Sutra 4.12
"The existence of the past and the future is as real as that of the present. As moments roll into movements which have yet to appear as the future, the quality of knowledge in one's intellect and consciousness is affected." (Iyengar translation)
So the "past and future are woven into the present". This I can relate to. They are real, but they are real now, not at another time. Everything that happens or have happened is here and now as a form of a dormant state.
Iyengar writes that "The understanding of time, releases one from bondage", and when I go along with this suggestion; that past and future only have existence in the now, I'm free to have an other childhood, past experience or future at any given moment. I consider this one expression of ultimate freedom.
Time has both positive and negative effects. It can allow development or acquisition of knowledge to take place, a broadening of the horizon. But intellectually it can be used as a story of being robbed of spiritual knowledge and time can be used to position us into pride (asmita). Emotionally it can create attachments to pleasure and aversion to pain, and instinctively it can bring us a clinging desire to live.
Iyengar writes that this sutra gives us the promise that we can be set free from this and rest in the present and become "clear of head, clean of heart and free from time".
It inspires me to work with the "set a side - prayer" (great reality, let me set aside everything I think I know, so that I may have an open mind and a new experience)and searching for a new experience with an open mind in every asana and every class.
It inspires to explore being new, because in being new, however frustrating this is for the pride-position :-) it's the most clear, clean and free I know right now.
Namasté
Jenni Saunte
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
into an other dimension
Iyengar translation of sutra 4.11:
"Impressions and desires are bound together by their dependence upon cause and effect. In the absence of the latter, the former ceases to function."
This reminds me of Van Morrison singing "it's not why, why, why - it just is", (yes I've quoted this before, but it's a personally important wording of an experience for me). So when the "why" disappears the effect disappears too!!! This is my experience.
When the story of why I'm being mad/angry/sad/victim... disappears, the state of being ... also disappears. (I can't help all the exclamation marks, this is personal strong spark - propelling forward in a divine direction.)
The stories are ego-stories, built to be limited and thereby destroyed. The new direction that builds within is a divine direction that has no cause and no effect in jenni-words. It just is. As I told you - I've been asked to notice what is and what is not. Well this is one of the "is's" :-)
I know I'm fortunate, because I've been given back to life, from an experience of dying, so I don't have to use my intellect to decide whether there is a greater power or not, that can release me from the chain of cause and effect.
I'm one who can use the path that includes help from God; Desikachar writes "There are many ways, including the help given by God." But he also states that the atheist who cannot use God for help, can find help in the first three chapters of the yoga sutra.
In yoga asana work, I also have stories about why I can or cannot do certain things.
I know that; even though I might not be able to do a specific asana from one day to the other (even if this sometimes happens), I can get set free from the story of "not being able because...". This makes me absolutely present in the moment. When the stories of "why I cannot do a certain thing", lets go, then I can do/act/be at the place I'm really at right now.
Relating to the last weeks sutras, it's about being set free from dualities, or polarities. About moving from "good and bad" into an other dimension of actions that are "pure" or "something else". I find help in a greater power here, I put the judgment over in the hands of great reality, and thereby I'm set free from the judging position. In the yamas and the niyamas, we're asked to do a daily inventory of our conduct and life. I find that this inventory practice brings me into this "other dimension", this is such a paradox! By judging my day, reviewing it, evaluating or inventorying it - all judgment ends.
Namasté
Jenni Saunte
"Impressions and desires are bound together by their dependence upon cause and effect. In the absence of the latter, the former ceases to function."
This reminds me of Van Morrison singing "it's not why, why, why - it just is", (yes I've quoted this before, but it's a personally important wording of an experience for me). So when the "why" disappears the effect disappears too!!! This is my experience.
When the story of why I'm being mad/angry/sad/victim... disappears, the state of being ... also disappears. (I can't help all the exclamation marks, this is personal strong spark - propelling forward in a divine direction.)
The stories are ego-stories, built to be limited and thereby destroyed. The new direction that builds within is a divine direction that has no cause and no effect in jenni-words. It just is. As I told you - I've been asked to notice what is and what is not. Well this is one of the "is's" :-)
I know I'm fortunate, because I've been given back to life, from an experience of dying, so I don't have to use my intellect to decide whether there is a greater power or not, that can release me from the chain of cause and effect.
I'm one who can use the path that includes help from God; Desikachar writes "There are many ways, including the help given by God." But he also states that the atheist who cannot use God for help, can find help in the first three chapters of the yoga sutra.
