My yoga journey: The beginning

 Back in 2020, I suddenly realized that I know nothing. After a long time of searching for answers by way of research and thinking, I got exhausted and finally gave up. My ego and pride had been completely shuttered and I felt like a total loser. This was quite a big event in my life since I considered myself a person of intellectual gifts. I thought I was smart and that my intellectual sharpness would solve my problems. Well, it didn't. I had to find another way. There was so much junk in my mind that had not helped me in any valuable way, just swimming in my head, going on and on and on. In this state, I gave up. I thought it was all meaningless because the quality of my life was a mirror of what was going on in my mind. 

I came across Sadhguru's videos on youtube. They made sense to me, so I binge-watched them on a daily basis. I was so desperate to find something else that would work for me, and since I knew my way was not it, I totally fell at Sadhguru's feet. As usual, I went down that rabbit hole and researched the hell out of it. I watched and rewatched his videos, one after another. I was mesmerized because he kept on saying that "I do not know is the greatest thing." Instead of feeling shitty about the conclusion I made to myself about not knowing anything, I felt a bit better. 

When I discovered his app I was elated. I thought finally I can do the practices that he teaches and start making myself better. So I did. The first time I sat down to do  Isha Kriya, a very simple but powerful meditation offered by Sadhguru, I felt like it was way too long. There was a lot of noise in my mind. I couldn't believe it. For the first time, I was paying attention to my thoughts and all I wanted was the meditation to end. But I powered through it because I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with my thinking. I did it on a daily basis, and the more I did it, the easier it became. After a while, I started feeling different. I was happier than I had ever been. The kind of happiness I remember experiencing as a kid. I thought that was it. I finally found an answer that resided within me all along. The plan was easy. Simply practice Yoga on a daily basis.

The plan did not work out exactly as I had pictured in my head. Despite the fact that I was happier, I still had not dropped some toxic habits that were not serving me, like drinking alcohol. This is what mainly set me back. It was crystal clear to my mind that I should be meditating every day, but on the days that I drank, I was never in the mood to meditate. I felt even worse the day after drinking. Slowly over time, inconsistency kicked in, and I went from practicing daily, to every other day, to once or twice a week, to a few times a month, to once a month, to once in a blue moon. Once again, I felt lost, and my emotions were all over the place. I knew what I had to do. Simply sit, meditate and continue doing that. The quality of my experience of life would change, but I didn't feel like it. I had no energy to sit in meditation, so I made up many excuses that stopped me from doing it. The more I did not do it, the more I sat in my misery.

Looking back now, it's weird to see how I was addicted to my own misery. The same shit I recognized in my mind as junk that was not serving me was ruling me once again. I only experienced a distance from it for a few moments and with my own inconsistency, I fell back to old habits. Looks like it was harder to pick myself up after falling hard. At the beginning of 2021, I signed up for inner engineering online. Again, I thought enough is enough. I had already done enough research on this practice, and I was ready to do it even though I had to pay for it. So I did. I went through the 7 classes and even started meditating again. After completing the lessons, I got disappointed when I realized I had to pay more money for Inner engineering completion to be taught the practice. I got mad and started questioning why they would be asking for so much money to teach people well-being. With this kind of mentality, I became even more inconsistent with meditation.

Towards the end of 2021, I got into a car accident. I was driving my sister's car, going out for drinks with my friends. I remember planning for that night, we were all feeling shitty about our boring lives and wanted to meet new people and have fun. That night I got drank but I still trusted myself to drive. I got into an accident with a huge trailer, but thankfully, none of us got hurt. This was my wake-up call.  I signed up for inner engineering completion immediately after settling everything with the accident. I was very eager, but I had to wait until 2022 for the program to start. 

The program was intense. The practice itself totally altered my perception from day one of practicing. since this post is long enough as it is, I'll talk about my experience of inner engineering in the next post.