rigorouse austerities

"Exceptional mental capabilities may be achieved through genetic inheritance, the use of herbs as prescribed in the sacred texts, recitation of incantations, rigorous austerities and through that state of mind which remains one with its object without distractions (samadhi)." 4.1 Desikachar translation

Iyengar translation of sutra 4.1: "Accomplishments may be attained through birth, the use of herbs, incantations, self-discipline or samhadi."
Iyengar specifies that this is about different means of spiritual accomplishment.

Well my well-being in the world is contingent on my spiritual growth. So this is an important sutra to me personally. I don't think I'm genetically more capable than anyone else to pursue a spiritual life. Then again this disease, I genetically inherited, made me reach a bottom in self-reliance pretty quick, so maybe thats a sort of genetic predisposition?! First good thing ever about this crappy disease. The use of herbs... just the thought scares me so much I move to the next part of the sentence. Recitations and rigorous austerities seems to be the way for me. Not, that I have any power in myself to "be" rigorouse, but since I've just showed up on the path, I seem to be given "rigorous austerities" in my everyday by my greater power. In no way, does it become a rigid path, but a frame of stability in my practice, that grant me so many gifts, working meditation, prayer, contemplation, yoga-asana-practice, inventory (yamas and niyamas) in my every morning, my every evening and precious contact to a loving fellow-journey-mates in between, just makes a jenni-variant of rigorous austerity happen in my life. Grateful for this.

This week I'm moved to adjust asana using breath - I seem to correct too much when I think "muscle power". As a teacher give room and place for working towards moving with conscious contact to the inner body. I've started to read mr. Iyengars book "light on life" and was inspired here. I love how my master starts us up in sitting pose, and when the body is seated, he says "now, wait for the inner body to settle" It makes so much sense and is a very concrete experience for me.
Namasté
Jenni

Magic!

Iyengars translation and comment on sutra 3.9 is one of the most important texts I've ever read.
If I could I would just quote the whole text to you :-) I give this a go instead.

To me it's all about getting free.
We are born into a human condition and it is a gift, a changing, challenging gift. Somthing in us know a stillness, a tranquility and moves us towards this, seeking to get free from the attachment from sensory stories of "need, want, don't want". Iyengar writes that the central thread in Patanjalis sutras is the relation between the divine Self (purusa) and nature (prakriti).

I hear that transformation happens in the pause.
For example it is not in the inhalation that the magic transformation to exhalation happens, it happens in the moment, the pause, the intermission in between breathing in and out.
It is not in the sensation of an experience or our reaction to the experience change takes place, the magic of impact or change in us, happens in the stillness between them. Between two situations, between a rising thought and relating to (restraining) the thought :-) He takes it further! the transformation takes place between the seer and the seeker. I am given inclusion of the one who search for (reality/god/connection/grace) and the one who live (reality/god/connection/grace).

I read my assignment:
"Jenni, the precious psychological moments of intermission where there is stillness and silence, are to be prolonged into extra-chronological moments of consciousness, without beginning or end"
Thank you I've got it!! Or as another guide put it to me; ever expanding our limits by softly dissolving them from the inside (or this is as close to the original I can remember..)

I've always enjoyed the moments between in- and ex- halation and the opposite (don't care if this is the right way to write this ;)
It's like there is a treasure in this moment, and here Iyengar passes down to me the name of the treasure - transformation or what I, as a kid called: Magic! Miracle!
I will post a minifilm of drops just before the float - this is a picture to me of magic moments... But I have to wait for my internet to work at home again...

As a teacher, these moments are the moments between asanas, moments in and out of asanas, moments of complying to conditions in asana. It is the moment of magic between analyses and action. As a teacher I'm just as much on the path when I encourage the student to go for it, to seek more, as I am when I encourage to experience wholeness and perfection like this.

Now, there are so many beautifully put words in this sutra, that I only can encourage you to read Iyengars light on the sutras (especially 3.9 and 3.10) your self.
Moving on to sutra 3.10 Iyengar translation; "The restraint of rising impressions brings about an undisturbed flow of tranquility."

I recognize my guideline this time followed by a promise:
"By maintaining perfect awareness in the intervals between rising and restraining impressions, steadiness becomes effortless and natural. Then the stream of tranquility flows without any ripples in the consciousness"
This is also where I see him presenting the use of vairagya and abhyasa as possible adaptations to stay calm and focused. This is part of what I have been passing on for four years now, so I'm glad to get it validated!
We move towards "- that the seeker and the sought are one; that the seeker is the seer."

so expand go try do lets see
still happy on the chair :-)
namaste
Jenni

not to focus on the wobble :-)

I’m back. In Denmark – but the “I” is questionable if it returned, it surely turned… but maybe to a new direction :-)
My sutras went with me on a fierce, intense yoga travel- it was great!! I was more challenged than ever and ego had a hard time (didn’t find much to build pride upon, haha).

