The world has undoubtedly embraced yoga. Just about any practice that involves breathing and stretching is badged as yoga, which is a double-edged sword. It is great because millions of people around the world have discovered some of the undisputed benefits of this ancient Indian practice. Along with the practice of yoga has come a further discovery of yogic philosophy and meditation and the question, if yoga means ‘union’, what is unifying with what? What is not so great is that yoga has also become somewhat simplified, misrepresented, colonised, commercialised and even corrupted. Yoga culture embraces the full philosophical, lifestyle and physical activity dimensions of yoga as a process, rather than as a practice.
Being married to a yogic master is rewarding, exciting, challenging and never dull. My husband Sai Saileshwara absolutely does not fit the stereotype of what a yogic master would be like. For starters, he has never performed a single yoga asana in his life (there goes your first stereotype!). He advocates yoga asana, one of the eight limbs of yoga, but he is not too concerned if you practice your stretches, postures or exercises. He is much more concerned that you practice yama, niyama, pratyahara and meditation.
Why I say that yoga is a process, not a practice, is because spiritual unification is a process. There are so many practices that support this process, with meditation being the key. In astanga yoga, the first ‘limb’ is called yama, which is much like a code of conduct that encourages abstinence of harmful conduct, with non-violence the first and most foundational. There are 5 key yamas that produce tremendous positivity when adopted as a lifestyle. The niyama limb is the practice of positive, life-affirming qualities like cleanliness, contentment, self-discipline. These behavioural and lifestyle practices promote self-awareness, self-healing, positivity and individual and social wellbeing. Pratyahara is a pivotal practice that is the basis of meditation. It will be difficult to extract your mind from external stimuli if you do not practice pratyahara, which increases our awareness of how sense-driven we normally are. Much of what passes as meditation these days is just basic concentration – exercises to fix the mind on an object, sound or idea. I’ll discuss more about these limbs of astanga yoga in future blogs.
Back to our story…we have been married for 21 years and during this time I have watched Sai Saileshwara attain a type of self-mastery that few others have achieved. I have observed what yoga is –the awakening process where the body and mind are transcended to reach the treasures of the soul. This is one of the main reasons I wrote Saileshwara’s story. I sit in a privileged position as an educated, bicultural woman who had a Western upbringing from Dutch and Indian parents. I have researched and read about the experiences I have observed. Saileshwara rarely explains what is going on. Saileshwara was not so fortunate to have been educated as I was, yet he is far more accomplished than I am. He has touched his own source. He has completed the proverbial inner journey. He communes with nature, with forces I cannot see, he is not bound by time the way I am, he works with energy, not bodies and minds. He is a devoted yogi.
My greatest wish for my forthcoming book is that I do justice to the deep and complex topic of self – realisation – the highest intention in life. It is profoundly challenging to describe and use words for experiences and states of consciousness that are beyond words. These are rooted deeply in silence and are beyond form and thought. I hope that my descriptions of life-changing events and experiences will provide a window and a little taste of this complex topic. I truly hope that the hidden treasures that lie within us all will be stirred when my readers pick up the book.
The ultimate hidden treasure is self-knowledge – knowledge of the soul. Most of us do not know how our body works, less so of our mind and even less our life-force. Luckily, we can consult a doctor when we are unwell, but more people are discovering that seeking help from psychologists and psychiatrists doesn’t seem to answer our struggles with a mind that chatters uncontrollably, sometimes destructively. Or it does not provide us with answers to crippling anxiety, sleep disorders, debilitating depression and the absence of contentment and inner peace. Understanding your-self, that is, your inner witness, consciousness, awareness, soul – whatever word you use to describe you – is the greatest liberating treasure of all. Most of us identify as our body or our mind but as these are both experienced – who is the experiencer?
When I first met Saileshwara I was 20 years old and full of negativity and really saw nothing positive in myself. It seems to be part of our conditioning to want love and goodness while at the same time believing we are not worthy of it and that it will never happen for us. I was very much in this state.
I met Saileshwara and he loved me. He saw the real me. The Self inside and he loved me. Unlike anyone I had met he spoke about me with such positivity and potential without any uncertainty in His voice. Through a very loving and patient journey he helped to turn so much of that around. Not just by loving, but by the knowledge he shares. The process of getting from negative to positive, from weak and fearful to self-love and confidence. The support and the teachings are as important as our use of them. For true self love and transformation comes from self-effort.
When you experience self-love for the first time and love the way you do for others, it is something that can’t be described. Self-discovery, self-improvement, self-enquiry by whichever way you describe can appear confusing, uncomfortable even scary but the truth is, it’s all those and more if you don’t do it.
Everything about my life has changed when I found someone who helped me to help myself. This is Sai Saileshwara. The steps to take, how to take them and there when you are ready for the next one. And life changes so much. How you approach life changes so much. It’s so worthwhile.
– Abbie
