We are bound in time and space in this body/mind. One of the purposes of the yoga and meditation practices is to help us see from a less bound perspective so that we can navigate and order ourselves more optimally in time and space, which should serve to make things seem more easeful and gracious.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
When I have not looked at my email for several days, I am faced with dozens of emails in my two regular accounts, plus the spam folders. The first thing I do is see what in the spam folder is not spam. In doing that, I give some attention to everything in the folder. Then I go through my in box to figure out what should have gone to spam. Then I delete the spam. Then I decide what emails from list serves there is no point in reading because if I have not read them immediately, I will have missed the letter-writing, petition-signing, event-going, offering-enjoying that is described in the email. Those get deleted without being opened. There is another level of emails that I open, but just skim. Then I either delete quickly or leave to be read after I get to the important stuff. Then there are the personal and business emails that I want to read and require my attention. I look at them to see if they need immediate attention or can wait.
The thoughts that arise during meditation have a similar filter. Some are spam. There is a certain almost mesmerizing quality about the quantity and array of the thoughts, but I just let them go — returning to my mantra or the breath because the mantra is far more delightful than the thoughts. Other thoughts, I acknowledge, but leave for later (i.e., the proverbial “to do” list), again finding more delight in the spaciousness and light of meditation. Sometimes particular thoughts relevant to my practice and very being will start resonating in the light itself and becomes messages. These thoughts sometimes dissolve again into the light of meditation and do not come with me from the session in a tangible form. Others stay with me and give me fruit for contemplation, for investigation and study, for illumination of my day, or for discussion with others for further refinement.
Always, though, there is an acceptance that thoughts will arise as inevitably as one with multiple active email accounts and many list serves will get email. The practice is learning which thoughts I should give heed, which to discard, and when and how to listen to those that will serve and inform.
It should come as no surprise to those who have taken my classes or have been reading this blog with some regularity, that an incredibly important source of inspiration is my library. At the suggestion of my fabulous web designer, who is currently in graduate school for library sciences, I have gone live with a library page. Given the nature of a blog; everything I have read is really part of its bibliography; this is the much edited version. I am using Library Thing, which is a fascinating space for book nerds in the electronic universe. I hope that you will enjoy this opportunity to expand the dialogue about books in our lives, our studies, and our practices.
The Self in man and in the sun are one./ Those who understand this see through the world/ And go beyond the various sheaths/ Of being to realize the unity of life./ Those who realize that all life is one/ Are at home everywhere and see themselves / In all beings. They sing in wonder:/ ‘I am the food of life, I am, I am;/ I eat the food of life, I eat, I eat./ I link food and water, I link, I link./ I am the first-born in the universe;/ Older than the gods, I am immortal./ Who shares food with the hungry protects me;/ Who shares it not with them is consumed by me./ I am this world and I consume this world./ They who understand this understand life.’ Taittreya Upanishad, 10.5, trans. Eknath Eswaren.
As one who is immersed in the joy of growing, selecting, creating, and tasting food and studying and practicing yoga, it is no suprise that the Taittreya Upanishad (which Eknath Eswaren subtitles “From Food to Joy”) is one of my favorite readings.
The Taittreya Upanishad explains the five sheaths or koshas that make up the self — the food body, the energy body, the mind body, the intuitive body, and the bliss body. What we take in with our senses and what makes us flesh and blood can, with right observance and practice, lead us to a consciousness of self as joy and spirit embodied. This is the yoga of eating and of food.
For more details on the Taittreya Upanishad, please see Jon Janaka’s article, “I am the Food!”
Other sources:
Upanishads, trans. Patrick Olivelle (Oxford World Classics 1996)
The Upanishads, translated for the modern reader by Eknath Eswaren (Nilgiri Press 8th Printing 2000)
The Ten Principal Upanishads, put into English by Shree Purohit Swami and Wm. Butler Yeats (Faber and Faber, London, Reprinted 1952)
Last week, a co-worker stopped by my office to chat. Not surprisingly, the conversation turned to current affairs, and I voiced my every day growing anger and grief and disgust and commitment to seek more ways to have positive impact. My co-worker essentially responded that as a yoga teacher, she thought I ought to know that I shouldn’t get so upset, things weren’t so bad.
As should not be surprising to those who know me or practice yoga with me or read what I post on social media that I explained that my yoga calls for lucid and engaged citizenship and not escape from challenges and difficult emotions. My co-worker demurred, still wanting her own comfortable silence.
The fateful weekend passed. When I returned to the office this week, I found a note and a cookie on my desk. The note basically said, wow, Charlottesville, I hope you’re feeling ok, I thought you might like a cookie. Without addressing the substance of the note, (my own conflict aversion coming to the fore or perhaps my sense that in this case there was little point in pursuing the conversation further and my co-worker has been a pleasant colleague ), when emailing about another matter, I said merely thank you for the cookie.
I’d thought that would be the end of it, but my co-worker then stopped by to thank me for saying thanks for the cookie, I no longer restrained myself from passionately though tolerably politely articulating what I really thought, including what a privilege it is to be able to have a bakery cookie whether for hunger or comfort.
I can relate to wanting everything to be ok, and I’m really glad I have plenty of food and a comfortable home, but I also believe that with my privilege comes great responsibility, now even more than ever. I seek to be more aware not less. What about you?
