Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)

Contemplations on readings and yoga philosophy.

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    Remembrance

    ByElizabeth

    I woke up this morning remembering. How could I not? People all over the world are remembering and thinking about the events of 9/11 and how they changed the course of global society.

    And yesterday morning I woke up at my friend’s house in the East Bay to the news of the explosion in San Bruno. Even as we enjoyed the city and got together with another friend, the frightening and intense tragedy going on just a few miles away was not far from my mind. How is it that but for having read the news, we would not even have known?

    This morning we will be going to hike in Muir Woods. I will be embracing nature and friendship, but still remembering. It is, I think, by loving and embracing life to the fullest that we can remember and have the most strength and will to offer of ourselves and move towards a more compassionate existence, and I think that is the true teaching of the tantric yoga.

    What are you doing today? How are you sharing your memories and your dreams? What are you doing to help make the changes you wish to see in the world? I am asking myself these questions even as I am sharing them.

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    What If?–Part II

    ByElizabeth

    Yesterday I asked about setting an intention to be blissful in every thing we do for a day. Having the intention is a good start (I might not even have thought of such an intention without my yoga practice). What I really want is to be able to manifest that intention. For me, I know that it is important for me to live more consciously and with more subtle discrimination (viveka) if I am to come close to living such intention.
    A rare few live in bliss without effort. For the rest of us, that is why we have the practices. So we can practice moving into and resting in bliss.

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    What If? (an Invitation)

    ByElizabeth

    What if for a whole day you did every single thing with the intention of becoming blissful? If you have them, taking care of pets or kids or elders? Every thing that you did at work? How you went from one place to another? Every morsel of food and drink you selected, prepared, and ate? All your errands? Your getting dressed and undressed? Your correspondence?

    Would you even need to “practice yoga” by doing postures or meditating if you were living yoga–fully unifying the day to day with the conscious intention of experiencing the full bliss of consciousness at every moment?

    Why not try it for a day and see what happens? And then let us know.

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    Giant Grasshopper from Outer Space (and Maya)

    ByElizabeth

    The camera may not lie, but it certainly, like our own perception of things relative to that of others, have a distorted or unique perspective. One of the essential principles of the yoga world view is that of maya or illusion. In classical yoga, everything in the world is illusion; the only thing that is real is Atman–ultimate consciousness or god. In the tantric world view, the role of maya is more complicated. It essentially boils down to the idea that we are under an illusion when we think of the world and divinity as separate, and that this illusion of separation leads to a suffering of the individual spirit. Whether one hold with either of these world views or not, it is always true that thinking our limited perception is the only truth will likely lead to discord, misunderstanding, and strife.

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    Another Storm Passes Without Any Rain Falling Inside the Beltway

    ByElizabeth

    What’s a gardener and concerned for the trees and the health of the planet citizen to do?  I’ve got enough water in the rain barrel to water the vegetables and herbs once or twice, but what impact does that really have?  At work, people were grumbling because it was cloudy.  They seemed shocked when I advised them that we are an inch under normal rainfall for August and have a fairly significant deficit for the summer despite the July rains.

    Wouldn’t it be great if we could move some of the flood waters that have fallen only a couple hundred miles away to irrigate our fields without disrupting our eco-system?  Part of me just wants not to know about the consequences of global climate change, but it is hard not to notice that all the weather patterns I used to know and understand do not seem to apply quite the same way anymore.  What do we do when the systems and practices we have in place for our ease, comfort, well-being, and understood day-to-day peace of mind are disrupted?

    Yoga will not fix the big outer problems, but it can provide us with the steadiness and ease needed to stay present and be flexible in the face of crisis, upheaval, or disease.  It can also provide insight into how we can live in better alignment.  In the meantime, I am practicing gratitude.  I know how blessed I am that, so far, the wild upheavals I read about in the news have not kept me from all the food and comfort that a person could possibly want.  And I pay attention, because to be ignorant ultimately never serves ourselves or others.

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    What a Good Murder Mystery Can Teach Us About Sadhana

    ByElizabeth

    Surely that’s what life was all about?  Opening doors and peering through them–perhaps even finding the rose gardens there… (Colin Dexter, The Dead of Jericho)

    The good murder mysteries — the ones that teach much about human nature and do not dwell graphically on gore and violence — can teach us much about the power of sadhana (yoga practice).  The best mysteries are ones in which the protagonist teaches us by his or her investigation into the mystery that with careful, steady discipline, the application of well-developed technique and study, consistent effort, and an openness to trust intuition tempered by discrimination, we can reveal to ourselves the truth of the matter.  The truth revealed is not just the identity, means, and motive of the murderer (mystery solved), but the knowledge of the extraordinariness of human being in all of its manifestations, both good and evil.

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    I Was Browsing Looking for a Poem

    ByElizabeth

    I was browsing; I was looking for a poem to read to a friend because I was not ready to write one myself.  I found several that were right for me to read, but not to share, and this one I wanted to share more widely because of the delight it is bringing me to read it:

    Karma Repair Kit:  Items 1-4

    1.  Get enough food to eat,

    and eat it.

    2.  Find a place to sleep where it is quiet and sleep there.

    3.  Reduce intellectual and emotional noise

    until you arrive at the silence of yourself,

    and listen to it.

    4.

    Richard Brautigan, The Pill v. the Springhill Mine Disaster

    I had a real fondness for Brautigan when I was a teenager.  Every once and a while, I will pick up one of his books and remember why.  If you enjoyed reading this poem, please go buy a book by Brautigan to thank him.

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    “Inspiration Cards”

    ByElizabeth

    I adore having a library and will rarely say no to a philosophy text or a book about anatomy, therapeutics, or yoga methodology.  I am less interested in “self help” types of books or gadgets.  Every once and a while though, I come across something that truly supports my practice and my teaching.  When I first went to Inner Harmony to study with John Friend in mid-2003, there was an altar in the corner of the practice room, just at the entrance.  On the altar was a set of cards (a little smaller than 2″x2″).  Each card had a word in English, the devanagari, and the sanskrit of the word transliterated into our alphabet.  Following the lead of others who had been to Inner Harmony for previous retreats, at the beginning of the day, I would select a card and think about how the word on the card might inform my practice and intention.

    At that time, I was first starting to use Anusara’s “heart-oriented posturing language,” using a theme for class that was designed to lead the students into a deeper place in their hearts through their asana practice, and I found that the cards were an excellent source of inspiration.

    Even though I first bought the cards in 2003 to serve as a basic class preparation aid, I have continued to use them regularly for my own practice and contemplation.  Often, the word that appears resonates with something that is of immediate concern.  The day after Becky (my beloved cat who lived to be 21) left her body last year, I went to the set of cards, which I’d not used in a couple of months.  The card that I selected at random (like picking a card from a deck when someone is showing you card tricks) was moksha — liberation, and in classic yoga, literally liberation from the body.  I was moved to tears.

    This summer, with myself and my students, we have been working on manifesting intention.  As I’ve blogged about previously, I invited us to think about an intention.  Whether an intention is something basic with the body or mind or something more universal, whenever we seek to manifest an intention, ultimately it is because we want to be more blissful, more open, and more at peace with ourselves and others.  The question becomes how do we use our practice both to discover an intention and to seek to make it manifest.  To help me with the contemplation of this question, I have gone again to the cards as a source of inspiration.  This week, the card that turned itself up was racanatmakata — creativity.  “Perfect,” I thought, when I saw the word.  Creativity is a human reflection of the wild, pulsing, diverse and ever-extraordinary dance of all being.  When we open to our creative impulse to allow things to unfold, we can witness the fullest range of possibilities and the variety of paths to manifestation.