Southern Region of The British Wheel of Yoga | yoga classes, training and events in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire

A Spiritual Message

Past experiences

Past experiences colour our view of the world and other people. Our past experiences and especially our reactions to them have made us what we are, or what we think we are, most of the time.

Of course you and I know that we are pure Spirit, but this lower self who we live with is in the habit of making judgements based on these past experiences, which have created tendencies (samskaras) which have been accumulated over many lives.

Knowing this, for we will all hopefully come to this conclusion sooner or later, we can watch carefully how we react, for the old reactions easily cause us pain be it physical or mental as well as distance us from those we love and respect.

This watching, you could say detaching from the situation, gives us time to evaluate and react in a way that is helpful to everyone. It is necessary for us to develop and lengthen those times of watching, for it is in those times, when the higher Self the Spirit can influence all we do and say and become.

We become more and more influenced by our Spiritual nature so that what we consider to be our self, our lower self, is relieved of all its selfish tendencies, its burden, its conditioning, its ability to only see things in relation to 'I', 'me' and 'mine'. We begin to see the foibles of the mind; we need to be in control of the mind, which is fed by the senses, rather than the mind and the senses being in control of us.

When our Spiritual essence is directing our lives we can see the greater picture. We can see that in hurting others not only do we hurt ourselves but we show lack of respect for the great Divine, the great Divine being the essence of all that is.

Swami Satchidananda Ma