Everybody has problems. We all struggle with what we don’t know about our own complicated lives. Of course, we want solutions to our problems tout suite, and if we could gain those solutions as painlessly as possible, that would be great. Consider, though, that our problems actually help us to become the people we are meant to be. So, how do problems, the yogic concept of Santosha, Yoga Nidra and learning to sit in the darkness sometimes, help us to do this essential growth?
Problems Can Give A Push
Sometimes, it is only by questioning, wondering, or struggling, that we are driven to understand an otherwise hidden part of ourselves and our potential. Our questions and problems fuel us to open our hearts, to seek for inspiration, to perform the necessary work, and more profoundly, to abandon our will to the grander wisdom of the divine. The Divine knows how easy it is to be anesthetized by easy and numbed out by normal. Comfortable can sometimes get in the way of us becoming the greatest version of ourselves.
Light Creeping In
Like the late, great Leonard Cohen says in his song, "Anthem":
“Ring the bells that still can ring;
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything;
That’s how the light gets in.”
Even the rhyme is broken! He's pointing to the idea that it's through our brokenness, through our problems that we find the avenue toward the light.
Yoga Nidra and Observing Problems
When faced with problems, we must at once be willing to seek and do, and also we must sometimes learn to simply sit comfortably and be with what we don't know or with what doesn't feel comfortable-happily resolved with the phrase, "I don't know." And sometimes to get real answers we must be willing to sit in our own darkness for a while. One way to learn to do this is through Yoga Nidra, the yoga of sleep. Yoga Nidra is a practice of guided meditation that leads you through layered awareness and deep relaxation to practice learning to simply witness whatever is presented to your attention, be that emotions, problems, physical sensations or whatever. It helps you to practice experiencing yourself as Awareness itself, as Source, which has no needs, problems, or issues. Then, when this awareness is married back to you every-day life, the part of you that feels like it does have problems, you have such an incredible perspective over your life’s problems. Yoga Nidra is one of the ways that you can cultivate the power to be able to sit with your problems without allowing them to feel like they control your life.
This human tendency for control occurs regularly in our yoga practice as many of us strive to either know everything there is to know about yoga or try to perfect our poses; we usually eagerly fill in whatever blanks present themselves in our life's scripts.
Instead, let us practice the yoga principle of Santosha, or contentment, by learning to sit with and even value perplexity, knowing that it's molding us into our highest being.
Sitting in the Dark
The following poem by David Whyte seems to speak directly to learning from the darkness, instead of running from it.
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
~ David Whyte ~