Surrendering to not knowing

These past couple of months have been extraordinary. The world shut its doors against the COVID-19 virus. And we cannot see the future.

There has been a lot of talk going around on social media about people needing to find things to do to while away their time in isolation. Personally I haven't had time for any of that. I have been busier than ever bringing the studio into an online state, battling technology, helping staff and students battle technology, dealing with change at every turn, being frightened.

Frightened of what? For me, not so much of the invisible virus, but of the impacts to our wonderful yoga studio, our yoga community, our neighborhoods, our livlihoods.

Part of the challenge has been that we cannot plan for this. We do not have a set period that we can expect this to go on for, and hey presto, by such and such a date we will all be back to normal.  We cannot even be sure what normal will be on the other side of this pandemic. Even today as I write we are awaiting the results of todays National Cabinet wondering if maybe we can start going out again soon, maybe the studio can open again soon, as they plan to ease restrictions. But we don't know, and we do not know if we might have to close again if the dreaded second wave comes.

Isn't it so that the not knowing is one of the hardest things? When we recognise that we radically DO NOT KNOW we become aware that things are not within our control. But here is the thing. They never are! All this so called knowing, based upon the predictability of so-called "normal" is pretty much an illusion.

Vidyā - the veil of limited knowing

Of course it is not that we don't "know" anything. The power to know is an innate power of Consciousness. It is the limitation of that power of knowing that we are encountering in life, and that is what is scaring us.

We can understand this limited knowing, vidyā, as one of those limitations that Consciousness takes on in order to become immament, in order to manifest as us and everything we perceive. It is the limitation of the power of Consciousness known as jňāna-śakti.

Vidyā is constantly pointing us back to jňāna-śakti. In the words of awakened spritual teacher, Adyashanti:

"The door to God is the insecurity of not knowing anything. Bear the grace of that insecurity and all wisdom will be yours."

Surrendering to the limitation of knowledge

Well that is all very well for Adyashanti, awakened person, to say, you might be thinking. But this is exactly one of those times we can use the situation that is current in our lives to practice and potentially learn something really deep.  And Adyashanti is pointing directly at it. "Bear the grace of that insecurity" he says, by which I take to mean a surrendering to vidyā, not fighting it, "and all wisdom will be yours".

Wisdom is a kind of greater knowing, a wordless, conceptless knowing. In Sanskrit, widom is a translation of jňāna. What Adyashanti is pointing to is a great potential for breaking through the veil of our limitations to be more intimate with Consciousness itself, that which he has called God in this quote.

Noticing the difference between grasping to know and surrendering to not-knowing

Take a moment to sit. Be still. Be quiet.

Connect into your plans for the future. They do not need to be big plans, they might be a plan to log on to do a yoga class tomorrow, or to take a walk to the coffee shop to pick up your take-away. As you do so, feeling your way, sense the resonance of the thought plan, to do a yoga class or walk and pick up coffee or whatever it is. Take your time with this, especially if feeling the resonance of a thought is a new thing for you.

Stay with that resonance for awhile.  Feel into the assumed certainty that you will take that online class or that walk with the coffee stop. What does that certainty feel like. Beyond the thought construct, find the feeling in the body.

After a little while begin to shift your attention to all the things you don't know - not knowing when you could take a yoga class back in the studio, not knowing how we will recover economically as a nation, all the "not knowings" that are here right now, whatever they are.

And sense into the feeling of it all in your body. Beyond the concept and beyond the emotion of fear and uncertainty, find the feeling tone in the body.

Allow yourself to welcome that feeling tone, to settle into it, to relax into it, to love it for its own sake. This is not a trying, it is an allowing. Surrendering.

Staying with this, surrendering to this insecurity, to this entire feeling of not knowing. Stay with it. stay with it.

The longer you can stay with it, the more fully you are able to surrender, the greater the potential for the blossoming of wisdom.  Which, by the way, may not be a bolt of lightening, but a simple, settled grace of deeper knowing than the mind could ever have.

