By Emily, Belgium
Table of Contents
Leaving the known
From the moment we enter this world, we are bombarded by societal expectations, culture, and family. We are told how to behave, what to value, what success looks like, how to reach, and even how to feel. As we grow, we start to suppress parts of ourselves just to please others and be accepted. Just to fit in…
Over time, we forget or don’t see that we’ve been shaped by those constant implementations from others. We start to believe that the person we’ve become is the person we truly are. But somewhere under it all, a quiet tension grows of uncomfort and blurriness. To me, a question began to form, not always clearly, but strongly enough to be felt: who am I beyond all this? and what is life all about? It could not be only that…
A deep thirst for life and Self-discovery had become too loud to ignore. I didn’t have a plan, or even a clear idea of where I was going. I only knew that I had to go and walk away from everything I knew, my culture, my family, my friends. Leaving behind the safety of what I knew to step into the unknown. It wasn’t a rebellion or an act of courage, it simply felt like something I had to do. Like there was no other option.
I didn’t just want a different life. I wanted freedom. Not only the freedom to travel or explore, which was there of course, but also the freedom to truly be who I was, or at least to find out, beyond expectations, beyond roles, beyond everything others, and even I, had used to define me.
The society around me made me feel stuck, like I had to follow one clear path: study, get married, work, have a family. Everyone around me seemed to be doing the same thing, and it confused me. The life around me didn’t feel real, didn’t feel like life, and it didn’t feel like me.
At 20 years old, I felt I was becoming a product of something, following what everyone else called life. But it felt empty… very empty. Going round and round, always repeating the same things, again and again. It felt like dying…literally! I couldn’t just watch it happen and stay still. A survival instinct made me move. It made me question. That power made the choice for me, it moved me before I could even fully understand why.
Was I free to choose something different, to get out of this trap?
Freedom was always on my mind, like a lullaby calling me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It became an obsession.
Who was I beneath all this? What I wanted wasn’t just a new life, new experiences, or discoveries, but a chance to meet myself and understand what was life, what was all this around me. I felt I needed to remove myself from the life I had been shaped into, to find clarity, and hopefully the satisfaction of being free.
The deconstruction begins
Traveling alone, without the people who “know” you, is in some way very freeing. Nobody has expectations of you. Nobody remembers your past. You can be anyone at any moment. You are free to be anything and anyone.
On this journey of Self-discovery, I found myself surrounded by different mindsets and cultures. It was sometimes difficult. These new ways of thinking challenged me, sometimes in a strong way. There were so many differences, not better, not worse, just different.
At first, like many people, I judged. I compared everything to what I had learned growing up. I put my culture at the top of course, like it was the best, and looked at the others from that position. But soon, I felt very alone. I was rejecting what was in front of me.
Then something changed, a click happened inside. Suddenly I started to experience all those differences as an enrichment. Differences are not here to judge or rank. They are here to make life richer, to help us grow. When we really accept and allow these differences, something inside begins to change, grow and evolve, unconsciously.
That is when deconstruction starts. Everything we meet, if we truly accept it and integrate it, begins to slowly break down the version of us that was built by society. You are still you, but you grow. You start to feel ease with everything and every kind of person, because inside, you’re becoming richer. It is not a mental acceptance, which stays at the surface of our mind, it’s an integration of differences into our own being. Travel became a tool, not to find something new, but to unlearn what was never really mine and to expand beyond my own world.
When travel isn’t enough
Despite all the experiences lived, the places explored, all the people met, and all the lessons learned, something was still missing, unsatisfied, unsolved, unrevealed, unfulfilled.
Life gave so much. The richness of experiences, the beauty of places, the love I encountered, it was all nourishing and fulfilling in many ways. I did the things I dreamed of, went to all the places I wished to see, became someone I thought I wanted to be. And yet… deep inside, something still felt untouched. Quietly missing.
It wasn’t that I was shaped by others this time, but even with all this “living”, I still didn’t know who I really was. I had just become another version of myself, one with more stories, more experiences, but no more clarity. I couldn’t even tell what I was looking for anymore. There was no big crisis, no obvious reason… just this subtle emptiness, like something essential was missing, and I didn’t know what.
This is when the journey of life and Self-discovery began to shift. I felt a bit lost, not knowing where to go, what to search for, or even what I was missing.
Nature as a mirror
Nature became one of my greatest teachers. Not because it gave me answers, but because it showed me how to simply be. A flower doesn’t need anyone to tell it how to grow. It doesn’t try to become something else. It just grows, in its own time.
When I looked closely, I saw something very deep in nature, a kind of silent intelligence. It doesn’t care about success or failure, about looking good or being the best. It just expresses itself, naturally and fully.
