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Giant Grasshopper from Outer Space (and Maya)

The camera may not lie, but it certainly, like our own perception of things relative to that of others, have a distorted or unique perspective. One of the essential principles of the yoga world view is that of maya or illusion. In classical yoga, everything in the world is illusion; the only thing that is real is Atman–ultimate consciousness or god. In the tantric world view, the role of maya is more complicated. It essentially boils down to the idea that we are under an illusion when we think of the world and divinity as separate, and that this illusion of separation leads to a suffering of the individual spirit. Whether one hold with either of these world views or not, it is always true that thinking our limited perception is the only truth will likely lead to discord, misunderstanding, and strife.

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    Found Exhortation (Dysfunctional)

    I don’t think anyone ever feels better for being told they ought to–whether emotionally or physically. To help someone else or our self to feel or get better, it is far more productive to offer well wishes or offer loving or healing energy or to take action the likely result of which is to improve health or mood.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Shiva-Shakti Tattvas

    The shiva-shakti tattvas, the two highest tattvas, are completely subjective.  The shiva tattva is, according to the philosophy, the ultimate reality, the pure “I,” undiminished and undifferentiated consciousness.  As something purely subjective, it is both everywhere and nowhere, in every being and simultaneously beyond them.  It is not dissimilar to Hegel’s Absolute (though I believe Douglas Brooks, who knows far more than I in this area, might disagree with me on this one), which “is and is not,” or Kant’s “unmoved mover.”

    Shakti tattva is power — the power to tranform, create, manifest, diversify, cloak.  Shakti is the power to become embodied in objective form.  Shiva and shakti tattvas are thus inseparable.  Ultimate unbounded consciousness and freedom (shiva) only has meaning to the extent the power to move, create, and diversify (shakti) pulses and transforms the subjective into the objective, the unimaginable to the observable.

    In our yoga practice and meditation, we seek to use the practices to reveal to ourselves the ultimate pulsation (spanda) between the objective and subjective, the observable and the unknowable, the individual and the completely universal.  One way I experience the first principle of Anusara yoga (open to grace), is taking the mat or my seat with an openness to sense and experience this ultimate pulsation (spanda) and play (lila), so that by using my body, mind, and will, I can better recognize the spirit that shines in all of us and use that recognition to inform how I relate to myself, society, and all beings.

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    After the Exhileration, Work

    We all (or at least most of those who would be reading this blog) have heard the Buddhist-inspired saying:  before enlightenment, the laundry.  After enlightenment, the laundry.  The question is whether after the moments of enlightenment can we infuse doing the laundry with more joy, acceptance, and peace.  A young adult acquaintance asked me the other day whether I was readjusting ok.  I did not know to what he was referring, and he had to explain that he was asking how I was doing on my return from my India trip.  “It was just a vacation–albeit an extraordinary one,” I replied.  “Life continues.”

    “The good experiences just slip away like dry sand through my fingers,” he made a motion of letting something slip away.

    “When you practice and when you get older, it will be easier to bring the temporary, good experiences into your life without feeling they are lost when you have moved onto the next thing,” I said with hope that would  actually be true for him, he seemed so bereft.

    The yoga teaches us neither to be out searching for the highs nor actively avoiding the lows; the dance of grasping and avoiding is what makes us suffer.  That does not mean that the highs, the times of wild abandoned joy, the experiences of utter fulfillment, of exquisite understanding are of no value.  What brings joy is a thing of wonder and an opportunity to deepen our ability to love and be generous.  They are only a problem if we ruin our time by vainly clinging to or trying to repeat the sensation.  As our practice (and our understanding of a life well-lived and loved) matures, we understand that there is no readjusting in the return to the day to day.  We welcome what we have had, try to remember what we have learned, including how much joy and delight we are able to drink in, and approach each day as another opportunity to seek and share connection.

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