Limiting the limitless - pointers to your True Self

The Kaňcukas part 2

Last month I wrote about the five Kaňcukas, which are like veils that limit the vast perfection of the Divine Everything so that it takes form as the diversity that is the manifest universe. Today I will say a few words about each of these.

But first, it is important to note that these limitations, though they lie like veils over our true nature concealing to ourselves the vastness of who we really are, they are not something to be despised or something we need to be rid of. Everything is to be welcomed on this path. And the wonderful thing is that the very aspect that is a covering is also a clue, even a portal through which we might find our way home.

This article refers to the way we can use our iRest® Yoga Nidra meditation practice to help us work with the Kaňcukas. If you are unfamiliar with iRest please visit www.irest.org/ to learn more.

I am also indebted to Christopher Wallis for assisting me in understanding the Kaňcukas and I recommend the relevant section of his book Tantra Illuminated. He explains it far better than I ever could.

Limited agency - Kalā

The first step on this path of creation is the limitation of omnipotence (the Divine power of action, which is limitless). The most important thing to note about this is that it does not make us powerless in our embodied form. Kalā is not impotence. It is indeed the Divine power of action itself, just a little pared down. 

Our spiritual path is to nurture and grow that divine Power until we finally realise our full and innate divinity.

In practice, this will mean that when we encounter the power of action in its limited form we have an opportunity to expand it a little. This is why they are pointers.

So meeting “there is always more needing to be done” and my urge to do more, I can also recognize the divine power of doing that brings all of this manifestation to being and dissolves it all back again. If I meet the feeling of powerlessness, can it point me to the feeling of potency? And while we might see these as two opposites in the movement of emotions in awareness, just as we come to know welcoming, and wellbeing as aspects of awareness, so too both omnipotence in its fullness, and its self-limiting form we experience in embodiment are ultimately aspects of that one consciousness as well.

Limited knowing - Vidyā

The limitation of knowing – Vidyā, is not ignorance. Māyā conceals the fullness of omniscience in order to project Consciousness into manifestation.

We are granted the ability to know something about our world and to continue to learn more about our world. The biggest trap of Vidyā is not the urge to know more, it is thinking that what you know is all there is.

The old story of the blind people and the elephant illustrates this.

“A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.” (Wikipedia's version)

Each thought that they knew what an elephant was, but when they shared what they knew with each other they fell into arguing.

Image credit, medium.com

And this is the trap of Vidyā we see played out in life. This is the human tendency to believe our own limited subjective truth and to ignore, dismiss and even repress the limited subjective truth of others.

In terms of our personal spiritual path, we may fall into a trap based on a limited experience of thinking that we’ve “arrived”. So part of our path is to always seek to expand our understanding.

In fact the manifestation of “Vidyā” of believing “There is more I need to know” is to be welcomed as it keeps us questing.

Vidyā is nothing but the limited form of the divine power of Knowing, jňāna-śakti. As we expand our horizon of limited knowing we more closely approximate towards jňāna-śakti.

Ultimately of course we seek to move beyond words and thinking to the knowing that is an inner wisdom, a lifting of the veil of Māyā to sense that which all the words of teachers, live or in writing, ancient or modern, can only hint at, though they may point the way.

In practice – what we think we know is what we believe. In our quest to expand our knowing, we are seeking to situate what we know in a wider context. In iRest®, our practice in the realm of beliefs does just that. If I am believing “I am a failure, everything I do just turns bad, I have the touch of death for any enterprise” and I come up with all sorts of memories to support that, and I wallow in all the emotions of that, I can use the iRest process to expand that and situate in a broader context, allowing me to move beyond it. I can do that by work in the opposites, what is the opposite or alternative to “I am a failure”? We can work with it anthropomorphically – if this belief walked into the room what would it be … can you dialogue with it. Substitute any belief … “my religion/atheism is true and others are wrong, even evil”, “my politics are the best, the other mob are dangerous”.

