived over a quarter of century and crawled approaching my 30s. Time flies, huh? Yet today feels really weird though. In fact, not just today but yesterday’s night seemed endless. It felt like the time wasn’t moving at all, like a thousand year old corpse, or the clock hanging on the wall in my room which I never intend to replace its batteries. The clock always shows that now it’s 1 o’clock. And the clock hand that shows the second never leaves number 9, hoovering just above it slightly.
Now it’s barely lunch time but it is as if I had just come out of a 30-year solitary confinement.
In the morning, I rose up early, partly because I felt the intense need to clean myself up, you know, ladies holiday’s stuff. Then I had breakfast… Climbing upstairs to be back in my room after – checking my mobile – nothing substantial.
I tried to do advanced yoga nidra, thinking I could just murder this endless turtle-like day. It was just about 1.5 hours, well sure I could be awake throughout the period. But I was wrong! I overestimated my ability to remain aware. I fell asleep and ironically woke up just after 1 hour had passed. But it felt too long already.
I went out of the house this morning for awhile. I did a bit of yoga drills. That should have killed my time but they didn’t. Now it’s barely lunch time but it is as if I had just come out of a 30-year solitary confinement.
I couldn’t emphasise enough that time is really weird today. My moods have not been the best too. I have essentially lost interest in even the silliest things that should have made me addicted. I logged out of my social media accounts. I felt heavy. It is as if I am waiting. But what am I waiting for? Death? Love? Somebody to reach me out? Some being to rescue me from this boring life?
I was reading Woolf’s the Waves just now – a beautiful book full of beautiful words but I found it too overwhelming for my depressed mind. There were too many characters to remember. I found it hard to concentrate and remember their traits, looks and everything. You know, writings are only in words. The rest is in your imagination. And I have just lost it. The creative and imaginative sparks which I confidently thought I possess, were no longer there. Maybe they’re buried somewhere inside my brain. I don’t know.
I feel lost. Some days are just hard like this. Some are easier to navigate. I hope tomorrow will be better. Please life, be kind to my fragile self.
I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful. – Virginia Woolf
Don’t judge the book by its cover is probably one of the most overshared phrases yet sometimes, it can be hypocritical too. You’ve probably heard that some research findings indeed suggest that the first thing which catches the eyes of our species is physical attractiveness. Yeah, yeah, I know, inner beauty matters more than what we see on the outside. But let’s just be honest for a second. We like it if we look good, decent, clean and pretty.
There are of course unreasonable expectations in the age of social media about beauty standards irrespective of gender. That’s where the movements such as body positivity, self love, body acceptance come into place. They are there not to undermine the importance physical attractiveness but to eliminate those ludicrous expectations.
For me, appreciating how I look on the outside, wearing nice clothes, putting some make up on, being photographed nicely are healing tools for my mental health issues. Often, as mental health survivors, we struggle with our self-worth – we tend to inflate our flaws and deflate our strengths. To see how I look in pictures for me has given me a sense of gratefulness of what my face and body look like.
And it is perfectly okay to show our beauty to the world, just like any form of art.
I had a history of self-harm in the past – well the scars have mostly disappeared from my body. But being photographed somehow is an unconventional way for me to not cave in to those harmful temptations (anyway, I haven’t done so since last year).
After all, we are simply beautiful. And it is perfectly okay to show our beauty to the world, just like any form of art. To thank the universe for such blessing to be just the way we are.
Sometimes we forget that we always have control over our own sanity. Today was unpleasant for me and my feelings. At very least a tiny bit in which in no time I should be able to move forward (I hope so!).
Each day, I am evolving, changing, be it better or worse, it doesn’t matter because of the nature of impermanence.
Many of us struggle to find the answer to the “Why”. Why did you do to this to me? Why me? Why am I always on the unfortunate side? Why did I always end up getting hurt? We endlessly walk on the thin rope of finding these answers. The rope is so thin that we can barely draw any logical or even unsound conclusion from these questions. Well, the hard truth is: things just happen in life. People dying, being reborn, being heartbroken, suffering loss, winning lotteries and many more. Things happen on daily basis. Things are changing every second. So I told myself to stop asking.
My emotions are somewhere in a very dark place, hidden but concurrently lie in a shimmering spotlight where everyone notices.
