Chapter 10

Know yourself truthfully and deeply so that you can be authentically yourself. If you don't know your own truth how can you ever hope to own it, be it and live it in the world? There have been times in the past when I have been unable to feel myself, to recognize and acknowledge my own truth. Usually this has happened at moments when I've been afraid of hurting someone I care about or losing something that I deemed as valuable. So instead of recognizing and speaking my truth, I clammed up, blocked myself from feeling, speaking or being truthful in the failed attempt to somehow control the situation. That's all a false sense of self, an illusion of the ego that thinks that you can see the whole picture, the hubris that thinks that you have the final say in the outcome of the journey of life. Called Satya in Sanskrit, it is one of the moral and ethical principles outlined in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Truth stated in a harsh or abrasive manner is an unskillful that can be avoided with a little compassion, empathy and wisdom. Truth without love is heartless, cold and sometimes even mean-spirited. Truth bottled up inside yourself will eat you away from the inside out, make you sick, harm your body. Be brave enough to first know yourself deeply, truthfully, without hesitation. Then speak your truth with a kind heart and without any attachment to the outcome. What is the truth that is bottled up so deeply inside of yourself that it scares you to admit it even to yourself? What is the truth about your world that frightens you because if you acknowledge it, it might shatter the glass house that surrounds you? The truth will set you free. Be brave enough to risk it all and wise enough to speak from love.

Being serious is over rated. The ability to laugh at yourself is way more fun.... And useful. You'll never be perfect so let yourself off the hook and have fun, laugh at yourself and be free.  

A valuable tool on the spiritual path, humor comes with humility. Make funny faces, tell stupid jokes, laugh at yourself. The ability to put your flaws and imperfections on the table and risk being the butt of a joke is a statement of true self-confidence. I never used to be able to laugh at myself and I used to take everything including my practice so seriously. But being serious is just too exhausting to keep up. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Smile and the sun shines on you.For all the talk of different styles, posture variations, philosophical preferences, there is really one yoga. The yoga that leads to the direct experience of the divine inner spark is the universal path of awakening. It is the narrow road walked with an equanimous mind and a brave heart. It is a journey illuminated by the eternal inner fire. 

All practices and experiences that cleanse you through the fire of purification are called Kriyas. Submitting yourself to this intense physical, emotional and spiritual rebirth is like getting baptized with fire into the spiritual path. It isn't always easy and sometimes it hurts to watch your precious ego attachments burn up, but it is all for the good. Once the fire consumes all it needs to it will leave you free and clear, filled with only the resplendent light of the true self. To take a few steps along this path today all you have to do is get on your yoga mat and practice. Breathing, asana, meditation all awaken the inner fire. Or turn your attention to emotional, mental or spiritual obstacles that you need to release into the purifying fire. Share your journey and shine bright as you burn up the obstacles to the truth.

Just when you think you're in the clear of some old stuff from the past it comes at you like an undertow. The more you fight it the worse it gets just like a riptide. All of your habituated responses to fight for or against it will only take you deeper down. So much of our life is driven by subconscious behavioral patterns that it can feel like you're tip toeing through an emotional minefield ready to explode. The first step along the path of yoga is to identify our stock of samskaras, old impressions that build up to form larger behavioral patterning in our life. Hidden like an almond in the inner closet of the body, yoga seeks to reveal in the pure light of awareness all our stock of active and sleeping samskaras. Think you're good? Think you're free? Just wait, there is a pose or life experience that will push you to your edge. And then that is where your yoga actually begins.

Take the first step along the inner journey of yoga and see your own samskaras. When you meet them don't fight against them, just experience them, see them, and look with compassion and love. Remain equanimous, observe with an objective mind and an open heart. Let the power of yoga work through grace and surrender into the freedom of finally being free. 

