YOUR CLASS TAKEAWAY: GETTING TO KNOW YOUR SELF USING THE KLESHAS
Do you pay regular visits to yourself? When was the last time you checked in? Held a mirror up and reintroduced yourself to yourself? It might sound nuts, but just like you can’t step into the same river twice, (think about it), each time you check in with yourself the experience will be different.
You are not the you you were when you first started reading this post. New information and energy is shaping you in every moment. In fact, I find it helpful to literally think of my Self as a wave, rather than a fixed object. Just like that river…
Which is why I’m inviting you to make #MakeFriends here at Yoga Local throughout July. To reinforce the message that NOW is always the time for yoga. To tend and befriend. To repair and hold space, to nurture and grow into your Self as it is TODAY in this moment.
The way we do that is to start with first being aware of and then transforming the unconscious patterns (ways of thinking and doing) that we’ve accumulated that keep us in suffering and pain and hold us back from experiencing more joy, aliveness – the essence of life itself.
We then use the whole body and our experience of it to become aware and change how we react to our self and work towards that state of peace and balance that yogis speak of – not for the purpose of being ‘great’ at yoga poses, or being able to sit for hours in meditation, but to discover how we can cut and paste that learning into our life.
To get us moving down this road I’ve carved a path for the teaching this month and we’ve looked at
Avidya (Ignorance of the true Self)
Asmita (Identification with the Ego)
Raga and Dvesha (Attachments to Pleasure and Aversion to Discomfort)
These are what yogas term Kleshas (five afflictions) that block us from having a sense of freedom – being ‘enlightened’. (We’ll get to number 5 next week).
You might be thinking that it’s easier just sticking with the bending, strengthening and flexing aspects of the practice… you’d be right.. but you can get that in a gym.
This is yoga – and it goes deeper.
Ask yourself, what could be uncovered, be possible, if you commit to go deeper, look deeper, see more, feel more and restrict yourself less.
The great poet Rumi again instructs:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Pay a visit to yourself every day in your practice. Welcome who shows up. Learn from them, appreciate who that is today… tend and make friends.
We can help introduce you… 😉
Join us for practice at Yoga Local. Make a date with yourself using this timetable…
www.yogalocal.co.uk/timetable.
J X
