I always thought a “spiritual warrior” was like an evangelical Christian – someone who goes around trying to convert people. I was surprised to read that it was a person who spent time daily with their own soul. I think I might qualify.
Today in yoga, my teacher, (the one I love), was again encouraging us to look into our own eyes in the mirror. She said go to “a place where you’ve never been before”. She has said that before, but until today, I didn’t know what it meant to go to “that place”. I was in standing bow pose and determined to stay in it for the full 60 seconds. My strategy I have devised lately to do this was to “look into my own two eyes in the mirror”, focus, concentrate deeply, get into the pose and hang right there, not pushing any further, staying still, with the tiger determination not to let anything – even the teacher’s dialogue – cause me to fall out of the pose. Today I receded so far into the pose, foot visible in the mirror up behind my head, and sunk into my own eyes with everyone in the room totally blocked out. Then the teacher called my name and said, “That’s it, Linda! Go for it! Body down! Body down!” – I promptly fell out of the pose. She said when she called my name, I immediately realized I was in “a place I’d never gone before” and got scared and fell out of the pose. She said too many of us get comfortable in going only so far in the poses and hang out there until it’s over. It’s fear that keeps us from pushing into that unknown territory. I feel like I ventured into that territory today by staring further into my own eyes and seeing beyond, into my deeper self. I don’t know how else to describe this experience.
Then, when we were laying in savasana, she said many of us can’t look into our own eyes in the mirror, because some of us have things within ourselves we cannot face or are not ready to deal with. I never have trouble looking into my own eyes in the mirror. Its been said the eyes are a window to the soul, but I always thought of that in terms of looking into other people’s eyes, not my own. After all, did we ever think we could possibly “see” our own soul? Today I saw beyond where I usually see, as my body pushed into a place it had never gone before. I do think it was my first venture into my own soul.
And so, as another day goes by, I may be a candidate for “spiritual warriorship”, and I have written.
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