Finding containment does not come easy in life. We all know that, but for some people that journey is quite different and is the only goal is to do just that.

Yogi Aaron is one such person. He has been on a lifelong quest to find that elusive thing called contentment and he’s getting very close. He’s a sought after Yoga teacher who started a revolution with his “Men’s Naked Yoga” in New York. He’s been in the Himalayas and sat with prolific Sadhus and Yogis having been to India 10 ten times in his life. He now leads a retreat center in Costa Rica.

He joins us on episode #244 of the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast for a second time to share deeper wisdom.

He shares his journey as a yogi and the deeper spiritual aspects of yoga. He emphasizes the importance of being present and finding contentment within oneself. Yogi Aaron discusses the illusion of self and the masks we create, as well as the practice of candle gazing to train the mind to focus. He explains that the purpose of yoga is to go back home within oneself and discover one’s life purpose. Yogi Aaron also talks about his retreat center, Blue Osa, and the importance of embracing opportunities and cultivating faith and joy in life.

The Entire Conversation On Finding Contentment

Sue
Hi there, today on the show, Yogi Aaron is back here with us. I am so excited to have you back, welcome back.

Yogi Aaron
Thank you so much for having me back for take two. I love it.

Sue
Thank you. I feel like we were just scratching the surface when we had you on here before. We talked about, you know, how stretching is bad and this and that and Ayama and all of that. And I want to touch on some of that, but I want to go deeper with you this time and talk to you about your life as a yogi. So let’s kind of just, you are a sought after yoga teacher. Let’s give people.
a little bit of the backstory again, how and why and all of that.

Yogi Aaron

So since I was on before, I’ll try and keep it really short. I started yoga when I was 18. I got into it because I think like most people, my body was tightening up and I wanted a way to kind of quote unquote stretch and become looser. I did yoga as an anti-aging practice as well as something to keep me healthy. And yeah, I just started teaching about 12 years after that. I moved to New York City. and started a yoga studio. I developed a huge yoga following in New York. From that, I started leading retreats around the world, that which led me to Costa Rica, where I own a yoga retreat center now. And I lead yoga teacher trainings and help people to manifest and live their life purpose.

Sue
Oh, I love it. And see, this is the part that we didn’t touch on because it’s so much more than just yoga, right? It’s, yeah. And I think people go into it as this, they think it’s kind of like physical thing the same way you went into it. So really quick touching on this. Were you spiritual when you went into this? Did you, at what point did it become spiritual for you?

Yogi Aaron
You weren’t kidding when you said you wanted to go deep. Okay, so I come from a very strong Christian fundamentalist background. And my mother, my family, me, was raised in a Pentecostal kind of church. And by the way, I don’t say that with any sense of negativity except that when I became around 18, 1920,

I was very much anti anything religion. Which I think is, we kind of ebb and flow in our life and I flowed the complete opposite direction. I got really into new age and that sort of thing. But I was very much anti anything that kind of looked a little bit religious. So when I got into yoga, I was very much about the physicalness of it. I was very much about the part of it that just kind of dealt with my own body. And like I said, I got into it strictly to stretch in the beginning, but what started to happen, and this was the biggest, I think, kind of switch for me in the beginning was that I deal with ADD in my life. As a child, my parents had me constantly tested for learning disabilities, for other things, and you know. Numerous times they felt like I should be sent to a special school. And, you know, it was a lot of it was just I just couldn’t focus. And I was also a child, so, you know, as a kid and I couldn’t focus, you know. So flash forward, when I got into yoga, one of the biggest things that I felt like I was able to harness my level of concentration. and direct it to being able to accomplish so many things.

So that was the first thing. As time progressed, I started to feel like as I was doing my practice that the layers of, what do we call it, the veils, the veil of mysteries started to be peeled back and I got to see behind the veil to what In yoga, we often refer to as the sacred self or the sacred. And I started to get glimpses of that. And it was in those moments that I felt like I am really missing a teacher in my life. So when I moved to New York, one of the, in yoga, we use this word, some culpa, which means intention. It means bigger than intention. It’s not just intention setting. It’s like.

