A break in the clouds, a breath-taking view or the unspoken truth that finally emerges. These are moments of realisation or clarity, when we feel the blanket has briefly been lifted from our eyes.
We move about our lives seeing and experiencing life through our lens of perception. Each of us sees and experiences the same situation differently depending on our past experiences and our current frame of mind. This lens can become very distorted depending on the layers of past experiences, internalised thoughts and external influences that cover it, or it can be blurred by the multitude of fast moving images - the pace of which we live our lives and the volume of input we cram into our busyness!
I used the analogy in class last week of a runner. Most of us are living our lives at a sprint, focusing on the destination far off in the distance, grabbing instant gratification as we move, like the runner grabbing a bottle from a passer by and flinging it to the side when done. With our eyes narrowly focussed and moving so fast everything around us is a blur, we don’t know what we’re missing, just that we need to keep moving. How different that experience would be if the runner slowed to a jog or even to an ambling walk. We might not make it to the destination we’d planned but we would notice the ground beneath our feet, the sky above us. We would notice the meadows, fields or hedgerows beside our path and hear the multitude of different birdsong contained within them. We would notice the different leaves and smells of blossoms and flowers. Nevertheless, we would also notice the discarded litter, a dead bird or a squashed snail. Clouds would come over and we would feel the cold damp rain, perhaps would feel lost and alone in the darkness of the night. But we would feel it all and we would feel alive knowing that we would continue to see and experience the warmth and the cold, the light and the dark, the joyful and the sad. A much richer journey I would say (whilst also internally noticing a feeling of resistance to the dark as I type!)
“Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, -- determined to make a day of it…. “ Henry David Thoreau
To create opportunities for insight we need to regularly clean the lens, which may require slowing down. The misunderstanding is thinking it's just the outer side of the lens that needs cleaning.
My husband is a window cleaner and over the years we have had many calls from customers complaining that their windows still look dirty, that he has missed a bit and needs to come back. On inspection however, the outsides are sparkling and clean but it’s the insides that are dirty. I think this is a useful analogy, more often than not we want to blame others or avoid doing the work ourselves. Self work/awareness can be hard work, and when we realise it’s an internal job, it can be a heavy realisation of the truth rather than an aha moment of insight!
At the beginning of the month all my notes for this blog were very much ‘aha’ insights of clarity and my phone notes were typed so rapidly and with enthusiasm, that when I went to type them up it was too hard to read! So many typos because my phone screen is damaged/dirty or just that I was typing without attention. Either way they were too hard to translate so I had to start again! That experience has brought its own moment(s) of realisation….the heavier kind, the sort that shines a light on the internal work to be done! This is compounded by a week of ‘heavier moments of realisation’...a very different period of enlightenment to the beginning of the month! But what this has shown me is that we have to be watchful of the ego, always.
Moments of clarity and enlightened insight feel powerful, creative and ‘good’.
(We feel a call to action, but there's a risk of taking this action with a sense of inflated ego, feeling clever and all knowing!)
Moments of heavier realisation, perhaps a truth we didn’t want, feel powerless, squashed and ‘bad’.
(This can lead us to a place of inertia, guilt, shame or feelings of ignorance.)
The ego wants us to shine and be recognised OR hide away and avoid action for that would expose its vulnerability. The ego feeds on seeking good and avoiding bad, but if we put the work in to clear our lens of perception, we see that there is no good and bad only what is. Life has to honour the good and the bad in order to find balance. Happiness as most of us understand it, is shallow and fleeting because it needs ‘good’. Contentment and peace however accept both, and are found by resting in that understanding.
Moments of enlightened insight or of heavy realisation are not what brings peace, rather it is the action we take or the path we choose that does. Creating opportunities for these moments of insight requires effort without attachment. If we attach ourselves to an intended outcome it will continue to evade us, if we get attached to the truth or insight revealed, we are halted in the realm of the ego, if however we choose to clean our lens regularly, to observe and witness the insights or truth, then there is peace.
Aparigraha is the last Yama in Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. It often translates to non-greed and non-attachment.
Let your concern be with the action alone, and never with the fruits of action. Do not let the results of your action be your motive, and do not be attached to inaction – Krishna
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey….
During April and May we will explore ways in which we can clear our lens with by: exploring Aparigraha, intentions, practicing pranayama, mudra and asana. Our asanas will explore flipping our perspective (inversions) and playful exploration (lila).
I look forward to sharing this practice with you and hope to see you on your mat soon.
Om shanti
Sophia