HEADSTAND VARIATIONNearly all sighted people are captives to their
sight. They think what they see is reality, but they
use their sight to evaluate and judge the world
based on some arbitrary standard. As a blind per-
son, it is my experience that how things feel, not
how things look, matters most.
What if a pose does not look “amazing,” based
on the viewer’s criteria? Would that diminish the
experience of the yogi doing the pose?
If the pose looks horrible, should the yogi con-
sider his or her experience less than adequate?
For people who possess the gift of sight: Just
remember that it is often your attachment to
what you consider beautiful that defines your
experience. The blind yogi must work to develop
an evenness of mind that transcends the polarities
of right/wrong, beautiful/ugly, adequate/deficient.
Sighted people see my disability and then
graft onto it their own opinions of blindness.
Nearly all of the time, those judgments are not
positive. There is no changing them, no matter
how those of us with disabilities may try.
It is we who must dive deeper into ourselves
with the faith that we might one day revel in our
own world of beauty, free of external evaluations,
whether positive or negative.