I want, I’m creating this big life intention, you know? And so I created this some culpa to find my teacher, which I did about seven months after I moved to New York, I met my teacher, it was Rod Striker. And I remember meeting him and I just, everything inside of me just felt like teacher. And he was able, he was the first person. teacher that I ever had that came into my life and was able to tear back the veil between the seen and the unseen and between myself and the sacred and so then and there my practice of course took on a whole different meaning and so it just kind of developed from there I went to India I’ve been to India actually ten times each of those times has given me a different experience of the sacred and to understand the mysteries of the yoga tradition. So just as a completely off topic note, but related to what we’re talking about, when people ask me what kind of yoga I teach, I often say I teach an authentic Himalayan tradition of yoga. And that’s, I’ve really endeavored to go back to the roots because it’s in the roots if we practice it properly. And correctly, we can all have those experiences and have that experience of the sacred within us. I’m often reminded of Sutra 1.3 in the Yoga Sutras, which says that the promise of yoga, when you experience yoga, is that there’s this deep, profound sense of becoming completely at rest within yourself. That you go home. And so that’s what Rod taught me, with how to go home within myself. And up until that point, I never felt at home within myself.

Sue
Wow, see, we were like not even scratching the surface during our last

Yogi Aaron

See yoga is a lot more than wearing tights and leg warmers and headbands and seeing how much you can sweat, right?

Sue

Right. And you know, I am being facetious. You shared so many amazing insights and so much incredible wisdom with us last time as well. But this is a different conversation, right? Where so often people go in for the physicality. And I think it’s so beautiful and so powerful the way you describe this idea of how, when you started kind of actively practicing it, you started to awaken.

Yogi Aaron

Yes.

Sue
to a part of yourself that you weren’t familiar with. And then like they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, right? And it’s almost like, because it takes you so deep. It’s not something you can really do on your own until you’ve been guided with someone like your Guruji or your teacher.

Yogi Aaron

Yeah. Yeah, and that idea of when the student is ready, the teacher appears, it’s kind of taken out of context a little bit, and I just wanna shed a little bit of light on what that really means. It means that you, as the student, become receptive to hearing the teachings. And so the teacher can always be in front of you. Like, there’s not this magical person or force or angel that just magically shows up in your life per se, it’s more that you are able to hear it. You know, Jesus once said to his disciples before they went out, don’t throw, don’t cast pearls before swine, which means that not everybody is able to hear what you’re going to say. So don’t waste your time with those people. Like they’re, they’ll catch up.

They’ll be ready in their own time. Go to the people that are looking for those pearls and give those pearls to those people. And so I think when the student is ready, for me it’s kind of like one of the expressions that Rod often uses is our job as yoga teachers is to ripen our students. And you know, like we can’t take a fruit from the fruit tree. until it’s ripe and at that moment then it’s ready to be eaten, it’s ready to be enjoyed, right? So we as students need to be ripened, we need to go through this kind of fire of tapas if you will, we need to be show some real sincere effort and as we put the effort in, Swami Rama used to say, the rising force is effort but the descending force is grace and the grace can only descend once the effort has risen. completely, which means that we need to put in the effort. And so a lot of people out there are going to really incredible teachers, but they don’t ever hear anything the teacher really says because they’re just not ready.

Sue
I love that. And I, you know, and it’s so profound because I think a lot of times people want it to be done for them or handed to them. They think they can say they’re going to go to the teacher and it’s like snap and poof, the awakening happens, right? But it’s a little, there’s a little more to it. Yogi Aaron (10:48.801)
Yes.

Yogi Aaron
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot to it. And again, it’s just, we just need to make the effort. We need to show up, you know? So much of life is just showing up. And you probably see this in the work that you do, and I see it, and just even in my endeavoring to help people become pain-free, they think, oh, I’m just gonna do this exercise once and be perfect for the rest of my life. It’s like. No, you got to do a little bit more than that. I find it really funny because sometimes people come to my teacher trainings and in Costa Rica, I do these teacher training immersions. And one of the guidelines is that we need, we practice morning silence. And, uh, so there’s no talking until eight o’clock.

Sue
Oh my goodness, I love that.

