Finding Refuge When the Ground Beneath Us Shakes

There are times in life when all that we have been practicing over the past weeks becomes especially difficult to hold onto, and yet it is precisely what can sustain us — what can keep us whole and functional.

We have all faced times when things we have counted on, or understood about life, begin to unravel. Circumstances around us can change quickly and unexpectedly, leaving us feeling as though the ground beneath us has suddenly shifted without warning. We are left uncertain, wavering, grasping for something — anything — that might steady us whilst the winds of change blow around us.

I think we have all known how shaky the ground can feel in times of chronic illness, loss, uncertainty in relationships, the breakdown of familiar structures, and, perhaps increasingly these days, through the cumulative weight of simply being human. In recent years, our world seems to press more upon us and ask more of us, whilst simultaneously spiralling into ever greater flux.

I believe many of us are feeling the impact of these global and societal changes. Not only is there a growing sense of personal instability as we try to meet life’s multifaceted demands, but collective instability surrounds us too, as many of the global and social systems we have counted upon for stability in our broader lives are being dismantled or quietly crumbling.

We spoke about this very openly in a recent Ayurveda afternoon with a small group of women. We shared how, as life feels increasingly uncertain in the wider world, it seems harder to meet our own personal challenges with steadiness. It can feel as though there is less ground beneath us altogether.

It is precisely here that the teachings of Yoga and Ayurveda — and all that we have reflected upon over the past weeks — begin to reveal their immeasurable value.

The ancients speak of something we all know to be true: life brings challenge because life is ever-shifting; by its very nature, it is changeful. Consequently, suffering arises when we look for constancy in what is uncertain and changing. This is true not only of life in the wider world, but also of the shifting sands of our inner lives.

The teachings speak of three broad causes of suffering.

There are our personal reactions, driven by conditioned beliefs, assumptions, and preconceptions — something we have explored over the past weeks. There is also the suffering of illness and injury, and the physical pain they may bring.

There is suffering brought to us through others: insensitive behaviour, judgement, aggression in its many forms, and the complexities that arise in relationship.

And then there are environmental and social crises — regional, national, and global — disasters, and conflicts that impact us directly, affect us as compassionate witnesses, or, at times, involve us as unwitting contributors. Within this category, too, are fate, the seasons of life, and the inherently unpredictable nature of existence itself.

Any one of these can stir deep unease or pain within us, arriving with varying degrees of intensity. At times, it may feel as though all three are suddenly upon us at once. At others, the challenges accumulate slowly but steadily — one layered upon another. We are knocked off-centre, lose our grounding, and turbulence seems to arise both within and around us.

Neither Yoga nor Ayurveda promise freedom from these realities of being human. Yet both support and guide us towards something deeply meaningful: the possibility of not losing our ground, no matter what life brings. There is always the possibility of refuge — not refuge in a particular place, nor refuge from life itself, but refuge within us, in an unchanging centre. When we come to know the way to this refuge — when we recognise it as an unwavering possibility — we discover a way of meeting whatever comes with steadiness, clarity, and compassion.

In Sanskrit there is a beautiful word used in both Yoga and Ayurveda: svastha. It is one of the words for health, yet its direct translation means “to be established in oneself”.

This points us towards something profoundly significant. True health is not merely the absence of illness or difficulty; it is the capacity to remain anchored in a place of steadiness within us — in the deep centre of our being, untouched by life’s turbulence, just as the depths of the ocean remain undisturbed by the waves that rise and fall upon its surface.

In its still depths, the ocean’s waters are clear. In our own depths, too, we find clarity and knowingness, as we have recently explored.

Ordinarily, we know only the surface of life and not its depths — the place where the waves of turmoil rise and fall. As we allow ourselves to be carried by the changing tides of life, we are easily pulled off-centre. We lose contact with that deeper, surer place of knowing. We become fragmented — pulled hither and thither by conflicting waves of thought, feeling, and reactivity. Yet when we return to that still, quiet centre we have been exploring over the past weeks — and even briefly root ourselves there, in the changeless, clear depths of who we are — something begins to shift.

