Sunday 1st January 2006
The New Year
Early on in the evening of New Years Eve I did a yoga practise, followed it with dinner, then settled down for the night with “Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” by Mr Iyengar, a book I rediscovered 2 weeks ago, dusted off, and have been immersed in ever since.
In the next street, the crowds were gathering in the beachside square, thousands of them, enjoying the warm balmy evening out, excited by the celebrations leading up to the midnight fireworks. Music from the live bands filtered in through the window.
At 8pm I finished contemplating the final sutra, sat in meditation for an hour or so, then casually flicked through Desikachar’s light commentary of the sutras in "The Heart fo Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice" (well it's light compared to the comprehensive commentary of Mr Iyengar’s exposition). So that one comes next in the line, after the spark was lit earlier this month by Satchidananda’s translation.
So it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m drinking in the sutras, far removed from the celebrations outside.
Then New Year’s morning – I woke at 7am, had breakfast and walked the 15kms along the beach in warm drizzly rain to my mum’s house and back.
What will this year bring after such a solitary, peaceful start?
More and more I’m finding the usual pleasures we indulge in and the lures of the outer world are becoming distasteful. The journey inward towards the honey-like sweetness of spiritual fulfilment is much more beautiful and rich than the superficial and transient sweetness of worldly experiences.
In his translation of Patanjali’s sutra (IV.24) Mr Iyengar describes this undeniable pull towards the Divine:
“Once consciousness is cultured through yogic discipline, it becomes ripe and illumined.”
“Now that it understands its inner value, it realises the triviality of nature’s (worldly) pleasures and turns towards the path of Self Realisation. Thus transformed, it begins its journey towards emancipation.”
And in sutra (IV.26):
“As a farmer builds dykes between his fields to regulate the flow of water, exalted intelligence builds a dyke for the consciousness, so that it does not move again towards the world, but turns and flows towards union with the divine seer.”
My detachment from the outer world is not a denial or an escape, but a natural consequence of yoga practice and a valuable signpost of my progression in the ultimate journey a human being can undertake. I still work and live and partake in daily life, but underlying this is an unshakeable spiritual intention and understanding.
Sutra IV.31 from Iyengar again:
“Then when the veils of impurities are removed, the highest, subjective, pure, infinite knowledge is attained, and the knowable, the finite, appears trivial.”
So how did I arrive here?
An insightfully precise translation by Iyengar of sutra II.28 shed a bit of light on this question:
“By dedicated (devoted) practice of the various aspects of yoga, impurities are destroyed: the crown of wisdom radiates in glory.”
Here Iyengar points out that instead of the usual word abhyasa (repeated practise, performed with observation and reflection), Patanjali uses the word anusthana. He explains that "this is a dignified and noble word with aspirational import, implying practise with dedication or religious fervour. The former brings stability; the latter develops maturity of intelligence.”
For me, this was an important distinction because after 10 years of yoga practise, starting with one class a week, upping it to two, then following the mysterious signposts that were appearing, beginning to read about different paths of yoga and spiritual practices of the world’s religions, experimenting with Iyengar’s system, Ashtanga Vinyasa, both Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhist practices, Vipassana meditation retreats...at some point in the last couple of years of yoga/spiritual practise, it changed from “repeated” practise to “devoted” practise, admittedly not always daily, but always devoted.
Iyengar goes on to say (p140):
“Yoga can cure or lessen our physical, mental, moral and spiritual sufferings. Perfection and success are certain only if one practises with love and whole-hearted dedication.” (bold is my emphasis).
Inspired by the sutras, I’m now acknowledging where I really am, how I got here, and where I’m going. It’s all so beautifully clear and is summed up nicely in Iyengar's commentary on Sutra IV.26:
“When the exalted intelligence is ablaze, consciousness is illumined; it becomes free and tinged with the divine (citta suddhi). Due to this divine light, citta, with its exalted intelligence, is drawn as if by a magnet towards its source: the indivisible seer who is alone, free and full.”
Travelling in any other direction is now simply going the wrong way.
