During one of the sessions at the workshop last weekend in New Jersey, John Friend made a passing reference to the difference between receiving and taking. He did not go into any detail because it was not central to the theme of the class, but it led me to contemplate on my own about the difference between taking and giving in the context of yoga practice. In so doing, I thought about the concept of prasad — which is food that has been blessed and is offered to those who have participated in worship (puja).
When offered prasad, one does not take it. Instead, the cupped palm is turned up to receive the prasad. The recipient does not get to pick through the basket and choose which sweet looks the biggest or the tastiest, but simply receives with gratitude the sweet or fruit that is infused with the intention of spirit. The active part is the showing up with openness and receptivity to the offering, the blessing, the nourishment being offered.
Coming to yoga class or doing our own practice (asana or meditation) should be, I think, like preparing to receive prasad. What is primary in the practice of Anusara yoga is being open to grace, but we can no more force openings or enlightenment (grace and insight always elude grasping), than forcing any particular physical posture or goal really yoga practice. The point of effort in yoga to improve and expand alignment and knowledge is to enable the practitioner to receive more fully all the potential gifts and grace of practice, and then in turn make fuller and more complete offerings to others.
Below: offerings at the Chelsea Farmers’ Market
I have been meditating more in recent weeks than I had been for quite some time. It is providing a balance to all the intensity.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
We did have practice at William Penn House, but I fell asleep before posting. Here’s the front window of William Penn House. We’re going to work on a sign for the yoga.
I found used a novelization of the Mahabharata a couple of weeks ago, which I am now reading. I’ve read other versions put into English prose, all of which have some stamp of the presenter (author?). The version I am reading brings to the fore that those who are deserving of the love of people and who are blessed by the divine are physically beautiful, wealthy, and possess great military prowess. Righteousness includes unquestionably obeying the orders of rulers and parents and accepting your station in life as the determination of God.
The book jacket proclaims the Mahabharata “the greatest spiritual epic of all time.” I agree that it is a great epic and a rather amazing one. Some of the precepts, like all presented in great writings that have lasted over the centuries are worthy of contemplation for one’s own life (I am all for recognizing guests as divine visitors and treating them with due regard, for example), as well as for understanding the society in which the work was created. But any work that mostly reflects the societal mores of the time in which it was written and is designed to perpetuate the powers that be is perhaps best read as fiction. Saying this does not mean I do not recognize the good of some of the teachings interwoven into the fairy tales, but rather that I think it must also be understood in the confines of its context, lest we perpetuate societal evils that no longer serve. (This, of course, has Western parallels.)
