How To Cultivate More Awareness
Video Transcript: How To Cultivate More Awareness
We need to start cultivating a practice of learning to see what it’s in front of us.
We have a problem seeing what it’s in front of us.
One of the greatest gifts that yoga offers, in so many of the practices, is teaching us to see what’s truly in front of us.
This practice comes up a lot very specifically in practices of Trataka.
To gaze at an object.
The object can be a candle, or a statue.
You can even practice Trataka on your lover, which is very powerful and creates great energy.
Trataka is very useful for removing the veil you have placed between you and the outside world.
One the greatest prayers in the Vedic world is “oh lord, lead me from the unreal to the real”
There are so many layers to this teaching and this practice, but one of the greatest offerings that I believe this teaching gives us is to learn to see what is really in the world we are living in.
Practice this in your world.
In your every day life you do not need to light a candle every morning (although if you did that would be a good start.) However, for example, when you get on the elevator, don’t turn around and face the elevator doors; instead look at people.
When you are walking along the street, take in what’s around you. Really absorb it and LOOK AT IT… Without judgment.
Turn off the judgment meter in your brain, since it’s likely to be continuously going on. (I call that “the committee”)
But really just look around you and see it for what it is, taking in colors and sounds and when you find yourself getting distracted and absorbed in the committee, come back to taking in what is around you, and experience life in a new way.
When you hear somebody tell you “no”, take it in just as it is.
Or when you hear somebody saying “yes”, take it in.
Without judging, them or without trying to change them.
Or without going into your mind and thinking that “maybe they meant something else”.
Just observe it, and move on.
Learn more about Yogi Aaron’s journey in his recently published autobiography!
