The Yoga Sutras: The Omen of Scorpions
Raise your hand if you’ve recently rehomed a scorpion. 🙋🦂
Yup! I got the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a scorpion my first few days in Baja, Mexico.
An interesting “Welcome to Mexico” from the universe, to say the least.
Scorpions are actually beautiful omens that represent protection as I move through healing inner darkness. They're also super creepy-crawlies!!
Now, anytime I see something brown on the floor I think it’s a scorpion 😬
That’s a mistaken perception, a wrong impression mired in false appearances.
The scorpion encounter has caused me to create a mistaken perception based on experience rather than reality.
This mistaken perception is not serving me. I’m on high alert waiting for it to happen again which is causing me suffering. In a way, I am passively self-sabotaging myself.
When I see something brownish on the floor my mind immediately goes back to my first experience with the scorpion.
It startles me, making me physically jump back because I’m anticipating a weaponed 8-legged creature, ready to scurry out and sting me.
It's been a fun game for my flight/fight/freeze response omg
And it's a constant reminder that mistaken perceptions are part of the Great Mistake.
The Essential Yoga Sutra says, “Now it's absolutely essential to realize that, on one level, even our correct perceptions are all incorrect.”
But I can choose a kinder incorrect perception:
I can choose to see the scorpion parade as a gift, a sign of protection as I move through some deep inner healing.
We assign ownership to our belongings like “my pants”, “my laptop”, “my house”, “my car.”
Yes, all your belongings exist physically, but the truth is they don’t actually belong to us.
We traded money for our possessions so we can use them temporarily. It’s the mistaken perception that we actually own these things.
For example, if you own a home, you don’t really own the home.
Even if you buy it outright, you are eventually going to pass on and that home will become someone else's “property.”
You can’t take the house with you when you die.
But you can express a sense of non-attached gratitude for the safety it provides you in the meantime.
And you can extend that non-attached gratitude to everything, even scorpions.
It’s existing in that non-attached state that we find bliss, which is the WHOLE point of yoga 😊
Join me, will you?
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