Welcome to the obstacle course...

As I listened to everyone talking this morning, I couldn't help but think of the kleshas. They are obstacles to growth and change that are described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The five kleshas are avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha, and abhinivesa. Avidya is ignorance. Asmita is ego. Raga is attachment. Dvesha is aversion. And abhinivesa is clinging to life.

In truth, avidya (ignorance) is the root of all the other kleshas. Ignorance takes several forms -- mistaking the impure for the pure, the temporal for the eternal, pleasure for pain, and non-self for self.

So much of what we all said today illustrates these obstacles. How wonderful that we are cleansing our minds, bodies and spirits so that we can begin to see them! It is the first step to avoiding them, stepping around them, removing them.

In particular, I found myself today reflecting on attachment and aversion. I find that attachment and aversion are easily illustrated on the physical level during the cleanse -- experiencing tremendous desire for a soy chai lets me know just how attached I've become to that sweet treat! I even experience this break from drinking soy chai as painful -- oh how I long for one! It's just not the same to sit at Starbucks and nurse plain green tea while journaling. That soy creaminess brings out the journaler in me...However, I know that my soy habit is no good. In fact, I know that I don't need soy. So, what I'm experiencing as painful is actually good for me -- and in that sense should be striking me as a tremendous pleasure.

Asana teaches many of the same lessons. I experience raising one arm while in plank as painful -- but it is good for me, not only on the physical level but also in that it is challenging...how can I begin to experience that as pleasurable? Oddly enough, my left side feels very strange in urdhva dhanurasana because of tightness caused by my surgeries -- yet I know that I need to lean into that strange, slightly painful feeling, need to work through it so that it doesn't get worse...thus even though it doesn't feel good, I don't experience it as painful.

It is crazy that the best of things can leave us hollow, disheartened, and the worst of things can lead us to amazing insights. Clearly the constant in each of these examples is me. How wonderful it is to be practicing being a still and bright flame as the winds blow all around me...