Despite it looking at exactly the same, the architecture, landscape, layout, everything, but something was off about it all. Even though I was looking at the exact same picture that I did for 2 years, it wasn't the same place. It felt like I had come out of a coma and woke up in a distant land. Then here I am practically a year later since it felt like home and 4 months since it felt like a distant land wanting to go back.
Not to mention this desire to "return" was preceded by a very intense dream implying a choice that needed to be made, if you will on my spiritual path. While this may seem naive of me, I can't help but attribute this stirring of energy, the dreams, strong urges to only study yoga and travel for the rest of my days, my desire to "return" to an old "home" and SO much more to my current consistent home asana practice. I know, I know, so typical, so cliche, but I can't help it. But instead of allowing this desire to simply remain as that, I transformed it into action and actually returned.
Going back to this place was one of the...most awkward and mysterious things I've ever done. Usually or at least in my mind, I know how things are going to pan out. I know my actions, my reactions, my feelings, all of it. How do I know? Or at least how do I think I know? Because its what I do. I think, I plan, I plan some more, I plan for what may or may not come, for what people may or may not do or say. I think and visualize everything and I mean everything. Sad? Yes. Detrimental to my sanity? Most definitely. But this time...I had no idea what to expect or how things would go and I didn't know because I chose not to think about it, not to plan it out. To do my best to simply be open, honest and positive. It was still awkward, but good.
I had a hard conversation with some important to me and came to the very much needed realization that my feeling like my old home was a distant land was predominantly, if not all my doing. That was and still is one of the hardest pills for me to swallow, if not for everyone. I believe that this is one of the most painstakingly hard, excruciating things to realize when you are to blame for an undoing, especially your own undoing. I'm still coming to terms with it. But...I am coming to terms with it.
Pain truly is the path to purification as Patanjali states in the sutras and I'm accepting it right now. Accepting my role in my own alienation. Accepting that I allowed ego to take a further, stronger grasp. Accepting that I allowed ego to further blind me from my true self, to further blind me from the truth. Accepting that I further perpetuated my own feelings of jealousy, anger, sadness, neglect, discomfort and loneliness. My cousin once told me that no one makes you feel like anything, you allow yourself to feel that way. No one can make you mad, but you. You control your feelings. But more importantly, throughout everything that has occurred over the past 2 weeks, I accept and realize that now it truly is up to me what happens next.
I'm not sure exactly how it will play out or where I will end up, but I do know one thing. I've grown spiritually in the midst of this storm. I've learned and practiced acceptance for what things and who people are. Now this doesn't mean that I'm all, "I love everything and want everyone to be my best friend." But I've recognized that things and people are the way they are and accepting and loving them can be done in close proximity or at a distance. I've come to accept and be content with things as they are with no expectations or hidden agendas of change. I'm ready to face and accept whatever I must go through, especially if it stems from my own actions, which most of them probably will. I'm ready and I know I am because yoga has helped me to prepare for these obstacles off the mat through my very short consistent practice on the mat over the past 2 weeks. Somehow I know that if I keep with my asana practice that I will be okay.
I can say this about my asana practice because every time I step on the mat a spiritual event occurs. Everything I do leading up to the mat, on the mat and after the mat is a spiritual act. I don't step on my mat for fitness or health.I step on the mat with the hope and sincere intention to become a better person, getting closer and closer to realizing that I am a spiritual being, not a human being. With every exhalation, every inhalation, every self re-adjustment, every back bend, forward bend, attempt to hold my mula bandha, the spreading of my fingers, the grounding of my heels, with everything I do, on a subtle subconscious level, I'm diving ever so deep towards the innermost layers of me. Even the thoughts preceding my actual steps are covered in a blanket of spirituality. Yogic asanas are currently acting as my spiritual gateway. And...I'm ready...I'm simply...ready :-)
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