In yoga asana work, I also have stories about why I can or cannot do certain things.
I know that; even though I might not be able to do a specific asana from one day to the other (even if this sometimes happens), I can get set free from the story of "not being able because...". This makes me absolutely present in the moment. When the stories of "why I cannot do a certain thing", lets go, then I can do/act/be at the place I'm really at right now.
Relating to the last weeks sutras, it's about being set free from dualities, or polarities. About moving from "good and bad" into an other dimension of actions that are "pure" or "something else". I find help in a greater power here, I put the judgment over in the hands of great reality, and thereby I'm set free from the judging position. In the yamas and the niyamas, we're asked to do a daily inventory of our conduct and life. I find that this inventory practice brings me into this "other dimension", this is such a paradox! By judging my day, reviewing it, evaluating or inventorying it - all judgment ends.
Namasté
Jenni Saunte
Sunday, January 08, 2012
longing for imortality
Both Iyengar and Desikachar gives me a cosmogony, when they unfold their understanding of this sutra. I get to read about a world view that describes how we humans came about and were... put together..
Here is the sutra 4.10, in Iyengar's translation:
"These impressions, memories and desires have existed eternally, as the desire to live is eternal."
Desikachar writes that this eternal desire to live is "what inspires the instinct for self preservation in all of us" . Just like our eternal longing for immortality, so is the memories and our desires eternal.
Since there is something destructive in the urges that are built upon these impressions and memories, I relate to this sutra by my life experience. I have both the destructive and the constructive powers in me. Iyengar writes about how yoga can set us free from oppositions (black and white actions) polarities of pleasure and pain. Hereby we will not be driven by past memories and the fears and desires they lead to and we will get free from experiencing joy and sorrow. Maybe destruction and construction end here, like time ends here?
Ok, I'm gonna let me go there :-) maybe the circle of destruction - construction - or karma, if you want - gets so close that we suddenly cannot see a beginning or an end and suddenly there is no time any longer, the autumns chestnut falling of the tree is the birth of spring.
This is a great meditation, to try to rest in the pause between breathing in and breathing out, to try to find the exact moment where one breath is transformed into the other. Impossible and great meditation.
I also love the meditation to experience breath as a giving and a receiving. As soon as I think I've got it figured out (for example; "inhalation is giving") it turns up side down and into it's opposition.
Ok, this sutra inspires me to search for freedom from being driven by "wants" and "fears" in asana work, to go for neutrality. But it also inspires to work with whatever brings vitality to me and pass this on. Right now it's to work with chest full and abdomen hollow. Rotations and chest openers brings vitality to me, so this is a focal point.
Happy new(?) year :-)
Namasté
Jenni Saunte
Here is the sutra 4.10, in Iyengar's translation:
"These impressions, memories and desires have existed eternally, as the desire to live is eternal."
Desikachar writes that this eternal desire to live is "what inspires the instinct for self preservation in all of us" . Just like our eternal longing for immortality, so is the memories and our desires eternal.
Since there is something destructive in the urges that are built upon these impressions and memories, I relate to this sutra by my life experience. I have both the destructive and the constructive powers in me. Iyengar writes about how yoga can set us free from oppositions (black and white actions) polarities of pleasure and pain. Hereby we will not be driven by past memories and the fears and desires they lead to and we will get free from experiencing joy and sorrow. Maybe destruction and construction end here, like time ends here?
Ok, I'm gonna let me go there :-) maybe the circle of destruction - construction - or karma, if you want - gets so close that we suddenly cannot see a beginning or an end and suddenly there is no time any longer, the autumns chestnut falling of the tree is the birth of spring.
This is a great meditation, to try to rest in the pause between breathing in and breathing out, to try to find the exact moment where one breath is transformed into the other. Impossible and great meditation.
I also love the meditation to experience breath as a giving and a receiving. As soon as I think I've got it figured out (for example; "inhalation is giving") it turns up side down and into it's opposition.
Ok, this sutra inspires me to search for freedom from being driven by "wants" and "fears" in asana work, to go for neutrality. But it also inspires to work with whatever brings vitality to me and pass this on. Right now it's to work with chest full and abdomen hollow. Rotations and chest openers brings vitality to me, so this is a focal point.
Happy new(?) year :-)
Namasté
Jenni Saunte
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