Kleshas: Intro to Avidya: The VEIL

Our next several week study will be on the Kleshas. The Kleshas are often defined as our afflictions or the reasons as to why we suffer. These Kleshas are like avenues to guide us into making insights into our own hurts and where we might be hiding them and how they are manifesting as re-occuring suffering with simply a different story line.

Avidya is spiritual ignorance or the not knowing that you are of spirit. This not knowing is what causes suffering. So why then do I suffer? Here I am saying, “I know that I am a ray of the sun, I know that I am creation itself,” yet I can re-assure you, I suffer. The simple fact is, that while I may intellectually understand that I am not separate from source…….. my thoughts, my mind, and my body are not embodying this truth. My thoughts are creating feelings, my feelings creating thoughts, back and forth like a game of catch and my identity is the ball. The crowds, the jeers, the cheers, wether I hit a home run, strike out, or bunt, are all factors on wether I deem myself an MVP or not. Vidya is embodying inherent value. Add that once small a to the beginning of the word (avidya), and it literally covers up the entire truth.

Avidya is the illusory veil draped over most of humanity. When we can trust innately that we are valuable, we can experience being that way. We can ride the waves of tragedy that are guaranteed to accompany this human experience without fear of failure, in fact, when we know who we really are, we gain the freedom to fall. We will face dark, dis-ease, and death and when we do, we have the power to remember is not permanent. It’s all moving, it’s all changing, it’s all passing, all of time. It’s when we grip onto the change, when we grasp upon our yesterdays and claw upon our tomorrows that we endure more suffering than necessary.

Disclaimer: You have to feel it all, the entire gamet of feelings that accompanies the dreams, the dull, and the deaths. We must feel deeply and thoroughly because it is the passage way, through, it’s the most direct route to the divine.

Let us start by observing the way in which Avidya appears. It can appear as believing that which is impermanent to be permanent, that which is impure to be pure, that which brings misery brings happiness, and believing the not self is the self. That’s a whole lot to swallow so we will start by contemplating Avidya as the veil covering up clarity and connection to Spirit.

Sometimes seeing the veil can feel dark, feel that, then decide to play the game of seeing Spirit in as many peoples, places and things that you possibly can in one day and make it a habit of recalling them in your evening. Today I saw spirit in the sunlight, a butterfly, in crabs and the wave of motion they created when I moved towards them, the feeling of the mud and sand squishing in my toes, looking through binoculars at the ocean, the air on my skin when fluttering my fingers out the truck window, and so I could go on and on. The practice of seeing God in everything, is everything. Oh well lookey there, I see Spirit in you. Can you see her in me too?

Muchas Gracias Dearest Reader,

The journey into the dark is the same one that takes you into the light. Today we can remember. We can remember that we are the seed of God and it is up to us to water ourselves, to untangle ourselves from poisonous vines, to reach for the light, and to rest in the dark because we know the light remains on the other side.

Always a blessing, honor and privilege,

Andrea Dawn