Words About Words

Perhaps where there is ego there is conflict. As I write my blog, if I speak from a state of separateness – that of ego – it is bound to cause some of my readers to feel I am preaching to or at them. It may cause some of my students to grasp for something they think I have, when in fact the state of being is something that only comes as it is. It is nothing in and of itself. So speaking of conditions, or of my discoveries about practice, I am not meaning to instruct others what to do or how to be or even to value this over that.

How then to express what I am discovering without the ego that creates attachment, grasping, judgment and suffering for me or my readers? Becoming sensitive to the use of words that sound like goals or achievements might be one way. Sharing the moment, the process, without a statement of revelation or value would be another. Perhaps, after thinking through what it is for me, I can turn it around and see if I can still see it without my self in it.

How would Lao Tzu phrase it? Ego-less and time-less, place-less and mind-less? For me at times his writing is so clear, other times so obscure that I taste but cannot identify the flavors. My blog is a continuous journey into finding out who I am as a yoga practitioner, teacher and student. Using words to explain or express, to reveal or explore, is also part of my practice and teaching. With this in mind, I will try to keep the instructional tone to a limit, this is not Me telling You, yet I still use personal pronouns and live a first-person life. My explorations are, quite honestly, about me and my yoga experiences. This blog is a way of sharing this so that others might see what is going on with me, thereby dispelling any illusions about me, while being encouraging in the active seeking of a deeper practice. I am in no way holding up my experiences as a road or a destination.

This life can be an endless experience of being with no specific outcome other than this moment. Perhaps this blog will follow me in this to an eventual state of silence, where there is no ego and are no words to describe that state. Somehow, given the way my entire life has evolved with language and poetry, music and the rhythm of breath at its core, I doubt that silence of that kind is around the corner, yet if it is, so be it! Meanwhile, I will struggle with ego and explore how to integrate, illuminate and expand without being preachy.