Green Festival is coming to DC again on October 23-24. If you’ve never been (and are in town), it is always enjoyable, if only for the snacks and the comaraderie (odds are high you will bump into people you know). What I find is that I either learn something new about how to live in a more ecologically sustainable way or I get the affirmation that I’m already making a decent effort. Join in the fun if you can.
This morning my sit was full of lots of random thought waves. This was no doubt, in part, due to my having four meetings, a call, and a lunch scheduled. When I was finished, I went into the library, picked up the Christopher Isherwood/Swami Prabhavandananda version How to Know God and opened it randomly to see if it could help guide my thinking today. I opened to sutra I.40: “The mind of a yogi can concentrate upon any object of any size, from the atomic to the infinitely great.” My first thought was, “how nice.” My second thought was, “I need to look at another translation; that does not sound quite how I’ve read it elsewhere.”
I opened my trusted B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali. The translation there is “Mastery of contemplation brings the power to extend from the finest particle to the greatest.”
These translations are not so different from each other. It was also most timely for me to read this classical sutra in connection with what I have been contemplating in the Pratyabijna Hrdyam.
I read the Isherwood translation as saying that as long as one concentrates as a yogi with full and loving attention, then all actions are in union (yoga). I understand the Iyengar translation to say that mastering yoga allows one to perceive in the most individual, differentiated being or object, the infinite universal. With that knowing, just as the Kashmir Shaivist teachings say, one is living liberated (jivanmukti).
However I read this thread of teaching, it is most relevant for how I live and what I must do today with the worldly commitments I have made. With the intention to stay present with yoga concentration and aims, I now head to my day of meetings.
The sanskrit is: “paramanu parammahattvantah asya vasikarah”
Where the individual tragedy leads us toward the universal desire for love.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
If only it were so easy. Perhaps it is.
I read today a piece in the Washington Post about Hindus needing to “take back” yoga. I read the article and the comments with great interest because it has been a matter of much discussion with those in my meditation and philosophy course as to the extent to which the practices we are learning are “religious” practices and whether they can be practiced consistently with other religions. There is much difference of opinion and strongly heated and held positions.
What I think is missing from the article is the question of distinctions between “spiritual” and “religious” practices. It is a simple fact that practicing yoga with depth and sincerity entails learning practices that are observed by Hindus. Does that make one a Hindu? Does it mean that one is “dissing” Hinduism if one learns and benefits from the practices, but does not self-identify as a Hindu.
What about Jews who have trees at the Christmas holidays (a tradition co-opted from the pagans in any event)? Is it OK that I have a mezuzuh even though my parents (who were born Jews) raised me in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and I continue to be a member of a Quaker meeting, and observe no other Jewish laws or practices.
Is it OK for me to chant “Hindu” chants if I do not identify myself as a Hindu or attend Hindu temple? If it is not OK, for whom is it not OK? Quakers? Hindus? Jews? Me? Who is to decide or judge?
It seems to me that “religion” (as specific sects, identities, and strict rules) tends to highlight difference and disunity, but sincere spiritual practice — whether or not done in a religious context and observance — should be unifying because all religions at their highest and most universal, call upon us to recognize the unity of spirit in ourselves and in all beings.
The “shelter in place” signs in my building demarcate suites where designated groups of employees are supposed to gather in the event of a threat to human safety where it would be safer to hunker down in the building than to go out.
While I was sitting through a seemingly interminable, pointless, but only somewhat acrimonious meeting this morning, I was thinking how important it is to have a space within our own consciousness where it feels safe and peaceful even when we are in a situation where staying physically put is the most realistic alternative. This got me thinking about one of the powers (siddhis) that allegedly may arise from a steady, devoted, and long-term practice. That power is the ability to bi-locate–the power to be in two or more places at once.
I’ve long practiced with part of my goal being to cultivate the space of meditation as a way of making bearable the unavoidably painful, such as when confined to bed because of severe illness. In such a situation, though my experience is thankfully limited, going into meditation is a going to another space of consciousness, but does not require staying mentally engaged and present.
When in an unpleasant meeting or stuck in traffic or similar situations, the problem is that one needs to stay mentally and physically alert and present and cannot just go off into bliss.
Then, I think the power of bi-locating is what would serve best. It would enable being simultaneously present and functioning while also being in the blissful and peaceful state of meditation. The space we go to in meditation would indeed then be a “shelter in place.”
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Words can and do lead us to spirit, Yes they can. (Of course they can drive us from it, too. Let us strive for true poetry in all we express.)
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If you spend $25 at MOM’s during October, you can get in free! Or you can volunteer (like me) and get free admission (and a t-shirt).