Welcome to our practice of santosha,
The deep inner experience of contentment.
As we are exploring the niyamas,
Yoga's guidance of our internal patterns that help us to strengthen our relationship within ourself,
To find this inner experience of support,
We come to our practice with this understanding that we have an inner experience of contentment that is completely independent from the external experiences of our life.
We have this experience of inner contentment that is stable and steady,
That we can always work our way down and connect to.
We find that the process of sautya,
Of cleansing,
And finding an experience of clarity can help to create some open space within.
We use that to clear a bit of the clutter out of the mind,
Some of the distractions,
And sometimes that can be as simple as watching a few rounds of breath,
Maybe breathing slowly in through the nose and letting that go out through the mouth to release whatever it is that you can let go of.
That cleansing process makes it a bit easier for us to peer down and see some of the deeper internal support systems that we have.
One of the interesting things about our relationship to contentment is that we go through a lot of training in our life that tells us to look for contentment externally,
To work,
To make all the things in your life line up just so,
And then you'll finally be able to feel contentment.
But santosha shows us that our search for an external experience of contentment is always temporary,
It's always shifting and changing,
The target always seems to be moving away from us,
Just slightly out of our grasp.
We find ourselves stuck in this cycle of thinking,
I will be happy when,
I will be happy when,
Until we find santosha and it reminds us that contentment can be a stable inner experience.
The way that we get there is through softness and through settling.
We work our way into our physical body,
Letting yourself arrive right here in this moment.
Right now we notice the support of our energy and our breath.
The breath is that constant source of cleansing,
Bringing fresh energy in,
Letting go of whatever we need to release.
Helping us feel that connection to clarity.
And that can start to create an effect in the mind,
Maybe the thought process becomes even just a little bit softer,
Maybe just a little bit slower.
And as we connect to that experience of softening and slowing,
It's like you're settling down deeper and deeper within yourself,
Like you're sinking below that level of the thinking mind,
And below the level of our emotions that can fluctuate this way and that way.
Gently and softly letting yourself float down,
And find this space of calm and stillness.
We can think of this as the eye of the storm.
There can be quite a bit of activity going on around us and sometimes within us.
Sometimes within us,
We have that ability to work down to our calm,
Still center.
We come to rest in the place of connecting to Santosha,
Connecting to inner contentment,
As a feeling of this soft glow from that deeper layer of bliss,
The Anandamaya Kosha.
There's this soft glow that radiates out from the bliss layer,
And that is the constant inner experience of contentment.
Recognizing that inner experience of contentment as being stable and ever-present,
It is always there within us.
Sometimes we might lose sight of it.
Sometimes we might feel disconnected from it,
But we can rest in this deep knowing that it is always there.
And when we need that support,
We can work through our practice.
We can work through these steps of settling and sinking down to that deep,
Still center,
And resting here in that warm glow of inner contentment.
Resting here for a moment,
Soaking that in with every breath,
Rooting yourself down into it as you exhale.
Feeling connected to an inner experience of support and confidence that comes from knowing that this space of inner contentment is always there,
Always with you,
And it is unchanging.
We can go through external challenges,
We can find ourselves experiencing hardship,
And this inner experience of contentment is still here,
Still with us.
Taking that feeling of connection,
Of support with you as you expand your awareness back out to the whole experience of being you.
And perhaps as we connect to the experience of Sautcha,
Of purity,
That experience of being completely and holistically me,
Being my authentic self,
That includes that inner point of contentment.
That inner point of contentment.
Thank you for joining me in this exploration,
This connection to Sautcha on an inner level to support our relationship with self.
I hope to see you in the next one.