And I started to wonder: what if we lived like that?
What if we stopped trying so hard to become something, and just allowed ourselves to be?
Turning inward
Then life brought someone, a person who became like a guide. People now call him Sage ViGo. A very simple person. He guided me towards a world beyond everything known, beyond thoughts, beyond the mind.
With time, practice, and dedication, I began to discover the structure of mind, and confusion. Those layers of noise shaped by all external perception, experiences, society, people telling me who I should be and how I should behave, are a quiet prison, built from concepts and expectations, where we keep wearing masks, often without even realizing it.
The feeling that there is no one to find, and no one to become, became clearer and clearer.
To become who? To become what? To match the image others placed in my mind? To be perfect in their eyes? To fit into a mold that was never mine?
There are so many personas and masks we can wear, and they’re all built on something external: an idea, an ideal, an image. None of them come from within. They’re not ours. They’re imposed. The genuine journey of Self-discovery is not about becoming someone… but to slowly remove everything I was never meant to be, and DIScover what was covered.
Yoga: the practice of undoing
This is when Yoga came into my life, through that man, that Sage, whose words carried an obvious wisdom. Truthfully, I had never been drawn to Yoga. I found it empty, just another trend. But with him, I began to understand its depth and how, through dedicated practice, it becomes a gateway to true Self-discovery and life, revealing its treasure and the mystery of this creation. In that very first week of listening to him, I saw myself standing at the center of the universe, with that man in front of me, like a key unlocking the door to the entire mystery. I felt that everything I had lived until then had led me to this exact moment, sitting in front of him, and I knew, deep down, that this moment was marking the path of my life journey.
At Yoga Gita Ashram, Yoga is not taught as a way to become more flexible or more calm, but as a way to become less. Less noisy inside. Less confused. Less full of things that were not mine. It’s not about adding anything, or improving anyone. It’s about seeing clearly.
When we practice, we aren’t creating something new. We’re learning how to stop. As the practice deepens, it becomes less about effort to be someone, to do something, to reach somewhere and more about experiencing that being is enough. That life is right here, in the palm of our hands, and yet we keep missing it. That authenticity doesn’t need construction, it needs space.
And in that space, there is no answer, but only silence where nothing needs to be fixed, where we don’t need to be someone specific, or better. You are just here. Not trying. Not becoming. Just being.
And something beautiful starts to happen. You start to be you, not as someone constructed, but as a space in which anything can be placed. It’s like life starts to live through you. Like you’re not carrying life, but life is carrying you. Through the freedom from external implementation which have built our minds, true authenticity arises.
“Be the sky where all the birds can fly”
Sage ViGo shared these words during a session, and they landed right in my heart. True authenticity, love, and freedom are about being empty, being that space where anyone and anything can find their place. What makes this quote so powerful isn’t just the metaphor itself, but the feeling it carries: that freedom isn’t something you reach among others. You don’t become free, you become the freedom itself. That unconditional, unlimited space where others, too, can be free, just as they are. Your freedom is the freedom of others and life to be as it is.
Self-discovery: the way back to you
In the end, being authentic isn’t something we need to create or achieve, it’s what remains when we let go of everything that isn’t true, that has been implemented and created by others. It isn’t about becoming a new person, but about making space to see who we truly are and allow what is there to bloom effortlessly, like a flower. And in that space, there is freedom. Not the freedom to go anywhere or do anything, but the freedom from all the roles, opinions, and identities that external perception has placed on us since we are born. It’s the return to something real, untouched and pure. We don’t become authentic, we return to it. It’s our natural state underneath all the noise. It’s the stillness behind the noise, the true Self underneath the person we’ve been taught to be.
Authenticity is the freedom to live without pretending, to speak without fear, to act without worry, to simply be without needing to explain why. And maybe, that’s the gift of this journey. Not a final answer, but the peaceful realization that we were never truly lost, only hidden. Letting go of everything we’ve been taught to be may be the most natural way to return home, to who we always were. And maybe, that’s what real freedom is.
About the Author
Emily had been traveling for years, pushed by a deep wish to understand life, herself and feel truly free. Somewhere along the way, she crossed paths with Sage ViGo (Vijay). His way of speaking, his clarity, his presence, just landed differently. There was a simplicity, purity, and authenticity that struck something deep. He invited her and her partner to come visit his ashram in India and join a Yoga Teacher Training Course. That’s how they came for a visit and never left. His teachings felt like the missing piece. Since then, she’s been living at Yoga Gita Ashram, fully immersed in sadhana, dedicating her life to what philosophy calls the journey of knowing the true Self, and experiencing ultimate freedom.
