Dear Revolution Community,
Lately, it feels like everything has been a little… unpredictable.
People in the hospital.
Things breaking down.
Plans not going the way we thought they would.
Just when you think you have a rhythm, something shifts.
And in those moments, it’s easy to feel like something has gone wrong.
But yoga asks us to look a little deeper.
The Bhagavad Gita reminds us that contact with the material world brings both pleasure and pain: they come together. Not separately. Not one without the other.
Yoga Sutra 2.3 states Ignorance (avidyā), ego-identification (asmitā), attachment (rāga), aversion (dveṣa), and fear of loss/death (abhiniveśa) are the causes of suffering. And 2.5 says Avidyā (ignorance) is mistaking: the impermanent for permanent, the impure for pure, the painful for pleasurable and the non-self for the self.
My teacher recently gave this analogy that I can’t stop thinking about.
He said we’re like fish going after the worm.
We see something that looks good. Promising. Satisfying. We go for it.
But we don’t always see the hook inside.
Avidyā (The fat juicy worm) = The Misunderstanding
We think:
“This will last forever”
“This will make me happy”
“This is who I am”
“If I get this, I’ll feel settled”
But life keeps showing us:
Things change
Outcomes shift
What we thought would satisfy us doesn’t fully
Identity is not fixed
That gap between what we think and what is = suffering
Rāga = The Hook
Because something once felt good, we:
reach for it again
cling to it
build expectations around it
The fish and hook analogy:
You see the worm (pleasure, promise, outcome)
You don’t see the hook (attachment, consequence, loss of control)
So we bite.
And that doesn’t just apply to material things. It applies to expectations. To timelines. To the way we think life should go.
We reach for something, believing, “This is it. This will bring me peace. This will make everything feel settled.”
And then something unexpected happens.
The plan shifts.
The outcome changes.
Something falls apart.
And we feel pulled.
But what if that pull… isn’t punishment?
What if it’s interruption?
What if it’s redirection?
Yoga teaches that life is not static. It is constantly moving, constantly changing, constantly reorganizing itself, whether we’re ready for it or not.
And sometimes what feels like disruption is actually what loosens our grip.
It breaks the illusion that we were ever fully in control.
It wakes us up.
Because the unexpected doesn’t just bring hardship.
It can bring wonder.
It can bring reawakening.
It can bring us back into relationship with what is actually here (instead of what we thought should be.)
So this month, instead of asking “Why is this happening?”, maybe we soften into a different question.
“What is this shifting me toward?”
“What is this asking me to release?”
“What is trying to come through that I couldn’t see before?”
Your practice becomes the place where you can sit with that.
Where you can feel what’s real.
Where you can witness the reaction without being completely taken by it.
Where you can slowly, gently, come back to steadiness… even when life isn’t steady.
We don’t practice yoga because life is predictable.
We practice because it isn’t.
Looking forward to seeing you on your mats! Dear community please check out all of our offerings below and if you liked this message please don’t hesitate to share with family and friends.
Peace and Love,
Amanda and the good folks at Revolution Yoga
Originally shared in our May 2026 newsletter.