Found Exhortation(s)
At the National Gallery of Art until October 8, 2012.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Prakasha and Vimarsha?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Pradakshina?
The term pradakshina roughly means turning towards what is right, to move in alignment with nature. When I was in yoga teacher training, we were taught that to make sure that the practice was in accordance with nature, with the principle of pradakshina, we should instruct our students to roll to the right when coming out of savasana (final relaxation; the corpse pose).
Those who take class with me may have noticed that a couple of months ago, I started just saying to roll to your side, whichever side feels better for you.
Why should turning to the left be sinister (latin for left), or gauche (french for left), or subversive and contrary to dharma (left-handed tantric practices).
Left-handed myself, I can assure you that not one of the salesmen in the expensive shop in India where I bought art and jewelry last year cared that I signed a credit card slip with my left hand (though in India it is customary to eat with the right hand and wipe oneself with the left to make sure that one never uses the same hand for both activities).
Who wants to move the right if right means not correct, but conservative, fundamentalist, self-righteous, and rigidly traditional in societies where tradition is paternalistic, narrow-minded, racist, classist, religiously dogmatic, and sexist?
I think turning to the side without the bum shoulder or the clogged sinus or turning to the side where there is more room or a beloved friend practicing beside you is turning in accordance with the principle of pradakshina–even if it means turning to your left.
Practice pradakshina by all means, seek to align with and embrace the flow and forces or nature within and without and honor those social customs that support and expand love and community, but don’t just roll to the right (or teach that) because someone told you going to the right will bring you closer to the divine. It ain’t necessarily so.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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“I See It Every Morning” (and Jnanam Bandaha) (DWTD)
When I walked out of the back of the hotel through the pool area just after day break, one of the pool side assistants was out getting things ready for the guests. “Windy,” he said, as I was wrapping and knotting my meditation shawl around my neck into the face of a strong breeze coming from offshore. “But look,” I replied, pointing to the sun rising over the ocean, “it’s so beautiful!”
“I see it every morning,” he answered, partly with a shrug of weariness and partly with a grin of delight. I guessed he was in his mid 50s–hard for me to tell, his skin was so leathery from the sun. Probably an old stoner surfer was my thought, and the shrug of resignation was for the fact that taking care of the lounge chairs and umbrellas for endless legions of tourists was what he needed to do to eat and still be with his dearest love–the sea and the sun. The smile was for the sun and the sea itself and to be able to share their beauty once again with someone who is seeing them with fresh delight.
During the course this week of study, we spent time discussing the Shiva Sutras. The second sutra–jnanam bandahah–literally means “knowledge is bondage.”
“Why do we automatically assume bondage is a negative?” John asked us at one point. Any time we make a choice, we are to some extent binding ourselves because we are, by making a choice and being limited by space and time as we are in this human form, forgoing other possibilities.
The Sutras also say that knowledge is freedom. Though the sanskrit words are different for the knowledge that binds (limited knowledge) and knowledge that leads us to freedom (highest knowledge or knowledge of the divine), using logic equations, one could say that if knowledge is bondage and knowledge is freedom, then at some level, bondage, too, is freedom.
If the pool side attendant regards himself as being utterly beaten down by his job, feels stuck with drudgery because he had nothing else he could do to survive, and then forgets about the beauty surrounding him, that would be an example of knowledge constricting or limiting us, putting us into bondage that takes us away from spirit.
If, on the other hand, he looks at the ocean each morning with joy in his heart and recognizes that he chose his job to be able to be with the ocean and sun every day, that would be knowing that bondage can actually free us (in our limited form) to dwell in and from the heart.
What the tantric yoga and meditation practices that come out of such teachings as the Shiva Sutras are designed to do, is to help us find the freedom in our limitations, to make choices in our associations and actions — our bindings — that lead us to love and wonder rather than disappointment and fear.
What do you choose?
Happy Holidays
However and whatever your celebrations for the beginning of Spring.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