Yogi Aaron
And the first person to speak is me at that point. So they’re actually not talking for a while still. But the point is, is like, that’s a really hard practice for people. And so many people are just not willing to step outside of their comfort zone and try something that might be uncomfortable. And until we do something uncomfortable, we don’t really get to see who we are in the fullest light. So that’s the effort that I’m talking about. It’s not like, you know, I’m not asking people to climb Mount Everest. I’m just asking them to be quiet in the morning. So that Grace can show up sometime.

Sue
Wow. So you know what’s interesting and it is, I mean, you know this better than anyone, that whole meditation and mindfulness thing, like people find it so hard to even just sit for three or four or five minutes in silence. They’re like, I can’t turn my brain off. I can’t sit. They’re just so anxious and have so much that I don’t, you know, it’s a weird kind of juxtaposition because are they, they’re like running towards something, but they’re also running from things that are just right there within that need to be acknowledged.

Yogi Aaron

Yeah. And most of what people are running towards is an illusion of something that they’ll never achieve or attain. So there’s this vicious cycle of, of people constantly running, as you just said, running away from something. And really at the end of the day, they’re just running into an illusion and into a fantasy because they think like if they keep running, they’re going to get somewhere. but is an old, I think it’s an old Chinese proverb that says, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to end up there someday.

Hahahaha.
So, but that’s the power of yoga because yoga, kind of just to go off of that idea of running away and then to something, what are you running away from? Your past. And running to something, the future. And so we’re never completely in the present. We’re never here in the now. And the most profound, I think, words in the yoga sutras is in the very first sutra, it just says exactly what yoga is. Now is yoga. And, and that’s, that’s the rub. That’s the place that we need to get to. Um, but we’re consumed with the past and trying to get to a, you know, a future that’s, that’s an illusion. Um, so if we just kind of focus in on the now and take care of the now, that’s where all the magic happens. That’s where all the spice happens.

Sue
And you know this idea of being in the now like so scary for people. What is that?

Yogi Aaron
Yeah.
I think that a lot of people are just really uncomfortable within themselves. And, you know, we could spend the next… We could take another 10 episodes and talk about that.

And because we’re so uncomfortable with ourselves, I mean, there’s so many layers to it. If you want to distill it from a yogic perspective, again, there’s a lot of layers to it. But when we confront ourselves, we confront a part of our own immortality. And because of that immortality, that knowledge, that fact that all of us, you know, this body is one day not going to be here. And so. That propels us into this deep unsteadiness to get us to the point where we feel like we need to cling to something. So we cling to things. We surround our life with things. And then that, of course, takes on its own kind of energy or consumption because then we’re like, okay, how am I gonna get those things?

I need the newest iPhone. I need the newest BMW. I need the latest. you know, how design in my house, I need the bigger house, I need a better job. And so all of these things start to consume our energy and pull us away from understanding the more important things in life, understanding ourselves. And so to understand ourselves, we have to confront, you know, who are we at every level. And so by this consumption, then we go out to create different egos, we create different identities, you know, and put forth like, I am a yoga teacher. I am a life coach, you know, and this is who I am in the world, or I am a neurosurgeon, you know. And so each of these things give us this sense of, you know, who we are, but it’s not who we are, they’re illusions.

I’m going to go ahead and turn it off.
The word personality comes from the Greek root word persona. And so in ancient Greece, when actors would act, they would, sometimes they would assume like three or four different characters. And how would you know who those characters were? The actor would hold a persona up. So it was a mask. The root, the word persona really means mask. And the problem is, is that we all have masks, which is not a bad thing. but that we actually start to believe that we are those masks. And so all of this then leads to what Patanjali called avidia, which is like ignorance. All of these different things, this fear of death, this kind of attachment to stuff in life and needing to fill our life with stuff, this idea of building masks, you know, that are not anywhere near who we are. these things all feed into our avidya, our own ignorance. And so when we go through life, not really knowing who we are, until we know that we don’t know, which is another story. So that’s in a nutshell, from a yogic perspective.

Sue

And you know, this interesting idea until we don’t know that, or until we know we don’t know. So it’s almost for you, the more work you do, the more humility, the more you realize, right? I mean, do you, you wouldn’t call yourself enlightened at this point? Or would you? Or would your ego?

