By Mangala Allen
When life’s challenges seem insurmountable, you are caught in the tangled web of your mind. Swami Muktananda described it like you’re looking at the world through tinted glasses, altering the color of what you see. Your mind is colored by your past experiences and the reactions you still suffer from. Your expectations for how things should be add another layer to your inner process. Your get lost in a chaotic cycle of expectation, desire and disappointment.
image from pixabay.com
“Change the color of your glasses,” Muktananda used to say. When you dissolve the tinted lenses of your mind, you are liberated from the chaotic cycle. How do you do this? Look within. Discover the treasure inside that is your very own Self. You are Consciousness-itself.
Consciousness contracts to become you but, while contracting, makes you forget who you are. As your mind clears you recognize your Self as Consciousness. Then, you see everyone and everything as an expression of Consciousness. Your perception is profoundly different when the light of Consciousness illumines you from within.
“The world exists solely to support your spiritual upliftment. Everything is conspiring to liberate you.”
— Swami Nirmalananda*
I always had a fear of using computers. When I started my Master’s degree, at the age of 50, I had to learn to use a computer so I could research and write papers. I never got beyond this stage. I was afraid I would push the wrong button and create an entanglement that no one could unravel. Circumstances kept arising that required me to have more computer skills but I shied away from learning anything new.
I was reacting to the clutter in my mind with anxiety; my fear was holding me back. Eventually Swami Nirmalananda gave me seva that required learning new computer skills. This time I chose to face my fear. It ultimately dissolved.
This profoundly simple choice would not have been possible for me before yoga. My practices have helped me discover what is inside. I am more than I knew. I discover more about myself everyday, now that I see life’s challenges as ways to experience the Consciousness I am.
Practice yoga to find the deeper dimension within you. As you become aware of the ever-arising flow of bliss inside, you no longer need externals to support you. You are supported from within, experiencing things as they are, without longing for them to be different. No longer compelled to action, you choose how and when to respond — based on a clear view of the circumstances at hand. You’re looking at the world through Consciousness-colored lenses.
OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo namah
To your Inherent Divinity again and again I bow.
* Contemplation Article – It’s All for You! – February 2017