Axis Yoga Teacher Training students complete a personal experiment as part of the culmination of course study. This student started the experiment with a practical application of lessons learned during the program. But it was a bigger lesson in awareness and its effect on life that the experiment ended up teaching.

Then, I got sick.  Not hospital sick, just a head cold.  But, by my reaction to it, you wouldn’t have

known it was just a head cold.  My lack of presence during that week of illness was astounding.  I flowed

through my days completely unaware of my actions at any given moment.  I did not even experience the

weird duality I sometimes do when life’s challenges prove difficult to handle.  In my dual state, I am, at

least, aware that I am a wreck.  I watch myself, shaking my head and laughing at how serious and

attached I am to making others happy and ensuring that the things I “should do” as a responsible adult

get done.  It’s as if a part of me is separate from the insanity.  At these moments, I get the tiniest of

insights into one of Hafiz’s quotes.  “God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny

boat.  We keep bumping into each other and laughing.”  Part of me is muddling through and the

separate part of me finds that fact absolutely hysterical while asking “Why muddle when you can skip?”

I’m still figuring out how to answer that question (which, I might add, my separate self finds even

funnier).

There was no watching myself during that particular week of illness; I look back now on that

week as if it were a dream.  I slept my way through it as I slept my way through all of my younger life.

Sadhana during that week was no more than a twinkle in my mind; something else that I should do and

wasn’t doing.  Even the daily sadhana that I do at work was put aside.

My first realization is that Sadhana must be practiced regularly.  Without the practice, it is

simply a lovely theory.  If all I do is sit in a room and read and discuss what I can be and how I can grow, I

will never move from my current state.  I actually have to DO something if I want to change.

My next realization is that without presence, I sleep through life and the waves made by my

unaware actions carry me along.  Being present allows me to actively choose what to do or not do.

When I am conscious, I select, for each moment, what actions I take.  I get to be aware of and

understand some of the possible consequence of these actions.

Without that consciousness, I’m not even aware that there is a choice to be made, let alone

understand the consequences of my actions; I simply react to life.  The alarm goes off, so I get out of

bed.  I have worked at this particular job for four years, so I go to work.   I have bills to pay, so I do what I

have to do to earn a living.  The cats are hungry, so I feed them.  The laundry is dirty, so I wash it.  The

interesting thing is that, when I’m present, the cats are still hungry and I still feed them, but I chose to

feed them and I choose when to feed them.  I’m not simply rambling down the hall, with them wrapping

themselves around my legs, to get the food to them as quickly as possible, so that the yowls for food

stop.  The point is that the choice exists.

My biggest realization is how easy it is to slip away from awareness.  I don’t mean to suggest

that I’m conscious all of the time.  I spend most of my time in a semi?stupor state and only have brief

moments of clarity; and I’m not entirely sure that those moments are truly conscious . . . I mean, really .

. . how many levels of awareness are there?

Okay, that’s not actually my biggest realization in this experiment.  My biggest realization is that

I’m okay with not being aware all of the time.  I know that I can lessen the time spent in that semi?

stupor state by sadhana; and I know that I can decide to experience the journey, be it difficult or easy.  I

know that the separate part of me that finds all of this hilarious helps me through those difficult times as

if I am pulling me forward, asking myself the entire time “do you get it yet?”  I’m still answering myself

“Nope, not yet.”  Still, I choose to practice.  I choose to work toward experiencing every moment at

whatever level of consciousness I am in that moment.  I am experiencing the journey.

My Yoga Training started out with an intent, to figure out what makes me happy, my passion and my purpose.  I was looking for something but I didn’t know what.  I started taking yoga classes in my pursuit of health and fitness but instead I found something more, something deeper.  This is my journey, my journey that took me to all those things and much more.  During my pursuit of this happiness I ended up in yoga teacher training.  And as it turns out I wasn’t looking for what made “me” happy and what fulfills “me”.  What I was looking for were answers.  I was looking for answers to the big questions of life, who am I and what am I doing here?  What is my purpose?  After taking this new path to learn something new about life and myself I have found that what I was looking for didn’t have anything to do with “me” it had to do with what we were meant to do here.  While we are here on this planet, this life of flesh, what is it that we were meant to do?  The answer I came up with is to learn and grow, to expand our/my mind to the place it needs to be to live in peace and to connect with something bigger.  The reason that I tell you this story is to let you know what brought me to the place of my personal experiment.  My personal experiment as it turns out is very personal but doesn’t really have anything to do with me.  Instead has to do with serving others, serving others for the greater good of creating a better life for someone or other people by using the life and the experiences I have been through.  That’s what this training has done for me.  It has expanded my mind and gotten me in touch with something much greater than just my own wants and needs.