Signs Around Town
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This is the Age We’re Living In
What are you going to do about it?
Robber Barons v. Philanthropists (a memory triggered by reading the 1994 New Yorker article on SYDA Yoga)
When I was in eighth grade, my history teacher, Mr. B, assigned to the class engaging in a debate as to whether Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Mellon were philanthropists or robber barons. We were put in teams and told which side we had to argue. When we were given the assignment, I went to Mr. B privately and said it was not possible to argue one side or the other. These men were only able to be philanthropists at their level of giving because of the money they had made as robber barons. My teacher said that was an unacceptable position. I was to argue the position I was assigned, I was wrong that it was not an either or debate. I should understand that what was critical to this debate was which aspect was the elemental identifying characteristic.
Where I think was our real difference of opinion was that Mr. B thought that one could/should not recognize both enormous evil and enormous good in the same person. If one was evil, then the good was essentially irrelevant. If one had done tremendous good, then it should not matter if there was bad along the way. I tend to see the whole. I take the good where I find it (for example, I have found great truth and utility in the writings of Swamis Muktananda and Chidvilasananda although I would not recognize either as my “guru”), but do not expect the “bad” to be absent or non-coexistent with the “good” and tend to be outspoken in my recognition of both. I still sometimes get in trouble for this.
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“Meeting for Discernment for Peace,” Bhavana, and Heart-Oriented Posturing Language
On the Friends Meeting of Washington list serve this week, there has been a fair amount of email exchanged about an upcoming “meeting for discernment for peace.” Very roughly described, a meeting for discernment begins with a period of silent worship in which those present settle into the silence and surrender thought to allow the light of spirit to illuminate a specific subject of contemplation. The subject of the meeting serves to enlighten both the individuals participating and to further both the business and spiritual state of the meeting as a whole.
As I read the emails and invited myself to contemplate the questions offered for the meeting (I will not be able to attend because I had previously committed to volunteer work), it led me to think not only about the topic under discernment, but about how similar it seems to me to the yoga practice of bhavana and how bhavana supports the Anusara teaching method of “heart-oriented posturing language.”
When we practice bhavana ,we invite the fullness of consciousness to illuminate ever deeper levels of understanding of particular teachings from the yoga texts or similar ideas. It is similar to meditation in that we don’t try to think our way through the concept, but rest with it. Bhavana differs from meditation exactly because it is focused on the deepening of a particular concept rather than simply going into the space of meditation as an end in itself.
Although a meeting for discernment is practiced as a form of collective worship rather than an individual practice, it is much like bhavana, and I brought the Quaker method of resting in the light to reveal deeper insight regarding a concept when I first starting teaching Anusara yoga with its emphasis on having a class theme and using heart-oriented language to invite myself and students to experience a heart quality through asana practice.
The queries for contemplation at the meeting for discernment for peace, include the following:
What does it mean to “live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all war?”How am I deepening my understanding of peace?How am I living into this understanding?How do I support others in following peace?What can be most powerful about our practice on the mat is bringing what we learn in relationship to our body, mind, and emotions in attempting and achieving poses, off the mat. As I will be doing myself this week in my own practice in support of my friends who will be attending the meeting for discernment, I invite you, as you are practicing at home after reading this, to observe with love, spaciousness, and humor how you react to certain classes of poses, efforts you make, moves you are able to do or not do with ease. Where are you in conflict with yourself? What are you doing to deepen your understanding of how to be at peace with your strengths and shortcomings? How are you taking the observations on the mat into your daily life? How do you and how can you better use what you learn to support others, to eliminate the causes of war, and to foster peace? “Avoid False Dichotomies”
is part of a headline for an article in today’s BNA (Bureau of National Affairs) Pension and Benefits Daily. Not only is this sound advice in every realm of life, but a linchpin of yoga practice, which is designed to free ourselves from being constrained by the play of the pairs of opposites.
Signs Around Town
Both the beautiful and the beastly archtypes. Dwell together inseparably within us. No light without shadow. No shadow without light.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
