After an afternoon nap, enjoying a cup of coffee with a good friend; the world seems so friendly. And moving into this writing, in this very friendly mode, all I can say is OK.
Sutra 1.30 counts the obstacles that disperse the mind (interruptions to develop mental clarity), here I’ve put the translations of Bouanchaud/Desikachar:
- Sickness/illness
- mental inertia/mental stagnation
- doubt/doubt
- haste/lack of foresight
- apathy/fatigue
- intemperance/over indulgence
- errors in judgement of oneself/illusions of one’s true state of mind
- lack of perseverance/ lack of perseverance
- inability to stay at one level once reached/regression
To all this, I say ok. Not to show indifference, but like in sutra 1.6 Patanjali gives me a “whole” presented by the parts. I’m in the receivers’ position.
A part of my (academic) mind starts to find the error, trying to argue that xxx is also an obstacle, or xxx that is in the text is not an obstacle.
But my experience is that if I just open my mind as much as possible and give the idea some time, the reason, for this way of looking at things will become clear to me.
It also reminds me of a transition. There have been the “God-sutras” and now the transition into something new.
My teaching is affected by this sutra. I start all my classes with a transition, in which I often ask them to experience the state of the body, the thoughts and the feelings and mood.
I guess this is because the mind can produce “obstacles” that affects how the yoga session will turn out today. I also want to unfold this movement (transitions are movements to me), into something new. The feeling of being new (and sometimes overwhelmed).
It’s a good theme for me, partly because I’m gonna teach at a new place with new students and partly because we are still new- in this year. I love being new; there is lots of room for practicing trust and faith here. That’s a good place for me.
In my class: here and now, being new, introducing my teaching, grounding, examining the minds state. Maybe, with the students I’ve had for several years, I dare to ask them to connect to what is the vibrating obstacle right now and how can it serve as a mean to progression :-)
Let’s see
Check out Dharmayogas musings on sutra 1.30
Namasté
Jenni Saunte
3 comments:
Dharmayoga inspired me to share more personally:
Thank you for sharing personally about this sutra, I thought about doing this, but forgot.
Yes, I’ve been there too, all of them and sometimes many of them at the same time. I can ask myself: “What’s my current “obstacle”?” and it means to me: “Where is my most obvious possibility for progression and attainment of bigger complexity?” Right now, doubt and fatigue are the vibrating ones for me. How do I overcome, slip away from or walk through these?
Well sutra 1.12 offers “practice and/or detachment” as answers.
For me this means resting is not my answer right now, I’ve tried it, I just seem to get more drained :-) so practice is for me to keep on doing the next loving act.
Detachment, for me in this, is “loving it to death” loving the human condition, loving reality - including my doubts (of how to deal with an assignment) and detaching thereby from the judgement of this condition to be “important”, “in need for change” and “bad”. It just is.
and one more comment :-)
my academic mind thinks about how I find being rigid, sometimes also is my biggest obstacle, maybe Patanjali includes this later or elsewhere...
Nice posting:)
Namaste
Cyrus
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