Through the 200 hour course, we heard about the Brahman and the Atman and how one ties into the other. The human consciousness is nothing but a mirror of the higher consciousness… but that is only once we learn to live in silence. Silence from distractions, from thoughts, from noise and pollutants that infiltrate our senses almost single second of every day!
We have our phones feeding us with updates and news of people and things around the world constantly. If it isn’t that, we have friends and family and their lives that we think about. Not to forget the stress of finances and employment and so many other things.
But I feel, most of all, I have to start with my mind. My mind loves to make excuses. It’s the first thing that gives up when I’m in a challenging situation. It is the first one to start complaining when something isn’t going right. It also is the first one to put me down when I haven’t met expectations. Why is my mind against me?
Here’s the juice – minds are like dogs. If you train them, you get a loyal companion for life. If you don’t train them, you end up a messy, indisciplined, unruly stranger who doesn’t really have your best interests at heart.
It happened to me today!We’re nearing the end of our course and for the last few days we’ve been focussing on theory of yoga more than the practice of asanas. Today after a very long time we had a super intense practice and I could hear the voice beginning to get louder. “How much longer”, “We’ve already done 10 rounds, why is he making us do 5 more?”, “This is inhumane”.
Oh and let’s not forget the excuses – “It’s more important to be safe than to push harder and hurt myself”, “This is not going to come in the exam so it’s okay to not do it the best right now”, “Endurance can be built over time – I’ll start once this course is over, I can slack off for now”, or the best “I’ve already done 40 Chaturangas in this practice and we’re going to have to do 10 more… they’re not going to make a difference so I can cool off on trying”
Also the self deprecation, “You have no arm strength and you’re not going to build it all in today’s practice, so stop”
I looked around the room and my amazing classmates were diligently jumping into and out of their chaturangas. It was all the inspiration I needed. I shut off the voice in my head and jumped into my 41st chaturanga – easy peasy. My body was okay, it was my mind holding me back. Self awareness is such an important trait and today was a lesson in how to make changes that help you move towards a higher consciousness.