A Lesson In Ignorance

Yesterday, I woke up in a panic at 6:13am, when I realized the sun was gleaming through my window. After two years of teaching my 6:00am morning class twice a week, yesterday was the first time I didn’t wake up on time. Twelve students showed up to take my class and I wasn’t there. So what went wrong? I took all the right steps as I have always done for two consecutive years of teaching these classes. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, I laid my clothes out the night before, and I set two alarms to wake me up. I know and the owners of the studio know that I am a responsible human being who shows up to work on time, if not earlier. Unfortunately, I got into the habit of depending on one source to wake me up, my phone. After nearly two years of dropping my phone, leaving it in the hot yoga room for hours on end when teaching, loading my phone until there is no data left, and of course never turning it off, it finally malfunctioned. The alarm was set, but there was absolutely no sound or vibration to be heard to get my ass out of bed.
 
I immediately felt guilt, embarrassment, and disappointment towards myself, until I reflected on my theme for the week. My current intention is on the first klesha or affliction out of five means to liberation. The kleshas are outlined in the second chapter of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life. The first klesha, avidya or ignorance, speaks of blindness about reality and the inability to experience a full connection to our true selves and how we relate to others. We see avidya interwoven in every aspect of our lives – in our relationships, fears, successes, failures, titles, possessions, approvals, sorrows, and so on. Yet, behind the tainted veil of avidya’s manifestations, we come to find that we are in fact none of those things.  The moment I realized that I am not this particular mistake, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and for the first time I prevented further suffering. Through this unfortunate experience, I gained a deeper connection to my inner wisdom of who I truly am. Although, I am not proud of this incident, I am proud of how I changed the narrative going forward. I stopped beating myself up and I got an alarm clock.