Kleshas: Asmita: I Am-ness

The kleshas are like roadblocks on our life journey that obstruct us from the wide open expanse of an infinite road trip. Avidya is the first of the kleshas that emanates as our spiritual identity crisis. Avidya is not knowing or not believing that we are everlasting spirit incarnated into physical bodies. Avidya is believing the clouds are the sky. One of those particular clouds is called asmita, often defined as ego-ism.

Your ego is your sense of I am-ness. When we don’t know who we are it becomes commonplace for us to believe we are everything we are not. So while it is necessary for me to survive, I need to care for myself and my vehicle (my body), it is quite uneccessary for me to ride the roller coaster of good enough or not good enough, based on society’s made up hierarchy of value. How often is the first question we ask or are asked, upon meeting a human, what do you do? Then we either value or devalue ourselves or another depending upon that answer. Asmita is believing that I am more valuable because I am designing houses and less valuable because I clean houses or I am more valuable because I am a mother and less valuable because I am an aunt, or more valuable because I am driving a Mercedes and less valuable because I am driving a second hand bicycle.

The roles we play do matter, the positions we take, make a difference, the possessions we acquire, add comfort and fun, and yet they do not account for who I am. For, I am. With or without the job or the relationship or the bank account. I am and always will be a ray of the same sun that you are a ray of and it is impossible for one ray to be more a part of the sun than another. We do however, have a choice in the way in which we shine. When I remove all of the comparisons and hierarchies and patriarchies and I remove all of the ism’s and poisons and shouldm’s, my radiance is palpable, the veil lifts and I can see me as you and you as me, and the divine dispels all notion of me, my, and mine, which makes space for us, ours, and source.

Dearest Reader,

Thank you. The time and attention spent contemplating yoga philosophy is a gift to you, to me, and to all of humanity. This life experience is one wild ride and it is my sincere intention to ride the ups and the downs, the twists and the turns with as much excitement, joy, trust, and courage as possible. Yoga helps me remember this intention and it gifts me the tools I need when the lows feel permanent.

All my love,

Andrea Dawn