Way of the Spiritual Yogi: 6-Step Guidebook to Find Your Self

By Ginger Dunaway

Every human being on Earth longs and searches for true meaning and fulfillment. Unfortunately, most of us search in the wrong places and end up empty-handed. We won’t find true fulfillment in a fancy new car or lavish vacation. We will find it on the yoga mat, in the comfort of our own homes. The regular practice of yoga allows us to escape distractions, break patterns, examine our inner selves deeply, and ultimately find true contentment and joy. When the practice and teachings of yoga are combined with the teachings of A Course in Miracles, we find ourselves on the most fascinating exploration of self, leading us to what we have truly been missing all along. If you are ready for a simple and honest glimpse into this phenomenal practice of yoga, open the pages of this book, seek no more, and discover the life you have only seen in your dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781982207670

Ginger Dunaway

Ginger is a life coach, author, and founder of LiveModernYogi.com. She has been in her own “self-study” since eight years old when a childhood drama suddenly caused her to lose her natural contentment for life. The search to get it back finally ended with the start of a personal yoga practice and her studies of A Course In Miracles. She was inspired to write Way of the Spiritual Yogi and found LiveModernYogi.com, both dedicated to helping others experience the true miracle of human existence. She is living the happy dream with her loving husband, two very sassy girls, three adorable dogs, two rescued cats, and lots of wild creek animals in a very hot, humid, and beautiful part of southern Alabama.

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Copyright © 2018 Ginger Dunaway.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

"All quotes from A Course in Miracles © are from the Second Edition, 1992. They are used with written permission from the copyright holder and publisher, the Foundation for Inner Peace, P.O. Box 598, Mill Valley, CA 94942-0598, www.acim.org and [e-mail]."

Author photograph taken by our talented local photographer, Shane Rice of Shane Rice Photography.

Final edit completed by Suzette Graf Ortega. Cover design by Ikrima Art Studio.

For information on Kripalu yoga, visit www.kripalu.org, and for more

information on A Course in Miracles, visit www.acim.org.

Balboa Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-0766-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-1437-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-0767-0 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/07/2021

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I

Discipline:

A Necessary Component to Finding the Self

Chapter 1Dramas and Traumas Fuel Our Search for Something More

Chapter 2What Exactly Makes Us Lose Our Selves to Begin With?

Chapter 3Homesick for Our Own Self

Chapter 4Yoga as the Map to Take Us Home

Chapter 5Allow Me to Introduce You to Your Higher Self

PART II

Self-Study:

a Fascinating Exploration of Your Own Self

Chapter 6The Mind-Blowing Key to Yoga

Chapter 7Why Awaken? The Ego-Self’s Illusion and Its Effects

Chapter 8Why Awaken? The True Self’s Happy Dream and Its Effects

PART III

A Phenomenal Practice:

a Guaranteed Way to Find Your Self

Chapter 9Yoga Gives Us Our Life Back

Chapter 10Shedding Baggage through the Practice of Yoga to Reveal the True Self

PART IV

Why We Are Not Already Awake

Chapter 11Ancient Tricks the Ego Uses to Keep Us Feeling Lost

Chapter 12The Many Faces of the Ego

Chapter 13The Aspect of Ego That We Are Not Ready to Let Go Of

PART V

The True Test

Chapter 14Relationships as the True Test for How Far We’ve Come in this Process

Chapter 15The Key to Passing the Test

PART VI

Staying Centered in the Self

Chapter 16Truth: The Art of Staying Centered in Your Self

Chapter 17Be a Truth-Holder

Chapter 18Way of the Spiritual Yogi

User-Friendly Guide

Extra Chapter: Awakening as a Moment of Remembering Our True Self

Resource List

About The Author

This book is

dedicated to my absolutely amazing husband Mark and our precious girls - our heart, soul, and breath - Rowen and Mia. I hope neither of you lose yourself along the way, but if you ever do, allow this book to bring you back home, to your own self - the beautifully innocent, intuitively brilliant, fiercely independent, sublimely creative, pure souls that I see you both as everyday.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for being such wonderful parents and for each of you teaching me in your own special way to look to the Holy Spirit within, our higher self, for guidance and strength. Thank you, Dad, for always reminding me to see the miracle in all things and for being my true guru, my teacher of light, in this life. Thank you Mom, for being such an example of strength and perseverance and allowing me to share some of your story. You are the true heroine of this book.

