Travel of the mind
Have you ever gone on vacation and been fully immersed SO much that your normal life feels like a distant life? Have you ever moved somewhere and felt that the life you had in the other place was another life time ago? Have you ever awoken from a dream that felt so real you almost don’t know what to believe?
I’m sure that you’ve had either one of these experiences or something similar. What we often don’t realize is that we are the creator of our own hell and our own happiness. That might seem strange for some people, but give me a moment and I’ll explain.
How we perceive the world is often times made up of layers that we call ‘me’. For example, the name Kiera is a layer, my identity to being a girl is a layer, my identity as a yoga teacher is another layer, my identity in politics, way of living, belief system and so on, are more layers. We often add on more layers as we get older. For the sake of visualization, think of each identity as a layer of clothing. The more identity we have the heavier the weight we feel from the layers. Eventually you could be wearing so much clothing that you can’t even recognize yourself. You might even find that some forms of identity are heavier than others and because you’ve gotten so used to wearing that item of clothing, you don’t even realize you’re being weighed down.
In time, we start to define our interests, who we want to hang out with, and so on. Think about it. As a child you would hang out with anyone, but now you probably find yourself a little more choosy. Often as one gets older they tend to narrow where they spend their energy. Where and who we spend our energy with is often what fuels our mind and thoughts. If you surround yourself with others that promote your personal growth in life then you probably often feel supported. If you find yourself surrounded by others that are mean, don’t care, leave you to fend for yourself in hard times then you probably feel like your drowning, doing whatever you can to keep your head above water.
If we use these analogies that I listed in the beginning, we find ourselves in “another world”, whether temporary or permanent. Here is the thing, although those are examples of moments that possibly resonate with you, what you may not realize is that every thought, every action, every moment that we are attaching to more identity, more ego, we are disconnecting ourselves from a state of eternal bliss.
Maybe you think to yourself, how could I be eternally blissful?
It ultimately will take me a lot longer than this little post to explain, but your original state is pure bliss. It is the layers that have been added on since birth or since the spirit clicked with the body that has added SO much emotion and drama to your life. This is why going on vacation can feel like a dream sometimes. You become a different person, a different life, a different place, a constant flow of money, new experiences, and so on emerge. In reality, everything is going on in life just as it always has. Your life that was “normal” to you is still there at home, everyone is experiencing it, just this time without you in it. If you’ve moved to a new place, someone is now living their life in your old home, time is still moving forward. If you are in a dream, you can wake up at any moment and be connected back to the bed you are lying in.
This is why there is that saying, “If a distant temple bell rings, but you didn’t hear it, doesn't it mean it didn’t happen?”
What if everything you thought, everything you felt, everything you believed or attached to was all of the mind? What if you saw your eyes playing out the movie of your life? Instead of attaching to it as happening to you, you just watched, observed and acted with wisdom without deep connection to the outcome. What if your body was just the vessel that carries you through this movie? You watch it change admirably, you take care of what is needed, and you see that good or bad doesn’t have to become you.
These are deep things to ask ourselves, to inquire. This journey is often historically guided via religion. Yoga, although it is often connected to aspects of Hinduism is not of that religious pursuit. It points to the selfless state of mind. One may find themselves on a wild journey in this process, any path that leads one to ultimate truth is an honorable pursuit. To deeply inquire we can as ourselves simple questions like these. Would loosing a limb of your body in an accident, allow you to still feeling complete with or without it? Could loosing your eyesight in old age make you less you or less of a person? Would not having memory because you were in a medically induced comma make the time not exist? These questions allow us to open our exploration to the beauty, the bliss that is permanent. Not of the body, not of the mind. It isn’t based on circumstances and it doesn’t go away even with death. It is eternal, but you must put in the work with dedication and conviction in order to realize it was always there for you.
When this posts I will be in India, living another dream, experiencing new things that I have never had the opportunity before to witness. It is only through practice that we can pull back the layers that we are often so fondly attached to and travel to that state of eternal blissful that is awaiting everyone of ‘us’, it’s up to you to take the first step. 🤚