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Sankalpa (Intention)
In the tradition of our culture’s “new year’s resolution” I like to practice yoga nidra at this time of year to help establish a new sankalpa or intention. A sankalpa is different from a new year’s resolution. It is short, affirming, and is both in the present and forward-looking.
Usually it takes a couple of weeks for me to be certain of what sankalpa is right for me to work with for a period of months. One year, I had been very sick for the entire fall and early winter, so it was easy to choose “I am healthy.” For the past two years, as I struggled with my place this time of war and societal struggle and thought about my own role in creating and avoiding conflict, I chose the sankalpa “I will come from the light in all I do” (“light” for me meaning an inner place of peace, compassion and spaciousness).
In the past several months, mostly due to having thoroughly enjoyed creating meals from the garden and the farmers’ market, I am a little heavier than works with the clothing I own and my sense of comfort with my body image. Instead of having a new year’s resolution to lose five pounds, which would likely fail, I am working with the sankalpa “I love and respect my body.” The former buys into societal expectations of what my body should look like, imposes mental will over my body, and reinforces a mindset of negative judgment and denial. The latter is joyous and affirming. I believe that if I truly love and respect my body, I will eat in a way that is healthy for my body and the earth. I will either lose the few pounds or be more accepting of my body as it is. This sankalpa thus gives me much to contemplate in terms of my relationship to the mirror, my clothes, my asana practice, and my way of eating. How much it gives me to contemplate expands if I think of the body extending beyond just my flesh and bones and physical appearance, but also to my energy body and all that I bring in through the senses.
What sankalpa would be transformative for you this year? What would help you embody your sankalpa (other than, of course, establishing a regular yoga nidra practice — see yoga nidra resources).
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Quaker
The Importance of Doubt (and Shrada)
I was just led by a friend’s Facebook posting to the website for an upcoming movie about the Siddha yoga ashram (Siddha yoga was part of the teaching and practice lineage of John Friend and Paul Muller-Ortega, and both have told stories about how useful the fierce ashram discipline was for them, but who adopted too much of the ashram style in their yoga organizations for me ever to have tried to be in the inner circle). In watching the trailer and reading the background materials for the movie, it struck me that the most important point for me is that the followers who were most injured were those who doubted least and who were the most hungry for an authority and love figure.
As a born and bred doubter (how could I not be one who consistently doubts as part of my spiritual practice, given that I am a culturally jewish, New York intellectual who was raised on the Quaker system of queries and advices, who studied western philosophy and law, and who works inside the Beltway?), I believe that you will always be able to get the good out of teachings without losing your own control, sense of self, and discriminating (viveka) ability to evaluate your commitment to a teacher or organization and the teachings offered, if your faith is in your own intuition and education and not in any one human or organization or specific teaching.
Faith (in Sanskrit shrada), in order to serve us well, needs doubt; it needs questioning; it needs testing at every point of the way or it is superficial faith. Don’t let anyone–particularly someone with whom you study or engage in religious or spiritual practice ever tell you otherwise. Sometimes doubting with faith means getting involved or staying fully committed to an organization or teacher despite misgivings or despite troubling behavior (assuming you are not sticking with being abused yourself or standing idly by when witnessing the abuse of others). After all, no humans, organizations, or relationships are without their shadow sides. Sometimes doubting, even with faith, means a radical and complete separation–quietly or loudly. Sometimes what is best for you is something in between. Learning to be in community is part of the practice, after all, keeping in mind that you are the company you keep.
All I can say is this: Please doubt. Please doubt with sincerity. Please doubt with love. Please doubt with respect. Please educate yourself, and with appropriate doubt, have faith that there is good in connecting and in the teachings, no matter how challenging is getting and sharing the teachings and the practices with and through the filter of others.
