A book I truly love, one that has been very influential in my life is Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. Have you read it?
One of the things I learned from that book, something that has changed my cosmic understanding, is the idea that as human beings, whether consciously or unconsciously, we are constantly trying to figure out what it means to just be human. We explore many ways of answering that question and almost anything we encounter in this human life can be something for us to hold onto as a way of identifying ourselves. We tend to identify as our name, our bodies, our perceived personal success or failure, and even define ourselves by our problems but all of these things fall flat because they don’t explain what our true self is. Who we really are cannot be described by anything that changes.
In A New Earth, Tolle defines the ego as the misapprehension or mislearning of what we think we are, all the things that change in our life. Tolle mirrors the yogic idea that what we really are is Awareness.
The part that really got me in his book was how often we tend to identify with layers of our ego he calls our painbody. What he means is that though we may not outwardly love being in pain—feeling jealousy, bitterness, or suffering—but it does exist as something we can feel, we therefore tend to call it “real” and mislabel this object of pain as “us” and kind of walk around life defining ourselves as that thing. Can you relate to that? Everybody can to some degree or other.
Again, our true self is Awareness itself and cannot possibly be defined as an emotion, either good or bad. Identifying as anything other than this Awareness is going to be problematic because it exists unfailingly in a state of change. No sooner do you want to hang your hat on something and call it you, than that thing changes and leaves you feeling empty.
The crazy thing is that these pain bodies seem to have a life of their own. It’s like they know they aren’t real and are trying to keep themselves “alive” by begging us to keep a hold of them. We know it doesn’t serve us to be angry or sad or depressed all the time but we kinda don’t know who we’d be without that part of us. So somehow we keep it alive simply because it serves us in someway to define us. “It’s not great being sad but at least I understand it.”
That in a nutshell seems to be one of the most profound human problems.
That may sound depressing but it’s actually really hopeful and I’ll tell you why. Surely, Tolle explains what to do about this dilemma in his book, however, I’ve found the best, easiest, and most effective solution to overcoming this issue of the ego—or false identity—with Yoga Nidra.
Instead of pain bodies, Yoga Nidra calls these different bodies, Maya Kosha, or illusion bodies. They are illusions because they seem real but aren’t. What’s real is Awareness. However, what I love about Yoga Nidra is that it doesn’t suggest you try to forget about the pain bodies but instead invites you lean into them to understand them as the beautiful illusions that they are through systematized relaxation and layered awareness. Yoga Nidra shows you how to practice deep awareness of your body, of your emotions, of your thoughts—all to show you that by all the things that you can be aware of, you reveal Awareness itself. Awareness is what these all have in common.
And here’s the exciting thing…
As you practice experiencing yourself as Awareness, you remind yourself of your innate wholeness, purity, and being. You don’t need to define yourself by your ego—what you do, how much money you have or don’t have, or even (and especially) what kind of pain you may have experienced in your life. Instead, when you understand your true nature, that of Awareness itself, you realize that this entire human experience all points to the beauty of what it means to be and that every object in the world is another invitation for you to practice waking up to your true self.
Practicing and understanding yourself as Awareness really is the ultimate healer.
Knowing how to facilitate others to experience themselves as whole through Yoga Nidra is an art form in and of itself. I’ve dedicated almost 15 years of my life studying, practicing, and teaching how to do this and I have personally experienced and facilitated myriad modes of healing and wholeness through this incredible, relaxing, and accessible practice.
I feel it a calling in my life to help you learn how to help those people in your life whom you have the privilege to influence how to remember who they truly are by helping them practice awareness through Yoga Nidra.
I guess if I were a really good teacher I could simply tell you, “Hey, you’re perfect as you are. Let’s go get a beer,” but I don’t think it’s that easy. We need a practice to help that truth land, to be taught this truth in a way that we will understand and recognize. This is why your particular voice and your particular experience with the people and population you know is so essential. Only you know the kind of specific issues they work with and can speak their language. It’s on you to help these people remember their own wholeness.
On Saturday, April 23rd I want to teach you how to facilitate specialized Yoga Nidra classes for those people in your life who need to understand who they are in a way that only you can understand.
I’ll be leading a workshop where we are going to spend 3 hours together on Zoom building your specialized Yoga Nidra classes to meet the individual needs of your clients, students, and family members. You’ll be given the tools and roadmaps to deliver the classes you need in your own voice.
If you are interested in making this kind of an impact for others, I hope you’ll join me.
If you’re not interested in facilitating this for others, perhaps you’d be interested in deepening your relationship to Self in my Yoga Nidra course called Waking Up with the Yoga of Sleep.
Also, if you’re looking for your next great read, I might suggest A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Pick it up at your local bookstore.
Have a great weekend!