Feb 1, 2025
Greetings yogis,
I’m sitting quietly for a moment, pondering the fat drops of rain as they hit the window and then stream their way down panes of glass in silvery rivulets. The ocean gnaws away at the coastline while tufts of fog linger between the mottled ridgelines of Marin's headlands. It’s glorious to behold, watching the interplay of my thoughts with the surroundings, all of it ebbing and flowing.
What wondrous and unique creatures we are, endowed with one of the most sacred gifts given to no other species (at least to my knowledge) – a reflexive mind. This gives us the distinct ability to look back at ourselves, and our thoughts, and decide how and what we choose as our reality – and how we respond to stimulus. We can shift our internal landscape and thus how we perceive and react to the world outside.
Essentially, our thoughts become our experience. One of my favorite sanskrit verses from the Upanishads is: mana eva manusyanam karanam bandha moksayoh, which translates to ‘as the mind, so the person; bondage or liberation are in your own mind.’
Like a lake reflecting the sky above, our internal state creates the lens through which we see everything around us. This is where our yoga practice comes in, helping us calm the ripples of the mind so that the present moment can be received as purely as possible without yesterday’s regret, tomorrow’s fear and today's condemnation.
It’s hard to keep our internal bearings and inner calm amidst an overwhelming flood of sensory input. We are living in some wildly unprecedented times, inundated with a strategic barrage of addictive headlines. Noticing how much of this information we allow to come in and how we choose to experience it becomes vital. Take sacred pauses often. These reflective moments help us calm our agitated minds and then make healthy choices about how we want to engage.
The pause is coming home, coming home to ourselves and truthfully acknowledging what we’re feeling. From that real and tender place we can then make clear choices on how we show up to the external world, and ourselves. This is not a plea to bypass and disassociate, nor to escape, but to find that unwavering center from which we can meet life's storms with greater steadiness and clarity.
And when we can choose how we experience it, we are free. May we all be free and at peace.
Nat K
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
Comments