Bring Light to Your Darkness

There is a common misguided advice from society – “Ignorance is bliss.”

From a spiritual standpoint, ignorance means darkness because darkness always leads us to fear, bondages, diseases, pain and sufferings and the eventual death. In my experience, ignorance is definitely not bliss. Bliss only comes with restful awareness, being in your presence.

So what exactly is ignorance? Do you know why you landed in this body? Do you know what bio-memory you carry in this body? Where do you want to go next? Who are you? What for is life?

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Body vs. Soul

The question is – body or soul, which path should a practitioner focus initially?

A few months ago, one of my students who is a Tibetan Buddhist, was puzzled about the large number of Tibetan Buddhist teachers who are suffering from stomach cancer. This raised some fundamental questions such as – Isn’t the meditation on a daily basis supposed to bring health and free one from diseases? Why particularly the stomach cancer, not other forms of cancer? What are they missing in the spiritual practice?

To answer these questions, let us go back to the beginning of Yoga. You may have read that Hatha Yoga is a system conceived as a traditional holistic path in the Vedic Tradition which includes asanas (postures), mudras (hand gestures), pranayama (controlled breathing) and dhyana (meditation) as instruments to balance the body-mind system.  A good level of health and psychological integration must be attained before delving into deeper aspects of yoga – Raja Yoga which primarily concerns with the mind i.e. the more subtle dimension of our existence.

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How to Start a Self Practice?

If you have been attending guided yoga classes for a while, at some point you may want to consider starting your own self practice at home.  Daily self practice provides a context in which we can gradually awaken to ourselves as we are. Our yoga practice helps to establish and sustain the awareness of inner tranquility that is always available to us even we are going through the hubbub of everyday life. Fundamentally, Yoga is a life practice which facilitates an on-going inquiry into how to be completely engaged in life.  Through practice, we begin to find there is a neutral “witness” that perceives these passing happenings in life yet this “witness” is untouched by all the external chaos.

An important aspect of the spiritual journey is to eventually be able to sit by yourself without the disturbance of our wavering mind. A self practice is the first step in spending time with your self in awareness and self discovery.  I find that it is during my own self practice that I experience and realise many things in life – such as my mental patterns, the thought current of my mind, many inspirations for new yoga practice or topics/workshop, the creative Self, the blissful Self, the expansive Cosmos, the devotion to Ishwara and the inter-connectedness of everything in life. To me, there is a huge entertainment source within me which keeps me in touch with reality and that is why many external worldly entertainment pale in comparison.

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