Snailing Burden
Snails have the unlikeliest burden of carrying their homes wherever they go. Imagine walking around the world with the weight of your house on your back - the beautiful shell where you can repose in, whenever you are feeling tired of engaging with the world.
We, humans, do something similar. I was bowled over when I first discovered it inside myself.
For the longest time, with my 5'10" height, I've had an undulating history of unconscious slouching behaviour. When I walk, my upper shoulders unconsciously sag as if they were carrying something.
Many moons ago, my wife observed that ever since I quit my job and ventured into the free agent world, my slouching behaviour had reduced drastically
Here is what I find most fascinating: No matter what you do, your body keeps the score.
Our body and its sinews are in a continuous dialogue with our life circumstances. In one way, the study of yoga reminds us of this: Can we keep this conversation alive every waking moment?
The fundamental cosmology of Sankhya starts with this axiom. Observation is done by the Purusa but through the mind.
Patanjali Yoga Sutras talks of five typologies of misperception with clinical accuracy
Avidya (Misapprehension)
Asmita (Self-construct)
Raga (Pleasure seeking)
Dvesha (Avoiding pain)
Abhinivesha (Deep insecurity)
The fundamental hypothesis of Yoga is thus: Seeing the world as is to work within oneself to observe these distortions inside oneself. Each of these distortions work at different levels.
Abhinivesha manifests in the deha (body).
Raga and Dvesha manifests in the manas (perception)and indriya (actions)
Asmita manifests in the ahamkara (I am..I am not)
The extent to which we work with these distortions reveal to us our nature of reality. Have you felt snailing burdens in your life?
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In my course, "Discovering You and Brand Called You", I've attempted to distil the essential frameworks I've learned in my study of Patanjali Yoga Sutras in the design of the course.
The course explores three questions.
1) Who Am I?
2) Where Am I?
3) In doing what I am doing, what am I really doing?
Much like a tuning fork, when I ask these questions at the right frequency inside my human system, I am amazed by what happens.
I've benefited immensely from these reflections and I've attempted to distill these in the most accessible form I could. Although the course focuses squarely on how we create self-narratives that help us make sense of our career graphs, the process of how humans create self-narratives is applicable everywhere.
You can register for the course here:
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