Part II: A Description of classes at KYD; a five (was three!) part blog: TEACHING OURSELVES TO AWAKEN

Sat nam, Welcome in!

Monday evenings, KYD holds a special sort of class. From 5 pm until 6 pm, we gather to talk about becoming aware of the dance between form and formlessness, self and Self, personality and presence. It’s not about fixing ourselves, it’s about remembering we’re already Whole.

Awakening isn't something you earn--it's something that emerges when you stop pressing down on it.

We aren't broken. We're sprouting through centuries of forgetting.

I’ve named it Teaching Ourselves to Awaken—a nod to the core premise in Advaita Vedanta, that what we perceive and experience in the world is Maya—an ultimately illusory appearance. Our mistaken identity with this illusion, and our ignorance of our true nature as pure awareness, is the root of our suffering.

Still waters reflect the sky. We think we are the reflection. But we are the depth beneath the surface.

Awakening, then, is not about acquiring something new; it’s about remembering. It’s about recognizing our conditioning, unlearning what isn’t true, peeling away the layers of misidentification, and recognizing the awareness that’s always been here.

The course is called Teaching Ourselves to Awaken because that’s what this journey is: not a top-down transmission from some guru on high, but an invitation to turn inward, become curious, and trust that your own deepest knowing is both the teacher and the path. We aren’t here to transcend our humanity by “waking up from the dream of Maya,” we are here to see it clearly, love it fiercely, and awaken, within it. 

This class doesn’t mean ego death for us. Why try to kill the tool you’re using, one of the tools you’ve been gifted, to live? It means you don’t have to get rid of your ego to awaken. You just stop letting it define you. You start seeing it as a character in the movie, the dream—useful, quirky, occasionally neurotic, but no longer in charge of the show. You can still be “Andrea” (or whoever you are), you just don’t have to believe in that identity quite so hard. You get to live from Self—capital S—while still loving and caring for the self, lowercase, with compassion, calm, curiosity, and humor.

And that, ironically, lets you show up more fully, not less.

You don't have to get rid of the mask. Just stop thinking it's your face.

In today’s spiritual spaces, there’s sometimes a rush to throw out the ego completely—to dissolve into the formless and declare the self an illusion. 

But this path honors the paradox: you are the formless, and yet, here you are, drinking tea and feeding your cat.  There’s no need to erase the “you.” Just see through it, and love what remains.

The light has always been there--just waiting for a gap in the canopy.

If this sounds like a journey you’re up for, sign up one of these nights. Class is limited to six students, the first 30 minutes are a teaching, the last 30 minutes are sharing our story about what came up for us, if we so wish. Refreshments are always available. Lower cost ($30) gong immersion follows at 6:30 pm for those inclined. Cost for this class is $3, $5 or $10 depending on your situation.

Sat nam, 

Andrea