Heat Wave
Similar Posts
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Body | Gardening | Meditation | Photos
Gratitude
Sometimes at the top of the list of that for which I am grateful are the problems that I have. I fully appreciate my good fortune in only having problems I can handle in one way or another. Not every one is so blessed.
I was thinking this about “problems” and how to address them in the most graceful way as I read the Supreme Court’s decision. Heavy going reading, but absolutely fascinating from so many perspectives. Awe-inspiring in fact to think of the collective behavior and engagement of so many millions (yes millions by active involvement to greater or lesser degree or by apathy and inaction in this democracy of ours) of people that contributed to this writing. One aspect of it is how much of people tend to think, both individually and collectively, as life endlessly posing problems to be solved (I include myself in this) and not as offering opportunities to engage, shift, nurture, and grow. How we approach the Supreme Court’s decision collectively and individually will most certainly contribute to its impact.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Evacuation Walkout Route
If you are walking from the march to RFK tomorrow afternoon/evening and would like a rest stop nearby, send me an email or message me on Facebook.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
“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?
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Questions Around Town
Some things we need to learn to adequately navigate the environment in which we are living. Some things we can choose to learn. And sometimes, life gives us the choice of suffering or learning from what life has given us.
