My children are learning how to knit from their teacher at school. Every family member by now has been gifted a couple of potholders and eyeglass pouches made by their enthusiastic and nimble fingers.
I remember the day when they were just starting, and one of them came home with bright eyes to show me something she had learned, called ‘the magic knot’. Essentially it is a slip knot used to ‘cast on’ to the knitting needle and begin a project. A quick twist and loop, and she had the knot made. “Now watch!” she said, and pulled one of the ends of yarn, and like a miracle, the knot slipped free!
Sitting on the couch, helping my daughters untangle and re-wind runaway balls of wool, I contemplate on the many ‘knots’ we experience in our subjective worlds.
Have you ever felt knotted up with emotions and regrets? Tangled up in webs of narratives and self-doubting questions that won’t let you move forward? Enmeshed in desires for more success, approval or pleasures of the world and unable to make the healthy lifestyle or relationship shifts you want to make?
Vedic wisdom tells us that it is a fundamental part of the human experience - to become shackled by our body, the world and our minds. We need not feel ashamed or ‘like the only one’ when we look around and discover that we have knitted an entire inner and outer landscape where we feel limited, boxed in and bound up. Sometimes, it even feels like the harder we try to pull against our created suffering, the ropes tighten, and we are burned by the friction of our struggles in life.
But there is a singular realization we can have that will shift the entire craft.
These knots are all magic knots.
Wisdom of the Self, coming from Vedic traditions, through an embodied teacher - will reveal to us the exact loose end to tug that will free us once and for all.
Acharya Shunya often describes how Vedic knowledge is transmitted by spoken words that work like keys to unlock inner insights that will set us free. Once we know the trick, we awaken our inner ability to untie these knots as quickly as they form. With continued learning and ongoing practice, we unknit our suffering moment to moment, until we are left with a smooth, uninterrupted thread that shows us how to move in the world but not be tied to it.
In her book, ‘Sovereign Self’, Acharya Shunya brings out deep teachings on the Vedic journey to freedom. Learn more about upcoming courses and programs offered by Acharya Shunya here.
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