I once had a yoga teacher who said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go home.” The point of that statement is that our home is where most of our programming came from. Our samskaras, our patterns, our habits. As I immerse in the study of karma yoga with an eager group of yogis, we all unravel together the illusory bonds that keep us coming back to the causes of our suffering day after day. And where better to remember those than with the sights, smells, and memories that we grew up with. We look at how to shatter the illusions that keep us bound, safe, small and less than our full human and divine potential.
I will admit that part of why I love traveling is going to places where no one knows a thing about me and I can show up fully present to what that moment needs. It’s easy to put down baggage when it’s not attached to my immediate surroundings. And part of why I love coming back is because the hugs, kisses, and chats are so deeply familiar and filled with years of collected understanding.
Can we bridge those two lives? Can we create familial community abroad and non-attached presence at home? Maybe that is part of my yogic exploration on this journey. I’ve recently come to call this ‘shattering the illusions.’ What illusions? All of them that keep us trapped in unconscious living, repetitive patterns that we were ready to break long ago, and stuck in a loop of fear and reaction – towards life and the people we desperately need to help set us free.
I am offering a workshop on Sept. 27th in Seattle – mostly likely my last on American soil this year – on breaking the illusion of separation that we all face through authentic connection with ourselves (on the mat) and others (off the mat). Not just breaking, but shattering. Because it is only a mask, a facade, a mirror reflecting an obscured picture of the world. What is actually shining back at us is pure satchitananda – truth, consciousness and bliss. Come and find it.