move towards my center

Here I am :-)

4.14 Iyengar translation: "Unity in the mutation of time caused by the abiding qualities of nature, sattva, rajas and tamas, causes modifications in objects, but their unique essence, or reality, does not change."

Where I'm at, right now, this means: time and whether nature in me is active or passive, heavy or light, in clarity or unclear... hmm all of this creates the characteristics of me, my character.. - it can change, but not my true being. My inner reality does not change.

Iyengar writes: "This sutra is a good guide for us. In our practice of asana and pranayama, we are the subjects, the performers. The different asanas and pranayamas are the objects we try to perceive ...to grasp their true essence... Patanjali says that dualities disappear when asana is preformed perfectly.. when subject and object emerge into one."
I know this. I have experience of moments in time, when I was not doing the asana, neither was I the one observing the asana doing me. Just a nothingness, where there is ease and truism (a bit uncertain of this word in English) no arguments about anything..

So, mind and characteristics of matter is bound to time and nature (i.e. the gunas) and are changing, but through yoga we can come to see the essence, the unchangeable kernel of everything. This tells me that when I'm unstable; to go for the kernel - not the opposition. For example, when "too lazy", not to go for "excited", but to move towards "awake" or "alert". When I haven't done any of the things on my "to do list", not to go for doing it all at once, but maybe start with one and see what happens. In asana practice, when I face an obstacle; like hips that will not open, or shoulders that are too weak :-) well, not to do 5000 hip-openers that day or loads of shoulder work at once. But to move towards embracing this fact and see where in my practice this already is taken care of and build upon this place..

In life, it tells me that the solution to being afraid or anxious, is not to do major brave things, the answer is still; to move towards my center, my inner reality and the outer reality will get balanced.
As a teacher and a practitioner, it inspires me to go deeper and to make time and space to connect to the inner reality in every asana.

Namasté
Jenni Saunte

heavy-light, active-passive, clear-unclear

Iyengar translation: 4.13 "The three phases of time [past, future and present] intermingle rhythmically and interweave with the qualities of nature [sattva, rajas and tamas]. They change the composition of nature's properties into gross and subtle."

At the first look at this sutra I'm both a "Yes" but also a "blank". In the last ten years I've got a new childhood, and as I recall; I also got a new childhood when I was 22. It's a bit long to write about, but my past can change, and this experience is what positions me into a "yes" -place. The past is interwoven into the now and rhythmically changing. But when I try to see what the consequence is, I get into to the "blank" spot. Here Iyengar helps, he writes: "The effects of our actions of yesterday are the cause of today's; and the experience of our actions today becomes the seed of our actions tomorrow."
This is what my yoga-master told me this summer and again some weeks ago.. to reach my goal I need to change course here and now, not in a great statement kind of way, but just a slight change, so that the cells and the neural pass-ways gets reprogrammed so something new can happen. So they start remembering and passing on success instead of old failure. This is also to long to write shortly about, but it makes sense to me -haha so you just have to fill out your blanks in a way that it all makes sense to you too.
The composition of nature, is often called the gunas, Desikachar translates the three gunas into; heaviness, activity and clarity. All apparent characteristics are different combination of these three basic qualities.
This is where I'm at this week with these qualities: 1. I'm heavy, tired and sleepy. 2. In every day I go from something close to extremes with dullness to hyperactive back to dullness again. 3. In the beginning of the week there was a lot of unclarity, but during the week I have through contact found stability again and now it all seems pretty clear again - So I'm happy.
My this is a meditation point for this weeks teaching, to check if we're heavy-light, active-passive, clear-unclear.
Yes this is good.
Namasté
Jenni