Suddenly, there is more space. More clarity. A subtle yet important change in our inner orientation begins to arise. Rather than being tossed about by the constant movement of inner and outer experience, we discover a place from which we can rest as witness to it all.

This does not mean we become unfeeling or unaffected. Nor does it mean we transcend the realities of pain, uncertainty, or grief. Rather, we cease to lose ourselves entirely within them. We remain connected to something essential — to the deeper truth of who we are, in the heart of our being. We become, in some measure, “established in the Self”.

When we are able, even briefly, to remain as witness to what arises in our inner and outer world, we retain some sense of centre — of steadiness, and therefore of clear seeing. And clear seeing, as we have already explored, brings us closer to right action and wise response.

From this place emerges the possibility of a different understanding. When we are established in ourselves, patterns of doubt, judgement, self-sabotage, and habitual reactivity lose some of their power to obscure our vision. They do not disappear entirely, but neither do they govern us in quite the same way.

This brings me to another valuable understanding passed down through the teachings of the ancients. It reminds me of a significant moment with a beloved teacher — one of those brief transmissions we do not forget, and which remain with us for life.

I had been invited to sit in on a class in Canada with my teacher, who was guiding a group of yoga teacher trainees. I sat quietly at the back of the room, grateful for the opportunity to spend additional time in his teaching presence. At one point, seeming to look directly in my direction — as though seeing straight into my heart — he said to the group: “The only attachment worth cultivating is attachment to the guru.”

Attachment to the guru, I later learned, points not only to an external teacher, but also to the deeper principle of inner knowing itself — that inner presence which speaks quietly to us and leads us back to clarity. We may encounter this through an outer teacher, and if we are fortunate, such a relationship may support and refine us. Yet ultimately, Yoga always points us inward, so that even when an outer teacher is absent or inaccessible, life continues to invite us into relationship with something deeper within ourselves — the quiet intelligence that sees more clearly than the thinking mind.

The teachings through the ages have invited spiritual aspirants to cultivate a relationship with that which knows — with the inner teacher who resides in the cave of the heart. This inner teacher embodies the highest qualities of the spiritual heart: wisdom, compassion, clear seeing, and goodness untouched by reactivity.

To find our way back to this inner teacher — to rest there and to trust — is not easy, as we have explored over the past weeks. The mind is persuasive. It is shaped by memory, conditioning, experience, and survival. Its nature is to evaluate, compare, anticipate, rehearse, and interpret. Rarely does it rest fully in the present moment.

When life becomes uncertain, the mind often works harder on our behalf and, in the process, becomes louder — offering multiple directions, circling around tensions it cannot resolve, and often adding further suffering to what is already difficult.

We have all experienced glimpses of something else though, have we not? Moments when we drop beneath the surface noise of the mind into something quieter — something that feels connected, attuned, and simply knows. We find ourselves resting in a quiet clarity where arguments for and against no longer hold such authority.

This is the beginning of svastha. Even a fleeting glimpse offers us a taste of what it means to be established in oneself.

It is undeniable that we cannot force our way into this. We cannot think our way, or reason our way, into steadiness of mind and heart. And yet we can cultivate the conditions in which it becomes easier to rest there. This is where Yoga and Ayurveda offer us all the tools — and more — that we need.

This is where practice becomes essential. A commitment to simple, consistent moments of meditation, awareness of breath, time in nature, mantra recitation, and gentle attention to how we live and what we consume — all of these gradually reshape our inner landscape. They temper reactivity. They create space. They allow us to become more familiar with that still centre within, and with a quieter way of being.

Over time, we begin to more readily sense the difference between urgency and clarity, between reaction and response, between mental noise and deeper knowing.

We still experience challenges, but we begin to meet them differently.