Yogi Aaron

I would never call myself enlightened. I don’t even know what it would be. I’ve read stories of people who have become enlightened. And from what I’ve understood them to be, it’s like when we get to that state of enlightenment, it’s like we kind of just don’t even want to be here anymore. It’s like, why am I even here?

Um, you know, it’s time to check out. So, so I don’t know, but then there’s another way of looking at it. And I don’t know that I would put myself in the enlightened category, but I think that one of the biggest secret ingredients in life is to be happy. And, um, and that happiness is fueled by a deep sense of contentment within yourself. And so. I wouldn’t say that I have achieved enlightenment, but I would say that I’m on the path of endeavoring to understand real deep-seated contentment. And while I don’t feel like I’ve completely gotten there, I feel like I’ve stood on the edge of the cliff and looked out over the horizon and felt the waves of its warmth a few times in my life.

Sue
Wow, and that is amazing. And like you say, that’s kind of the point. That’s the point, whole point, right?

Yogi Aaron
Yeah. But Sue, can I just add one more little cliff note to that? Because just for your listeners and for you to understand too, that, you know, when we look to Buddha, Buddha said, keep meditating and Buddha meditated. Jesus said, keep praying. And he kept praying. When we look into the, some of the Hindu stories of the gods, one of the, one of the themes that keeps coming up over and over is they’re all doing their practice. So even God has to do a practice to remind themselves that they’re still God. And so the point is, is like, what is enlightenment? Well, we can achieve a certain point, but we still got to come back and do our practice because those, those things that I was just talking about can affect us so quickly and, and lead us on the path of a video, lead us back to forgetting our true nature. So There is no, I think what I’m trying to say is that there’s no final state that you ever achieve because you always come back to do your practice. You always come back to come back and be completely at rest within yourself, to remind yourself who you are. One of the teachings in yoga is this idea of samara, which means remembrance. So our practice takes us back to a deep seated remembrance of who we are. Does that make sense to you?

Sue
That’s so, absolutely it does. And you know, I’ve heard this before and it’s kind of like, you just, you become that thing. Like you are nothing without it, right? Like you can’t imagine not practicing.

Yogi Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I need to come back all the time because you know, the weight of life, life is heavy. And there’s, you know, especially like there’s so many things around us, there’s so much confusion around us, people are confused. You know, everybody has their own, you know, perceptions in life. And that can fog your own perception really quickly. In yoga, one of the most profound You know, if you were gonna do one singular practice, this is the practice I would tell you to do. Well, I probably would say that about many things, but the one practice to do is actually candle gazing. just staring at a candle. And of course, it’s a little bit more involved than that. It’s not just staring at a candle, but that’s the basic idea. And what you’re training your mind to do is just to see the candle. How long can you look at that flame and just see the flame? Most people can’t last more than 10 to 15 seconds. And then there’s a whole reality that between them and the flame. That’s their projection of their own mind.

And so it’s really hard for us to come back to seeing what is real. So the practice of just being able to focus on something tangible and see it for, you know, the time prescription is 10 to 15 minutes, a little bit longer is okay, but usually 10 to 15 minutes. So that’s the prescription. Just practice watching something real in front of you and holding your attention on that one thing for an extended period of time that starts to train yourself to not be sucked into the veil of confusion that most other people are dealing with in their life. And that you can always maintain a perception of what is actually reality.

Sue
I love that I’ve never heard that before, but only a real yogi would tell us to go stare at a candle for as long as we can.

Yogi Aaron
It’s a powerful idea, the flame.

Sue
I know, it sounds amazing. It makes such perfect sense. And I think, you know, what’s interesting about it is versus trying to be in a meditative state where you’re like those thoughts come in, right? This is actually giving you something substantive to focus on other than your thoughts. Yogi Aaron (24:49.444)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron
Yes, yeah, that’s exactly it. And just something that you’ve said before, which I think was kind of important, is like a lot of people when they sit down with themselves, they’re just distracted by their thoughts. And the problem where a lot of people get stuck is they have a lot of shame around that. They think I’m not a good enough, you know, focuser. I’m not able to hold my attention. And therefore I can’t do it because I’m just stupid or I’m lazy or I’m unfocused or whatever, you know, whatever stories they tell themselves. When I, what, one of the things that’s really important for your listeners to know and for people to know is that the nature of mind is busy. And so when you’ve trained your mind and it does take a training. to be unfocused. A lot of us have trained our minds to not focus actually. And on the opposite, we’ve also trained our mind not to focus. So it takes time. And one of the words, in the words of Rod sometimes, I can just hear him saying this, you know, gently and comfortably bring your mind back to the practice. Gently and compassionately bring your mind back to practice.

