KNOW THYSELF

The practice of yoga can really be summed up in a two-word phrase: “know thyself.” This may be the most concise and accurate explanation of what practicing yoga really means - the beginning and ending of any yogic insight. The simple truth.

It’s funny how something so simple can sometimes be such a struggle.

Why is it a challenge to really know ourselves - to remember who and how we actually are?

Is it because we are all tied up in believing what we've been told we should be? Is it because there's some sort of fear or shame around what we believe we are?

Yoga invites us to a real and raw intimacy with all parts of our “self” - with all parts of Life itself - the pleasant and unpleasant, the blessings and sorrows, the joys and sufferings. It invites us into a process of self-inquiry - a kind of sustained and continuous investigation into the nature of our “self” to understand how we essentially are - communally, physically, mentally, emotionally, soulfully, and spiritually. Yoga helps us avoid being strangers to ourselves and prisoners to our own ignorance about ourselves.

Plato points to this in his Allegory of the Cave where people live their entire lives mistaking dimly lit shadows for reality. Through the self-inquiry that all of yoga actually is, we can help ourselves break our chains of ignorance to free ourselves from shadowy illusions.

The starting point to discover how we are is observing how various aspects of ourselves manifest. Our body is generally known through our physical sensations, sensory perceptions, and biological processes.  Our mind is experienced through our thoughts, words, and images.  Our heart is understood through our emotions.  We are essentially bundles of our total physical, mental, and emotional experience - from our initial experiences (whenever they started!) until this very moment.  By observing these aspects of ourselves, we begin to understand how we are shaped by the whole of our life experience.

Bringing a kind of radical awareness, honesty, and love to our experiencing of life can really help us know ourselves with limitless intimacy - and that is the essence of what practicing yoga is all about.

Kristin Varner