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    A Session of Coincidences (and Shiva Tattva)

    ByElizabeth

    Towards the end of a yoga session I start thinking about what would be a good theme for the next.  I start by observing what is going on in the world — from the change of seasons, to whether it is rainy or drought, to what is going on in the political climate, noticing what is recurring in my own practice and the practices of my students, watching what is arising in my contemplations and meditations, and seeing what is resonating most in what I am learning from my own teachers.  I will go into my library, reading and rereading things to see what resonates with what I am observing and experiencing.  I also take into account the length of the session to be sure that it will fit well within the number of classes.  Once I have set the session theme, I spend the week in which I will teach a particular principle, contemplating it, reading about it, practicing with it, and thinking about its relationship to my life off of the mat.

    When I selected the tattvas this session it was for a whole array of reasons (some of which have been set out in previous posts).  The order I picked to teach them, and which I chose to emphasize, were for what I thought would be the best way to share knowledge and experience and not for the outside calendar.  It was then, by sheer  serendipity that the themes fit as they did with the calendar:

    • Vayu — the mahabhuta air, the element associated with the anahata chakra (the heart chakra) on Valentine’s Day
    • Purusha/Prakriti — nature and spirit, was the week I was leading the “Yoga for Gardeners” workshop
    • Shakti — power, expansion, opening, was for the week of the Cherry Blossom Festival.

    Now this week, the last week of the session, parama shiva — the highest tattva. Shiva tattva is the most subjective principle and the most universal.  It represents the essence of being (sat), consciousness (cit), and bliss (ananda).  It is everywhere and nowhere, in all beings and not.  It is whatever ever we think of as spirit or force or web of being or light or pulsation or divine — whatever we believe is the very essence of being.  It is most interesting that by my series of contemplations and choices over the winter holidays, that I gave myself the homework assignment, as it were, to be specifically contemplating, practicing with, and studying the shiva tattva as I offer peace to Becky as she departs and seek my own peace in my grief over the loss of her physical presence.

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    When We Choose the Pleasure of the Beautiful (DWTD)

    ByElizabeth

    When we choose a tantric path, we choose to experience pleasure as an expression of spirit, rather than seeking to transcend such experience as would one who is on the classical renunciatory yoga path. The choice to remain engaged, to honor mind and body as divine, comes with great responsibility.

    When we choose engagement, we choose to experience the divine reality not just of pleasure, but also of pain. The true tantric path does not turn a blind eye to ugliness and suffering. Just taking the pleasure without recognizing its opposite is not authentic practice. If the pleasure of the sunrise is “real,” then the garbage on the beach is just as real.

    Recognizing the reality of ugliness and pain as part of the play of the real does not mean, though, that it should diminish our joy in the beautiful and in the dance of the play of opposites of life.

    Rather, it is our delight in and engagement with beauty that invites us to serve as best we can to alleviate suffering, to try and clean up the garbage where we can. In other words, as we recognize that ugliness and destruction are part of the play (lila), we seek to be heart-full rather than heart-broken when we witness the suffering from violence to others or our living planet. If we let our hearts break, we become blind to the beauty. Like those who only see what brings pleasure, those who only see the painful are also not experiencing all of the real.

    As I head back to the world inside the Beltway, I bring the deepened and replenished sense of beauty and the dance that I always get from collective study and practice. I will try to share the privilege of having this experience by doing my best to clean up what garbage I can, while still dancing and loving in the light.

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    A Graywater Inspiration from Friends (and opening to grace/muscular energy)

    ByElizabeth

    When we are on our mats, being open to grace — the first Anusara alignment principle — includes being open to the teachings so that we can receive and act on them in a healing and loving way.  Adding to that muscular energy by lovingly embracing skin to muscle to bone in a conscious embrace, drawing into our center to recognize our inner spirit, and drawing from periphery to the focal point brings us into optimal balance.  This pulsation serves as a way off the mat to open, inspire, and engage us in progressively more intentional and uplifting ways of living.

    Being open to inspiration from friends and about town, open to learning new ways to be kind to the earth and to ourselves, is a way of bring the principle of “opening to grace” off the mat.  Actually keeping the intention and acting on it has the attentive embrace of muscular energy, which draws us onto our inner light in a loving embrace so that we can better serve.

    I was thinking about Anusara principles off the mat, yesterday when I went visit a friend in NW one of whose roommates fosters cats.  There is a community garden in the back and the house is warm and friendly.  In the bathtub were two buckets filled with water leftover from showers.  Instead of using fresh, potable water to flush the toilet, when it is time to flush (honoring the drought axiom about yellow mellowing, etc), the house residents fill the tank with the gray water from the shower.

    Find it too complicated an idea to shower with a bucket in the bathtub with you?  You can still save water by filling your watering can or bucket when you run the water to warm up enough to get into the shower.  That will save a few gallons.  Not up to using the water to flush the toilet?  Use it to water houseplants or for cleaning floors, etc.  Or take it outside to water potted plants.

    First step is opening and witnessing the possibilities and understanding where you are ready to expand.  The second step is to try to more consistently live your inspiration.  I know when I see people living with such intention I take better care to move in that direction, even if I am not ready to go as far.

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    Another Opportunity to Practice Yoga

    ByElizabeth

    Another opportunity. Another opportunity to soften, another opportunity to open to what is possible within limits as I attempt to work with yet another interface for the same blog. If the machines did not tell you, would you be able to tell the difference between an entry done on the laptop, the Blackberry, or the IPad? I have the most functionality on the laptop. The Blackberry and IPad apps are both missing key functions. As I start learning the IPad, I try to stay with a sense of openness and wonder at what technology offers instead of getting frustrated by learning curves and limitations. It’s yet another opportunity to practice yoga off the mat!

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