And to all of you out there, believe it or not, you were a part of this book coming together. A part of you was ready. A part of you wanted to hear what is in these pages ... and so this book came to be.

INTRODUCTION

My dad always told me that as a baby I smiled a lot. He said he always wondered who and what I would become because of that. It took a childhood hardship to cause me to lose that smile for a long while.

In my late teens and early twenties, I had perfect strangers on a regular basis tell me to smile because God loved me. I once had a monk at a temple on Kauai whom I had just met ask me in his Indian accent, "Why so serious, Ginger?" as he pointed to the semi-permanent furrow between my brow. I had been in what seemed constant thought and analysis ever since my childhood hardship, searching far and wide to find that smile again. Little did I know that to find my smile, I had to find my self. Once I did, the peace and contentment I still remembered experiencing as a child would now become second nature again.

This book weaves my own journey to finding self throughout a 6-step guide for you to do the same. I want to share with you what I have learned from a combination of the ancient practice and philosophy of yoga and the principles and practice of A Course in Miracles. These teachings have led me to find my smile again, and for that I am truly grateful. Now all I wish is to help you to do the same.

So, take a deep breath, let out a sigh of relief, and get ready to come back home to your own self within these pages…and experience all the gifts that that entails.

If you love this book and would like to experience it as an online e-course, visit www.Spiritual-Yogi.com.

Namaste means the light in me is the light in you. In other words, we are One and the same.

Namaste, my friend.

PART I

Discipline:

A Necessary Component

to Finding the Self

CHAPTER 1

Dramas and Traumas Fuel Our

Search for Something More

The happy childhood is hardly worth your while.

—Frank McCourt Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir (McCourt 1999, 11)

Enlightenment for the Average Joe

Have you ever woken up in life and asked yourself, Who am I? How did I get here? What happened to me?

Have you ever felt the desire to find yourself but never really understood what that meant?

I have had several friends over the last 10 years tell me something to the effect, I just feel like I need to find myself again. These friends were suddenly faced with divorce and were now forced to take a look at themselves and figure out who they were in this new phase of life.

Many of us find ourselves amidst these questions after we experience some sort of drama or trauma in life. We turn the flashlight on ourselves in an effort to figure out what all just happened and how in the world to feel somewhat normal again.

But what are we really after in these moments? What are we looking for? What are we hoping to find? What do we feel like we are missing? What would truly make us feel whole and happy?

The answer is a concept that has been around for ages. The problem is that most of us believe that this concept is for sages, gurus, and the like. Little do we realize that the concept of enlightenment, or awakening, is for normal people like me and you as well. And in all honesty, this concept of living awake is even more relevant for the people with jobs, mortgages, children, retirement hopes, and ailing parents. This concept can remind us of the bigger picture in life when the going gets tough and bring the sacredness back to ordinary moments.

Way of the Spiritual Yogi will give you perspective on your life that most people spend lifetimes trying to ascertain. This perspective will give you the tools and the wherewithal to finally find your self once and for all. What exactly does this mean? It means that we understand the difference between our true, core, soul self and the false, ego self that we have picked up and learned along the way. It means that we will find our self to such an extent that happiness, meaning, peace and fulfillment will be our inherent state of existence. It means that we won’t lose our self so that we never have to feel lost, lonely, and incomplete ever again. It means that we will live awake or enlightened just like the yogis and sages do. It means that we will tap into unlimited creativity and guidance in life that fills us with meaning, contentment, purpose and joy.

