Revolution of the Soul: Awaken to Love Through Raw Truth, Radical Healing, and Conscious Action

by Seane Corn

“In order to have a conversation with someone you have to reveal yourself.”

its deepest level, ahimsa helps us move from separation to connection by seeing the Divine in all things, including ourselves, and being able to connect lovingly and purposefully through that shared divinity. Practicing ahimsa means extending friendliness, compassion, and sympathetic joy to others and, in doing so, offering ourselves the same gifts.

we are, first and foremost, pure love, and that God is within each of us. But to be love, we must see the beauty inherent in others, even — no, especially — those we struggle to understand. We cannot really know ourselves and we cannot truly love ourselves when we set up barriers that keep us separate from others and allow us to judge what we fail or refuse to understand.

Billy showed me that God, or love, is a constant, unwavering presence in each soul. It is our true essence. The only thing that blocks us from fully embracing the power of this energy is the attachment we have to our smaller self, our ego. Our anger, shame, fear, insecurity, guilt, and grief — our shadow self — can block our light and cloud our understanding. Make no mistake, though, Billy wanted me to know, the light is always there — our work is to expose it, by first uncovering the limiting beliefs that diminish its illumination.

To see the soul is to see and feel another person’s pain, as well as their joy, their spirit, and their capacity to love. That is the true teaching of yoga, of ahimsa — see the soul

Remember to love. Everything, everyone, yourself, the world around you. That is the work. Because if you can be with that love, embrace it, own it, and let it influence all the ways you are in the world, then you will know God, you will be home, and peace in every way possible will be your contribution to this life.

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I was young, anxious, and insecure. I wanted so much to be accepted by others, yet I didn’t know how. I tried too hard, laughed too loud, and did everything I could to both fit in and rebel. But inwardly I was aching to relax, and as my mom would tell me . . . just be. David, on the other hand, had a very calming effect on everyone around him; he seemed so secure in who he was. I wanted that.

David was inviting us all to practice yoga and live by its principles, which had little to do with stepping onto a mat and everything to do with developing our awareness.

“Seane, it may not always feel like it, but things will come easier for you than they will for other people. It’s hardly fair, but it’s just the way it is. It’s called privilege. Some have it and some don’t. You do. And because you do, you also have a responsibility to be much more compassionate and understanding to those who may not get the opportunities you’ll get in this life. So be nice. Go out of your way to support her. Go out of your way to understand her. Don’t add to the challenges she may already have. Be patient. You don’t need to know where she’s come from or what her story is. You just need to be kind.”

Although I had no way of knowing it at the time, I was actually doing yoga. Not asana — the physical poses associated with yoga — not yet. But other limbs the ancient texts present as integral to the yoga path: pranayama (controlling and extending the breath), pratyahara (withdrawing the senses), and dharana (one-pointed concentration).

Yoga means to “yoke” or “to join together and make whole.” (It comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means “to join or unite.”) That doesn’t mean you corral the “bad” parts of yourself to make sure they don’t mess things up for the “good” parts. To join together and make whole is to welcome and begin to accept all aspects of yourself, to notice the good, the not-so-good, and the truly cringeworthy. Yoking also means connecting your individual soul with the Divine, Cosmic Consciousness, God, or whatever else you call this transcendent state of awareness.

The yamas invite us to notice how our actions affect not only others but ourselves. We all know the Judeo-Christian Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The yamas show us how to practice it.

The second limb, the niyamas, or observances, offers five daily practices to help strengthen our connection to ourselves; it invites us to clean up our act to make space for liberation to happen. It requires a willingness to reflect on who we are and the attachments we have to our own stories. Once we commit to the yamas and niyamas, Patanjali says, we can then move on to the other limbs of yoga by preparing the physical body through asana, extending and controlling the breath using pranayama, moving the senses inward with pratyahara, cultivating the power of concentration through dharana, meditating on the Divine (dhyana), and finally, entering into union with the Divine, a process called samadhi. The entire journey brings us back home to our true nature.

