Supporting & Empowering Higher Self-Awareness, Body-Mind Wellness, and Resilient Joyful Living For Spiritual Liberation
Learn to let go of what is not right for you even when it is hard to do so. Release it.
Learn to be with what is right for you even when it is challenging to do so. Endure it.
Pray for the wisdom to discern, in moments of transition and change (when things can get particularly confusing), what you need to release versus what you simply need to nurture and grow through during difficult times of transformation. Embrace it.
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Not all of your problems start with you, but your solutions mainly do.
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I first learned about the Four Noble Truths in my freshman or sophomore year of High School. I know this as a fact because I distinctly remember being yelled at by a fellow classmate when I raised my hand to recite the first truth.
I remember the moment clearly because he reacted to my answer with such anger and force that he not only revealed that he had not completed his homework assignment, but he also made it seem as if I were the one who had first created/discovered and shared the understanding in the world.
I now assume, reflecting back at his response, that maybe the knowledge of this great realization was a bit too much for his teenage mind to grasp since he had just barely started his life’s journey in his current physical form and may have had some hope that things would only get better and better from where he stood, or, maybe, he was simply in denial like most people tend to be…only he knows.
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“Then the Seer (Self) abides in Its own nature.”
–The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
“[T]he Seer, or true you, reflects in the mind which is your mirror. Normally, you can’t see the true Self because your mind is colored [or distorted]. [So, instead of seeing the truth,] if the the mind is dirty, you say “I am dirty”…[and] if it is all polished and shining, [you falsely state] “I am beautiful.”
-Sri Swami Satchidananda
Regardless of what you see when you peer into it, if the mirror of your mind is distorted, you are not seeing clearly or correctly and whatever you perceive is simply an illusion that does not accurately reflect the true form or nature of what you are attempting to observe.
Yoga’s aim is to help humans clear up the delusions and distortions that keep them from seeing, knowing, understanding, and expressing their True Self in the world. The practice is designed to reveal the true expression that exists beyond all of the distortions that have been accumulated throughout one’s life and history.
Delusions, illusions, distortions, or impurities of the mind and consciousness (vritti) make it so that the lens through which you peer out into the world and at yourself reflected in your perspective of the world/self (and therefore interacting, and creating within, reality/Reality), is shrouded in falsehoods.
Lesson 3 of our Yoga Sutras does not simply remind us that we cannot see our True face/Self if the mirror of our mind is distorted; it also goes a bit further in this to additionally help us to recognize that if we can manage to do the work that is required to correct the distortion within ourselves, we can even drop the mirror altogether and simply be…shining our True face out into the world as we live as the fully enlightened beings that we really are.
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“When I say that everything that was created up until this point in history is simply a result of the choices, and different levels of consciousness, of the people who have existed and exist today on our planet, and that everything that will come from this point in time into the future is dependent on this very same thing, I do not express a mere philosophical perspective but share a deep-seated knowing and understanding of the truth about Reality…”
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Although there is a framework of thinking that states that all people are inherently “good,” it is more accurate to say that all people have the potential to be or do “good” based on their choice to do so…Behaviors are simply behaviors, and there is always a choice on how we act no matter how ingrained our automatic responses may feel in any moment.
All human actions are derived from different states of being and the intentions, motivations, and drives that fuel these actions. If these states are “pure” and “good,” then, naturally, “pure” and “good” actions result from them. But even “bad” actions (please notice that all of these words are in quotes) can be transformed into something “good” as well with intention and further corrective action.
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Although starting over can sometimes feel like an incredibly difficult undertaking, always remember that in order for us to make room for who we are today we are often tasked with the important responsibility of letting go of many of the things, people, places, habits, lifestyles, dreams, and even desires that once defined us.
Coming close to death for the third time three years ago, and then again for the fourth time about a year afterward definitely helped me to do this and reprioritize what matters most in my life.
Here is my reflection:
“Think lovingly, speak lovingly, act lovingly, and every need shall be supplied.”
-James Allen
Rumi said it, Socrates said it, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, the Buddha, Mother Theresa, Jesus, and so many others throughout our history (both real and fictional)…And now our science is providing it…Personal transformation, evolution, and change occur from the inside out!
Regardless of how terrifying letting go may be or feel, always remember that shedding the old and unwanted aspects of your life, and of “yourself,” in order to let go of what no longer serves or defines you is actually getting you closer to fully living your truth and being all that you are, and are called to be in this lifetime.
Like outfits that you no longer fit into or feel your best wearing, sometimes the expressions that you once called your identity, and in which you may have once felt best suited, can evolve to points where they no longer serve you and who you are in the present, and, in the process of outgrowing what you once thought you were (due to habits of overidentification, conditioning, etc), you make room to see the true beauty of what is there beyond the seemingly changeable. This process of transformation is ongoing throughout life until you are fully purified of all false identities and fully expressing the pure essence of your undistorted/unchanging True Self, beyond all distortions of changing and temporary form. This process is also the essence of what you are exploring here in this post and on this site as you delve into the journey on the Eightfold Path and beyond.
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