Blank Mind, Limitless Possibility

Clutter is the bane of many people's existence.  I used to think that clutter meant having a house or car or office full of physical junk that gets in the way and that avoiding physical clutter was of the utmost importance.  It is true indeed that physical clutter can be quite a detriment to healthy living.  But now, the older I get, the more I realize that the yoga teaching of clutter is much more powerful and relevant to wellbeing, as it relates clutter to the pollution of our inner world inside the body, mind, and spirit.

Yoga gurus familiar with the eightfold path of yoga specifically will point to Saucha, meaning Cleanliness or Purity as the Niyama most embodying the concept of clutter as it relates to our inner world.  Ancient yogis believed that Saucha was key to sustaining a healthy relationship with one's self.  In other words, one must constantly strive to remain "blank " to overcome the layers of thought that muck up the mind and the layers of stress that tangle the joints and muscles of the body.  As we all know, this is much easier said than done.

To explore this concept further, imagine if you will the metaphor of a car who's engine is running on spent  and dirty oil.  With spent oil, an engine eventually will no longer be able to move its parts efficiently to overcome the friction and heat of its work load.  Similarly, the mind running on old thoughts will clog the engine of our existence, radiating pollution to our nervous system.  The mind is always a prisoner of its own thoughts, and thus the thoughts themselves become the enemy, not life as we often perceive it.

Yoga, Union or Yolk, means to join together as one awareness the body, mind and spirit/soul.  In the process of exploring physical yoga postures or asanas and yoga breath or pranayama, we attempt to unravel the thoughts and empty ourselves of the inner clutter that life has mercilessly given to us.  At the beginning of many of my yoga classes I will often tell students to take an inventory of their emotional, physical and mental backpacks to make them realize what it is it exactly that they are carrying around with them.  And why it is they are carrying around those specific burdens?  The what and why are often surprising, even to myself, no matter how many times I repeat the process of emptying or purifying the mind.  Too often there is no good reason for the backpack to be maintained full and the burden of a full backpack weighs us down and eventually creates real damage mentally, physically and spiritually.

So henceforth, don't be discouraged.  If you too are like me and your job of human survival requires some degree of intellectual thought, just know that thoughts have a place of usefulness.  But they don't need to be turned "on" all of the time.  Consider finding some real ways like yoga or other forms of mindfulness meditation that will allow you to turn down the dial on your thoughts and stress level.  For, as Ekhart Tolle directs us to ask, "if I am not my thoughts, who then am I?".  I think you will find the answer to be Limitless.