The limitation of perfection - rāga - desire

 When the veil of Māyā limits the divine powers, divine perfection is thus limited, and in our embodiment, which is possible only due to all this limiting, we have the sense of not being complete. This leads to desire and craving, raga, as we seek that which will make us feel complete. We misplace the direction of our yearning and crave material possessions, recognition, fame, acknowledgement, food, attention, holidays, physical connection, sex, a different body, and so it goes. We may even fall into addiction to food, alcohol or other substances. If I feel imperfect in this now, in this body, then perhaps if I can get that then I will feel whole. If only everybody paid more attention to me, then I would know I am whole. If only I were 10kgs lighter, then I would feel more perfect. If only I had more money.

In fact all desire, all craving, is the yearning for Divine Perfection, which ironically is already here, just the veil of Māyā prevents our recognition of it. In our work in iRest® we invite connection with what we call the Heartfelt Desire, (though many like to use other terms and that is fine). Eventually we might come to recognise that Whatever we first identify as our heartfelt desire is ultimately that yearning for the wholeness of Divine Perfection.

Watch for the guises in which desire becomes cloaked by the mind … but I need this. But the other is lacking for not giving me attention. But life is unfair and I deserve such and such.

Other literal meanings of the word rāga are to colour or tint; and a musical harmony or melody.

Desire colours the mind and tints our perspective and influences how we see the world and other people. For example: The desire for attention will see everybody else’s attention as belonging to ourselves and we will become demanding of it, even manipulative to achieve it … and this will colour all our relationships.

In Indian music a rāga is also like a scale, but also like a theme upon which variations can be played. And the musical notes present themselves with dissonance and resolution. The dissonant notes will feel imperfect, they crave a resolution. And then of course the resolution comes and the harmony resolves. That dissonant note is the craving for fullness.

Desire, rāga, shows us areas where we may need to expand ourselves more fully. Self-inquiry, as in meditation but also in reflection, can reveal our cravings. OK if we have a craving for peanut butter that is easy to identify, but truly recognising something like our craving for attention may require us to open our eyes somewhat, to be come more self-aware in the small s sense. 

Rāga is not to be rejected, but transmuted.

• Recognise desire, truly
• Trace desire back to its source
• Recognise your yearning for divine fullness
• Allow that yearning to guide you home – you are just following the perfume!

The limitation of time - Kāla

From the timelessness of Pure Consciousness, linear time is a requirement of embodied experience. In pure Consciousness everything is simultaneous, but as embodied beings we experience one moment after another.

Our awareness of linear time also gives us the sense of past and future. Our sense of the past can make us feel guilty, regretful and also nostalgic. Our sense of the future can make us fear, worry, and also fantasize.

It is easy to appreciate the burden of guilt and worry. But less obvious is that nostalgia and fantasy are a burden. But we are grasping at both, attached to both and in that attachment we are missing the middle point.

Poised in the middle is the present moment, so much eulogised in our age of mindfulness practices.

It is the sense of linear time that seems to be the distinguishing mark of the human animal. Do the animals fret with guilt over their past failings or with worry over the potentiality of the future. Do they have nostalgia or do they fantasize?  Well we cannot know for sure but it appears not. Yet the mindful now we humans seek is not that of the animals. It is in our reflection on the past and anticipation of a future that we find a potential for evolution, for growth.

We seek to stay in the present with full awareness of guilt and nostalgia, worry and fantasy, all the while being free of them. Again, the limitation of time, manifesting as guilt or anxiety, nostalgia or fantasy, is welcomed as the pointer to the state of Presence. – The present which constantly flows, is constantly flowing from Consciousness and unfolding as manifestation and is simultaneously reabsorbed into Consciousness.

