Transformation

Yoga is a practice for transformation. In my experience, sometimes the catalyst for that transformation is discomfort and sometimes it is beauty.

Sometimes we brush up against the parts of us that cause us discomfort, our acquired content – our conditioning, our negative thought patterns and beliefs, our samskaras and our vasanas. Seeing these parts of us can feel quite devastating, but in acknowledging them we have the opportunity to recognise that they are not the truth of who we are, they are simply acquired. Yoga teaches that what we have acquired, we can un-acquire – we can dissolve the untruths that our practice reveals.

Other times we experience moments of beauty, those moments of grace where we touch something beyond what we ever imagined, where we remember, we experience, even if it’s just for a second, that we are luminous and infinite. Our practice reveals Truth and those moments change everything.

I think that for true and lasting transformation, we need to embrace both the darkness and the light as gateways to Truth. If we only see our limitations without touching that which is beyond them, we can become consumed by our acquired mind-stuff, rather than allowing it to become the pathway to Truth. If we only touch beauty and we don’t pay attention to our mind stuff, we might end up acting in the world in ways that are unconscious and unsavoury.

They’re complementary and intertwined. When we experience the part of us that is infinite, it’s much easier to let it go of our acquired stuff. When we dissolve that which is acquired, we rest in that which is innate.