‘Default Settings’ – by Alessia Avellino

By Alchemy 30/09/2011

Whenever we buy a new phone or a new computer we have the option to create whatever look we like for it… We can change the background colours, change fonts, and create all sorts of looks and themes for it, according to our mood.

Sometimes we upload pictures that we like on a particular day, but that do not reflect our mood on other days. Yesterday it was nice, today we are not so sure. But we really felt that way yesterday, we are sure of it… that was the truth. Well it was the truth THEN… What about now? is something true if it changes every day?

I have heard and read in lots of yoga books that the truth, the REAL truth, is only one and it is unchanging. Something about ‘Oness of Being’, ‘Samadhi’ (meaning ‘Same as the Highest’, the goal of Yoga), Union, feeling ‘connected’ or ‘re-connected’, ‘Amritam’ (another Sanskrit word that is sometimes translated as ‘nectar’, immortality), Nirvana (literally ‘without forces’, so a state where there is total harmony, and the three states/forces of nature, the 3 ‘gunas’, Tamas, Rajas and Sattva – Inertia, Activity and Luminosity- who are always competing against each other are not operating) and many more…

That all sounds great, but  how do we get to experience it? (I have heard all about ‘the human experience’…)

Is there a way to get to the ‘truth’ of who we are? Sometimes we think we are a certain way, or we construct an idea of who we are or who we have become based on the ‘story’ of our life. Our childhood, our parents, our partners… all the ‘bad’ things, all the ‘good’ things… Sometimes we even come to make those things who we are, because we perhaps feel a bit ‘naked’ without them. We make them really important, because who would we be if all those stories were taken away? And then one day perhaps all that stuff IS taken away, and once again we become someone different, we change our minds, maybe we grow up, maybe we take on a different identity… We take up art so we are suddenly an artist, or we stop eating animals and overnight we are a vegan, or we start acting for the good of all around us, and we are compassionate…

Who would we be, if we suddenly took away all our ‘stuff’, all the stories we have created and built upon ourselves, all the ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘worthy’, ‘less worthy’,everything,  and restored our Selves to our ‘Default Settings’?

Could it possibly be that we just ARE, and that’s ok? Not even warts and all, just all… and nothing at the same time.

How would we react to people and situations if suddenly, instead of acting from all our stories, our fears, our joys, our lessons, our egos, our insecurities, our victories, we managed to flick that switch, to ‘restore to our ‘default settings’, to the essence that was there in the beginning, to take away the ‘stories’ and  just act from the Light Love and Joy that we truly are?

When I am surrounded by beautiful nature, sometimes I feel like I have a glimpse of something unchanging within myself… A glimpse of what my ‘default setting’ feels like. This indescribable beauty and peace and joy that I hope must also exist somewhere inside of me because I  recognise it in something or someone other than myself.

What if we could always stay connected to our own core, to the unchanging part of ourselves, the part that is not threatened by anyone, the part that is the same as the indescribable beauty in nature, the part that we sometimes only get a glimpse of, for a fleeting moment but that feels so True…. Would we then ever be afraid, or offended, or feel loved or unloved or lonely, threatened, sad, happy, good, bad…?

Even better, what if we were able to stay present not only to our own ‘default setting’, but also be aware of that unchanging reality in everyone and everything else and forever remind ourselves that no matter what others are doing, no matter what their ego construction and stories may be conjuring up, they are in every moment an amazing being of, Love, Light and Joy, just like us?

Perhaps, if we were able to turn on the awareness of our ‘Default Setting’, then we could stay connected to our own core, and whenever we communicate with people they would feel like we are coming from that place of Love Light and Joy. Perhaps they would get a glimpse of something true and unchanging, and respond from a place of Light Love and Joy. Perhaps they would see their own unchanging reality reflected in ours, and we would  see ours in theirs and realise that on a spiritually profound and physically molecular level, we are them and they are us. Maybe that would be a bit like experiencing that Oness that the books talk about…

Our teacher Alessia Avellino teachers here at the Centre teaching Dynamic & Jivamukti Yoga and our Power Hour, also.

www.alessiayoga.com