Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)

Contemplations on readings and yoga philosophy.

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    “Taking Back” Yoga

    ByElizabeth

    I read today a piece in the Washington Post about Hindus needing to “take back” yoga.  I read the article and the comments with great interest because it has been a matter of much discussion with those in my meditation and philosophy course as to the extent to which the practices we are learning are “religious” practices and whether they can be practiced consistently with other religions.  There is much difference of opinion and strongly heated and held positions.

    What I think is missing from the article is the question of distinctions between “spiritual” and “religious” practices.  It is a simple fact that practicing yoga with depth and sincerity entails learning practices that are observed by Hindus.  Does that make one a Hindu?  Does it mean that one is “dissing” Hinduism if one learns and benefits from the practices, but does not self-identify as a Hindu.

    What about Jews who have trees at the Christmas holidays (a tradition co-opted from the pagans in any event)? Is it OK that I have a mezuzuh even though my parents (who were born Jews) raised me in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and I continue to be a member of a Quaker meeting, and observe no other Jewish laws or practices.

    Is it OK for me to chant “Hindu” chants if I do not identify myself as a Hindu or attend Hindu temple?  If it is not OK, for whom is it not OK?  Quakers?  Hindus?  Jews? Me?  Who is to decide or judge?

    It seems to me that “religion” (as specific sects, identities, and strict rules) tends to highlight difference and disunity, but sincere spiritual practice — whether or not done in a religious context and observance — should be unifying because all religions at their highest and most universal, call upon us to recognize the unity of spirit in ourselves and in all beings.

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    Thoughts on Democracy (and “Actionless Action”)

    ByElizabeth

    My friend Dan posted some interesting thoughts about democracy on his blog.  He is writing in the context of the Unitarian Universalist community, but the thoughts are equally applicable to our lives as citizens.  The thoughts on democracy also for me highlighted what is really meant in the Bhagavad Gita about “actionless action.”  To embody our spiritual practice in the way we live our lives, we serve to our best ability out of love, out of delight in acting, out of a sincere joy in serving, but we do not get attached to a particular outcome.

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    Sukha (the why of sequencing and the foster cats)

    ByElizabeth

    Last week, I used as a theme sukha — ease, comfort, happiness.  I was inspired by Lorin Roche’s discussion of translating in his “version” of the Vijnana Bhairava, which he entitles “The Radiance Sutras.”  In it he notes that “[e]ven more literally, sukha is (according to some etymologies) composed of su, good + kha, space.  A good space.”  At first blush, teaching about sukha might seem to be off-topic from my session theme of sequencing principles.  The whole purpose, though, of seeking to understand, practice, and optimize our sequencing in time and space on and off the mat is to find just that.  It is to be in a “good space,” to feel at ease, whether we are being challenged or delighted.

    I found myself contemplating sukha yet further this week (it is a recurring practice and contemplation theme for me — I love Patanjali’s sutra “sthiram sukham asanam”), as I have been observing and helping the foster cats make mine their new home.  When we are uprooted or out of alignment, we are not in a good space.  It is a struggle to feel happy or at ease.  When we find our rhythm again, then ease unfolds.

    There is a set of principles that generally works for taking uprooted animals (or people) and helping them feel at home.  Part of making them at home is their new person holding him/herself in a “good space” for the newcomers, which indeed helps them find their own, which is its own yoga.

    The blessing of yoga for us, and why we take ourselves to challenging difficult places on the mat, is so that we can, by use of intelligent sequencing of practices, techniques, and mindsets, discover how to feel connected to our own spirit wherever we are in time and space — the essence of ease in this body and mind.  The more we can do this for ourselves, the more we can do it for others.

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    Thinking Things Through v. Overthinking

    ByElizabeth

    It is good to act consciously, to move and react from a place of sensitivity, discrimination, and understanding.  It is good to know both the big picture and the details.  When does paying attention and thinking things through, though, become “overthinking?”  I think (ha ha) that it is when thinking things through takes us away from the heart, when it desensitizes, instead of assists us in acting with discrimination.

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    Health Care Reform, Brick-Throwing, Death Threats (and Svatrantrya)

    ByElizabeth

    One of the six fundamental aspects of being (sat) in the “Shiva-Shakti” tantra that is the foundation of Anusara yoga is svatantrya — freedom.  (The others are cit, ananda, spanda, purnatva, sri). Freedom in this sense is an ultimate freedom — the very cosmos is unconstrained and freely creates what we recognize as the fabric of being out of its own play (lila).  We, as inseparable from being, although in some ways confined by our embodiment, are essentially free — free to choose whether to recognize our essential nature, to find bliss (ananda) in our embodiment, to recognize the fullness (purnatva) of being, and to honor the essential auspiciousness of being (sri) in ourselves and all that is around us.

    In having that freedom, we can also turn away.  We can stay cloaked.  We can choose violence and anger rather than nurture and love.  We can choose, out of our own essential freedom to remain cloaked in ignorance, to throw bricks and threaten death because of a perceived socialist tyranny because of the passage of health care “reform” that denies the right to choose, does not provide basic medical services for all (no single payor or even public option), and gives the pharmaceutical industry a pass, but does some modest regulation of insurance companies and employers.  (“Better than nothing, I guess,” as one friend wrote on the internet.)

    I see the t-shirt “it’s all good,” and I think, “not!”  I also know that I have the freedom for myself to recognize and remember sri, to try and see it in all, including the play of freedom that includes the freedom to turn away from the light.  It will be a lifetime of practice.

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    Novelization of the Mahabharata

    ByElizabeth

    I found used a novelization of the Mahabharata a couple of weeks ago, which I am now reading.  I’ve read other versions put into English prose, all of which have some stamp of the presenter (author?).  The version I am reading brings to the fore that those who are deserving of the love of people and who are blessed by the divine are physically beautiful, wealthy, and possess great military prowess.  Righteousness includes unquestionably obeying the orders of rulers and parents and accepting your station in life as the determination of God.

    The book jacket proclaims the Mahabharata “the greatest spiritual epic of all time.”  I agree that it is a great epic and a rather amazing one.  Some of the precepts, like all presented in great writings that have lasted over the centuries are worthy of contemplation for one’s own life (I am all for recognizing guests as divine visitors and treating them with due regard, for example), as well as for understanding the society in which the work was created.  But any work that mostly reflects the societal mores of the time in which it was written and is designed to perpetuate the powers that be is perhaps best read as fiction.  Saying this does not mean I do not recognize the good of some of the teachings interwoven into the fairy tales, but rather that I think it must also be understood in the confines of its context, lest we perpetuate societal evils that no longer serve.  (This, of course, has Western parallels.)