Yoga A Personal Experience

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YOGA: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

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Yoga, to begin with, is much more than just simple stretches done by extremely

flexible people who can wrap their legs around their heads. It’s a journey of evolution,

redirection, and realization of self and being. It involved a lot of engagement between the

body, the mind, and the soul. It is rather a metamorphosis that leads one into a healthy life

of every day unfolding into a new realm of energy and above all enlightenment that is very

well incomparable. In addition, it is a way of creating balance, strength, flexibility, and

relaxation is the body through a series of postures, movements and breathing patterns.

Since the beginning of the course, my yoga practice has been a series of phases of

transition from one form to another. In the sense that, the beginning of each new phase has

been marked by a moment of epiphany, that graduates me into another form or state

holistically in my life. Therefore, this account of what I have learned and what am

continuing to learn about myself is a description of these epiphany moments what I refer to as

“my moments of truth.”

Taking up yoga is my personal way of trying to re-enter or in other words to try to

reconnect back to the humanistic aspects of my life. Being absorbed into the everyday busy

work schedule of a young economics student makes “living life” almost an impossible

occurrence for me. Keeping up with the early waking hours and long tedious lectures all day

has over time made me dull and self-unconscious. As a result hence, parts of me that can be

considered basic humanistic aspects such as friendships, romantic relationships and in general

social interaction has gradually faded and thinned out into oblivion.

However just about a month into the course it occurred to me that the attachment to

myself is actually a real problem and a destructive one for that matter. Throughout my life as

a student to this far, I cannot put into count the number of people around me who have

uttered the words “you are so selfish.” The thing is, for a long time, it did not really occur to

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me that these very words were actually describing some of my qualities as a person. I have

always heard them but never actually thought about them and most definitely did not think

about their impacts on me.

It was during one of my book club sessions, that I realized just how much I had been

so attached to myself to the extent that none of anything that did not have anything to do with

me mattered to me. The club was actually reading the book A New Earth Awakening to your

Life′s purpose by Eckhart Tolle. On this particular day, there was a question to try to define

what ego really is. According to Eckhart Tolle, ego is an identification with form, seeking

yourself and thereby losing yourself in some form. He continues to describe ego as a

conglomeration of recurring thought forms and conditioned mental-emotional patterns that

are invested with a sense of I, a sense of self. (Tolle, E. 2005).

Upon this definition, I realized that I had forgotten the fabric that totals me as a

person more so as a human being. The fact that I was not invested into what others around me

did show me the extent to which I had found identity only in what I was involved in and

hence losing myself to the grip of ego. As time has passed my ego has with time also turned

into a strong endeavor to only accomplish the things that have a benefit to me directly and

indirectly and therefore selfish. It is with this selfishness, that I have driven some of my best

relationships romantic or otherwise to a premature halt. A moment of truth right there took

me by surprise and I realized I had to change something about myself and also opened myself

to the possibility of being engulfed by a blanket of flaws that through yoga I would deal with

one by one. I call this moment “my egg moment of truth” that is the very first phase of my

life where I have seen my image into a dark mirror of selfishness. The feeling of being

blindfolded but then being unfolded is what I remember being the first sensation followed by

some level of resentment. This phase for me marked the rebirth of my humanity and my

coexistence with others around me.

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Since this instant, I have changed the way I relate to others by being more invested in

their lives and involving myself in volunteering activities which have taught me how to

identify with other peoples satisfaction. In doing all these I no longer view service only as a

money generating event but as a source of identity and motivation for myself and others.

The other moment of realization took place in one of the yoga classes. It was during a

kundalini yoga class to be precise. We were actually doing simple poses and concentrating on

our breathing and in line with that imagine our lives that is, our daily schedules and what

keeps us busy during the day. In particular, we all had assumed the Uttanasana (Standing

Forward Bend Pose) posture. Taking this posture was aimed at unwinding our kundalini

energy and by letting us paint a picture of our daily lives as we took the posture was to let the

energy into our daily lives so that we could receive good karma. As we did this, moments of

hazy thoughts clouded my mind.