Respectfully disagreeing and sharing what can be considered negative feedback without trying to take the person down is hard. Voicing positivity and support without attacking the other point of view or making the critique wrong is just as hard. Creating a safe space where people feel free to voice the good and the bad in open dialogue is important to me, both in the public and personal space. Being strong means more than handstands, it means having enough confidence in who you are to honestly look at positive and negative feedback in a healthy dialogue. You have shown me that you respect and trust me enough to share positive and negative feedback and that you care enough to share your thoughts with me. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Regardless of where we sit on a debate or discussion what matters most is that we are yogis, practicing yoga to make our world a more peaceful place. Think about how many arguments could have been avoided and how many friendships saved if we could engage in healthy, open and respectful dialogue especially when we disagree. 

Justice like an arrow of truth rings straight and clear in the human heart. My childhood dream was to one day serve on the Supreme Court. Today's historic decision in favor of marriage equality rights for all essentializes the struggle for justice that is at the heart of the American Dream. This country was founded on the same universal principles as yoga, that it doesn't matter what size, shape, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation you are. What matters is what's in your heart, how you show up in the world and on your mat, how hard you're willing to work, how bravely you're willing to embrace love.

In yoga there are many concepts of justice, ranging from the nyaya concept of realized moral and ethical principles in society to the broader idea of the Santana Dharma, as the univedal code of justice to the Yamas and Niyamas in the Yoga Sutras. Here's the thing though, justice is a basic feeling, something that you know in your bones. When faced with a decision you know what is just already in your heart. The moral conscience of what is right is an ethical compass that you feel. Act against this sacred space and you immediately feel out of alignment. As yogis, we are not the executors of justice, meaning it is not our place to seek an eye-for-an-eye vengeance in the world. We are upholders of justice, torch bearers along the spiritual path, leading by example, waking bravely with open hearts. Today celebrate justice and let freedom ring.

If you learn how to bend then you will never break. The practice is hard work and requires years of training. There is no way I could do this at first, but fifteen years of consistent practice yields results. But you cannot force your flexibility. The body so often holds tightness miserly and is afraid to let go. Pushing will only create injury. Flexibility is as much an inner state as it is a physical experience. Sometimes in yoga you have to stretch your mind even more than the body. Go to the places that scare you, be willing to sit through the uncomfortable, take a step into the unknown with only faith to lift you up, love fiercely but without attachment to results.

Is there some place of rigidity in you that needs softening? Do you have any deeply held beliefs that are inhibiting the expansion of your heart and the flow of your life? Or is it flexibility in the body that you seek? Ask yourself what you can let go of, what you're willing to give up, where you can soften, release, surrender? Go on the mind-bending journey of self-discovery. Stretch your body, mind and spirit. Be flexible, be a yogi.

Yoga is an education. As students of yoga we embark on a spiritual retraining of the body, mind and spirit. It like a university degree in true self knowledge. Each practice is a subtle invitation to know yourself more deeply and to study the inner world of awareness and realization. There is no limit to depth of information you can discover along the journey of yoga. But, you must yearn for that knowledge. Something in your soul has to hunger for the practice. To truly be a student of yoga is to ask life's deepest questions. Who I am really? Why am I here? Seek the knowledge of the true self and you will find it. Ask for the way to be shown to you and it will be given. Knock on the door to the innermost temple of the spirit within and it will be opened for you. Every single time. No one who truly yearns for the inner experience will be denied. No one. Take a moment and reflect on that. No one will be denied entry into the sacred space of the true self. You are worthy of all that you seek. You are whole and complete in the eyes of spirit. Your heart is full, pure and bright. All you need to do is start your search today. The quest of self discovery comes from the deepest reaches of the spirit world. It is like a call to come back home and find the only place of true and lasting peace.

How will you know you're ready? You'll know because it will be unavoidable, because it will just start happening all around you, through you, for you. You'll know. Don't worry, you will. Trust that the powerful force that is driving your life is organizing things greater than you can imagine. You are exactly where you need to be, experiencing what you need to experience. There is no need to rush, no need to get there. Everything that matters is already in your heart, waiting for you to be brave enough to say yes and surrender.

Say yes now because you were born ready.