Coming close to the Self is something many people avoid at all costs. And to stay close to the Self is something rare indeed.

Closing the eyes and just sitting with what arises can feel almost unbearable. It is like a flood — or a storm — that threatens to overtake your mind and even, at times, to destroy your very soul. Instead, we stay distracted, we stay busy, we stay in the outside world — that which constantly tries to keep us in its grasp: pleasures that promise us fulfilment and redemption, but never deliver. Maya — illusion, is what the Ancients call it.

Coming close to my Self is something I avoided in so many ways. Because to come close — to be with one's Self, and to sit quietly — means to face that which is uncomfortable, that which is painful, that which brings anguish. It means meeting the grief, the shame and regret, the anger, the fear that quietly live beneath the surface.

When you first walk up to yourself; closing your eyes, and removing the noise, what greets you may not feel beautiful. It may feel uncomfortable, chaotic. Heavy. Unresolved. Painful. But that is not what you are.

You are not the wave of thoughts that crashes in. You are not the surface debris of the mind. You are not the old wounds within, speaking loudly for attention; those things coming up that we have spent years suppressing. They simply wish to be released.

Many of us have been told, somehow, that the sum of our fears, our pain, our mistakes — that this is who we are - that the garbage on the surface in your mind is all you are. I am here to say that you are not that which you encounter when you first close your eyes — when you first walk up to yourself. You are something so much more profound. And when you finally slow down, when you finally begin to reveal that which is within you — with guidance - with awareness... without judgement — remembering that what you are encountering is not your identity, but simply what is asking to be seen — Then it is purifying, it is cleansing, it is uplifting.

That is what these techniques do — with a gentle teacher, you can begin to overcome the aversion to the Self. This is the essence of Yoga — the gentle awareness of the entire self - even the compartmentalised pieces that have been pushed down. The parts that learned to run, to distract, to avoid. Through beautiful practices, we learn to give things space to arise and then to let them go. And in this process, we begin to come closer to our Selves, we begin to experience the union itself — that wholeness.

When you stay — when you breathe through the discomfort instead of running — something extraordinary happens. The pain points that once felt like threats begin to feel like teachers — they bring us gifts of insight and growth. You begin to thank the very experiences that exposed your wounds. Because each one reveals another layer ready to be transformed… Transmuted. Integrated. And in that integration, you become stronger. More whole. More rooted in who you truly are.

Coming close to the Self is not destruction. It is purifying… It is the gradual shedding of what you are not. And it is ultimately remembrance. Because beneath it all — beneath the noise, beneath the storm of concepts and feelings — is something timeless. Something luminous. Something untouched... Something that is truly You.