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Expanding to Receive the Beauty, Opening to Grace, and the Isha Upanishad

ByElizabeth

In Anusara yoga, one of the ways the first principle of “opening to grace” can be experienced and practiced  is as a radical expansion of the capacity to receive and appreciate the very wonder of being.  During my visit to India with Professor Douglas Brooks, I found myself repeatedly thinking of the concept of radical expansion and also the preamble to the Isha Upanishad (long a favorite of mine; Shantala on their first CD, Love Window, have done an exquisite rendition), which can be roughly translated as saying that adding fullness to fullness is itself fullness (fullness can also be translated here as perfection).

What I believe this is saying that being itself is infinitely full; thus, we cannot make it more infinite by adding to it.  Human consciousness of the infinitude of being, though, is limited by the filters of space and time.   One of the key reasons to practice yoga (including meditation) is to expand both our capacity to appreciate the fullness and to receive its full wonder by uniting our own consciousness with the infinitude.  When we can appreciate ever more the wonder of our being, we will naturally be more joyous, and I believe, led to be more compassionate and generous with ourselves and others.

Day after day on the India pilgrimage, just when I thought my heart and mind were already full to bursting, there were yet more experiences of the beauty and extraordinariness of life and creativity and nature.  I found myself chanting the Isha Upanishad—purnamadah, purnamidam, puranata purnamudatacyate.  Fullness and fullness is fullness.  “Let me expand still more to appreciate to its utmost yet more beauty,” I thought to myself again and again.  Though I already thought I’d developed a fairly full understanding of the concept through study and practice, I thought, “this is what John Friend means when he is talking about radical expansion.” I look forward to studying and practicing to experience and share ever more beauty.

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    Putting the Garden to Bed Sun Salute

    ByElizabeth

    Yesterday (latest in the season ever — see interesting articles in the New York Times last month about Thoreau as a climatologist) I spent the morning bringing all my tropical plants inside.  Part of the reason it was later is that I have learned that the orchids and night-blooming cyrius like nights in the low 40s and can tolerate the occasional single night in the high 30s, but most of it is that it is a warmer season than any in the decade I’ve had a significant number of tropical plants.  I also bring inside the lemongrass and lemon verbena (annuals here; perennials where they are native).  I also like to bring in rosemary in a container.  Also, what were once small plants in growers pots are now a huge jasmine and a bay tree.  When I bring all of this inside in the winter, I transform the house into a retreat.  When I bring it all outside in the early spring, my tiny yard is full and lush before the annuals start flourishing.

    Once the tropicals were all inside, I cleaned up, tended the beds and containers, and strew some more winter kale and baby spinach seeds (no frost in the forecast for the next 15 days — so I could have new kale and spinach through December; also, some of the seeds will wait and be the early ones that come up during that warm week we always have in February).

    Putting the garden to bed has a sweetness to it.  I prepare for next year, but also engage in tending what will flourish best when the days are coldest and shortest.  It is a going inside, knowing that there is a need to go inside and let some things be dormant in order to flourish fully when the sun is bright and hot and calls me outside.

    This type of gardening is stressful for the lower back, hips, and shoulders.  Throughout the hours I am gardening,  I like to engage my alignment by intermittently doing some poses, strongly integrating my shoulders, hips, and core:  working strong “shins in/thighs out” I practice uttanasana (standing forward fold), utkatasana (chair pose), and adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog), and maybe even handstand.  It is critical to make sure not just to bend from the knees, but also to make sure you have a good lumbar curve and your tailbone is tucked, when picking up containers or other heavy objects.

    At the end of several hours of gardening (bringing the tropicals inside also entails vaccuuming), I need to realign, stretch, and reintegrate, but I’m tired.  I also want to practice in a way that honors and celebrates the sweet inward nature of the work I have just done.  This is what works well for me:

    1.  Seated foot massage.

    2. Balasana (child’s posture) with arms stretched out, palms, forearms, and armpits lifted.  Inhaling lift underside of arms to strenthen, exhaling soften between shoulder blades to integrate.

    2. Chakra vakrasana (cat/cow breathing).

    3. (putting the garden to bed sun salute):  Table pose (if you make sure you have good lumbar curve, table is one of the best postures for making sure hips, back, and shoulders are aligned well); Downward facing dog (play in the pose to integrate and stretch the legs and arms and strengthen your core); Palakasana (plank);Table pose; Balasana;Table.

    Repeat the series several times.  Add in lunges (coming into the lunges from table).  Add in twists from table, threading one arm through and coming down onto that shoulder).  Add in pigeon pose (with a forward bend).

    4. End with legs up the wall, a supported or seated forward bend or two, and savasana.

    Enjoy how this practice nourishes and realigns, but generally draws the attention inside, getting you ready to enjoy the inside while waiting for the next growing season.

    E

    ps While I was practicing, I had a big vat of tomato sauce cooking from the last (perhaps second to last) harvest of cooking tomatoes.

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    Signs Around Town (Guru Purnima Style)

    ByElizabeth

    Either everyone–including yourself is guru–or noone is. Listen to your own inner wisdom (a little training and practice helps in that regard, at least in my own experience).

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

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    Reflection at the Reflecting Pool

    ByElizabeth

    I took a few moments in the middle of my work day to go outside to walk and then to sit quietly.

    I found it rather tranquil to watch the gentle waves on the reflecting pool on the west side of the Capitol building.

    The reflecting pool was then a better tool for inner reflection when it wasn’t reflecting an image of what is outside of and next to it–as glorious as it is when it is offering up a picture perfect reflection of the Capitol dome and its surroundings. Hmm.

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

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    Anahata Chakra (Part II)

    ByElizabeth

    At yoga class tonight, a couple of students advised of challenges with neck and shoulders; another was very tired. After we had centered and done some gentle warm-ups, I led the class into this simple restorative backbend. In the pose, a rolled up blanket (or even a towel or two) is placed across the back, right at the bottom of the shoulder blades, so that the roll firms the shoulder blades onto the back and allows the heart to open, the collarbones to broaden, and the shoulders to drape to the floor. The yogin keeps the legs somewhat active in supta tadasana–supine mountain–pose to make more easeful opening the back and chest.

    It was a good day for a quiet, nurturing practice designed to move us into our hearts. When we are faced with tragedy and outrage, but are not personally harmed, it is even more important that we choose to get deeper into our hearts. It is a time when it is good to choose to practice (whatever the practice) to foster clarity of vision, improve individual health and strength, and ground ourselves in a space where we can expand the possibility of responding with compassion, generosity, and common sense instead of unthinkingly reacting out of fear and rage.

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

2 Comments

  2. If I didn’t know better I would have thought these photos were from some professional photographer from National Geographic. Truly beautiful. Thank you for sharing!

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