In the past, I tended to push people away. That was partly due to to my borderline personality disorder in which I extremely feared a slight hint of rejection and/or abandonment. I tended to be impulsive – whatever trigger that was, though it might seem inconsequential – I just cut things off with people. Some people did get hurt. I tended to walk away very fast far before someone stomped over my aching heart. I made irrational assumptions about how they were going to leave me soon. But that was me in the past. None of it matters anymore now. I am a different person. Each day, I am evolving, changing, be it better or worse, it doesn’t matter because of the nature of impermanence.
“If you have thought about it many times, then it isn’t impulsive. You have made up your mind. It is your decision.” – My Psychiatrist
I apologise that my writing now may appear incoherent, patchy or all over the place. Well, it indeed depicts what my emotions look like now. They are here. But they are there too. My emotions are somewhere in a very dark place, hidden but concurrently lie in a shimmering spotlight where everyone notices.
But with the practice of yoga, I have become more attuned to my emotions and how I deal and connect with other people and beings. I know for a fact that I cannot please everyone but I do not wish or intend to cause any harm or utter bad words to other people even though I feel hurt so bad (I might curse inside my mind though ;).
Before deep feelings and attachments are built up only to be crashed by a tsunami of disappointments, I let go.
Today I pushed someone away from me. I bid my farewell for good. Though, I must admit my heart was aching. My body actually started shaking. My hands and legs were trembling. Then I wondered, was that person actually waiting to be pushed away? Well, I don’t know. I tried to clarify to no avail and I don’t want to cause further unnecessary pain to myself and waste my time worrying what the future holds for me and this person.
Then as I thought I had done the right thing, a thought came into my mind, was I too harsh? Was I impulsive? Self-doubts started to rear its ugly head. But I remembered what my psychiatrist told me, “If you have thought about it many times, then it isn’t impulsive. You have made up your mind. It is your decision.”
I am glad I walked away before things get tangled and become more complicated. Before deep feelings and attachments are built up only to be crashed by a tsunami of disappointments, I let go. I set myself free once again. Thank you life for teaching me another valuable lesson.
Well, hello dear blog. I must admit that it’s very hard to pick it up again after I left for a couple of months. I tried to commit to post at least two posts per month but it didn’t go very well. I was on hiatus for a good two months. And writing this again felt so strange as if I just started to learn how to compose and compile sentences to make a barely coherent paragraph.
We share this universe. We share our energy in our practice. We share the suffering of others during this challenging time. Of course now it all makes sense.
Moving on, what’s going on with me? What is happening in the world? Is it affecting me? When the first case of COVID-19 in Indonesia was announced, my natural reaction was to freak out. I actually had told my friend how I was feeling anxious about this virus from “Wuhan” since early this year and my friend comforted me telling me not too worry as it wouldn’t be that bad. Well, it turned out that it WAS that bad. I had to stop teaching yoga physically and postpone my Mysore travel which was supposed to happen this July. I was devastated. I didn’t have much energy to practice ashtanga as well. All my energies were basically absorbed by my attachments towards constant checking of media reports, daily case updates, lockdowns, reported deaths and many more. It sucked my energy to practice to the max. Well, it turned out I wasn’t alone. A lot of yogis feel the same way. That their practice is different this time round, mostly with the lack of energy and less “grounding”. We share this universe. We share our energy in our practice. We share the suffering of others during this challenging time. Of course now it all makes sense.
Four months in, I now found myself in Ardha Matsyendrasana.
Anyway, since my last trip to Bali for Ashtanga intensive with Kino, my practice has revolved around dropbacks. That was the last “barrier” between me and second/intermediate series. Though, practicing primary series after awhile has become “dull” as I am naturally a forward bender so I didn’t find much challenge anymore in the practice. I started to incorporate pasasana and krounchasana which were natural postures for me to do. But the month of March was difficult. With worsening covid-19 situation, I found myself to manage practicing only half-primary and few dropbacks. But in retrospect, I realised that there are positive things in times of suffering. I had joined Eddie Stern’s primary+half intermediate classes and started to incorporate the backbending sequences from intermediate series. And my dropbacks are getting better as I practice through these backbending sequences. Four months in, I now found myself in Ardha Matsyendrasana.
