A YOGI CHA BLOG

You are the sum of all your past experiences

Like a double exposed photo, each experience is juxtaposed on our perception of the world.

In yoga we speak of samsakaras and the impressions that navigates our actions in the present. There is a process of freeing ourselves from those impression as a way to see reality with clarity and maturity.

But like freeing ourselves from the attachment to our desires, it is important to be aware of what you are doing, what the intention is behind your actions. The trick is not to stay away from desire, you will always desire. And the idea is not to cut yourself off from your past impressions, just blindly keep telling yourself that the past is behind you. Instead indulge in them. Love like there is no tomorrow, desire in each cell of your body and allow yourself to dissolve in the now for a strong sensation of the past. Because none of it is real. Because it will all go away. Because it is but a play that we are enjoying while we are here.

The way I see it, when you can see it for what it is, there’s an advantage in recalling those traces from the past. It’s traveling in a way that can only be possible within your own consciousness.

Life isn’t chronological someone said.

In my world, I can be whoever and wherever I want. I can go back to that day, that perfect moment and feel the exact emotion again. Because I have already felt it.

I feel it so intensely, the February Monday morning, walking barefoot in the sand with the ice cold Atlantic Ocean, tickling my toes with each wave that crasses into the sand. That coarse white sand, scrubbing my feet while they sink a little deeper before I lift for another step. On low tide, with the Pyrenees in front of me, walking from Cote des Basques to Marbella beach. The perfect combination of fresh air, bare feet, rolled up jeans and the thick sweater to protect from the winter breeze when in the shade. The lightness of being incarnated. In that moment: there is nowhere I’d rather be.

We have all lived many lives. And because the impressions are still there, we can relive them so vividly if we want to.

I can be there, in that moment with such intensity because I  can feel the sensations of my feet in boots and smell that mix of the salty ocean with the snow falling as I make my way to Laurent’s mother’s car when we were to drive to the studio early one morning in March.

That Sunday afternoon, one of so many. Walking from la Grande Plage, past the aquarium and le rocher de la Vierge, continuing all the way to Ilbarritz with a conversation that lasts the whole way. On the way, we found a small bench, just around the corner, past the villa Belza where we sat down and came to the conclusion of whatever we spoke of (probably relationships and love).

I can so strongly and with intensity remember the temperature of the cool December morning as I laid my yoga mat down in front of the Anglet beach, the morning sun hardly warming my fingers at all and the smell of the pine trees behind me. Oh that smell of the pine trees. With the smell of the ocean and a strange mix from the early morning coffee drinkers with their cigarettes.

Because it is always a question of the feeling. It is the emotional state that you want to focus on in any situation. It’s key to knowing what you really want, to find out what is right for you in any given moment and to put yourself in the vibrational state of progression.

Bring the image in, indulge in it, feel it, be it, savour it. Don’t become nostalgic, instead keep the state you are in and take it from there. Set your intention for the day.

“we will always have Paris” Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. I say, we will always have everything we’ve experienced.