Day 11: The Universe is a University
How Reincarnation, Karma, and Twelve Steps is Shaping My Path
Last night, I went out to dinner with a group of people after a twelve step meeting, and someone asked me, “Do you believe in reincarnation?” I thought to myself…oh boy…you do not want to get me started on this question.
If you’d asked me a few years ago, my answer probably would have been no. Back then, I didn’t really know what to believe. I’d studied the most basic of yoga philosophy but I definitely hadn’t arrived at chapter three and four of the sutras yet, where reincarnation comes into the picture. That was before I immersed myself deeply in Patanjali’s Sutras and the Bhavagad Gita. I knew what Ahimsa was and thought that made me qualified to teach a course on the Sutras (lol). I’ve learned over the past few years, that both of these fundamental texts, the Sutras and the Gita, teach the concept of reincarnation, rooted in Sankyha Philosophy.
In these teachings, there are two key components I call P & P: Purusha and Prakriti.Prakriti is everything that changes in the material world, while Purusha is the unchanging soul. The Sutras explain that our unchanging soul is reincarnated into different bodies across lifetimes, learning lessons along the way. As my Bhagavad Gita teacher, Jeffrey Armstrong, says, “The universe is a university.”
(My next Yoga Sutra Study starts online on January 20/21st, by the way. Here’s the info.)
In this metaphor, each lifetime is like a course. We learn through being a centipede, a cat, a butterfly, and various humans across countries and cultures. Each lifetime carries lessons we take into the next.
The Bhagavad Gita frames reincarnation beautifully. In Chapter 2, Krishna tells Arjuna that the soul (Atman) is eternal and indestructible:
"Just as a person discards old clothes and puts on new ones, so the soul discards old bodies and takes on new ones" (BG 2.22).
The Gita also emphasizes that fulfilling our dharma (our life’s duty, or purpose) without attachment to results allows the soul to progress. For example, teaching yoga with pure intention rather than ego-driven motives. This selfless action doesn’t create negative karma, freeing us from the cycle of rebirth.
In the Sutras, it’s taught that all of our actions (karma) in every single life time create impressions (Samskaras) on the subconscious mind. This is like our trauma and our generational trauma. These impressions impact our behaviours and desires. As long as we don’t resolve all our trauma, we will be born again, to finish the job, so to speak.
The Gita also outlines several paths to free ourselves from reincarnation. They include:
Jnana Yoga (yoga of Knowledge): this is the intellectual studies of yoga. So what you’re doing right now, by reading this blog. Or, enrolling in my sutra studies course starting later this month.
Bhakti Yoga (yoga of devotion): this is like chanting, devoting to the divine, the practice of kirtan, daily prayer, etc.
Karma Yoga (yoga of action): this is the path of selfless action. It emphasizes serving others. Volunteering at a shelter, being detached from outcomes, and fulfilling our purpose with integrity are ways we can fulfil our dharma.
Patanjali’s Raja Yoga, the “royal path,” offers another route. The eightfold path helps still the mind, purify desires, and transcend the cycle of birth and death. However, it comes with its own challenges—like avoiding the ego traps that come with newfound powers.
Some souls get close to liberation but fall short, returning with a higher level of consciousness. I think of some of the children I used to teach—those rare, wise old souls in six-year-old bodies. Now I see them as individuals carrying lessons from previous lives.
When the mind is fully purified, free of desires, the soul (Purusha) is liberated from the material realm (Prakriti). It no longer reincarnates.
I explained this all to my new Twelve Step friends last night, joking that I might have scared them off with my answer. But I did tell them, that clearing our karma is essentially the same thing as making amends in the twelve step program. In a way, they’re already further along the path to liberation than most of us.
Personally, I have a lot of work to do in cleaning up my karma. One area I’ve been working on is repairing family relationships. For over a year, I didn’t make time to call my dad or uncle. I regularly spoke to my mom, but that was because she made initiative to schedule calls with me. I don’t think they would perceive this as narcissistic behaviour, but I think it is. I’d become so self absorbed that I wasn’t putting in effort towards nurturing our relationship off social media. Meanwhile, I spent hours scrolling Instagram. Now, I’ve started scheduling weekly calls with them and my mom to reconnect and clear that karmic debt.