Had I experienced second series crazies as described by many ashtanga practitioners? Or was it just my mental health thrown out of balance again? Or both?
Well, to be fair, the journey wasn’t as smooth as the above summary. As I incorporated these backbending postures, particularly kapotasana, I frequently experienced emotional upheavals. I found myself between the two extremes of freezing-ly unmotivated and too energised to sleep. I had recurrent thoughts of harming myself and ending my life again which I thought I already settled those through all shadow works in the past. Eventually, my psychiatrist upped my antidepressant and sleeping pill dosage. It did make me feel slightly better but sometimes I found myself weeping for no reason in the middle of the night or in the random rainy afternoon (moody huh!). I had lost my appetite too. I continue to lose weight which I don’t really complain anyway because I did gain a lot of weight since I started ashtanga last year and now I slowly return to my usual weight of which my body is comfortable with.
I was also often confused. Had I experienced second series crazies as described by many ashtanga practitioners? Or was it just my mental health thrown out of balance again? Or both? I asked around, consulted my friends but I didn’t quit my practice. I keep on practicing full primary and these intermediate series postures. My practice has been becoming longer and longer. I usually spend about 2-2.5hours per day on my mat. Sometimes I pushed myself too far creating unnecessary injuries to my body.
Perhaps my ego has just found itself surrendering to the process.
But one day, one random day, I felt grounded. I felt “me” again. I thought that must be the antidepressant effects starting to kick in. But I was also feeling more composed in my asana practice which indicates that I got this!! This cleansing process of the nadi (energy channels in our body) by practicing second series is working miraculously. I slowly started to enjoy backbends! And there were many times I practiced dropbacks more than 10 times in one session and I was okay with that. I also felt more flexible in my quads and psoas muscles. I felt rested. And I have stopped obsessing over perfecting the postures because of repeated injuries day after day. From one injury to another, my ego was hurt. Perhaps my ego has just found itself surrendering to the process. I am rebuilding new thought and reaction patterns. I am alive (again).
…I always remind myself that I have me to fall back into. I stop waiting for someone to “rescue” me.
Well, that’s the good news at least. Yet, I was very eloquent in my private journal to depict my suffering but somehow I didn’t feel like writing it in details here. Maybe I had put it behind me and embraced the new life ahead. Also, during this time, I learned the hard way of letting go. Many things: ego, relationships, travel plans. I rediscover what it means to love myself – to embrace all my emotions (both negative and positive). The sense of longing for a dear one that I deeply experienced -and even appeared occasionally during my asana practice- managed to be reconciled. By me. I am so happy with that too.
How? Whenever I feel lonely, rejected, abandoned, I just said to myself – dear self, don’t worry, you have me. I take the sense of longing to my heart and turns it into the sense of belonging. I manage to stand on my feet firmly on the ground to reclaim my power back. I stop being so desperate because when I feel desperate, I always remind myself that I have me to fall back into. I stop waiting for someone to “rescue” me.
And I am awfully convinced that I was a yogi in my past life. Because it feels so natural. The postures and the wisdom just came to me instead of me chasing them. As if they have just been patiently waiting for me to pick them up again. Just like this writing.
One final thought that I’d like to leave here is that have faith in yourself. Just plant the seed of faith in your ability to navigate through the storms and rainbows of life and you shall be liberated. Namaste.
Ps. I think Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra should be a compulsory reading for a psychology degree.
As I’m writing this, there are a lot of things in my mind. And I haven’t done my yoga practice today. It’s very easy for my energy to be drained although I’m mostly teaching off the mat. Have I gone mad? What is happening? Am I experiencing a depression relapse? How bad is it? Honestly, I am very tired just having these thoughts in my mind hence I haven’t posted anything in my blog for quite sometime. I told myself I should post at least 2 writings in one month but I could only manage to write one last month. I am struggling to be alive each day, let alone do my practice.
My body is used to see my life as trauma. When we are constantly in the freeze state – that’s when we feel very depressed, lethargic, and think that life is meaningless.