Sue
Oh, I just lost she for a second.
Oh, I love that. That’s so powerful. And you know, this idea, and again, just with how life is and social media, I mean, you know, like the little short videos and little snippets, you know, you’re on Instagram. It’s like, it’s, the world is now set up for us to not be able to focus on anything for longer than like five to 10.

Yogi Aaron

So it’s all, I mean, we need these kind of practices even more. Okay, so I want to, you know, I just knew you were going to have so much wisdom and so much insight because you are a true yogi. You embody this. You’ve been doing it for so long. You’ve just been dropping like knowledge bombs one after the next on us here from the sutras. Can you kind of give us? There was a question like. Yogi Aaron (27:03.054)
Yes.

Sue
Or, you know, one of your videos, it’s like, why do we practice? Can you kind of touch on that?

Yogi Aaron
I don’t know what context you’re asking me, so I’m gonna just say like, why do we practice yoga? I mean, there’s so much to unpack there, but the yoga sutras opens up and it says, the reason why we’re doing this practice is for a couple of reasons, but the core of it is so that we can go back home within ourselves. And if we look at all the great teachers, I just quoted Jesus and I’ve quoted Buddha. And I could also quote a lot of other of the great teachers, they all say the same thing, go back home within yourself. And within there, you’re going to be in touch with what your purpose is in life. So many people are running around, again, being busy, trying to find their purpose.

But the teachings tell us that in our… The place that we will find our purpose is within that deep well of stillness within ourselves. And I’m also reminded of Mother Teresa, who said that God speaks and the heart listens. And so it’s only in the silence of the heart that we’re able to hear that purpose. So the purpose of yoga, ultimately, is to help us know ourselves at every level. so that we can go out to manifest life’s purpose.

Sue
I love that, that’s so beautiful. And you know, this idea of happiness, like you said earlier, I wanna touch on this and have you give us some more insight here because I feel like so often people kind of miss the whole point, right? It’s, they’re caught up in this rat race, they’re caught up in their minds. But really the ultimate point is to get to this place of like peace and contentment. It has nothing to do.

Yogi Aaron
Yes.
Mm-hmm.

Sue

with all of these things in the superficial world.

Yogi Aaron
Yeah. And, and letting go of what we think our purpose is sometimes, letting go of, of an outside, you know, objective or goal or, or an achievement. Uh, so many of us are caught up in, in a superficial idea of what success is, that we never feel success ourselves. And we forget to, you know, like as I’m, I’ll use myself as an example, that right now is I’m, you know, creating, have created Ayama, which I talked about quite at length in our previous episode, that for me, I know that my purpose isn’t, you know, how many Ayama courses I can sell. My purpose is to just keep sharing the information.

And, And then also to face the challenges along the way, you know, the challenges come up and it’s, it makes it exciting. And when, when a person isn’t caught up in the tangible result or, or a certain outcome instead is more involved in the process. So I honestly haven’t really thought too much ahead about what’s going to happen in a year or two years or three years, because Right now is where I need to be.

Right now I’m talking to Sue. And having this conversation. So that’s the only thing that’s important to me. And then when I get off this, then have go and have dinner with some friends. And that is the most important thing at that moment. And so as we’re going through life and we’re able to stay in that moment, it’s in that moment that we experience purpose. contentment because we’re neither pining over a past that either, you know, we wish would repeat itself or we wish never happened or pining over a future that we hope with all of our hearts is going to happen. We’re completely, you know, in the present and that’s where yoga, that’s where the magic of yoga comes in and it constantly reminds us to just stay present in
whatever is going on to embrace it all because it’s all a manifestation of purpose.