And so begins 2006.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
The New Year
Early on in the evening of New Years Eve I did a yoga practise, followed it with dinner, then settled down for the night with “Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” by Mr Iyengar, a book I rediscovered 2 weeks ago, dusted off, and have been immersed in ever since.
In the next street, the crowds were gathering in the beachside square, thousands of them, enjoying the warm balmy evening out, excited by the celebrations leading up to the midnight fireworks. Music from the live bands filtered in through the window.
At 8pm I finished contemplating the final sutra, sat in meditation for an hour or so, then casually flicked through Desikachar’s light commentary of the sutras in "The Heart fo Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice" (well it's light compared to the comprehensive commentary of Mr Iyengar’s exposition). So that one comes next in the line, after the spark was lit earlier this month by Satchidananda’s translation.
So it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m drinking in the sutras, far removed from the celebrations outside.
Then New Year’s morning – I woke at 7am, had breakfast and walked the 15kms along the beach in warm drizzly rain to my mum’s house and back.
What will this year bring after such a solitary, peaceful start?
More and more I’m finding the usual pleasures we indulge in and the lures of the outer world are becoming distasteful. The journey inward towards the honey-like sweetness of spiritual fulfilment is much more beautiful and rich than the superficial and transient sweetness of worldly experiences.
In his translation of Patanjali’s sutra (IV.24) Mr Iyengar describes this undeniable pull towards the Divine:
“Once consciousness is cultured through yogic discipline, it becomes ripe and illumined.”
“Now that it understands its inner value, it realises the triviality of nature’s (worldly) pleasures and turns towards the path of Self Realisation. Thus transformed, it begins its journey towards emancipation.”
And in sutra (IV.26):
“As a farmer builds dykes between his fields to regulate the flow of water, exalted intelligence builds a dyke for the consciousness, so that it does not move again towards the world, but turns and flows towards union with the divine seer.”
My detachment from the outer world is not a denial or an escape, but a natural consequence of yoga practice and a valuable signpost of my progression in the ultimate journey a human being can undertake. I still work and live and partake in daily life, but underlying this is an unshakeable spiritual intention and understanding.
Sutra IV.31 from Iyengar again:
“Then when the veils of impurities are removed, the highest, subjective, pure, infinite knowledge is attained, and the knowable, the finite, appears trivial.”
So how did I arrive here?
An insightfully precise translation by Iyengar of sutra II.28 shed a bit of light on this question:
“By dedicated (devoted) practice of the various aspects of yoga, impurities are destroyed: the crown of wisdom radiates in glory.”
Here Iyengar points out that instead of the usual word abhyasa (repeated practise, performed with observation and reflection), Patanjali uses the word anusthana. He explains that "this is a dignified and noble word with aspirational import, implying practise with dedication or religious fervour. The former brings stability; the latter develops maturity of intelligence.”
For me, this was an important distinction because after 10 years of yoga practise, starting with one class a week, upping it to two, then following the mysterious signposts that were appearing, beginning to read about different paths of yoga and spiritual practices of the world’s religions, experimenting with Iyengar’s system, Ashtanga Vinyasa, both Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhist practices, Vipassana meditation retreats...at some point in the last couple of years of yoga/spiritual practise, it changed from “repeated” practise to “devoted” practise, admittedly not always daily, but always devoted.
Iyengar goes on to say (p140):
“Yoga can cure or lessen our physical, mental, moral and spiritual sufferings. Perfection and success are certain only if one practises with love and whole-hearted dedication.” (bold is my emphasis).
Inspired by the sutras, I’m now acknowledging where I really am, how I got here, and where I’m going. It’s all so beautifully clear and is summed up nicely in Iyengar's commentary on Sutra IV.26:
“When the exalted intelligence is ablaze, consciousness is illumined; it becomes free and tinged with the divine (citta suddhi). Due to this divine light, citta, with its exalted intelligence, is drawn as if by a magnet towards its source: the indivisible seer who is alone, free and full.”
Travelling in any other direction is now simply going the wrong way.
And so begins 2006.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