Are you ready to find peace and contentment in life that cannot be shaken? Are you ready to squeeze the extra-ordinary out of the ordinary in each and every God-given moment? Are you ready for circumstances in life to no longer be able to drag you down? Are you ready to find a steadiness within your self that is beyond sheer confidence or self-esteem? Are you ready to find your true self, the aspect of self that was created in God’s image and holds all the keys to anything you have ever truly wanted on a soul level?

I thought so! In order to begin this journey let’s start at the beginning.

Lighting the Fire Within

You have probably experienced major and minor dramas or traumas in your life that played a very important role in lighting a fire within you. Initially you might have asked yourself, Why me? What for?. You might have shared your story with a select few in order to try and make sense of it. Maybe you allowed these events, a crisis, or some mini drama with a friend to be an excuse to NOT put yourself out there, to NOT love others wholeheartedly, or to simply HIDE from possibly having to go through it again. But at some point the self-pity begins to no longer serve its purpose. You get tired of hearing yourself repeat the same story over and over again and tired of hearing the subsequent sympathies from anyone who will listen. You get tired of the emotions that still come up as potent as ever: anger, shame, sadness, guilt, or pity. You begin to crave more from these dramas and traumas. You desire to grow and learn from them in ways that you cannot fully understand. You desire to leave them in the past where they belong, but how do you even start?

That fire is still lit within you but now it’s driving you to figure things out. You no longer want to be the kind of person that can be knocked off course by life’s events or let people unexpectedly ruin your day. You crave invincibility when it comes to things dragging you down into the mud. You have to realize at some point that you cannot get to a place where nothing bad ever happens. But somewhere deep inside, you know that you can get to a place where those things no longer bring you out of your peace. They no longer pull the rug out from underneath you. They no longer send you into a whirlwind of long held negative thought patterns such as, I deserve this. I am no good anyway. I am totally unworthy of happiness.

At some point we all have to make a different choice, or else continue to ride that roller coaster that leads to nowhere but makes many stops to misery, pain, sadness, guilt, shame, anger, and the list goes on. At some point we all crave this unwavering faith that is spoken of by people who have found something within themselves that they realize can never be taken away…the true self.

The ancient practice of yoga and A Course in Miracles are two transformational teachings whose entire intents and purposes are to guide you to find your true self. Once you do, you not only grasp the concept of awakening or enlightenment, but you can live this concept as well. You will learn 6 steps throughout this book that will easily lead you to find your true self and live life fully and completely awake. Are you ready to begin this fascinating journey back to your true self and learn in this short book what people have spent lifetimes trying to figure out? Let’s begin!

My Own Childhood Drama to Fuel My Search

I am grateful that my childhood was far from perfect. It led me to where I am now. It led me to a path of awakening.

When I was 8 years old, my dad flirted with another woman. This may not sound like a big deal to some, but to my mom it was huge. She had watched her own mother betrayed by her fathers multiple affairs, so my dad’s flirtations brought up a deep seated fear that it would happen to her too. This fear and insecurity drove my mom to make my dad pay for his flirtations with reenacted nightly dramas, fueled by a jealousy-induced temporary lapse of sanity. They fought almost every night until the wee hours of the morning for nearly three years. To put it mildly, this was a life-changing event which began my search for answers at a very early age to all of life’s important questions.

While watching my dad pay for his mistakes, my siblings and I got our first lesson in having the rug pulled out from underneath us. I was the youngest of three, and eight years old at the time. I can still remember the sheer anguish my mother suffered from the deep, potent feeling of betrayal. At the time, all I wanted was to see my mom happy again. But, as most of us understand, once someone feels betrayed in a relationship, it is very difficult to get that trust and security back. The ego wreaks havoc on the mind and the emotions, as events are replayed over and over in the mind’s eye like a mental torture chamber.

My brother, six years older, my sister, four years older, and I took on various roles to keep our family together. My brother, Curtis, played the peacekeeper. He was constantly trying to mediate between my parents. He also kept my sister and me feeling safe as best he could, always explaining to us what things meant and giving us his prediction of things to come. My sister, Suzette, was the rebel, always calling my parents out on how they were handling the situation and pleading with them to stop. My brother and sister became lifelines for me in a rough and rocky sea.

