Yoga Mindfulness Experience with literal Grounding

My bare feet touched the bathroom tile after my bath; I nearly wept. The incredible sweep through my soul of such a soothing and guiding spiritual hand that I know is from God was nearly undoing, but I had to keep it together because I'm human and I have human affairs to tend to.

What would happen if I let myself stand barefoot several times a day in the bathroom, the only uncarpeted area in my small apartment that my cat doesn't also tread on? I imagine standing there with the ZenJournal app open on my phone, chronicling the many emotions and deep spiritual experiences that happen during this simple but ancient spiritual practice that is globally shared--getting bare feet as close as possible to the earth itself.

Since starting to practice Yoga I have had little emotional breakthroughs in my mind and body which have run on nervous, high-energy tension all of my life. Experiencing the thoughts and feelings that I encounter after Yoga is something so subtle in its depth that I have to remind myself to slow down, take notice, and really let myself feel it and process these precious moments.

Since starting to practice Yoga I have noticed that both my body and my mind have experienced little shifts, most notably the sudden honesty and awareness of ego in myself as I am suddenly aware of my thoughts. How selfish and self-driven has my earthly experience been? We tell ourselves little lies to get through the day, the night, our entire lives. We become comfortable, complacent.

I have become aware of something about the ego and its purpose, to keep us driven and performing to the best of our ability. I have come to arrive at a thought that feels so new that it may even be unique, and it startles me: The concept of 'Compassionate Competition'. Slowing down and letting myself feel each moment and appreciating with compassionate embracing of my entire being that my urge to compete with myself is good enough and that I don't need to compete against someone else. That the personal convictions within and the personal goals that I establish for myself are better for me than yet one more thing that I allow the outside world to determine for me.

I am walking away from pressure. I am releasing chaos and tension. I am leaving behind a world of tension and spiritual masochism, and entering into the new Journey toward Enlightenment which may be really less hokey than it has sounded to me, and really might be my own personal Journey toward Salvation.

-L

Pain is a process

Pain came to the forefront of my mind when I asked myself what I was feeling in the moment while listening to the "Yoga Revealed" podcast, Ep 1, and at first I interpreted it as anger. Upon further examination, really looking inward and capturing the feeling so it couldn't escape me and I could analyze it carefully, I realized that it was grief. I have been grieved over the whole world. For so many reasons, the pain that has infiltrated every part of me until I can't even sleep without holding tension in my body and my heart races all of the time, I have been unable to even process the immense measures of grief that I have felt. The death of family members, the death of trust in the human species, and the slow downward spiral of my ability to just relax and let myself feel peace in the presence of God.

The pain and other negative emotions are things that I have learned to hold inside of a few seconds so that I can understand and process them before I then actively choose to release them. In this way, I can close the door on them, having finally had closure.

As far as my ideas concerning the ego, I am still learning more about the Yogic concept of Ego because I know that it is different from the Western understanding of what the ego is according to the Psychological principles taught by Sigmund Freud and his predecessors and others who share the same profession in this world that is so far apart from the teachings we learn in Eastern medicine, including those of Yoga. The idea of experiencing what is called "Ego Death" had me rejecting much of the practice initially, and if it is indeed something that does away with the spirit of competition against others, even a little bit, then I don't want to go that far because while my primary obstacle is my own self-destructiveness and limiting of self toward discovery, healing, and embracing my own power, I also like to remember the accomplishments of others and explore how I might slowly work toward 'transcending' above them someday; not in the sense of denying their own personal growth and achievements, but in the sense of building on their work and respectfully taking things to the next level.

As much as the last few lines might seem like a load of self-justifying B.S., I sincerely mean what I said--that I feel these urges to surpass 'the master' with only the utmost respect in mind. I can't disrespect my teachers and mentors who I am learning so much from and who without I would never have gotten to a place of tentative peace and transformative mindfulness. These people and what they give to me is precious and I carry it in my heart every day. That is why I fully hold these ideas of Compassionate Reconstruction with such tenderness inside of me, and take their philosophy further; a student learns and seeks to meet new and higher standards for the sake of the progress of others even if nothing of Ego is involved for them personally.