Emotional turbulence is very real and it often manifests itself in the form of psychosomatic illnesses. When we are struggling mentally, we wonder how come we feel the lack of energy in the morning though we sleep more than 8 hours at night. The more we think we should not feel weak, the more depressed we become. It is a vicious cycle that I need to break. Almost everyday I wake up in the morning, I wish I could just go back to sleep. My automatic response to morning sun is to shut down. Shutting down is in fact a freeze response to trauma. That is the state when our bodies tell us that we can neither fight nor escape (flight) trauma or perceived trauma. My body is used to see my life as trauma. When we are constantly in the freeze state – that’s when we feel very depressed, lethargic, and think that life is meaningless.
My psychiatrist told me that I needed a morning routine to get me moving in the morning. But I already have a routine! Teaching yoga and doing my ashtanga practice – in which sometimes I barely even have time for breakfast – I normally finish my routine just right before lunch since I am not a very morning person either. But when I reflected back on my mental health issues in the past, I actually hated routine. I was very impulsive and spontaneous. I hated routine because it was boring and definitely not fun. But as time goes by, I started to appreciate routine. It gives me some sort of “certainty” and of course, responsibility and commitment – the aspects that I struggled the most in the past.
I try to fit my practice into my day, not my day to fit into my practice.
Speaking of routine, this is why Ashtanga method is the best for my practice. I practice a fixed sequence 6 days a week, gradually adding poses after I feel comfortable in my last pose to build my endurance and then my practice just becomes a flow. My body, particularly my muscles and breath, already memorises the sequence pretty well so I could feel some little progress along the way even though they are very slow to come. But Ashtanga definitely teaches me how to appreciate these little things. And it also shows me that happiness lies in these little things – on the mat and off the mat. So, I finally found a meaning of my practice – that full recovery – feeling better mentally – is possible as I gradually peel off the negative habit patterns of the mind, no matter how long it takes.
…ironically, when I find myself struggle so much to drag my body on the mat because of the swirls of emotions inside that I am experiencing, that is the best time to bring myself to my mat. That is the best time to confront my fear.
Another thing that is special about Ashtanga method is that I should not skip poses just because I am not feeling like doing it (unless due to injury or pain). This structure allows me to confront my emotions and thoughts during my nemesis poses like backbends. This is the time to reflect why I want to avoid these poses. What am I actually avoiding? Am I avoiding my feelings? Am I trying to invalidate my disappointments, anger and frustration? Am I going back to numbing my emotions and turning into zombie-like yogini? LOL. And ironically, when I find myself struggle so much to drag my body on the mat because of the swirls of emotions inside that I am experiencing, that is the best time to bring myself to my mat. That is the best time to confront my fear.
Though on the surface the practice may appear “bad” physically because I often find it hard to perform the full expression of the pose, this is the time for me to practice equanimity by just observing my body without being attached into perfecting the poses. And the practice goes beyond the mat. Off the mat, I should embody equanimity whenever I am confronted with either comfortable or uncomfortable situation. I should neither attach myself to comfort nor avoid discomfort. Rather than denying things, I should just accept things as they are because life is not linear. That is the real training of yoga as stated in Yoga Sutra 1.2: Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah, translated as yoga is the practice to remove the fluctuations of the mind. In other words, the practice of yoga is to find the stillness of the mind.
…I should focus more on meditative elements in my asana practice – my breath and drishti (focus point). And sometimes I follow ashtanga led classes in YouTube just to get my body moving without too much unnecessary distraction.
As I contemplate further, perhaps the reason I think the wave of depression is coming back is because I had tried to numb my intense feelings for so long. I am now slowly accepting that I am very sensitive especially to rejections. But rather than reacting in negative manners, I just try to acknowledge the pain inside. And this is NOT an easy practice. This can be extremely exhausting so maybe that’s why sometimes I feel like I’m having a relapse. While in fact, a relapse can indeed provide a pathway to developing more awareness and subsequently, the state of liberation where I no longer identify with these intense emotions.
Lately, I also find it very hard to meditate. I normally practice Vipassana meditation but now even 15 minutes meditation I already find it too daunting to not open my eyes and get very distracted by my thoughts or external environment. So I decided that I should focus more on meditative elements in my asana practice – my breath and drishti (focus point). And sometimes I follow ashtanga led classes in YouTube just to get my body moving without too much unnecessary distraction. I try not to judge my practice whether it is bad or good as long as I move my body. I don’t expect myself to do full expression of the pose if my body just couldn’t do it on a particular day. And some days, magic happened. I could do things that I could never imagine or expect myself doing them. So these surprises keep me motivated to practice through depression. Another aspect that I pay more attention now is how much I eat before practice. I try to keep it light with some light fruits (not heavy ones like avocado) and herbal drinks. I try to avoid too much tamasic foods before I practice especially when I don’t have much energy to begin with.