The five ethical restraints begin with ahimsa, which is pretty much all you need to remember: Do. No. Harm. Always. Be. Kind.

In truth, I was not only harming my coworker, I was hurting myself. I felt I had to look, act, and be a certain way in order for people to love me. This is called ego — the ways in which we identify ourselves and declare to ourselves and the world around us: “This is who I am.” After all, who am I when I’m not those things? Am I still valuable? Am I still lovable? Practicing ahimsa helps us trust that what makes us valued as a soul isn’t about how we look or what we accomplish, but how we treat others and how we honor ourselves. Although ahimsa is most often translated as non-harming, it really means much more than that. It means love.

This second yama is associated with truthfulness; it literally means “that which is.” Rolf Sovik of the Himalayan Institute says satya means “seeing and reporting things as they are rather than the way we would like them to be.” Basically, this yama encourages you to be truthful, to stay open to hearing the truth, and to only tell the truth if you can tell it with clarity, kindness, and compassion — in other words, ahimsa before satya.

Before you blurt out something you think someone needs to hear — or beat yourself up over something you’ve done — ask yourself these four questions: Is it in fact true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Is it useful? Although they’ve been attributed to everyone from Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita to Quakers, and even Krishnamurti, they offer sound advice. Satya asks us to stop lying to ourselves as well, to commit to discovering the truth of who we really are, by gently and tenderly polishing the lens through which we can understand the narratives that live in our bodies. Although that sounds daunting, it’s actually easier — and way less stressful — than pretending to be something you’re not. In fact, being truthful feels lighter, freer, and, in the end, more liberating.

Of course asteya means not stealing money or objects, but it can also mean not appropriating other people’s ideas and calling them your own, not stealing away someone’s affections when you have no intention of reciprocating, or even not taking advantage of someone’s generosity. So much of this, the wise old yogis say, happens when you feel insecure, lonely, or fearful. That’s when you may try to fill the void by pretending to be someone you’re not, hoping to gain the attention and approval of others. You steal from yourself when you minimize your own troubles, shaking them off as no big deal; beat yourself up for thinking you suffer in the first place when so many others are worse off; or when you refuse to be tender and compassionate with yourself. Above all, this yama is about generosity and gratitude, it’s about learning to say yes, and it’s a reminder that you are enough — that you have everything you need within you.

Luckily, brahmacharya is much more nuanced than sexual continence. The translation I’ve heard that I love the most is “walking in the presence of God” or “walking in God-consciousness,” which means turning inward and not depending on sensual pleasures or outside stimulation to bring you joy. When you act with God-consciousness, you are less likely to make impulsive, self-indulgent decisions that aren’t very mindful. Finally, practicing brahmacharya focuses the mind on the task at hand and helps us dedicate our energies to both our inner work and our work in the world.

The final yama, which means non-grasping or non-possessiveness, is also fairly straightforward. You suffer when you become obsessed with or attached to material goods. When you become possessed by your possessions, when you covet what others have — even things of a spiritual nature — you move further away from the present moment and from realizing your own true essence.

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Even when we’re not aware of it, doing yoga profoundly affects all parts of our being — our body, breath, mind, heart, and soul, better known in yoga as the koshas. As a body-based meditation, yoga invites us to focus, stabilize, and move with more awareness. Nothing within us stands alone — we are living, breathing, thinking, feeling beings imbued with Universal Consciousness or Divine Essence.

But it didn’t take long before my ability on the mat gave me the external approval I craved, an identity I could be proud of. It served and stroked my ego. When we let the mind dictate what our practice should look like or say about us, we’ve moved from a body-based practice to an ego-based one.

Any form of concentration or meditation can be very difficult if your mind never shuts up — like mine — and you don’t know how to slow it down. Asana can help you move any agitation out of your mind and into your body so you can identify it, notice where it lives, and release it.

The vijnanamaya kosha is your inner wisdom. Awakening this kosha means getting in touch with your discerning, or intuitive, mind. That allows you to direct your life from your heart instead of your head, which means you can make more ethical, moral, and mindful choices, free from the impulse of any addictions, compulsions, and desires. It provides the pause between your thoughts and your actions that you need in order to show up for yourself and others with more patience and generosity and less judgment.