Sue
I love that. Now, you know, when you first started kind of realizing that yoga, it’s deeper than what you had first thought, right? And you start kind of getting in touch with that inner part of yourself. What did you think you were going to find?

Yogi Aaron

What did I think I was going to find?
That’s a really good question. I have to sit with that for a moment. Cause definitely I knew that something needed to be found. And whenever, when I got into, when I made the decision to really take the leap and study yoga, one of the books that changed my life was a book by Swami Rama called Living with the Himalayan Masters. And in it, he shares his story. He grew up in the Himalayas and he had all these teachers. And he shares all of these. incredible experiences with them that, you know, some of these experiences kind of go into what I sometimes refer to as the woo woo. And I think that part attracted me a lot. I’ve always been attracted to the woo woo. But more than that, I wanted to understand what I was capable of in life. And I had tested been tested physically, but I don’t think I had ever been fully tested in terms of, of what I sometimes refer to as indomitable willpower.

You know, it’s that indomitable willpower within us that has the power to manifest in life. And a really good example of that is Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. You know, Martin Luther stood up and he said, I have a dream. And he went and changed the course of history. Nelson Mandela had a dream. He came out of prison and be after 25 years became president of South Africa. Um, and, and another person is good to draw upon is Gandhi, you know, this little tiny Indian man that, you know, weighed lighter than a feather and.

took on the whole British Empire. That’s indomitable willpower. That’s a force. And that is that force is something that I want to understand. And, and the interesting, the cool thing is like the whole practice of tantra yoga is how do we, how do we become more aligned with that force? How do we with get in alignment with that force. There’s a word in Sanskrit, there’s shraddha, vira, the word is vira. And vira means that it kind of means indomitable will. But it only happens when we it becomes it becomes such a force that when we say something, it actually manifests. And that’s what Gandhi did. He said India will be free. and you will leave here peacefully. That is the level of Veera I’m talking about, where you can speak something and it manifests. And so that has always kind of attracted me to the yoga tradition, to understand that indomitable willpower within myself, and then to understand how am I going to wield this in life. So that’s also the other side of it.

Sue
Oh my goodness now. So what are you at this point, you’re looking for this force, but what else, like what else are you seeking still? What else are you gonna find? Where are you on your spiritual journey? You gotta know that there’s more and you’re gonna be able to go deeper, right? Is that how you see it or what do you think?

Yogi Aaron
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like I was very blessed in my 20s, 30s, even early 40s to some degree with the time and space to be able to dive into practice. I think that in the last 10 years, 15 years or so, I’ve really dedicated myself to. understanding how to manifest my purpose. How do I put this in motion? And so right now I feel like I’m at this point where I’m here to serve others. I don’t live in the Himalayan mountains in a cave by myself. I live in the world and I created a yoga retreat center for people to come. And in my own and unique way, I’m passing on this tradition to people who come to Blue-osa and so that they can get at least a glimpse, you know, and sometimes that glimpse is a, is the pearl enough to awaken something within that person to want more. And I feel like at this moment, that’s my path in my journey. I continue of course, to do my own practice, not as intensely as I have in the past. And because right now my, my real duty. my Dharma is to serve others. And so that’s what I’m focusing on right now.

Sue
and then talk to us about BlueOSA. Like what is going on there? Is it growing? Are you having more and more programs? Can you give us some of that?

Yogi Aaron
Yeah, sure. Blue Osa is, I mean, it’s my retreat center in Costa Rica. We have three different kinds of guests that come to us. We have group leaders or coaches who come and bring their students and run a program. And so we hold the space for that teacher while they’re doing their programs. I also run yoga immersions there, and that’s something that I’m constantly growing and doing. Mostly because I just love doing it. It’s my favorite thing is being a yoga teacher. I just love it. So that’s one way. And then another way that people come to Blue Osa is through just having their own personal private yoga retreat experience. And so one of the magical things about Blue Osa is it’s removed from everything. It’s literally in the jungle. You have to fly to a remote place to get to us. It’s not hard to get to us, but it is remote. And when you get there, you literally feel like you’ve arrived at the end of the world. So it’s the perfect place to come renew and restore your spirit, but also to become more aligned with your life purpose.

