Another Rainy Day
A storm has decided to stop and hang out for a few days, which is good, because we really needed the rain here inside the Beltway.
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Blooming Around Town
A particularly prickly-looking tulip just north of the Capitol.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Photos
Expanding to Receive the Beauty, Opening to Grace, and the Isha Upanishad
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.
The Front Garden
I don’t talk much about my front garden because it is not as exciting for me as the back garden with its edibles and herbs. I give a sincere effort to make the front garden beautiful and welcoming since it is my interface with the neighborhood and all who walk past my house. The front is very shady and two maple trees block the rain and drink most of the water that gets past the leaves, so it has taken some effort to find plants that thrive. Much of what is in my garden comes from other gardening friends. Plants that come from friends near-by are likely to do well moved down the street. As my garden has matured, it has needed divisions, thus giving me an opportunity to share, in turn, with younger friends and neighbors. It thus nourishes in important ways, though it offers nothing to eat.
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Today it is quite overcast and yesterday, as it will be again, was a perfect day to watch the clouds.
