Sattvic Awareness

I got into a fight yesterday. Not a knock-down but a verbal discord with a meat suit. Yes, not with the soul I should accept and love as all-one. 

It is said that we will keep experiencing the lesson until we learn from it. My lesson has been repeating it's self over and over for many, many years. The problem is my lesson is also what I enjoy doing. 

My lesson is in the reality that I like to teach other's. In the right scenario, I teach people yoga and guide them to a healthy mindset. People come to me, even pay me, to empower them on health and wellness. But in the wrong scenario, I want to put people "in there place" or more correctly, in my place. Where I think they should be...like I have some Jedi-mind trick to conformity. 

This need to teach people and tell them what I have figured-out is so ingrained, my whole desire in life is to accomplish something for which I earn recognition. I want to write a book, to show how well I can write. I want to create the next big wellness trend. Some days it's as small as to just be re-tweeted. Nothing I do, aside from being wife and mother, is without a prescription for grandeur. And let's face it, my home life is not without it's wishes and expectations. 

In and of itself, having goals are not a bad thing. What makes it tamasic (illness-causing) is when these goals become a reflection of who you are, that your entire definition of yourself is tied to your achievement. Or worse, you harm others in the process. I reflect on my moments both major and minor where I had the urge to "teach a lesson". Where I fed this tamasic life and I am shamed to admit it's pervasive. Even writing this blog is serving a very ingrained narcissism. 

How then do I change? Karmic law would say meditate. The answer to all questions is to meditate. With meditation, I am told you gain presence. With presence I should be able to have the consciousness to engage or disengage as appropriate. I should be able to temper my reaction to the situation at hand. It's very hard to give up the part of me that makes me feel very valued, the teachings of the ancient one's. However, teaching, and moreover; the subsequent recognition, is the fuel to my ego that can push me into a manipulative and/or aggressive bitch. 

I see myself as this roaming, omnivorous dinosaur, happily grazing over plants, not harming a soul and then a meat suit comes along and steals a succulent rose right out from my grasp. Perhaps it was an intentional steal, or perhaps, just perceived as such. But now I am hungry, a blood-thirsty gigantic lizard. And I go in for the chase, waiting for the perfect ambush. One slip and that meat suit is mine! Here's the problem, when I catch this morsel of food, I have dragged us both into a tarpit. Black and gooey, sucking both of us down into a stagnant, suffocating, slow death. 

I do not think that giving up teaching esoteric ideals is the answer. As I teach, so too I learn. Without my quest to learn Ayruvedic practices, I would have never been able to evaluate my karmic life-lesson at hand. I truely beleive in the quality of rajasic (healthful) practices, that sattvic (pure) awareness and a growing meditation practice will balance my ego while I continue to live within my meat suit.  Least we forget, the earliest of all yogic lessons: namaste - from the light within me to the light within you, I bow to the teacher in all things.