The Yogic Ability to Experience the Beauty of Transformation
I spent a large part of my adult life worried about the possibility of difficult events happening. Looking back, what attracted me to the spiritual path (and ultimately the yogic path) was the opportunity to alleviate suffering or the fear of suffering.
Throughout the years of my practice, I noticed I was making progress in how I was engaging with life, sensing shifts and growth in the way I related to the world around me. As my inner world developed, I was calmer, more patient with others, and felt more balanced in general. But even as I became a less reactive version of myself, I still noticed my aversion to difficulties. When presented with difficult events along the way, I met them with a great deal of resistance and misunderstanding, often creating more turbulence in my life.
By Caroline Gravino Taylor. Caroline is a student of the Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program and the Advanced Kriya Yoga Program.
More recently, a shift happened in me with regards to how I began experiencing challenges, and for the sake of the encouragement of others, I will attempt to describe my perspective on these internal changes. First, I would like to begin by saying that advancing along in the process of yoga is not an accomplishment. It’s a natural progression that occurs when dedication and discipline are applied to the process, and it is available for everyone to experience.
I write these words so you feel this experience fully belongs to you and is not exclusive in any way. In yoga, once we follow the procedures we are taught, consciousness knows what to do. It helps me to remember that resistance to any changes we experience is not our most natural state. The surrender is more our natural state (and is nothing to fear), and it’s in this state that we begin to really experience life differently.
At a recent retreat, I shared with my fellow participants about a difficult event in my life, and I’d like to write about that again here so you’ll have a practical example of what it means to experience challenges differently as you progress along in your process of greater spiritual awareness. What surprised me most about this event was that I experienced it very differently from what I would have expected or how a younger version of myself may have. The event itself was something most people would find frightening: I lost my job. Yet, in the middle of the upheaval, a beautiful experience emerged and it taught me to be open to the possibility that peace could be experienced even in challenging events.
As I was told my role at work was ending, my perspective naturally shifted from myself to others around me and how it would impact them. I was able to see how a younger person on my team would now have a great opportunity to advance in her career as a result. This would very likely propel her career. She was someone I thought highly of and I was rooting for her. During this entire experience, my heart chakra area physically warmed, and I felt a deep sense of peace. It was as if something was automatically activated inside me throughout this process, and what would have normally been experienced as anxiety, was instead sensed as a loving and expanded view. There was an inner knowing that this was the right thing happening.
Some coworkers in my office began crying when they heard the news and expressed the type of compliments towards me we seldom hear from others in a workplace setting. I felt loved, uplifted, and seen by others who were normally more reserved. Afterwards, a coworker called and checked on me (almost daily), and a client who heard the news ultimately offered me another job. That opportunity turned out to be an even better fit for me and provided me more time to devote to my yogic studies and meditation practice.
This event, although unexpected, began to represent for me how a challenging experience can lay the groundwork for transformation and other opportunities to emerge that allow for a higher purpose. In reflecting on how I experienced this, it occurred to me that something was shifting in how I was sensing the world. A more surrendered state had unfolded naturally in the progression of my inner work, and as a result, everything around me felt that it was cooperating and flowing with ease.
Throughout the process of yoga, what’s typically and ultimately realized isn’t exactly what you’d expect. Starting out, the goal might be that we hope to avoid pain. As we learn to surrender more and abide as the Self, we begin to experience life from a different lens. The results are not that challenges are completely avoidable, but that we are affected by them quite differently.
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Artistically, this is the iconic visual of the yogi we often see presented—peacefully meditating while the stormy winds blow all around. Or, the image of the flower sprouting through the war-torn field. These scenes represent the eternal peace of the Self. My experience has been that this feeling of being okay—no matter what —does unfold naturally as we continue along the path, if our disciplined yoga practice becomes the main focus. It is a progression to look forward to.
The purpose of experiencing life like this isn’t to just sail the smooth waters, however enjoyable that is. Through our dedicated spritual practice, we return our energy to the source, enabling clarity. This allows us to experience life differently as we mature on our path. That clarity ultimately helps us to discern passing experiences from the Eternal Self.
YS 1.3 “Then the Seer abides in its own true nature.”
I got this post just after watching the celebration of the monks who walked from TX to DC Had returned home. It was quite moving . The message is alwqys same as this one . Just different players with different language and clothing. For all the chaos ,It seems the Universe is ripping open the top of our heads and yelling it so we cant help hearing Truth. Or it could be seen as unfolding for all to see, that no one can miss. We are the Seer, we are the peace we look for , look within and let life unfold , allow ourselves to accept what changes come.