Obsessions - Addictions - Habits - Comfort Zones

Change of perspective

What does yoga have to do with obsession, let alone addictions or habits or comfort zones? Let’s have a look at the definitions of each of these words.
1. Obsession is when an idea or thought continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind.
2. Addiction is when a person is enthusiastically devoted to or dependend on a particular thing or activity.
3. Habit is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.
4. Comfort zone is a situation where a person feels safe or at ease; it is also a settled method of working that requires little effort and yields only barely acceptable results.

If we look at the true sense of Yoga as being the science of life, of finding out who we are and a path of discovering the essence of life, then we have to start with looking at ourselves: at our personality and at freeing ourselves from patterns and false identifications. Yoga derived from the Sanskrit word “Yuj”, meaning “to join”, “to unite”; thus the aim of yoga is Self-realization, to overcome all kinds of sufferings leading to the state of liberation (Moksha) or freeedom (Kaivalya). The path to “freedom” is a path of letting go of restrictions, dogma, clearly defined world views as much as a letting go of restricted views of self and others, prejudices that lead to separation instead of unity. We can go that path through meditation - in a way of non-judgemental reflection where we go from the head to the heart and reflect from the heart rather than the mind.

And how can we do this? Here is a practice you can do best in the morning or in the evening - if you are not too tired.
Sit down somewhere undisturbed with the phone and any other electronic devices turned off and then connect with your natural breath. Start to listen to the subtle sound of your breath and your heartbeat. Move your awareness to the space of the heart, the center of the chest and just start to relax into that space. Feel yourself softening and thus trusting into this space. Allow anything that wants to come up to show itself and meet it with a kind inner smile of acknowledgment. Become aware of patterns, your social roles, psychological identities. After some time maybe some of the existential questions may come up: “Who or what am I really? What is most real and true? What do I most care about and most value?”There might be no answers coming up, but the more you stay in the space of the heart you let this space grow. The more often you allow yourself to be in that inner space the more likely it is that you will feel increasingly grateful for no reason. Obsessions, habits, addictions and clinging to a comfort zone just “fall off” as you are in the experience of being in your center that is the center of all. There is no division, but only the experience of unity.
If they don’t “fall off”, just observe and ask yourself the questions “who or what am I really? What do I most care about and what do I most value?” - But while you ask yourself these questions stay in the heart; don’t move to the mind and find an answer there.

I call these practises “inner pilgrimages”. Since the “Covid-19 epedemie” we have to make the shift from going on an “outer pilgrimage” to an “inner pilgrimage”. The goal is the same - to connect with the essence within and to connect with the world we usually perceive as “outside of us”. The inner pilgrimage takes us on a path of reflection of self and from there to unity as much as an outer pilgrimige does, such as the famous Camino de Santiago. We just have to do the first step and keep on “walking”. As long as we move on on the path we experience the meaning of Aishani: we live powerfully from our center and live complete.

“It is only through openness that you can go far in spiritual life” (Sw. Niranjan)