I’ve also been reflecting on how I organize my day. Rolf said to me this week, “How you organize your day is what you bow down to.” That’s been my mantra as I think about the things I accept and reject on my calendar. These days, I wake up at 6 a.m., meditate (Practicing Vedic Meditation which has changed my life by the way - we have a new training starting in ten days online with my friend Rory Kinsella and $50 off if you sign up before January 13). After I meditate, I spend about an hour writing these daily reflections before I move on with my day.
This morning, though, I broke my routine. Today I felt the strong urge to check my email before writing. I’m glad I did. Sitting in my inbox was the manuscript of a book my ex-husband wrote about our time in Kuwait.
He’d said he’d send it to me a year ago, but then he never did. I was afraid to ask, because I was worried I’d be the villain in the story. I assumed he was avoiding sending it to me for that reason, but it turns out he thought he’d already sent it a year ago to me. When I got the book, I knew I couldn’t do anything else today except read. So that’s what I did.
I read until my 9:30am yoga class. Then I taught my class. Then I rode my bike over to a cafe, where I sat and drank coffee and read the book as it poured rain in Bali. I laughed, I cried, I smiled. What we went through in Kuwait, I believe is very difficult to understand for anyone who wasn’t there. His book captured it perfectly. I finished the book at 2pm and then wrote him an email. After writing the email then I wrote this and then I went back to the studio to teach another class.
Reading his book helped me with two things. I think I very egotistically made myself the center of our story (as we humans do). I knew that I’d hurt him, but I think I forgot that his life had a timeline before me, and not all his pain stemmed from me. I took on the burden of “ruining his life” which obviously is not the case. I knew he had a timeline after me (which I’ve tried to follow from afar for years on Instagram.) I’ve always felt guilt for how I hurt him, but because we haven’t spoken ever about it, I didn’t know the story from his point of view. It made me tear up that I wasn’t really the villain in his story, because I certainly think I deserved to be. He’s done a lot of work on himself too.
It kind of reminded me of this quote by Colleen Hoover, which I wanted to share:
There was before you and there was during you.
For some reason, I never thought there would be an after you
But there was, and I was in it
I’ll be in it forever
If every single lifetime we’re here to learn a lesson and break karmic cycles, then that phase of my life was to learn empathy, learn presence, learn forgiveness for myself, forgiveness for eachother. It was to open up my mind and heart to new people and new experiences. It was absolutely to meet him, and to hit my first rock bottom, and to heal. That phase of my life was set up for me to move into new relationships with intention, and mindfulness (a current practice.)
Someone in one of my Yoga Sutra Study classes recently asked how these teachings affect my life. My answer? They’ve completely transformed it.
Understanding karma and the rebirth cycle allows me to approach all beings with greater love and compassion. It gives me a bigger picture goal, of wanting to reduce my karma as much as possible, not just for Alexandra’s life cycle, but for all the lives that came before her and all the lives that will come after her. Understanding the Sutras has also helped me stop playing the victim in my own life. Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?” I can reframe painful experiences as necessary lessons in the grand university of the universe.
I may not clear all my karma in this lifetime, but I’m committed to resolving what I can. The Twelve Steps feel like my next chapter in this journey of doing this work with intention.
Last night at dinner, someone asked why I don’t call myself an alcoholic. I explained that I’ve avoided the term because I feared it would “other” me. I don’t call myself an alcoholic because I think I am any different than anyone else. I think it is human nature to become addicted. This is raga and dvesha, according to Patanjali (desire and aversion). I’m not special and I don’t have a disease. I’m human and looking for a way to resolve my suffering.
She asked me, “What if you reframed it and thought calling yourself an alcoholic was actually about belonging? It’s not about saying that you’re different, it’s about saying that you’re the same. It’s about creating a sense of belonging. You are the same as the other people in the meetings. You belong in the rooms.”
I’d never heard if reframed this way.
Rolf said “how you organize your day is what you bow down to,” and I’m extending that to “how you organize your week is what you bow down to” as I want to look at my life in bigger pictures and bring a structure to it that comes across seven days, not just one. There are a few things I’m organizing my week around right now, including meditation, chanting, teaching yoga, and what feels most important: is going to 12 step meetings.
Going to 12 step meetings.
It feels like something worth bowing down to.
In gratitude and service
Alexandra