5/7/2013 7 Comments Samadhi![]() "You don't see life as it is, you see life as YOU are."
Goethe Imagine that each morning when you wake up, you reach for your glasses. Each pair is different. One pair is the "I am a victim" pair. You also might have the "I am stupid pair or an I am worthless pair, as well as an I am scared, fat, pretty, smart, sexy, abandoned, wronged, better than her, happy, and irritated" pair. Each pair is created by the stories that you tell yourself regarding some past or future event. In other words, it's the meaning that you give to the events in life that make them something other than just an event that occured in your life.So your mind "colors" the events and you see life as whatever "color" you created. The more you hold onto or create a story in your head about something that happened to you, the more often you will reach for the corresponding pair of glasses. Its through this lens that we interpret the situations that occur in our lives. So if I am wearing my "I am stupid" glasses and my husband says to me, "You missed the turn", chances are I will interpret his neutral comment as "OMG you missed the turn you dummy! You can't even read a map! Geez, you are so stupid!". This is because I am interpreting his neutral comment through a lens or filter of my "I am stupid" glasses. So in that moment I am not seeing life as it is, but seeing life as I am. Whatever mood, feeling, or story that we are holding onto in our heads becomes the lens through which we see, hear, interpret and react to whatever is happening in our lives. In the the eight limbed path of Ashtanga yoga, the final limb is called Samadhi. sama means "clear, neutral or colorless" dhi means vision If we reach this state of samadhi or clear seeing, we aren't putting on our glasses at all, instead we will see clearly or neutrally each experience as it is happening in the moment instead of through the lens of whatever state we happen to be in at the moment. So yoga practice is ultimately about getting to a place where you can see life as it is instead of as YOU are. Getting so completely clear and present that you are not looking through a lens of your old stuff but having a fresh and clear perspective on your life and whats happening in the moment.
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AuthorCara Sax Archives
July 2020
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