All roads lead to yoga. Even my garden path leads to yoga, it turns out.

I’m really looking forward to growing Sugar Baby Watermelons this year. (I mentioned these things on Mindful Minutes this week!) They’re a small, delicious fruit that will absolutely knock your socks off in terms of sweetness.

Creating the conditions

If the seed is healthy and all the conditions are right, the seeds will sprout into watermelon vines. I get a thrill from watching seeds sprout the way some people do when driving fast cars. That’s just how I’m wired.

It can be tempting to think only of the final product when we watch seeds rise from the earth. Maybe your mouth is watering at the thought of a cold slice of juicy watermelon on a sweltering summer day to come. It’s a glorious thought, but if we only worry about the final product, we can find ourselves in a world of disappointment.

Becoming too attached to the delicious outcome of a season of work goes awry when natural forces intervene. Weather, nutrient imbalances, furry forest critters, and insects can weaken or reduce results. In a stroke of unluckiness, we could find ourselves with no fruit at all. What a downer!

The culture of achievement and yoga

This same gardening pitfall can plague us in yoga too. Our achievement-oriented culture compels us to seek results. When we do well, it’s not enough to enjoy whatever the thing is that we’re doing. We have to check all the boxes so that we can reach the highest level of attainment.

In yoga, this looks two ways. We’re either pushing the bounds of physical capabilities in dynamic asana or we’re shooting for samadhi (the eighth limb of yoga; union of self with the object of meditation) or enlightenment.

For a while, I didn’t understand samadhi, but I really thought I had to check off that box. Some of you are chuckling because you already know that’s not how it works. “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” and one certainly doesn’t just follow ten easy steps to enlightenment.

If you practice yoga long enough, you may have flashes of insight. Maybe you feel something different in your body or have an epiphany. You might look at the world with new eyes, and you might experience states you haven’t experienced before. I can’t promise you any of that will happen, and I can’t really articulate what it’s like. Words fail in those last few limbs of the eight-limbed path. They’re just constructs for things that don’t exist within a construct. I know… that’s frustrating.

At seemingly random intervals, I find myself in practice going on these sort of “trips.” I won’t bore you or set up expectations by going into detail. Let’s just call them insights. I’ve had them, and then I’ve fixated on them. Maybe if I replicate the exact conditions, I can enter this state again. That’s the sweet, juicy watermelon I’ve been hoping for and putting my energy toward. Of course, I want to go back for seconds.

The problem is that that’s not really how these states work. The reality is that most of us are not going to live there all the time. You can say the same for asana, too. Sometimes there’s a feeling you get when you reach for something and attain it, but you can’t guarantee that it’ll feel the same tomorrow. The more you go around grasping, the more elusive the thing becomes.

Ram Dass got his start wrestling with this

If you read enough Ram Dass, he talks about falling right into this so many times. He did experiments where he used psychedelics to reach an enlightened state of mind, but he couldn’t stay there in perpetuum. He became a seeker and explored various modalities and belief systems to find something that would get and keep him spiritually high. He could never stay “holy” (as he puts it for very long). He needed only to be tempted by cake or to interact with his parents, and the beads and flowy clothes turned from the garb of a holy man to decorations.

This was one of the brightest and most influential teachers of our time issuing a warning about this very human tendency.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I don’t come away from the mat or the cushion with an earth-shattering revelation. Does that make me a lame yogi? I don’t really think so. There are undoubtedly adept practitioners. They can enter these states easily and stay for longer. If I find that even without being “proficient” (if there is such a thing) in these deeper states of being, the practice is still beneficial.

Enjoy all the steps through the garden of your practice

One thing I’ve learned from plants is to enjoy every milestone. Of course, the fruit is delicious, but watching a seedling emerge from the ground is also exciting. When a plant gets its second set of leaves, I am assured that it has successfully tapped into the energy around it. (The energy for the first set of leaves is contained within the seed itself… just like the energy of mindfulness already exists within us.)

As a vine grows, I marvel. When blooms arrive and I see bees donning yellow pollen britches as they move from flower to flower, I can see all the potential for the future, but I also find joy in that burst of life in the present moment. If there’s a yield, it’s all great. Should the forces of nature intervene and arrest the plant’s development, I’ve reaped all the joy the whole way through. It’s all good. We’ll try again next time.

It’s the same with practice. You decided to practice for a reason, and maybe there’s an end-goal in mind. Know that there are so many possibilities. Know also that every time you show up for yourself, you’ve done a thing worth celebrating. Every time you remember to breathe mindfully, you’ve taken a step worth taking. Every time you practice self-reflection, you are engaging in yoga. Are they enlightenment? Does it matter?

I no longer think about voyaging to the edge of my consciousness when I practice. The practice happens, and results may vary. The desire for achievements and temptation to seek something I felt before does still come up from time to time. I now quantify my success by the speed with which I can let go of all those expectations so I can just be. Can I see when I’m chasing an experience? Can I let go of my tendency to grasp?

The Greek poet, Nikos Kazantakis, has an epitaph that sometimes serves as my mantra. That may sound morbid, but I promise it’s worth a gander. It reads:

“Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. (I hope for nothing.)

Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα. (I fear nothing.)

Είμαι λέφτερος.” (I am free.)

That, my friends, is how I remind myself to shake off all expectations in my practice.

I wish you many revelations that improve your life in some way. I wish you many experiences that make you feel motivated and excited to practice. I also wish you lots of learning and goodness all along the way. May you enjoy every step and every practice without the burden of expectations.