All in all, I try to fit my practice into my day, not my day to fit into my practice. If I have many things to do, I keep my practice quite short and sweet. If I feel a bit unwell, I try to be more gentle with my practice. My asana progress might be slow but it doesn’t matter. I try not to be ambitious or obsessed with my practice. Because it’s just damn yoga! 😉
What is the price of truth? Recently I finished reading a book that my friend recommended to me, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna. The author is not my favourite but there are many things in the book that ring true. For example, some of us want to be “enlightened” hoping that this ultimate destination will bring us infinite joy, bliss, love bla bla bla. In short, we want to get high constantly. Why? Because some people apparently described the experience of reaching the state of enlightenment or samadhi as getting high all the time without drugs. Unfortunately, the experience of seeking and finding truth may not as pleasant as it seems. Peeling the layers of misconceptions, false understandings and illusions require a very high degree of resilience in our part. To confront what is not true and to observe the reality that is not based on our previous experience are not easy. More often than not, these actions require sacrifices. From our part, we need to sacrifice our sanity in order to reach the ultimate truth. We must also sacrifice our pleasure and aversion towards certain things to experience the reality as it is. If our lives are nothing but a film in a cinema and our “selves” are so immersed in enjoying this film thinking that it is real – just like “The Truman Show” – and if everything that we know is actually nothing but illusion, so what is the price of truth? The price of truth. Is. Everything.
I must say that I felt slightly depressed after reading the book. Not because it reveals something that I don’t know, but it confirms a lot of suspicion that I have about this life. What is the point of living if life itself actually means nothing? One of the reasons I went through depression in the past was because of this exact existential question about the nature of our being. This question and the subsequent questions about ultimate reality are the ones that brought me into the journey of spiritual awakening. The path of meditation and yoga is a spiritual vehicle that I employ to find what I am looking for. Well, I found it but I didn’t take it well. So what I must do is to give myself the readiness to accept the reality as it is.
The hard truth is that there is no I, there is no you and what exists only nothing.
Early this month I received a scholarship to attend ashtanga training with my favourite ashtanga teacher, Kino Macgregor in Ubud. I am very thankful for this opportunity and insights that I have gained during the training. I feel that my practice is upgraded during and after the training, not in terms of asana perfection, but more on how I approach my practice. One of the things that Kino taught during the training that is glued to my mind was how we use our practice to break the habitual patterns of our mind.
How can we do it? Let’s say when we practice we observe that our mind wants to cling into a comfortable sensation i.e. staying in our favourite poses and it wants to avoid any uncomfortable sensation i.e. refraining from our “nemesis” poses. By recognising this pattern and not reacting upon this realisation, we can slowly break free from the habitual patterns of our mind and recognise the larger picture – that we are beyond what our mind think of us.
In Yoga Sutra 1:3 “Tada drashtuh svarupevasthanam” translated as “then the seer abides in itself, resting in its true nature”, means that the practice of yoga is not to perfect the poses or progress into more advanced poses but to discover our true nature. When we practice asana on regular basis and approach it with equanimuous mind, we realise that some poses which are difficult for us can slowly become more accessible as our bodies change and vice versa – some poses that are easy can somehow turn into difficult ones. This means that our bodies change all the time. So we are confronted with questions like who am I? Am I my physical body? Am I my thoughts? Am I my actions?
“I see the yoga mat as a mirror, you cannot hide away from anything on the mat” – Sanne Rijpkema
Over the course of our lifetime, we have accumulated many samskaras (our individual perceptions/impressions which make up our conditioning) and by approaching our practice with equanimity, we can gradually destroy these false perceptions about ourselves including our ego. I recently had a conversation with my dear friend, Sanne and she said “I see the yoga mat as a mirror, you cannot hide away from anything on the mat”. This is a very profound insight. It means that when we step on our mat, we are ready to confront ourselves. We are ready to accept whatever the reality tells us. We are more than ready to destroy our misconceptions about ourselves, our bodies and our thoughts.