I remember not being able to actually make out what specifically the thoughts were

about. Nevertheless, I recall vividly feeling a sensation of fatigue and some sense of

confusion. At this time, my breath was hot and quite frankly uncontrollable. The postured

was quickly turning out to be uncomfortable and by far unenjoyable. At that moment,

however, there is something about that the yogi said. She said that as we assumed the posture.

The Kundalini energy was unwinding from our lower spin and making its way into our lives

to get rid of all that is an affluent of bad thoughts and Samskara.

At this point, I thought to myself that indeed my life was a roller-coaster of activities

all day that was important but my perception of it made my life a lot harder and left no room

for freedom and “living life.” I, therefore, related the prevailing fatigue and discomfort of the

posture to my life. In that, my life was a routine of fatigue and discomfort all day every day.

As a matter of fact, it was my life, struggling to meet deadlines for assignments getting and

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maintaining a high score. All these were important but overemphasis on them made my life

tedious and uncomfortable. Almost all of my time was spent on school-related activities,

classes, and research. This is because my belief for a very long time had been that a good

education with high scores would guarantee me a good and happy life.

As we took the posture, I then felt an ease that was foreign to me. My mind felt

clearer and my head lighter. It was like healing had taken place in me and right that moment

I felt the energy in me moving in transformation in through my spine along to the top of my

head and out. my realization was that my education is important in my life but it's not all in

life that would guarantee me full happiness. The perception of it being prime to my happiness

was misplaced as happiness is really from within.

This was my second phase of transformation: an epiphany that graduated me into the

next phase of my metamorphosis. I call this the “larva moment of truth.” The unwavering

quest to constantly satisfy our want for the physical materials, finding pleasure, security and

many other physical needs can never end. It is therefore much more important that we have

the peace of mind and a sense of oneness that is body, spirit, and mind then by that time we

can access happiness in our lives.

Hardly a week ago, I recently entered my third phase of metamorphosis and it has

been a period of bursts of joy here and there in my day to day activities of late. Am currently

in what am calling as the “pupa moment of truth.” After an evening class, just recently, I

went into my room and decided to relax my mind with a nice full hour of meditation. I have

been meditating for quite some time now since this course started and without doubt, it has

proved to be very beneficial to me. In particular, I have been meditating to relax and get in

touch with my oneness time to time. It is not until just my recent meditation when I got an

epiphany that I believe is changing my life even this very minute.

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I got ready by cleansing myself with a glass of clean water and ridding the room of its

emptiness with some smooth traditional Indian music. The music was mellow waves of

chants and wood percussion accompanied by a melodic flute phrase that kept repeating every

eight bars. I then got into my quarter lotus position and started my session. Slowly the music

was fading into the back of my head and seemed to come from a farther source than it

actually was. The chants, however, remained distinct for some time but also faded away. For

a time, which I cannot quantify I felt de-touched from the world. The feeling was more as if I

was watching myself and the universe form a distant. There was no apparent recognition of

the current happenings of that moment. There was stillness in my mind and along with it, I

felt fully conscious yet so unconscious.

It all finally made sense. Living life at the moment: not overthinking issues and life

occurrences. These phrases finally made sense to me at that moment. The real key to being

happy is one de-touching oneself from ego and by doing so let oneself accept every moment

as it is. That is, not overthinking what the previous moment has to do with the current

moment but instead concentrate on doing what one can do at a specific moment and do it

with full enjoyment. Acknowledging that not all things are wonderful but once you simply

accept what you are doing, you take responsibility for your own state of mind and can find

enjoyment in the present, for me means a state of oneness: a state of yoga.

Yoga has by far changed me in ways I never saw possible. My relations with other

people have improved and the perception I had prior to yoga have since been completely

altered. As I said before yoga is a journey, one that is transforming me entirely. I am in no

position to tell the kind of person I will be by the end of the course but am hoping I pop out

as a beautiful butterfly of life.

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Works cited

Tolle, E. (2005). A new earth: Awakening to your life's purpose. Penguin Books.

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