I remember the three of us holed up in my brother’s room, discussing the argument raging in the next room and feeling safe in each other’s company. It was absolute fear and agony but at least I wasn’t alone. I was the observer, taking it all in and learning to absorb and adapt in this new, high-stress environment. Our only mission was to stay up with our parents every night and try to keep them (my whole world) from breaking up and falling apart.

I’ll never forget at eight years old, walking down the covered, open-air hallway at Julius T. Wright Preparatory School for girls thinking, Oh my God, is this really happening to my family? It felt so surreal. At the end of that year, I received a perfect-attendance award at our school’s awards ceremony. I remember my mom crying afterward in disbelief. I had made it to school every day that year, after staying up most nights until two or three in the morning. The remorse in my mom’s tears that day was palpable, and I still remember wishing that I could take that pain from her.

The truth is, I felt like I was having the life sucked out of me. My safe, secure environment that I had known the first 8 years of life had crumbled before my eyes, and for the first time in my life my happy contented world began turning gray.

As a young girl, I didn’t understand what was happening to my mom. It wasn’t until much later that I realized she was simply experiencing the beast of the ego, something we all struggle with on a daily basis. I was witnessing in these nightly dramas all the deeply held fears and insecurities that plagued my mom, as they had plagued her mom and which would later plague me. Her feelings of anger and betrayal were too strong at this point to enable her to realize what she was doing to all of us. My mom’s need for answers that would never come, for justice that would never be enough, for do-overs that were impossible to come by, kept fueling her fire.

My siblings and I became experts at hiding what was happening behind closed doors. As the nightly dramas unfolded, my brother, sister and I secretly soaked up this deep fear and insecurity; and this vicious cycle was to now play out over three generations. It was over as quickly as it had begun. After about three years the nightly arguing ceased, but the effect it had on us would last a life time. By my twenties, I felt like a desert wasteland inside, dying to be soothed, nurtured, and loved. I suffered through unspeakable anger and emotional pain, and I had no idea what to do about it. I found myself totally distrustful of men, crazy jealous of other women, and needing drama in my own relationship for it to feel meaningful at all. I sought a way out of on-again-off-again depression, fed by my fear, jealousy, and insecurity. I wondered if I would ever feel that contentment and happiness that I remembered all those years ago, before the childhood drama began. I did not realize it at the time, but this started a fire in me, a fire that would drive me to understand what had happened to my mom and figure out how in the world to stop it from happening to me. This began my quest to find my smile again, to find my self again, and to leave behind the achingly painful loneliness that had become the background of my life.

Experiencing Gratitude for the Dramas and Traumas

Little did I know that I would eventually find a spiritual teaching that would do much more for me than build back my self-esteem or lead me out of depression. I would understand what it means to live awake, enlightened—a concept that I had heard of but never knew was possible to fully understand. This concept always seemed way out of reach for a normal person like me and one that I never realized had anything to do with finding the answers I so desperately needed or finding my true self again.

There is a quote from Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir that says, the happy childhood is hardly worth your while (1999, 11). I read this book when I was in my early twenties, and it made me realize that I was grateful for the fighting and drama that was acted out in front of me night after night. I felt that it perfectly prepared me for the search that I was then to go on to make sense of it all and to try and end the emotional pain for good. Little did I know that I would eventually find a spiritual teaching that would do much more for me than build back my self-esteem or lead me out of depression. I would understand what it means to live awake, enlightened—a concept that I had heard of but never knew was possible to fully understand. This concept always seemed way out of reach for a normal person like me and one that I never realized had anything to do with finding the answers I so desperately needed or finding my true self again.

Ancient Yoga’s Relevance Today

Now the search is about a concept that you have heard about but never knew was attainable by the average human. Now the search is about a spiritual awakening, the heart of unwavering faith, yet something that may seem completely out of reach. Once fully understood, it will seem the most natural and supremely relevant end-goal of your life.

