Similar Posts

  • Perception and Illusion (maya)

    ByElizabeth

    I have been thinking about perception and how as soon as we have more than one person looking at the same thing, each person has a different story, a different truth, a different explanation.  Add to that the mysterious systems humans have created:  information technology, cyberspace, monetary system.  All of these are energy fields.  We can only perceive small pieces of them, and we have varying degrees of skepticism about the reality of what we get from them.  It is not a hard leap from that to understand what the yogis are saying when they say what we receive through the senses is illusory (maya).

    We read news articles about the fact that Yo-Yo Ma was not playing at the Inauguration, but just moving his hands over the instrument to a recorded tape.  Why would I believe the news stories more than I would believe what was on the “jumbo-trons” — or if I had been one of the few close in, what I’d thought I’d seen and heard?  Why would I be more likely to believe the Inauguration of President Obama if I saw it on TV than I would the story line of a movie?  How is it that we distinguish between news and fiction, our side of the story v. the other person’s side?

    When we emphasize the “reality” of our own perception, we bring ourselves to schisms, disputes, and hurt feelings.  When we let ourselves be skeptical about our own perceptions and know that they are only one aspect of a unity (like the blind men and the elephant), then we can be softer, more open, and less divisive.  I am working on this; it is a challenging aspect of my yoga practice.  What do you think?

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    Food is the link between self and spirit (Taittreya Upanishad and the Yoga of Eating Part III)

    ByElizabeth

    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)

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    Full Moon

    ByElizabeth

    The moon had risen in all her glory when I left Willow Street Yoga in Silver Spring (from a talk with Dr. Manoj Chalam about archetypes yesterday evening and headed for the metro home.  I thought about how the moon shines fully no matter what is below:  a pristine mountain lake, a construction site, a palace garden, a land devastated by one of the Four Horsemen, or the street in front of my house.  What I think is the goal of most “spiritual” practice is to find a place where, being able to see the light all the time, one can live with uncertainty and challenge and have a greater capacity to serve from one’s unique place.

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