Unless it is a bad idea, in which case choose not to make it happen and open yourself to a better possibility.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra II.48, tatah dvandaha anabhighataha is translated by B.K.S. Iyengar as “from then on [after the yogi through steady practice has absorbed him/herself in the practice of yoga), the sadhaka (practitioner) is undisturbed by dualities.” This sutra follows the only two in all of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that specifically discuss asana, which Patanjali describes as a controlled and perfect ease and steadiness of mind and body.
I was thinking about the freedom from the “pairs of opposites” — pleasure and pain, etc. — when I read an article in the Washington Post yesterday dividing everyone who was impacted by the blizzard as a winner or a loser. Children off from school were winners, frustrated parents, travelers who were grounded from flying, and politicians sure to be blamed for not having planned in a Southern city to have the snow removal equipment, personnel, and budget of a city like Buffalo, NY, were losers. I am fairly certain (based on the harangues on the blogs) that the author was not alone in seeing everything as winning or losing. To me, though, it feels like one of the “afflictions” described by Patanjali. I was a grounded flyer. I was much looking forward to a trip to San Francisco to see a dear friend from college and then to attend the weekend workshop with John Friend. It would have been great fun to be there. I was disappointed. But it never would have occurred to me to label myself a loser. Do so so would just had me hold onto unhappiness.
Yoga teaches us to look for the good, to accept what we cannot change, and to seek to respond in the highest. In essence, we are changing what we can change, which is how we react. If my only reaction to the storm was pain and sadness from having the pleasure of my planned trip taken away from me, then I would in fact be a loser. If I just accept that no one can anticipate when record-breaking winter storms are going to arrive and then have the best day I can under the unavoidable circumstances, then I am a winner. I am not a winner in a game where someone else is a loser. I am not a winner in that I did not let Mother Nature win. Rather, I have learned that the steady practice of yoga makes life more easeful and delightful even in challenges and disappointments. I am motivated to practice more. The lessons learned from being confined a blizzard when I was warm, well fed, and surrounded by friends are a hopeful prelude for how the yoga will serve when I really face a challenge.
For me, an important part of living yoga off the mat is knowing how I fit into the flow of energies (and money is a big flow of energy and power) in community and what I do to try and shift things where and when I can. One big step in being empowered is not to accept powerlessness, but to act even if yours is only one small voice.
Click here to see the analysis prepared by the Friends Committee on National Legislation to show where your tax dollars go, along with some suggestions for individual action. Participating (at a minimum by being educated about the issues, registering to vote, and actually voting) is important for all of us.
For those of us living fully in our modern material world, as I am, it is important to think not so much about denying ourselves things or giving them up, but rather, seeing how we can make shifts to living more lightly. One of my heavy impacts on the environment is computer usage. Right now, I have on my work computer, my home laptop, and my Blackberry.
All of you who are reading this blog are doing so via computer or by a personal device with web access that requires battery charging. I’d hazard a guess that most of these portable computers are not being powered by sun and wind. I am still waiting for Pepco to come and change the meter to hook up my newly installed rooftop solar panels to the grid, and I don’t have a solar charger for the Blackberry.
One thing I thought I could do to help make enjoying this way of connecting have less impact on the environment would be to go carbon-neutral. In the world of plastic, the ideal is don’t use, reuse, repurpose, recycle. In the world of electricity, it is don’t use, use from better sources, off-set. With respect to my blog, I am choosing to use the necessary electricity, but go solar with my house, buy electricity from a source that uses offsets (Clean Currents) for that electricity that is in excess of what the solar panels will provide, and I’m choosing to offset this blog’s impact based on readership through the Carbon Fund.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
