clear, clean and free...

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