We can invite the law of opposites to guide us, working with pairs such as:

• Guilt and nostalgia
• Fantasy and worry
• Fantasy and nostalgia
• Guilt and worry
• Nostalgia and worry
• Fantasy and guilt

The limitation of space - Niyati

Niyati is very interesting. It is the limitation that results in us experiencing individuality and separation.

Pure Consciousness has no dimension. You may have experienced this immense spaciousness. In iRest we often ask the question: is there any centre, is there any periphery, inviting the discovery of, no there is not, there is everywhere-ness and nowhere in particular-ness.

(Richard Miller, creator of iRest, has said that that expression he uses so often, everywhere and nowhere in particular, was how one veteran in one of the early PTSD trials at Walter Reid described it, and he picked up those words as being the best representation he had come across.)

Niyati creates the three dimensions of space, in which materiality is possible, and in so doing the sense of location, of having centre and periphery, comes about. And since we also have the sense of not being able to occupy the same space as anything else, the sense of separation arises. Niyati then is the restriction of the formless transcendence that is Śiva itself!

In embodied life we constantly experience niyati by the very sense of our body as a spatial location. We also experience frustrations of space, not having enough of it for example, or the space we occupy not being good enough.

Everyday practice is to reorient ourselves to all our actions being in selfless service. This might seem tricky when we meet our pure motive prayer, I practice out of love for myself, out of a desire to know the truth … until we refine our understanding that it is only in the sense of separation created by niyati that we have a sense of ourself at all, and to serve ourself is to serve all others. HOWEVER, that does not really let you off the hook. In loving yourself, you need not seek endless fruits for yourself, and the more you ardently discover the Truth, the less that is seen as a true goal. And in the prayer for pure motive, it is underpinned by “for the benefit of all beings” which immediately removes “selfish” motive.

In meditation we invite an experiential welcoming of Consciousness – Awareness – as unbounded spaciousness.

That can also be a micro meditation for anytime. Just stop. Expand. Touch into that spaciousness, even if just for a moment.

It is like the dyer dying the cloth. To obtain a really rich colour the cloth goes in and comes out. Then it will go in again, and out, and in again, and so on until the colour is at the rich hue required. So too we are dipping into pure spaciousness, again and again. Eventually we are saturated with it and it never leaves us.