A steadiness is nurtured and strengthened through the repetition of these practices. They cultivate a familiarity with inner stillness that, one day — after consistent and patient practice — becomes available even in more difficult moments.

This commitment to practice is not easy. It requires a willingness to go against the grain of habitual patterns. And yet there is its transformative potential; there lies its alchemical process. The friction itself creates heat — an inner heat. And in the presence of heat, as with all physical substances, so our psychological tendencies are refined and transformed. 

No other commitment brings the same rewards as a practice dedicated to anchoring yourself in the heart of being — in the Self. The fruits of such practice are more than worth the effort required. As the saying goes: “What is poison in the beginning is nectar in the end; what is nectar in the beginning is poison in the end.” We only need to recall how we feel after eating too much of our favourite dessert, and how bitter medicine ultimately restores health, to recognise the truth in this and the value of committed practice.

I was awakened to the strength and steadiness that practice brings very directly during a time when my father was unwell. He experienced a significant mental breakdown later in life. I was devastated — my once capable, remarkable father had become a confused and reactive shadow of himself. It was a deeply challenging period, both emotionally and practically. There were many moments of uncertainty, and much that needed to be done to ensure the best possible care for him.

One day, as I was leaving his hospital room, he called out to me from the doorway. He could never look at me when I left; that was his way of coping with separation in such a difficult environment. But on this occasion he called to me and said, “Sara, you have such strength. I don’t know where it comes from.”

I could not tell him of the tears I would shed each day, the anguish I felt about his situation, or the struggles with a system that was at times failing him. And yet I understood what he was pointing to. It was not that I was unaffected, or somehow rising above what was happening — far from it. What he was recognising was something in me that had learned, over time, how to remain anchored enough to meet what was unfolding without collapsing into it. To stay close to clarity, even while the ground beneath me was shifting.

My father had been my rock in life — and here we were, with that rock itself having collapsed.

That anchoring which carried me through those days and months is not something we awaken to once and then retain unchanged. It is something that must be returned to, and nurtured again, day by day, moment by moment.

It also doesn’t mean that the ground never shakes so strongly and so suddenly that we don’t lose our centre. It does mean that we “know” that centre exists, and we know our way back there. 

I have heard that once a disciple asked a great master in India, “Do you still need to watch your mind? Do you still need to be vigilant?” The master is said to have replied, “To my very last breath.” That has always stayed with me — even the most awakened awareness requires ongoing attentiveness.

Neither Yoga nor Ayurveda promise to take us beyond life’s difficulties. In fact, they invite us to become more rooted within them — to stand steadfast in spite of them.

This rooting is svastha.

When we are established in ourselves, something begins to shift. We are less easily pulled into the turbulence of every passing reaction. We become more available to wisdom — not as an abstract idea, but as a felt sense of appropriate, responsible action, simplicity, and direction.

Life does not necessarily become easier, but it does become more navigable, more comprehensible, and more purposeful. We begin to know, when we are established in svastha, what will best serve us and the world when we are called to make a choice and to act. There is more space within us, allowing for greater honesty as we perceive a situation more clearly, which in turn supports responses rooted in integrity, kindness, and harmony.

And perhaps most importantly, when we begin to trust something within ourselves that does not fluctuate with circumstance, we are never truly alone. We come to recognise an inner guiding light — an unwavering companion that remains with us, no matter where we are or what we are facing.

In this way, life is transformed. The difficulties may still arise, but something within us that transcends them remains present. That something is of the nature of love, insight, and understanding.

What greater refuge could we ask for? And where else might we find one so steady, so available, no matter the inner or outer terrain that unfolds before us?

JOIN US! EMBODIED AWAKENING AFTERNOONS – On the fourth saturday of each month, in the afternoons, we gather to enquire into, explore and tranform all that stands between us and svastha, our true refuge, that cave of self-abiding. 

You;re most welcome to join us. Full details here