It's about your yoga..I'm afraid there's been some complications

I'm going say it.

Yoga is too complicated. And I mean this sincerely. I teach this stuff for a living, and I've watched eyes glaze over as talk of tattvas and kleshas and the various states of samadhi are outlined by those of us who have not experienced a stable state of this experience. Therefore, I submit that all of us who talk about this stuff should speak from experience, period.

Why do we love yoga? It is because of the way it makes us feel. The way it makes me feel is difficult to put into words, but if I need a flow chart and a Sanskrit dictionary I'm already in trouble. Because yoga is an experience of assimilation, of digestion of our experiences. Hatha yoga balances opposites - inhale, exhale, determination, surrender. These states do not dissolve, oh no. The problems of life do not go away. Rather we may become more able to digest our experiences. They move through us, and as they do, we witness from a place of.... the best word I can come up with is - poignancy. Poignance is the state of holding two contrasting feelings at once, like bittersweet. A bittersweet experience is the full acceptance of life's ups and downs. We don't get better at feeling both ends of the spectrum by trying to manage them, by withdrawing or by utilizing complicated yoga inner technology. We get better at feeling by...feeling. Feeling what life brings. So instead of rationalization, or in any way attempting to mask our sometimes painful experience of life, how about simply saying "this too." I feel bad. Yes, I do. And there is no shame in that, I am not less spiritual or valuable because I feel like crap sometimes. But I can hold it, hold the experience, and when it shifts, it shifts.

The initial motivation for belief

When we look around at Systems Of Belief, there are many. Christianity, Buddhism, Tantra Yoga, Classical Yoga, Islam. Although quite different in method, all systems of belief must share one starting point. The initial motivation for belief comes from the feeling that things are unsatisfactory as they are. Belief systems will disagree on exactly what is unsatisfactory, but it comes down to one thing in the end. We die. We die, and we don't know what happens next, if anything. This is profoundly unsettling to us. We don't want to end, so we create a belief. Hold on. What is a belief? This is one description:

Existential claim - to claim belief in the existence of an entity or phenomenon with the implied need to justify its claim to existence. It is often used when the entity is not real, or its existence is in doubt. "He believes in witches and ghosts" or "many children believe in fairies" are typical examples.

O.K. So.... we have a "belief" when we don't know for sure. None of us would say "My belief system is that I have a head". The reason that sounds so silly is that we know we have a head. We don't have to affirm a belief in it. This is important.

So, now we have a "belief" that we go to heaven, we re-incarnate, we turn into a luminous being, and so on. If we knew this, we would not have to have a "belief". Would we? So, if we believe something happens after we die, do we individually create a belief in some sort of continuation after death, or do we adopt one that already exists? Which one did you adopt?

Coming back around to my initial point in writing this, it is my assertion that belief is motivated by the ego. It is our desire to continue in some form that creates the motivation to adopt a belief system. If is sounds true to you that our adoption of belief is ego-driven, then good luck transcending the ego through spiritual practice based on belief. Uh-oh.

So, if we want our spiritual lives - strike that - if we want our lives to be based in truth, we have to start from a place of truth, and that is knowing what is and what is not. If we could, for a change, get rid of the beliefs we have about things and simply observe reality and then have a chat about it, we'd be further ahead. There may very well be re-incarnation, or heaven, or luminosity, or myriad other potentials for our energy when this form ends. But we will never discover that by adopting a belief and psychologically crossing our fingers, in the hopes that the belief we adopted is the "right" one.