Go to Part 1

The five pointers - Kaňcukas

Part 1 Learning never ceases. I am constantly looking for guides from whom I can glean more gems from the yogic path. I have recently done an online course with a beautiful and stunningly intelligent woman by the name of Kavitha Chinnaiyan … cardiologist, and lineage holder in the Sri Vidya lineage. During the course she explained that to ascribe gender to siva and sakti is only a device, that gender cannot truly be ascribed to them as they are but aspects of oneness, that even to use such a term as oneness, implying as it does that there is a more than one, does not do justice to That which we seek to describe. She also gave a powerful image of how the world becomes manifest – as sakti turns to face siva, manifestation dissolves into the still spaciousness of siva, as sakti turns away manifestation occurs, and sakti turns and turns, like the blinking of an eye, so there is a pulsation in this manifestation, a throb, a vibration, we do not usually notice it, manifestation seems continuous, just like when you run the individual frames of old fashioned analogue film through the projector, the world on the screen seems continuous and you do not see those moments in the frame where there is no picture. This vibration is called Spanda. But the View writings reveal more detail about how this manifestation occurs. Kaňcukas: concealments for manifestation In this process there are five concealments that mask our oneness. These concealments are necessary in order for that which is unlimited to take form. In Sanskrit they are called the Kaňcukas, in iRest®, Richard Miller dubbed them “the pointer sisters”. I will come back to the reason why. The concealments, or limitations, are: Kalā – limited agency (or doing) Vidyā – limited knowing Rāga – limited perfection = desire/craving Kāla – limited time – sequential time, divisions of time, passing of time Niyatī – limited space – localisation and causality We can easily see these in action. There is so much more I need to do. There is so much more I need to know  I so much crave that … < insert latest craving here> (holiday in Bali, new car, chocolate bar, better body) I just don’t have time, am running out of time, I have a past, I anticipate a future  I don’t have enough space, I need a bigger house, closet, kitchen etc – or I am too big, I am too small, I am in the wrong city, I am not happy unless I am at the beach etc iRest® founder Richard Miller calls them pointer sisters as they are like signposts with an arm pointing both ways. This way – manifestation, embodiment and the sense of being incomplete That way – lifting through the veils to recognition of true nature as always whole, nothing needing to be done, omnipotent, omniscient, perfection, eternal and infinite. Between recognition and the Kaňcukas of limitation is Māyā, laying like a strata of cloud that conceals the sun.  Have you ever had the experience of taking off in a plane on an overcast day? The plane leaves the ground in dull conditions and enters the cloud and things are even duller. Then there is a moment when the plane breaks through the cloud and you find there is brilliant sunshine above the clouds. Our perception is like that. When embodiment happens and a sense of I develops, that "I" loses the sense divine Oneness and feels separate and different to everything else. This is like living in dullness. When you break through the clouds you awaken to the brilliance of non-duality. Sink below the clouds and and you are in the realm of limitations and a sense of separation. So they are pointers because as we can recognise them as they are present in our lives we can also take them as reminders or pointers to who we really are. These limitations are never a voiding of the unlimited attributes of the Divine Oneness. The limitation of infinite power is not impotence. It is just enough of a limitation for dimensions and linear time and action to be possible, preconditions to manifestation and embodiment. So meeting the Kaňcukas is not to be despaired at, nor are they to be rejected. You are not trying to get rid of them, just to recognise what is on the other side of that strata of clouds, Maya, and what these pointers represent! Try this sadhana, spiritual practice, you can take it on for a week, a month or forever; notice the action of the Kaňcukas in your life, and you might journal how they affect you and reflect on how they might be pointing you to your true self. In Part 2 we will look at each of these in more detail. Go to Part 2

Not knowing and being OK with that

In yoga inquiry there is often no hard and fast answer. Where should I be feeling it in this asana?  Where is my Muladhara chakra? What should my asana look like? As teachers we should not and indeed, if honest, cannot give the student the answer to such questions. This is a conundrum for the student who really likes to have a definitive answer.

Where should I feel this? I don't know, where do you feel it?
Photo credit: Still from David Garrigues Asana Kitchen
Upa Vista Konasana on You Tube 

Travel has a way of getting you out of your comfort zone, into confusion. And out of all of that comes growth and new understandings. It throws a light on the culture we are visiting, but that then reflects right back on the home culture and then on being human itself. We never know what insights will come. We just travel, experience and later reflect.

Upon my return from India last month a friend asked if I would be writing about the experience, and I responded that I had to let it all settle and filter through first. It's happening.

Being home all the stuff of life and work begins to happen. Now though it is all filtered through the screen of the travel experience.

As Westerners we seem to want definitive answers to everything. And of course we are also very swayed by the findings of Western scientific method. Which is great, my western mind just loves it when there is a definitive answer to something.  Having lived a few decades I also have been around long enough to know that there are fields where science had definitive answers yesterday that turned out to be not so definitive at all. Woops! For instance, what we once understood to be the "best diet" (low fat) is now challenged by new research, and we are all confused!

That might be annoying if we are sincerely trying to eat in the most healthy way, and how dare they change their minds, and what is the right answer anyway?

But confusion is great. Fabulous.
Confusion precedes growth.

As Westerners we are also very keen to manipulate nature whenever we want to achieve a desired outcome. When I am in the garden I will pull and hack away at anything I didn't invite or didn't want to grow that big or in that place.  And if something is in the way of the new scheme, then it goes.  Call me heartless!

My Indian husband is much less inclined to rip things out, like when we were extending the house, he was very upset when a mature hibiscus that was under the footprint of the extension, was ripped out.

