In the last two blogs I've written, I have been discussing …

In the last two blogs I've written, I have been discussing Sat-Chit-Ananda, an ancient yogic compound that describes the experience of yoga. Each of the three Sanskrit words, sat, chit, and ananda, all speak of different aspects of the one, unitive experience called yoga. It's almost like a description of the Holy Trinity, which connotes the three various qualities and aspects of the one God. The same is true of Sat-Chit-Ananda. While each word is a world unto itself, the experience of yoga occurs when all three of these worlds take form at the very same moment.
Non-Doing
In this blog, I intend to write about the Sanskrit root, sat. Sat is really the part of the compound of Sat-Chit-Ananda that has less doing or action than chit. Chit is the active part that we play with our minds. It's how we direct it. And, specifically, we direct the mind on 'what is,' as opposed to the way we think it is; the way it might be; or the way think it ought to be. Chit is a direct form of seeing without interpretation. Sat, on the other hand is not active. It's just who we are, essentially, when we’re not trying.
It is an interesting word because it can mean two different things when we translate it from Sanskrit to English. On one end of the spectrum, it can be used to describe something that is either true, right, and/or good. On the other end of the spectrum, it can mean being, existing, or abiding in. So we have these two very different usages of the word, and yet when we join both together, we have something along the lines of "true being" or "abiding in the truth." So the term, sat, is pointing to a sort of presence or quality of being that is right good, and true.
Authentic Self
So when we put it together sat is really who we are at the very core of ourselves, namely the authentic self. Given the intensity of change and the fast-paced times we're in, it isn't always easy to connect to or even know who we truly are. We're so hyper-stimulated that to look for and discover what this is seems only for the elite, for those few monks and yogis who live in monasteries and caves somewhere in the Himalayas. The problem is that if we don’t start to look to see who we authentically are, we run the risk of flitting about life, never feeling truly anchored to a sense of the sacredness of who we truly are.
Initiation
So where do we start? How do we uncover our authentic selves? In yoga we start from where we are. It doesn’t matter whether we’re coming from a bright place or a dark one. I personally started practicing Ashtanga from a place of tragedy. My journey began more than 20 years ago when my brother committed suicide. Why is suffering such a powerful initiator? Because the experience of suffering wakes us up to our vulnerability. It’s often from this place that we go looking for answers. Some of us, like my wife, was initiated into her journey into Ashtanga Yoga in order to “ get a six-pack abs.” It doesn’t matter where we start. The journey toward the heart of who we are on the level of being, our authentic self, starts where we start.
Asmita
We all start the journey with an identity that you and I call, “me.” Patanjali’s Sutras call an excessive sense of me, asmita. Asmita is often translated as “ego” but is, in fact, more like that part of us that overly identifies with our opinions, our beliefs, our moods, and, in general, the way we think things are. When we’re locked in our fixed ideas, we may feel superficially safe, but if given even half-a-scare, a loss, or physical pain, we immediately come face-to-face with our fragility, our aloneness in the world, and sometimes, even, the meaninglessness of life. And it’s worse when what we thought we knew or understood is, all of a sudden, pulled away from us.
When I lost my brother, everything I thought I knew about life, got mangled. In one moment, nothing made sense anymore. I’m not just speaking about the horrible grief of losing a brother, which is heartbreaking in and of itself. I’m also noting the sense of having the rug pulled out from the identity of who I thought I was. My asmita wasn’t able to cope with the stark reality that my brother could end his life so tragically.
When the asmita is particularly strong in us, we feel a sense of separateness from our world. We feel a sort of disconnect. That can show up as malaise, frustration, low-grade anxiety, bouts of rage, and the sense that something just doesn’t feel right. We often regard these feelings, as “bad news,” but, in yoga, we regard them as, in fact, “good news.” The reason why is that if we apply consciousness or chit to them for any sustained amount of time, we begin to develop deeper insight into who we are.
If we do not face what’s right in front of us, these feelings can give us the sense that the world has no luster. This is what in Hindu philosophy is called maya, the illusion of our separateness. But illusion and insight are two sides of the same coin. Through the application of chit, the veil of illusio…