| | | | |

Signs Around Town (and Symmetry)

ByElizabeth

Advancing
The practice.
Community.

I spied this sign yesterday in the exhibitor hall on the lower level of the Marriott in Woodley Park. I was attending a portion of the 38th Annual Conference of Enrolled Actuaries. (Go ahead: I dare you to put that into your favorite search engine).

Although this sign was to invite enrollment in one of the actuarial professional organizations, it seems most similar to the stated aspirations of various yoga groups and schools.

I’m not surprised by this symmetry. I think that anyone who seeks to live so that employment and dharma (aligned life) are in harmony and who supports, participates, and works in community, is living like a yogin, though perhaps never knowing about or having any interest in yoga per se.

There are many life paths and humanistic and spiritual practices that guide life towards a contented path of service, the true reason, to my thinking, for a steady, long-term yoga practice (including asana, pranayama, and meditation).

I personally find the yoga practices to be among the most helpful ways to engage my body and mind for my health and well-being. Among other things, the practices have helped me listen with open enough awareness to be able to comprehend with my law-trained mind some small portion of the language of actuaries.

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

Similar Posts

  • | | |

    How Do You React? (and Dharma)

    ByElizabeth

    How do you react when you see signs of neglect, disinterest, disregard for the health and well-being of the earth and other beings?  Do you get stuck in a sense of helplessness or rage? Do you think we’re all screwed anyway and decide no effort to make things better is worth it?  Are you moved to political action?  Are you moved to take better care of self, family, and friends, even if you think you cannot make much of a greater impact beyond your intimate circle? Can you remain engaged and still find joy, whatever the apparent immediate results and how hard the battle seems to be?

    The Bhagavad Gita, says that to live a life of yoga, we must do the last of these.  The first teaching from the Bhagavad Gita on this point is that we must live in accordance with our  dharma (duty).  The second teaching, and more important for having peace of mind in a life of duty, is that of “actionless action.”  The true yoga is to live a life of action in accordance with dharma, but without attachment to the outcome (i.e., live in an orderly way, accepting the tendency of the universe to be chaotic). 

    Dharma in the Bhagavad Gita, of course, contemplated rigid roles in terms of livelihood and place in society.  In the paradigm of citizenship in a democracy that does not so narrowly circumscribe one’s livelihood or place in society, I wcould argue that it is all of our dharma to participate as a citizen, voting, speaking out for our beliefs, and otherwise using the freedom we have to live a life that best supports the twins of individual and common good, including not just human good, but the whole ecology in which we exist.  The actionless action part is to keep seeking (without despairing) to make things more in alignment even if the forces against healing, nurture, and alignment seem to conspire against positive results that we will see or actualize ourselves.

    Are you registered to vote?  Have you watered your trees?  Casey Trees reminds us that this week in DC is dry; trees need about 25 gallons of water or 1 1/2 inches.

  • | |

    On Reading Patanjali (to help get ready for work)

    ByElizabeth

    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”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.