Be Happy - don't worry! :)
You know what I really like about yoga philosophy? Well in fact I like it all. What's not to like with a philosophy that tells you you're actually perfect. Nothing to change, nothing to add, nothing to attract (thank heavens - all these laws of attraction are quite exhausting!) All I need to do is peel away everything extraneous and voila`- blissful magnificence.
But here's the best part. The really amazing bit. Yoga philosophy tells us that in the end, no matter who we are or what we achieve it doesn't amount to anything. It doesn't matter. It's all just an illusion, from which we will awaken when we die. Like we don't realize we are dreaming while we are dreaming, but upon awakening we realize in an instant that it was all just a dream. In the same way we will 'awaken' and see how our life has been a dream.
How cool is that??
So whew! - we can stop taking ourselves so seriously. We can stop blowing up every little 'situation' into a major production, every tiny set-back into failure of monumental importance, every thoughtless snappy remark into relationship-threatening drama. Like the actor on the stage we can play our role to the best of our ability but realize at the same time that we are not in truth the character we play. It is simply our ego that plays the part.
When we start to realize that it is just our ego that gets hurt by a snide comment, our ego that is afraid of ridicule or rejection, our ego that puffs up with pride when we are praised or rewarded - when we begin to understand that it is our ego that stands in the way of our ever discovering who we REALLY are - I think that maybe that's when we start to wake up, just a little bit. That's when our consciousness begins to lift, little by little, day by day, until we often begin to catch ourselves indulging our fantasy life as though it were reality. We start to gradually, occasionally, penetrate that fog of forgetfulness, and glimpse for a brief instant a self apart from the ego. A witness.
Now don't get me wrong please. This is not to say that you can do whatever you like and that's all fine and dandy. Far from it. Just because this life is not the ultimate reality doesn't mean we live in a laissez-faire universe with no one counting how many biscuits you ate late last night when no one was around. Oh no. You were free to enjoy your guilty delight, quite so, but the price is going to be high. Those new jeans you bought.......? This 'fantasy reality' that we live is governed by immutable laws - we reap what we sow. Perhaps not in this lifetime, but we have an infinite amount of time..........
Yoga teachings are there to help us negotiate these jungles of time and space we find ourselves living in. They point the way. They require us to climb to the highest paths. They are in fact the shortest route to that higher consciousness that enables us to recognize the ever-so-clever workings of our ego. And at that moment of first 'awakening' - that first awareness of the silent self beyond the ego - at that moment we can laugh for the first time about ourselves and gain our first moment of a new perspective. What busy little ants we are in our cosy little anthills!
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