Like it or not, our lives revolve around competition – that I should be better than this or that person, that I should be the best, that I should always strive to be the perfect version of myself, I am today has to be more successful than I was yesterday. I, I, I, the more the better, I cannot fail bla bla bla. When we are more successful (or what we think of being successful), we celebrate it and we show it off to other people. And when we fail, we feel like a loser, we are embarrassed and we end up hating ourselves. Everything in the world is personal to us. I am different, I am not like others, I am great. Oh! What a wonderful thought, but unfortunately this thought is just a thought, not the truth! The hard truth is that there is no I, there is no you and what exists only nothing.
If our lives are nothing but a film, why do we bother trying so hard to impress ourselves and other people? Why don’t we use the time to seek what is really true? This includes dismantling our belief systems, religions, values, moral codes, philosophical thoughts and whatever that our mind has accumulated and see if there is a grain of truth in the things that we have learned. There are a lot of methods to do it but so far what works for me is through a direct experience of asana practice.
We understand it not because some sages said this or that. We understand it not based on how many scriptures we read and memorise. We know it because we just know it. Plain and simple.
During my practice, when confronted with poses that I dislike such as backbends, I ask myself: “why do I hate it? Oh maybe because I cannot remember my name when I am on it.” But if my name is just an illusion (which is literally correct – my name is Maya, LOL) why do I bother trying to remember it during backbends? Oh… Then my mind will make up something like, “ok if that’s the case I hate backbends because I feel pain in my back, but what is pain?” Pain is just a sensation. Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin which rises and falls, comes and goes and never stays permanently. Basically during the practice, my mind will try to find an excuse or justification to not do the pose and to lie straight to my face. And when I realise these are just lies that my mind creates, I just enter the backbending pose without aversion. I just experience the pain. I just observe that I don’t remember my name. I just feel that my legs are burning. It’s fine because they are not real.
The source of transformation into realising our true nature is not from achieving a yoga pose, but it stems from how our mind approaches that particular pose.
What is so profound about a direct experience is that we know exactly what we experience. We understand it not because some sages said this or that. We understand it not based on how many scriptures we read and memorise. We know it because we just know it. Plain and simple. I think this is why I prefer certain technique of meditation over another. I prefer vipassana – seeing things as they really are – to other techniques that require us to visualise. Let’s say we practice yoga but we don’t really believe in meditating on chakra and all that stuff. How can I know if I have a third eye? What is it? Should I really do it? Hey that’s okay. We don’t have to do it. Maybe someday we will discover it, maybe we don’t but that’s perfectly normal. Because beliefs don’t bring us to enlightenment anyway. In contrast, destroying our blind faith to something will indeed get us somewhere.
Usually, I get insights from my practice in retrospect – I sit quietly and reflect back on what happened on the mat and see if there is something that can change my previous perceptions. Like I only realise how mysore-style classes transform me into accepting my current state of asana practice. In mysore classes, I practice next to longtime dedicated practitioners doing advanced poses – but they are there because they started the journey way before me. They were me once. They were once struggling in primary series. And only recently I started to not take my practice so damn seriously. Not in the sense of skipping the practice (hey I try to do 6-days a week LOL) but in terms of accepting whatever state I am in on a particular day. If I fall during my inversions, if I can’t dropback to backbend, I just laugh at my silly body. It’s nothing. Backbend will not get me to the ultimate truth. What I must do is to confront and see my attitude towards it. The source of transformation into realising our true nature is not from achieving a yoga pose, but it stems from how our mind approaches that particular pose.
All in all, we must stop lying to ourselves. If our flexibility is only this much, why force ourselves into poses that are beyond our capability? We must be honest about what our bodies can do at a particular moment. We should accept things as they are. Start with small things like our flexibility or strength or big legs or stomach. Only by accepting things as they are we can discover the larger picture of what is really true. The truth has always been there in the first place. All this time, it’s only our mind that has been filtering, manipulating and moulding it into something that it is not. So, when someone mocks you, don’t take it personally because you are not real.
Enjoy the ride but don’t lose sight of the fact that that the ride is there because you wear VR glasses 😉
healing through yoga 