I started my yoga practice because I wanted to be more flexible. Little did I know it would help me achieve spiritual awakening.
I took my first yoga session with a wonderful, experienced and compassionate teacher. The lesson was harder than I expected. I had become tied up in knots with a sedentary job hunched over a laptop. But by the end, my muscles felt looser.
However, the benefits of that first yoga session were so much more than I had anticipated. My whole body felt loose, alive and flowing as if energy was flooding through it and rejuvenating parts that had been stagnant since I was a child. I felt vibrant and energetic in a way I hadn’t felt for a very long time. My body felt like it was floating down the steps to the street door and out onto the pavement.
Even more astonishing was the way my mind felt after that first session. I was a stressed out mom of two with a busy life, a demanding job and a long-term illness that made me feel tired all the time. But as I left this yoga class, my mind felt completely different. Instead of the constant worries about what I had to do next, how to fit it all in and how to make everything all right, I felt calm. My mind felt like a wide-open space instead of a maze of narrow alleyways. At this point, I had not achieved a spiritual awakening, but I had certainly begun to be more open and aware.
I was hooked.
Over the next few months, I continued with my yoga practice. I also began to read more about meditation, mindfulness, and eastern religions. I began to look at the world in a different way. But reading about these things alone didn’t seem to change me. I read about the connectedness of everything, about attachment and suffering and on an intellectual level, I understood. But I still had the anxious thoughts and a feeling that something was just not right. My body went back to tense muscles and shallow breathing.
The only thing that really made a difference to the way I felt was the yoga practice. I kept up my practice attending a class every week and the feeling I got from the class lasted. I began to feel more peaceful all the time. Although I was by no means enlightened and still got stressed out, anxious, tired and grumpy from time to time, something was different. Beneath the angst of daily problems was a layer of peace that was there all the time. The connection I felt from this body and mind experience allowed me to understand the spiritual truths I was reading about on a deeper level.
And gradually, I began to have glimpses of being more than just a body and mind. I began to experience moments of bliss where I was connected to everything and everything was connected to me. I would be holding a pose or lying in a meditation and suddenly my mind would just expand to encompass everything.
At first, these were just fleeting moments. My ego would suddenly flood back in and my mind would once again start thinking, putting itself at the center of the universe. But gradually, the ego interfered less. I began to understand the interconnectedness of all things. A part of me began to see that there was no ‘I’ that was separate. I was able to release my anxiety and stress and to begin to enjoy the wonderful journey of my life as a spiritual being in human form. I had achieved a momentous spiritual awakening.
How does Yoga help us achieve spiritual awakening?
We come to yoga to help our bodies.
Most people come to yoga for the physical benefits. We begin with a class and because it feels so good we come back. We somehow understand that this practice is more than just physical, we get a glimpse of the peace available to us and we long for more.
At this stage, we start to view our bodies differently, being less inclined to feed them with junk and treat them badly. Some people decide to become vegetarian, others to follow an Ayurvedic diet. Many just choose to make healthier choices in order to help the body and mind.
We realize that yoga is working on our minds as well as our bodies
As we develop our practice, we notice that the physical effects of yoga are just the beginning. We begin to feel calm and become less reactive to the drama going on around us. We begin to pause when stress starts to rise and we find new capabilities within us for dealing with the problems of the world in a new way.
The more we practice yoga, the more we begin to understand that our bodies are not separate from our minds and that we have no real physical substance at all. We are merely energy moving with all the other energies in the universe. In this way, the energy of the universe begins to flow through us better. We release blocks and clear the pathways through our bodies. As we open these pathways we become more sensitive to the energy around us.
By clearing these energetic pathways, we’re opening ourselves up to a different way of being. Eventually, we become so open that we have brief experiences of oneness.
We are drawn to discover what else yoga has to offer
As we deepen our practice, we begin to notice other shifts. We become more forgiving and more compassionate. We are less judgmental of others around us as we begin to understand that they too are on a journey and we are all at different stages.
And then, we get an insight; a moment of bliss, a tiny spiritual awakening that suggests that there is so much more to yoga than we originally thought. We may experience a moment of peace and understanding beyond anything we have ever felt before. Suddenly we begin to experience the world in a completely different way. Instead of fighting life as if it were an enemy that must be overcome, we understand that there is no ‘me’ and ‘the world’ but instead, we are the world and the world is us. We suddenly let go and understand ourselves as an expression of the whole. Just as the wave cannot be separated from the sea but is an expression of the sea, we begin to understand that we are an expression of the creativity of existence.