Sue
And you know, it’s interesting because you say you live out in the world, but you kind of are like out in the jungle, like in a very, which is going to be restorative and so therapeutic for you. Are you going to stay there? I mean, do you, do you think about that? Do you think, Oh, maybe I’ll move back to the States at some point. Because you kind of live there full time now, right?

Yogi Aaron
Hahaha! Yow!
Well, I live in, I live in Costa Rica. So I have a place in the city and I have a place, you know, at Blue Osa, obviously. And I kind of share both places. Um, sometimes quite honestly, there’s no room for me at the end. So I have to go to my city home. But I, you know, I, again, it’s, I don’t know what the future holds. All I know is it’s an exciting one. And I. You know, one of the things that people often say to me is that, you know, Yogi Aaron, you’re so lucky. And I say, well, I actually am not lucky. I just, doors just opened, you know, and I walk through them. And I think that so many of us have doors that are opening for us constantly, you know, in our lives, but we just don’t, we just don’t take the leap of faith and walk through it. And So for myself, it’s not so much a matter of, that’s why it’s hard for me to go into the future too much because what I do now is I just look for doors that are opening. There’s an opportunity next month in Los Angeles happening. There’s a big yoga expo.

Some people invited me to go to it, to have a booth and to share and to talk. So that’s what I’m gonna do next month. Those are the kind of doors that I look for that open. There’s another door that’s opening for me to go to Lake Tahoe and teach at a yoga festival that just kind of landed in my lap. And I just say yes to everything. I say yes as often as I can to as many things as possible because that’s part of the experience of life, but I also feel like that’s a signaling to me. Hey, this is the next part in your evolution, so just go for it. And if I don’t do that, then I start to become stagnant. And those doors, it’s not that they don’t, they stop opening, it’s just that I never see them open. So we need to be constantly mindful, but also honor. Hey, the door is opening, I got to walk through it. And so that’s where I put my energy, is staying attuned to what is happening in the present moment.

Sue
Mm-hmm. And then that energy of kind of evoking doors opening because it’s like once you’re open to the one opening, then another one and another one, right?

Yogi Aaron

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. It’s, it’s so great to talk with you again. Oh my God.

Sue
Oh wow, I love it. Oh my goodness. Yogi.

You have been here and this has been such an amazing conversation. You have been so remarkable. You’ve offered so many insights and so much just deep, profound wisdom. I just thank you so much. I’m so honored. And before you go, you’ve already said so many amazing things, but what closing message are you going to leave us with for this new year? What wisdom can you impart on us in closing?

Yogi Aaron
Oh my goodness, what do I want to leave your listeners with? Um, I, you know, the biggest thing that I think we need to cultivate in our life is faith. And, you know, Patanjali says that if we want to tread the path of enlightenment, the first quality we need to cultivate is faith. And the word faith in Sanskrit is Shraddha. Shraddha, S-H-R-A-D-D-H-A, Shraddha. And the Vyasa, this great primordial sage, translated Shraddha as a joyful state of mind. And that joyful state of mind, it’s kind of a double entendre because part of it is like, yeah, go out and cultivate a joyful state of mind. But he’s also saying cultivate a joyful state of mind based upon the knowledge. that you have within yourself. And so part of it is having faith that you have everything that you need within yourself to manifest your best life. So my message to your listeners, cultivate Shraddha, a joyful state of mind. And remember, one of the biggest part of that teachings is the bigger your faith, the bigger your life. So go make it so.

Sue
Oh, I love that. What an amazing, beautiful closing message. You’ve been so awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks. Wow.

Yogi Aaron
Thank you. Thank you so much, Sue.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

07:08 Yoga as a Spiritual Practice

14:59 The Importance of Being Present

18:39 The Illusion of Self and Masks

24:23 The Practice of Candle Gazing

27:14 The Purpose of Yoga

29:03 Finding Happiness and Contentment

32:05 Seeking the Force Within

36:18 Yogi Aaron’s Spiritual Journey

38:05 Blue Osa Retreat Center

42:41 Embracing Opportunities and Doors Opening

43:08 Closing Message: Cultivating Faith and Joy

Fore more insights from Yogi Aaron you can watch my previous interview with him below –