AWARENESS
Irene Ais explores our true nature and our path of
self-discovery, looking at how we can prepare
ourselves for meditation, elevate our yogic
experiences and expand our own sense of freedom.
STEPPING INTO THE LIGHT OF AWARENESS
is like feeling the warmth of the first
spring sunshine on your face. It has the
power to illuminate the darkest parts of
you that have long been forgotten.
When we awaken to a deeper
understanding of who we are, our whole
reality is transformed. We step out of
the shadows of ignorance and into the
light of true self-awareness. As the
sunflowers turn towards the sun, once
we begin to know our true nature we are
drawn further down the path of
svadyaya(dedicated self-discovery).
We begin in life with what is tangible
and touchable. We interact with the
outside world through our senses,
feeling our environment with the body
and processing our experiences through
the mind. We are charmed by that
which offers pleasure for the senses and
are repelled by experiences that cause us
discomfort. In this way, we are shaped
by our experiences, our likes and our
dislikes, and we begin to identify with
the impermanent such as our jobs and
relationships. This moulding of the ego
helps us to place ourselves in the world,
however our individuality can alsocreate the illusion of separation from
people around us. As a result, we can
have a tendency to cling to who and
what is familiar. Deep grooves of
samskara(habits/patterns) are formed
through our continuous search for what
is pleasurable and what validates the
identity we have crafted for ourselves.
The goal of our practice and the
gateway to our freedom in this life is to
remember that at our core we are not
the fluctuations of the mind narrating
our experiences or the identification
with those experiences. This world and
our perspective is constantly shifting
and transforming and it is through our
svadyayathat we deepen our awareness
to discover that our essence is beyond
the movement around us or within us –
we are the witness that observes it all.
Patanjali’s eight-limbed path of
classical yoga offers us practices to see
ourselves from different angles. The
very first two limbs (theyamasand
niyamas) are focused on how we live in
this world with greater awareness of
how we treat ourselves and others,
however most practitioners of yoga in
52 the West begin with the physical
july 2017yogajournal.com.auPHOTO: RIKE_/ISTOCKPHOTO.COMpractice of yoga asana (postures/poses).
The poses create opportunities to move
our annamaya kosha (food/physical
body) whilst settling the drishti (focus).
Inviting our concentration to settle into
the present experience while we explore
the asana is one of the defining
characteristics of yoga compared with
other physical practices. In the words of
long-time yogi and philosopher Joel
Kramer, “Yoga begins the moment you
start to pay attention.”
The way we respond to challenges on
the yoga mat begins to reveal a window
into our habitual patterns. Some
postures require tapas (effort) and are
more physically challenging in terms of
strength, flexibility and balance, others
invite us to surrender into stillness.
Regardless of the yin or yang nature of
the pose, if our attention is present as we
practice we are able to notice our
responses. Where do I need more sthira
(stability) and where can I soften into
sukha (softness)? Through pratyahara
(withdrawing the attention inwards) we
engage the senses away from thoughts
and external distractions and begin to
expand our awareness of how postures
feel in our body and how the habitual
way our mind responds to the
experience of each pose.
The physical practice, full of dynamic
movement is enticing to our energised
modern nervous systems. Busy,
overstimulated environments condition
us into a habit of constant doing and the
glorification of being busy. This has
slowly crept into our yoga practice with
more vigorous modern styles being
created in the last decade. Regardless of
which style draws you to the practice,
eventually yoga begins to make us more
comfortable with stillness.
When the body and mind are busy,
it is easy to identify with the most
superficial parts of ourselves. Yoga – at
its core an energetic practice – creates
opportunities for the subtlest parts of
ourselves to be revealed. A consistent
commitment to our practice expands our
field of awareness across all koshas
(energetic layers). As we move the
physical body, we not only pay attention
to the sensations we feel and the
thoughts of the mind but we begin to
hear the subtlest parts of ourselves start
to speak.
The breath is the gateway to
experiencing finer layers of self-
awareness. A manifestation of pranaThe light of