And I have to say, while there are many examples of cruelty in India, in a deep cultural sense there is a cultural disposition not to kill. For example, instead of culling stray dogs, they tolerate them roaming in packs, howling at night, and posing a threat to their wellbeing. I've seen trees literally growing through buildings, trunks and roots inserting themselves into walls. In the west the tree just wouldn't be tolerated long enough for it to become an integral part of the building.

Yoga grew first in an Indian context, so when reflecting on Indian culture it can become a reflection on our experience of yoga too, perhaps there are insights here. The very first thing Patanjali would have us observe is ahimsa, not harming. So I need to reflect on what my weeding and hacking in the garden is really all about, in the light of ahimsa. Should I let the sword fern crowd out, choke and hide the other plants I lovingly put there, or accept living in a honeysuckle jungle? Because to control them requires harming some kind of life.

You can see what is happening though can't you. My western mind wants definitive answers. I want to know. I want a definition. I am thinking I don't know enough because these confusions and conundrums are present. Limited knowing, hello!

If we move this onto the mat, if I am confused, and I am asking, where should I be feeling this (asana, chakra, kosha), what should I be looking like, where should my hand be in this asana, I am looking for definition where perhaps there is none.

Rather, we need to let go of a need to know definitive answers to everything, to recognise the kanchuka of limited knowing, turn the other way and follow it home, simply explore and uncover, what is.

What do you really, really want?

I am sitting to write this article for readers to see in early January and I am aware that it is the season of the New Year's Resolution. 

What goes on the list of New Year's Resolutions is usually something like this:

• Lose weight
• Eat healthier
• Get up early to exercise daily
• Drink less alcohol
• Drink more water
• Work harder/ work shorter hours
• Read more
• Get a new job 

The things that go on the resolutions list are usually to fix something we perceive is wrong with us. Last month I wrote about limiting beliefs and those veils of limitation. Here we have them in action again.  Limited perfection. Limited space. Limited time. Limited action. Limited knowing.

Remember though that they can always be lifted to reveal what is your True Nature.

What is it that you really, really want?

It is surprising how unconscious this can really be, but if we can flush it out into the open, many "desires" such as are reflected in the resolutions list, become superfluous. Be like a little child and keep asking the question why.

Let's imagine that your immediate answer to the question, what do you really want, is to have enough money to retire on right now. Let's have an imagined dialogue about that.

Why do you want that?

My job sucks.

Why?

I have to work really hard, but it doesn't pay very well and my boss is really bossy and seems to think she owns me, wants me there when it should be my own time .....

Well we opened a flood gate there, but what if we ask again. What do you really want?

Not to be in that job, to feel valued.

To feel valued. Could we take a look at that? You do not feel valued?

No, I feel unloved and unvalued, worthless, when I go to this job and am treated like I am treated.

So what do you really want?

To feel valued and appreciated.

So how would it feel if you were valued and appreciated? If you are valued and appreciated right now what feelings would be there in your body?

I would feel warm inside, and my edges would be soft and inviting. I would feel whole.

So would it be correct to say that what you really want is to feel whole?

You can do this with yourself. Take what first arises in answer to the question, "What do you really want?" and then workshop it just as I have in this imagined conversation above.

In traditional yoga nidra the practice starts with the Sankalpa, or resolve. In iRest® Yoga Nidra the Sankalpa is divided into three parts, the Intention, the Heartfelt Desire and the Inner Resource. I have noticed that many people take some time to arrive at their Heartfelt desire (or Life Mission, deep driving desire, Heartfelt purpose, what words you call it doesn't matter).

This questioning of what arises can be quite a useful way to open the process of discovery of what it really is. Another lies in what happens at the end of the practice when we invite the Heartfelt desire to arise again.

During the iRest Yoga Nidra meditation we open to the state of awareness in which everything arises and begin to experience our True Nature as open, welcoming, all-pervasive awareness. At the end of the yoga nidra practice it is directly from that state of pure Awareness that the Heartfelt Desire comes to us, and if we can notice it before the thinking mind begins to edit it, we will see it for what it is.

