Perhaps as daunting as the idea of restriction is the idea of self study. I remember a time when lying to myself was acceptable practice. I have only recently begun to fathom the depths to which I have pushed unpleasantness. I know I've made progress, but there is stuff I've gotten so good at ignoring, I've forgotten it's there.
Svadyaya is the discipline of watching your interior mental processes and beginning to understand how they lead to your external behaviors. The practices of yoga provide a means to be able to crack the cloud cover of willful ignorance long enough to allow a shaft of sunshine to beam down. With this illumination we are able to see our true motivations. What baggage are we dipping into when we interact with the world? From where are we really moving? We have the extraordinary ability to convince ourselves we're right; that our motivations are grounded in truth. But we fool ourselves.
When we begin to notice these things it can be disheartening. It's important to show compassion to yourself in the face of what is perceived as flaws. This compassionate mindset will give us the courage to get close enough to our "flaws" to understand them. Then we can let them go. A sense of humor can also be an ally when facing our dark corners. If we can find the presence of mind to laugh in the face of that truth, we can embrace the totality of who we are.
It is important to practice those things which cause us to feel angry, frustrated, nervous or upset. As we become aware as to why we feel this way, we will be able to let go of patterns that exist around those feelings and we won't have to feel that way any more.
The pit fall of a practice that doesn't ever ruffle your feathers is the perpetuation of those behaviors and mental attitudes that keep you in the dark.
This week begins a week of fiery asana. In order to be able to shine light into the darkness, we must radiate. In the book Path of Fire and Light, Swami Rama speaks of those who walk the path of light, who deny the existance of darkness, saying the sun never knows what darkness looks like. We will practice pranayama and asana that stokes our fire aspect; our agni. Fire is transformative. It takes something and makes something else. We all come to yoga as we are, where we are. We stoke our fire, shining bright, radiant light on our dark places and are transformed into the best versions of ourselves.
This is such a good post, Ness.
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