Sutra 1.30: Obstacle #8: Non-achievement

Yoga Sutra 1.30 presents us with nine different obstacles of the mind on our journey towards samadhi. These obstacles are disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, fatigue, sensory attachment, wrong perspective, non-achievement, and non-steadiness.

The obstacle is non-achievement, so the question is, what is it that I meant to achieve that I am not? This requires us to define what it means to achieve. I could acquire all kinds of “achievements” based off of what society has told me Im meant to achieve wether that be collecting zero’s in an account or letters behind my name or degrees plaquered on the wall or square footage of a house and so on for eternity and you can totally do all that, proudly, and it will still not solve the type of achievement we are actually meant for, which is that of the spiritual kind. The achievement we are speaking of is how connected we are to our spirit in this current reality, the achievement of your spiritual reality or spirituality.

When we busy ourselves with achieving trophies for somebody else’s trophy case, we have put the cart before the horse. We simply have no time to look within ourselves and our ways of being, and essentially refuse the right to achieve our spirit. If you are human, than chances are, you are the boss at buying into your own bullshit. Let’s ditch the phrase you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, because I do it every.single.day. I consistently bullshit myself to believe that the way that I feel is dependent upon other peoples approval of me, and place my happiness in the hands of other bullshitters, then, wonder why I feel alone and let down and disappointed in humanity. When truthfully, I am disappointed in myself, let down by my own dependency, and I am never ever alone, but simply ignoring and shutting out the spirit that is always here for me, waiting ever so patiently for me to achieve her. In that achieving, I believe it will be more like, a receiving, of what is my birth-right, but sadly, we’ve got it all -wrong- and have set out to achieve achievements that are more about being loved by others than being loved by our own damn selves.

That’s my present moment non-achievement obstacle. What’s yours? This practice continuously, without fail, asks us to stop looking outside of ourselves and start looking inside of ourselves. This practice demands that we tell the truth to ourselves if we ever dare emerge out of the part of our egos that finds it hilarious to keep us on the hamster wheel of feeling worthless. The real achievement resides in resigning from the rat race, redefining what you are meant to achieve, and re-routing yourself accordingly.

Thank you so much dear reader,

As always, I feel blessed to connect and have the opportunity to share my understandings of yoga with you. I encourage you to take this moment right now, to stop, close your eyes, breathe, and be with yourself having no agenda other than to observe with curiosity.

All my love,

Andrea Dawn