Sorry for the Spice Girls echoes in the title of today's post.

Limiting beliefs

What do you notice about this picture?

Do you believe the flower to be imperfect, or perfect and beautiful just as it is?

What if this flower were a person looking in the mirror. Perhaps it would be telling itself that it is not perfect, not beautiful, not good enough. Believing in this it would probably be feeling bad, suffering in other words.

We all have them, those beliefs that limit us.  This article invites you to explore those limiting ideas, what they might be and mean and give you some strategies for seeing them for what they really are. To get the most from it, sit down with a pen and notebook and do the suggested exercises while you read it.

Ready?

See if any of the following resonate with you.

• I am too fat/skinny/unfit/stiff/weak
• People don't love/respect/like me
• I have too much/more/something else to do
• I cannot do or be something as I am too ignorant/young/old/female/male
• I need a bigger/different/better organised/ house
• It isn't possible because I live where I live and not somewhere else

If you can add any of your own to this list. Grab your notebook and jot them down, and jot down the versions of these that most resonate for you as well.  Don't worry about reinforcing them, we are going to work on that.

Take a look at the list. See if you can arrange them under the following headings (some may seem to cross over more than one, just try to make the best fit for the moment.

• I am not good enough
• There is not enough time
• I don't know enough
• There is more I need to do
• I am in the wrong place or lack space

Did they all fit somewhere in thse headings? These categories I have given are not a random choice but a version of the five Kanchukas, or limitations, which the wisdom teachings tell us are clouding our understanding of our true nature.

• Raaga - limited perfection (shows up as desires which seek to fill up that which is lacking)
• Kaala - limited time 
• Vidya - limited knowing
• Kalaa - limited action or doing
• Niyati - limited space (shows up as being confined to a location, as in a body)

But they are not only the limitations themselves but when we start to notice them they become signposts that point us towards our true nature.

• Raaga, limited perfection, points to our inherent wholeness - Perfection
• Kaala, limited time, points to the timelessness of pure Being, which we are - Eternal
• Vidya, limited knowing, points to the all knowing wisdom which is also here, always - Omniscient
• Kalaa, limited action or doing points to there being no doer and the state of not doing that is the state of pure Being - Omnipotent
• Niyati, limited space points to the spacious infinity of pure Being - Omnipresent and Infinite

Now, go back to your list of limiting beliefs. For each of them, find and record next to it, an opposite.

For example, if you have a belief "I haven't done enough" you might take the opposite to be "I always do the best I can" or "I do as much as I can to the best of my ability"

If you didn't get out a notebook and pen, while the others are completing this task, take a moment to think of what prevented you from doing that.  Perhaps it was "I am too busy right now, I just want to read this and get it over with". This would be the limitation of time, wouldn't it? Was there a different reason?  Is there a Kanchuka there?  Not in the right place just now? Limited space. Unsure of where all this is going?  Limited knowing. There is something wrong with being asked to do exercises? Limited perfection. Can't be bothered doing exercises?  Limited action.

OK, so now look at your list and pick the limiting belief that you find most poignant or resonating with you right now in this moment.  Ask your heart and don't hesitate. Take note of the opposite you have created. 

In a moment take some time to sit awhile with your eyes closed and take the limiting belief, and explore what it feels like?  What emotions does it raise? Where does this live in your body? Sit with that a moment and explore it a bit, being curious. Then take the opposite. If you take this to be true, what does it feel like? What emotions does it raise? where is this in your body. For a little while, as long as you like, go between these two opposites. Take enough time to let the belief, its attendant emotions, perhaps memories, and feelings arise and note the bodily sensations that are there, before moving back to the opposite.

What happens?  Does there come a time when they can both be here together?

Now for a critical question. Who is dong all the observing of these beliefs, these memories and emotions, these sensations in the body? Can you just be there, be that?