Waking from a dream. What is real? I crawl under the crook of Pete’s arm. Nestle in, lay my head on his heart. This is real. I focus in on the details of the room. The morning sun hiding behind the stirring curtain. The warm wind. The whirr of the air-con. The horns on the street below. My breath. My skin. The ache in my neck. The morning. The day. The small smile that softens my face as I remember. This is real.

I hate waking from a bad dream. Or not even a bad dream. Just one with an old friend, someone you once wronged, an unwound knot, a knotty wound, a haunting. Tight around your throat, you wake up agitated and upset. What is real?

This has been my mantra for the last couple of weeks. It came through in a meditation. Perhaps I’d been caught up in some story. I can’t remember but it’s stayed with me. When walking down a hectic Indian street, the only foreigner in town, all eyes on you, it’s easy to feel awkward, different, afraid. Am I too white, too tall, are my bare arms offensive, is it ok to smile, is it appropriate, do I disgust you, am I provoking you, do you hate me. It’s all too easy to project my insecurities onto the blank faces and staring eyes.

What is real? My footsteps. My breath. The layers of noise closing in and pulsing out. The heat. My sweat. The eyes. The people. The people looking at me. This is real. But that is all.

“Watch your thoughts. Feel your feelings”. Wise words from my teacher, Leila. Pulling the two apart helps to keep us present to what is actually happening. It keeps us connected to ourselves. Helps us to steer clear of the storyline and stay on the feeling path. What is true right now? What is real? What are the facts? What is happening in your body? What voice are you listening to? The one in your head or the one that runs deeper. Your intuition or your conditioning? The one that’s coming from the root of your heart or the one that came from someone-somewhere-sometime.

In many yogic traditions, this dance with reality is understood through the concept of Maya. Often translated as appearance, illusion or ignorance, Maya is the veil that covers our real nature. The veils that lead us into storyland and away from centre. Away from our felt state. Away from what is actually happening. For me, meditation is the practice of witnessing the veil lift and fall, lift and fall, as I pulse in and out of centre, as I watch my thoughts and get to know my patterns. This new mantra is part of breaking those patterns, noticing where I get scared, being ok with being scared but staying curious as to who is scaring who. I’m pretty sure, most of the time, I am the one scaring me.

What is real?

It’s deeply grounding and soothing to respond to that question and I can do it anywhere, anytime. When I get stuck in my head or feel anxious about what happened or what might happen, I ask, what is real? I anchor into the sounds, smells, sensations and stimulus. I let them carry me into Presence. I feel my feet, connect to my breath, move into the moment, and ask again, what is real?