The subtlest of the energy bodies, the anandamaya kosha, connects our ordinary awareness with our highest Self or Spirit. Although it exists in all of us, most of us aren’t aware of this layer of our being. The anandamaya kosha represents all-knowing wisdom, radiant awareness, transcendent illumination — in other words, pure bliss. You experience the bliss body when you suddenly and inexplicably feel at ease, when you connect with someone so deeply you can’t tell where you leave off and the other person begins. You experience it when you enter into a yoga pose and after moving around, tweaking the alignment, and getting settled in, you simply receive the pose. You’re no longer doing the pose; you are the pose.

Using mantra meditation — many yoga experts encourage silently reciting the Sanskrit phrase so hum, which means “that, I am” — is one of the best ways to practice svadhyaya.

“Our issues live in our tissues,” as yogis are fond of saying, and they are kept alive by our obsessive thoughts.

Denying or bypassing negative thoughts and feelings or avoiding situations that remind you of the original trauma will prevent the body from being able to rid itself of the trauma you initially experienced. At that point, those undigested emotions (anger, fear, shame) become entangled in the residue and indistinguishable from the original event. When all this happens, any new situation you experience that’s even mildly uncomfortable or feels unsafe produces a biochemical reaction akin to the first trauma.

All the undigested emotions and their associated energy — the fear, anger, rage, shame, or helplessness — live on in the body, hidden away, and can manifest as muscular tension. Over time, the tension becomes so familiar, so predictable, that it feels perfectly normal and safe. What’s not normal or safe, of course, are the emotions that lie trapped beneath the tension.

Yoga’s job is to show you what’s actually happening — not what the mind thinks is happening or wants to happen. Yoga exposes truth; it allows the stories buried deep within the body to emerge out of the tension you’ve released and into the open spaces you’ve created. But, here’s the thing: only if you are open to receiving them.

I still cringed a little when I heard “Spirit,” “Divine,” “Consciousness,” or any other word people around me used to describe God. My distrust in the spiritual realm ran deep. It all smacked of religion, and I didn’t want any part of it. Nonetheless, I recognized my resistance and could acknowledge (at least to myself) that I really was looking for, and craving, more meaning in my life.

Billy’s words would often rise to the surface, reminding me to see the God within. I wanted to, but none of what I was learning fully landed in my heart the way I hoped it would. For Billy, love was inclusive; God resided within all. It made sense to me intellectually, but I heartily rejected any kind of relationship with any kind of God, especially the one I had implored for years not to hurt the people I loved. This push-pull confused me. I wanted connection, and, at the same time, I rejected connection.

when you are in a yoga class, you, and you alone, get to decide whether it’s okay for a teacher to touch or adjust you in your poses. Don’t worry about hurting their feelings. If they are mindful at what they do, they’ll understand that you’re taking care of yourself. They have other ways to assist you, including verbal cueing.

It’s really not that unusual for emotions to run amok like mine did, trying to find a place to land and something to justify their uprising when tension is released — and it certainly happens as much off the mat as on. But here’s the thing: even when our minds wander off on a tangent and we haven’t a clue what’s causing the shitstorm brewing inside, the body continues to alert us through physiological cues, which we can easily misinterpret.

Of course all muscular tension isn’t caused by emotional stuckness or laden with unprocessed crap from your childhood. Sometimes the tension is structural, habitual, or even situational (the result of an injury, perhaps). Sometimes emotions arise, sometimes they don’t; sometimes muscles are simply tight and need to loosen up.

In the same way you inherit the color of your eyes, a taste for spicy food, or the texture of your hair, you inherit the experiences, traditions, beliefs, and traumas of the people who came before you. The suppressed energy, unresolved, lived within them, affecting their health, wellness, and perspective, especially if they experienced chronic stress or feared for their survival. As that energy lived within them, so it lives within you as well. We are all directly, although often unconsciously, influenced by our ancestors’ repressed stressors and beliefs, which shape the way we experience ourselves and the world around us.

