When I took class tonight with Kate Miller at Willow Street, she reminded us that yesterday was the 13th anniversary of Anusara yoga’s officially being Anusara yoga. How delightful to celebrate with each other this yoga that invites us to play, to dance, to celebrate each other and ourselves.
The 17th sutra is “madhya vikasha cittananda labhah,” which is translated by Swami Shantananda as “the bliss of Consciousness is attained through expansion of the center.”
Madyama, in our physical embodiment is the central channel, the sushumna nadi that runs vertically in the space of the spine. One of the key actions of Anusara’s organic energy is expansion from the midline. It is, in its essence, using the body to physically explore the bliss that comes from the expansion from the center.
If we can get bliss just from expanding, then why would we first draw in? In applying the Anusara principles, we use muscular energy first. We hug into our core before reaching out. This parallels the yoga texts. If, for example, one already embodies the perfect bliss of consciousness, one doesn’t need to study the sutras or to practice yoga, one would just live from that place of perfect bliss.
The way I think about it in terms of the Anusara principles, if one were perfectly open to grace and lived being fully open to and expressive of grace, there would be no need to explore, learn, or study any of the other principles. That’s a rare being though. Most of us, and definitely me, need practice to discover and embody even a glimpse of perfect bliss and grace. So the expansion from the center comes after consciously softening and opening, after intentionally drawing in to strengthen and embrace, after making with discrimination further expansion, and after drawing in to contentrate mind and body with honed intensity. With ever more refinement and practice, we then can experience and make offering a deeper bliss when we expand from our center.
Last night I sat down at my kitchen table to string baby seed pearls for a mother-of-pearl charm I had gotten from Manoj a few years ago.
When I took the pearles off of the thread they came on and put them on my jeweler’s mat, several challenges were revealed: even with the lights on bright and my reading glasses, it was almost impossible to see the bead hole; if I touched the wire other than on the hole, the pearl bounced; if I tried to hold the pearl still, the hold was obscured by my fingernail. Using a needle was not a viable option because the holes were too small for a wire-threaded needle.
At this point, since I was doing this after a long and frustrating day at the office, the tendency was to get more frustrated. Should I just give away the pearls? Get stronger glasses or a loupe? Try to return them?
Instead I softened. There was no mandate I get the pearls strung. I was doing this solely for enjoyment.
In softening, I discovered — to mix philosophical underpinnings — the zen of baby seed pearl stringing. If I grouped a bunch of pearls together, not only was it easier to see holes in certain pearls, but the others around it held the pearl in place for the wire to pierce the pearl. By softening, it occurred to me to use the technique of cutting the wire on a bias (and repeating it every several pearls strung), which gave me a smaller, sharper point, making the threading much easier. Most important, though, I stopped trying so hard. I let the wire and each pearl meet each other instead of my trying to force the meeting. When I did that, the openings were revealed, and I entered a quiet and serene meditative state during which the project completed itself through my agency.
It is for discovering, experiencing, and always being able to engage this essential and blissful merging of being and acting that I meditate and practice asana. We practice the Anusara principle “opening to grace” so that we can experience grace itself (whatever grace means to you) doing our acting, both on the mat and off. As such, “opening to grace” is both the primary and ultimate activator of this merged state of being that is yoga--union..
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
We’re all fine, and the problem is definitely outside of the house, but this is the gas company’s immediate response to the phone call saying, “I smell gas.”
With your body and home, do you know what needs prompt intervention, what might go away on its own, and what can wait?
