yoga teacher training in VancouverYoga Training and Enlightenment

Has life ever made you feel.. Heavy? Almost like the weight of the world is on your chest or on your shoulders? If you are anything like the other 7 billion people on the planet, at some point or another you likely have. 

Quite similarly, I am willing to bet – regardless if you live in Vancouver or Tokyo – you may have experienced the opposite feeling as well.. The absolute lifting of this weight, the freeing of your soul and possessing the resolving feeling of being in absolute harmony with the universe

Consider

This is what I consider – on a grand and slightly extreme level – to be enlightenment.

Although fairly easy to describe, this liberating feeling can feel nearly impossible to attain – and rightfully so! 

Naturally

If we naturally had the power to harness this feeling and capture enlightenment with ease, we would never experience the depths of our potential for personal growth.

It is only through trials, tribulations, and the ability to overcome these difficulties through mental discipline that we can begin to understand and truly appreciate what it means to feel empowered by our own unique enlightenment. 

When we detach ourselves from the expectation of reality and accept that new life begins with each subsequent breath that we take in, the enormous pressure to react to life slowly leaves us. 

Once we have mastered our own emotions (from insight, yoga or yoga teacher training) usually through experience, we can begin to conform our reactions to our realities. 

Path

Knowing that we are on a harmonious path with the universe is relieving, comforting almost. When there is nothing left to intimidate or enflame the soul, we can observe and reflect on life with ease instead of living under the weight of the world. 

We can attain this through discipline and dedication to our own personal convictions, so that the guilt of our own thoughts or actions cannot contribute to the heavy, sinking feelings that weight us all down from time to time.

That being said, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees in the quest for enlightenment. We must appreciate that each journey is as unique as the person who walks it. We all experience heartache, stress, loss, and pain. 

Accept

We have to accept that we are chained. Once we accept this only then can we begin to unlock the ties that bind us. We can only experience the freeing feeling after we have appreciated what it means to be bound by our own mental chains. 

We must remain open to messages from the universe. And go headstrong into the future knowing that the past and the future do not exist.  We are only ever present with ourselves and our universe in this moment.

In The End

To be enlightened is to let go and simultaneously embrace. We can be liberated by the fact that the only thing in life we can control is our own reactions and that alone will set us free.