The body, however, isn’t the least bit interested in unpacking the narrative, or labeling sensations as “positive” or “negative” or even “past,” “present,” or “future.” Sensations are neutral, nothing more than energy; in fact, the word emotions comes from the Latin word emotere, which means “to move out of.” The body’s job is to keep the energy moving and the channels clear. All it wants to do is to find or create safety in the moment; it is not interested in, or even capable of, processing or making sense of anything.

Unfortunately, by the time our emotions get lodged in the connective tissue, they are much more difficult to identify and discharge. We might think we’re enraged, but if we can stay with the sensations bubbling up, we may discover that the rage, a more familiar and often safer emotion, is actually masking fear, or perhaps even grief.

Our shadow helps us to remember that everything is energy; everything has a vibration; and everything needs space to move, shift, and release. Cyndi Dale, energy healer and author of The Subtle Body, defines energy as “vibration with information.” This book is energy; so is a computer or a cup of tea — these are examples of energy you can see and interact with. And, there are forms of energy you can’t see, but you definitely experience them: energies like thoughts and feelings, including love and joy, as well as fear, rage, and grief. All energies have an effect on our bodies and our minds.

Repressed emotions are energy that has no space to move, shift, and release. When something triggers them, they either burst forth or burrow further down. If they do explode, the release can feel good, at least temporarily. But we must face them when they surface, otherwise their newly released energy can make us critical, judgmental, confrontational, aggressive, or even withdrawn or shut down. This behavior is an impulsive (or shadow) reaction to the shadow emotions begging to be heard, which creates more fear, more hate — and more separation.

You can’t run from what is within you. The shadow self is not bad; all it’s asking is to be understood.

So how can you shut out all the distractions and come to such a place of deep inquiry? By practicing pratyahara, the fifth of the eight limbs of yoga.

Pratyahara is what connects the outer and inner aspects of yoga and helps us make sense of our experiences. We can’t expect a daily asana practice to help liberate us from our traumas and our suffering. That’s too big of a leap. We need to develop the mind-body connection first, and we do that, according to yoga scholar David Frawley, by gaining mastery over the breath and the senses, which are what link the mind and the body in the first place.

We cannot ignore the story, we cannot transcend it, until we are in relationship to it. To invite those places to surface is the only way we can heal the separation within ourselves, liberate ourselves from our ego, and allow the soul to evolve. It’s not easy — it takes patience and compassion and a belief that there is a place for everything within you. But the cool thing about yoga is you don’t have to do it all at once. You can stop whenever you want to and start again when it feels safe. It’s truly about bringing the mind, the body, and the heart together to bear witness to all that you are — with love.

You release the ego, the shadow self, through self-reflection, self-acceptance, and forgiveness. When you forgive someone, you release the caustic energy of resentment and the prana can begin to flow steadily through the nadis (energy pathways) and the chakras (psychic energy centers). You can untangle unconscious patterns and behaviors, bathe your cells and auric field (the energy field that surrounds the body) with life-force, and awaken to Universal Consciousness and your true potential. Forgiveness is absolutely fundamental to your spiritual growth and to your freedom, as I discovered again and again, but I had only gotten a taste of its power to heal.

Although all this talk about nadis and chakras sounds so esoteric, so magical, it really isn’t. It’s yoga’s way of describing the consequences of our felt experiences.

Remember that everything you feel, including the shadow emotions you have trouble acknowledging, lives in the body, and if you don’t allow your feelings to arise and then dissolve, they will become stuck there, taking up residence in places like the hips, the jaw, the shoulders. By creating distinct shapes through asana, you can move your awareness and your breath into those areas and encourage the energy to release. All of this helps you understand what your body is trying to tell you and offers you clues on how to bring these embodied “stories” into your awareness, and hopefully assist in your own healing.

The chakras don’t only hold on to all the messy stuff, they also contain the residue from everything wondrous and positive in our lives. Unfortunately, the good stuff gets harder to access when our shadow emotions block the way.