Perspective

Source teaching · Alex Julian, 2024

The original lesson

When you hear about changing your perspective, you probably think about changing how you look at things or your mindset. That is definitely legitimate and a great thing, however perspective can get nuanced, like anything else. I want to highlight two things specifically here: physical perspective changes (as opposed to mental) and angle changes.

What you see, or what you consume through your eyes, has a major subconscious effect. This goes for the virtual landscape and for real life. Although subtle, think about the difference between looking around your room and looking around on top of a mountain. Yes, your workspace set-up is probably awesome, but there are walls — with limits to how far you can see. On the mountain, however, there are no walls — with no limits to how far you can see. There is something to be said about taking in brilliant views with your eyes. They expand the mind. They literally give you a higher (and more limitless) perspective. Again, much like you become what you eat, your mind becomes what you put in your eyes and ears.

Let’s move on to the angles. The more perspectives you have, the clearer and more true the image. There is a famous yoga story about several blindfolded men touching a different part of an elephant. When asked what the animal is, each man said a different thing. It is a snake! It is a turtle! It is x, y, z! You only get the true image when you look at the full picture — from every angle (or as many angles as possible).

© 2024 Alex Julian Yoga. All rights reserved.