In fact, I have learned a lot about myself in the past few years and the way that my mind works, concerning fiction but everything else as well, is to build upon a thing after breaking it down and/or scrutinizing it carefully. I think that the way I will find my center of Power is by looking at that urge that is deeply ingrained in every part of me, especially after growing up Military, and accepting it with the embrace of a mother who deeply loves her child and accepts them with everything in her.

Having begun this Journey in Yoga, I am thinking and feeling everything so much more clearly and I'm finally aware of so many negative thoughts that were always competing with one another inside of my head and basically layering until my entire self was just a bundle of fraught tension and expectancy towards yet more pain. As I receive each thought now, I remember after a few minutes to grab hold and reflect briefly on the deeper and true meaning of them, give compassionate permission for its existence and why it came to be in the first place, and then gently release it by replacing it with its positive and joyful belief which is actually the correct one. As I do so, the discomfort of Cognitive Dissonance fades and I find a place that feels more like my center and less like a network of angry knots.

Physically, I feel very 'bright' toward the idea of the challenge in Yoga. I did a Google search on my phone and took a screenshot of something that carries a lot of meaning for me. I will type out the main part: When it comes to building muscle in Yoga, we are 'limited' to lifting our own body weight and it may take a lot more skill, time, and determination than it would with lifting weights. Now, I have great respect and actually much admiration for the art of Bodybuilding--talk about commitment! I even know someone personally who combines Bodybuilding with Yoga to carefully sculpt the exact figure that she desires for herself and indeed she is an artful result of her own imagining. This idea presented to me in response to someone else's idea that Yoga has limitations though is something that doesn't sit right with me--the longer someone practices, and the more they study different styles, the more muscular and toned they will become by the natural process of the art of Yoga. It might not appear as bulk, but the student of Yoga is still getting stronger all of the time. I feel a serene excitement as I picture the great competition against my own body weight; this image in my mind inspires me to start lifting myself up repeatedly even outside of Asanas.

Today I hold optimism and relief as I look forward to further immersion in the culture of Yoga as well as just practicing it on the mat, and I must add in closing that I slept so much better last night after practicing Yoga Nidra right before bed. ^_^

-L

Dwell within; Yoga philosophy and my personal take on it thus far

"Dwell within," are the words that come to mind. Most obviously within both purusha and prakriti, states of being that are two separate components taught in Yogic Philosophy ("Yoga is a dualist philosophy, working with two fundamental realities: purusha, meaning "pure consciousness," and prakriti, meaning "matter."). I believe that the purpose of meditation within Yoga is to achieve more focus in and experience more of the reality of these two foundational principles. I believe that we can embody them and go through the process of reaching moksha before anything like the process of "Ascension" need take place.

I find purity in the very concept of the niyamas ("the values that should be followed, such as purity, self-study and contemplation of God.). Although the religion is opposite to my own in almost every way, the core of this philosophy expresses so much of what I strive for daily. In Philosophy, I find great empowerment and meaning.

What does it mean to dwell within? I have had so many radical fictional ideas that I just now, having embarked on my discovery of the Philosophy of Yoga, realize that they--the characters' goals and beliefs, and the religious institutions I have created in my world-building, and the deities themselves that I have designed for my 'lesser' characters--are so close to something sacred that is inside of me, and:

If I embody these mysterious concepts and energies, then perhaps I also live inside of them in some way and they are something that is alive and pulsating through myself and every living organism.

This is not so much a declaration of a new religious belief as it is a contemplation of the state of spiritual matter, an essence, and the vibrancy of our own metaphysical beings within the species of humanity.

As I ponder Yoga Nidra for tonight, I am pensive and I wonder at the nature of things, their complexity and their seeming aloofness. How precious knowledge must be if it stands afar.

My thoughts as of late...

-L


"P.S." Omg. Are my D&D characters Hindu? (not literally, but in their method of practicing their religions... 0.0 )