Say ‘Yes!’ to Reality

Ordinarily, I’d blog about what I care most about, such as my new book being available for preorder or my newest yogic experiment of unconditionally accepting reality, moment after moment, but I won’t get into all of that today, because that’s not the focus of this post. The focus of this post is that there’s sex, porn, and naked yogis in the title.

The focus is not my new experiment, which I call “Say ‘Yes!’ to Reality,” which goes like this: Every time I find myself rejecting or fleeing the present, I repeat to myself, “Say ‘Yes!’ to Reality!”

For example, maybe I’m mad, and I’m feeling uncomfortable that I’m feeling mad, so I’m straining to smile and turn the anger into daisies. When I actually notice that I’m doing this, I simply say ‘Yes!’ to reality: I notice both that I’m mad and that I’m straining to change the anger. Both are reality.

It’s not that I give myself over to the anger or that I encourage myself to repress it. I simply notice all that I am doing. And I’ve found that when I do this, my straining and even my anger dissolve. My muscles melt, my heart softens, and I am filled me with energy. It’s quite a high.

In other words, I’ve found that vitality does not come from a certain set of experiences, but from simply acknowledging the truth of whatever is real right now.

This works because when I am straining to deny my experience, I am misidentifying with the experience. I believe that I am the experience. But when I acknowledge that I am straining, then I identify, instead, with my deeper self that can see what I am doing. In that way, I achieve the very aim of yoga. It’s pretty cool.

So normally, at about this point in the post, I’d invite you to do the same. I might even offer basic instructions, such as:

1. After you read these two steps, close your eyes and notice how you feel. Notice something that you are trying to change. Maybe your low back is tight, and you’re wishing it felt more relaxed. Maybe you feel great and don’t want to lose the high. Maybe you’re angry and feel like yelling.

2. All of these feelings are fine. Just notice that you are feeling them. Notice whatever you are doing or feeling, and that you are doing or feeling it. If you are straining to not feel depressed, simply notice what you are doing. Say, “Yes!” to reality, both to the depression and to your efforts to change it. Just notice and allow all parts of your experience for now.

How do you feel? It’s awesome right?

Vitality rests not in the experience you think you need to have, but in the truth of your actual experience.

But I won’t get into all of that as I usually would in a blog post—because that’s not the focus of this post. This post is really about the fact that there is sex and porn and naked yogis in the title. Which is really just shocking and controversial and, frankly, well, quite compelling.

Brian Leaf is the author of Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi, coming to bookstores in September, 2012. You can follow his adventures and misadventures on facebook.

 

 

 

 

~

Editor Tanya L. Markul

Like Elephant Yoga on Facebook.