This initial drive for answers is called samvega, a sanskrit term that has been around for thousands of years. It is samvega that will fuel your search to get past feelings of helplessness, the desire to get even, or whatever these events in life have been fulfilling for you. Now the search is about something way more important. Now the search is about moving beyond and finding peace no matter what is happening around you. Now the search is about a concept that you have heard about but never knew was attainable by the average human. Now the search is about a spiritual awakening, the heart of unwavering faith, yet something that may seem completely out of reach. Once fully understood, it will seem the most natural and supremely relevant end-goal of your life. You may have no idea at this point the magnitude of this most precious moment nor the importance of what your next step should be. So let me be your guide.

The Yoga Sutras were written by a man named Patanjali about two thousand years ago. They are statements about yoga, each shedding light on what this ancient practice does for us. Stephen Cope talks about the sutras in his book, The Wisdom of Yoga, "Patanjali introduces the term samvega in the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra—using the word to indicate a ‘wholehearted’ (or ‘vehement’) determination to find a way out of suffering" (Cope 2006, 15). Cope goes on to say that samvega is a complex state involving a kind of disillusionment with mundane life, and a wholehearted longing for a deeper investigation into the inner workings of the mind and the self (Cope 13).

This is what I love about studying yoga. We realize that thousands of years ago, the yogis were searching for the same things we are searching for today: happiness that lasts, fulfillment that lasts, a deeper meaning to life. This suffering Patanjali writes about is something we can all relate to. It could be suffering from past traumatic experiences; it could be the usual stress, fear, worry, and anxiety you may feel on a daily basis; it could be the discomforts of jealousy and competition with coworkers, family, or friends; it could be gossip that you find yourself participating in that drains your life force; it could be anger, guilt, and resentment preventing you from forgiving someone, and maybe that someone is yourself. But the bottom line is we are all looking to end our suffering, however that suffering is playing out in our lives, and find that peace and happiness within.

We can have days when life is beautiful and perfect and then the next day find ourselves in the depths of hell, with thoughts of worthlessness and inadequacy. This is what the yogis call duhka, dissatisfaction in life, and it leads us to samvega, that determination to find a better way. The concept of awakening from a yoga standpoint and A Course in Miracles standpoint allows for us to go the distance, enabling us to rise out of the suffering once and for all and truly find our truest self once again.

Journaling Exercise

The Dramas & Traumas That Started You on your Path

Before you read any further, I’d like you to answer a couple of questions. I want your answers to arise effortlessly in your mind, so take a moment to get relaxed and soften your gaze. Sit nice and tall. Lengthen through the crown of the head, relax the shoulders, relax the face, and take a nice deep breath into the lower belly, and into the entire torso. Now read over the following questions and simply allow the answers to arise in your mind.

• What are some of your own dramas and traumas that now seem to compel your search for a better way in life?

• What is going on in your life right now that you feel that you could use some guidance with?

• Are you ready to end your search for good, let go of the past, and find that lasting happiness and fulfillment, meaning and purpose in life, for which, human beings have been searching for ages?

Keep your answers in a journal. It’s always fun to go back and see how far you’ve come in understanding and rising out of the ego along the way.

I’ve included a chapter at the end of this book with all 6 steps listed out plus all the journaling exercises shared throughout this book. It is a user-friendly guide that will help you through any real-life situation that may come up along the way.

CHAPTER 2

What Exactly Makes Us Lose

Our Selves to Begin With?

After long searches here and there, in temples and in churches, in earths and in heavens, at last you come back, completing the circle from where you started, to your own soul ...

—Swami Vivekenanda (Cope 1999, 290)

The unfortunate thing about dramas and traumas is that they usually leave us feeling like there is a giant hole inside of us. We spend years trying to fill it back up. At some point, we do feel better, but some of us may still experience this feeling of emptiness from time to time. We