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Blogging by Blackberry (after thoughts on discipline and freedom)

ByElizabeth

When I pause to think about it–something I try to do consistently with the fruits of technology–it is an extraordinary marvel that I can be telling stories to the world from a little device I am holding in my hand, one that also has let me speak and exchange notes while I am away from home with friends, colleagues, and business connections.

What I cannot do (more likely because I haven’t yet learned how than it is not possible) is to be my usual careful self when posting entries. I have not done hyperlinks to attrbute my sources, nor have I spell-checked. At home, I would not hit the “publish” button without doing those things.

Under the circumstances of being away from my regular computer, my library, the ability to check my references, and to provide proper citation, but being brimful with enthusiasm for being with my teachers, colleagues, friends, and the practices while I am at the teachers’ gathering, it seems better to post than not, using the means at hand. I sacrifice some of my usual discipline to share the joy.

All of life is like that. We may have ideals of what is proper, what are our standards for appearance, for work, for sharing a meal or our homes. When circumstances limit our ability to meet our own standards, it is part of the yoga to see whether the standards are binding us or serving to help us better connect. I believe that we should always strive to be more precise, more technically accomplished, better able to convey a sense of grace and beauty. But that effort should not cut us off, bring us to a halt, disempower us, prevent accomplishment of things. Most of all, it should not deaden a sense of spontaneity of gesture–the part of art and relationship that reveals our true spark.

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    “First principle” (and akrama and krama)

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    When I think about the Anusara alignment principles in the context of the tattvas (see earlier posts), I think about “opening to grace” appearing in two places on the tier.  As “first principle” it is the first among a larger sequence about how we come to the mat, rather than just the first of the physical principles.  “First principle” not only starts the practice and the dialogue, but is already there. It is, in this sense, so fundamental that it is not part of the sequence, but is sequenceless (akrama).  If you are fully conscious of “grace” and can embody it in all aspects of your physical, energetic, and mental day to day existence without further instruction, study, or practice, then there is no need for other practice or instruction (this I think is a very rare being, and certainly I’m not such a being).

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    In this way of understanding the play between the sequenceless and sequenced, we have a universal “first principle” that embodies the purpose of all we do on and off the mat.  It is followed by how we want to practice, described in a way that becomes less of just a concept (which as a universal concept is akrama) and more of a practical understanding (which applies when we are in space and time and therefore in the krama of embodied existence).  As we dance in this play between the sequenceless and the sequenced, we come to practice (or to do any activity) with the “attitude” of wanting to live the “first principle,” to know and experience what is fully present and not bound by time and space.  We then (because we must) study and practice specific “alignment” to try and express this attitude with our “actions.”

    The physical/energetic alignment principles then come in as a the way of better refining, studying, and practicing the desire to recognize with mind and body the “first principle.”  The sequence of “open to grace, muscular energy, inner spiral, outer spiral, organic energy” comes then at the level of physical and mental practice to return us back to “first principle.”  “Open to grace” is first in this sequence, too, but as “first principle,” for me, it is something more than the first of the alignment principles.  “First principle” is not just the start of how we practice when we practice Anusara yoga, but the whole reason for practice.  It is the universal, overarching, blissful element of being that draws us to the practice because of our yearning to know it.

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