I thought the time in Italy, was only going to be about sutra 2.2 and 2.3 but last post became important. The teacher Glenn Ceresoli said the first day, that if I get confused about what I’m doing just turn back to essence – self-examination was one of the things he declared as essence of yoga- soo… since I had brought the first sutra too, I’ve spent some extra time with this one as well :-) (see last post)

2.2 Desikachar: “Then such practices will be certain to remove the obstacles to clear perception.”
This intensifies and confirms my effort to seek clarity – collect the experiences of which asana take me there (today) – I find that this clear state, can be found anywhere and nowhere. I lack words here.
I find clarity within; sometimes the asana can be the spark that connects me to this clear source. In Italy I had this clear experience, my body felt pure in some of the asanas, like after a long hot shower, or after a good nights sleep – but it was for example the trikonasanas that gave me the sensation…

2.3 “-“- “The obstacles are misapprehension, false identity, excessive attachments, unreasonable dislikes and insecurity.”
“Misapprehension” reminds me of what my guide have told me; “it’s not about finding the truth, it’s about getting rid of the untrue”. It makes me happy, when it all comes together. One of the “false identity” I wrestle with is, believing that I am my feelings, or believing that I am my thoughts.
Or all I am is one special thought or feeling… This often comes with the idea that the thought or feeling (identified with) is very important…

When the sutra says “excessive” attachments – I recognize one of my yoga-teachers words of comforts to me, about my attachment to providing for my children – he told me that some attachments were just part of being human. Sutra 2.1 tells me I’m not the master of everything I do. I think this might apply fine here – I don’t think I have to figure out when I’m too attached, or when the attachment is driving me. I can trust reality to show me in a very clear way when I get driven. This sutra is also one of these transformation sutras, that list what we are moving towards.

Here are some obstacles that my yoga journey re-moved (provoked a change in): “being a teacher” – I got to feel like a beginner, first I hated it, to feel incompetent, but than I fell in love with it again, to have soo much to learn!
“I can take time off, I can do holiday” well I find that I don’t operate to well with that idea, everyday-holiday soo I just call every now a holy now, and what we call it in society I consider a game, a play. I CANNOT do it, not even take time off. I get to experience it, it’s the best and the worst at once. This probably doesn’t make much sense, unless you’re a bit like me :-)
I got to look some of my dislikes in the eye, When I just did it, it was sometimes ok, like performing again, (no matter how short and little), it was ok. Or finding, that my most hated asana (oh yes I have one, sukhasana, maybe different in different yoga directions, but the one with the heel under the knee, and to hurt ego a little more it translates into “easy pose” haha), was going to be part of daily asana practice and I was going to be pushed deeper and deeper into it… it was provoking, destroying, vitalising and motivating. The experience of how insecurity left as I became “part of” was a loving beautiful including experience. Insecurity is like having no balance in a balance pose, very little possibility to feel clarity because you wobble, and tend to focus on the wobble – well there isn’t a balance to focus on yet… This focus-thief is insecurity for me in every area that it appears in, suddenly I’m all focused on the wobble (fun word) the insecurity.
Love and Namasté
Jenni

the very source of perception, 1.45

Desikachar: “Except that the mind cannot comprehend the very source of perception within us, its objects can be unlimited.” 1.45

For me in simple body-jenni-language this means the eye can look around but it cannot see itself, the ear can listen to the sounds in the city, the room, even the stomach and the heart but it doesn't hear the tympanic membrane (yeye funny word). So I can know something about my position, but only in relation to something else?... That’s why it’s so lovely with any form of contact, to know myself and truth through participation (=relation)… positioning me to something else.

The effect in my practice is a love for working with a group that offers so many possibilities to interact. Partner-yoga-positions, perhaps, or meditating on the “being part of”, hmm yes I like that.
Ideals (abhyasa, which makes me strive… like the grass is greener over there) and prejudice (judging jenni – resting on my laurels… they (over there)really cannot do the lawn in the right way ;-)) can seem soo dangerous and hurting, but right now, they just seem like expressions of relation in the more limited human way ;9 participating… The whole “cannot comprehend” brings me back to: “it’s not why, why, why… it just is”. But it would also be nice to try to work with “the very source of perception”, experiencing that it exists, more than trying to understand and looking at it…
Ups, it just turned into a big project, let’s see
Peace and love

Rainy day remembrance

I get heavy and something in me object, against the weather :-)
So here and now I’m letting go of the idea that it’s not ok to be heavy and tired.
We have been working with motivation, the reason for doing yoga today. Sutra 21 tells me that “The more intense faith and effort, the closer the goal.” This reminds me of a spiritual writer that says something like; “if you go to the ocean with a cup of water – all you get is a cup of water”, to me this means; there is as much to get as I am open to receive. Therefore we explored this, by acknowledging our motives and hearts longing for the class – and how these motives and longings get met. It makes sense to me. Every prayer I can come up, with has already been met – it is a great game, to find out what form it has been given in my life. If I want yoga to be a good stretch – it will be. If I want yoga to be my inspiration, the unfolding of meaning or life the love of life – well here we go… it is. It just is. It already is. SOO HAM I am it.
Namasté and grounded heaviness
Jenni Saunte

steadiness and I'm soo free!!!

Before I write about my “sutra-work” I want to state that cleaning up the past, making amends, is a major freedom-maker!!! Yes what a relief! Big kick today.
I get to look at what a long time daily practice does for me with sutra 14, it says that; “(the state of yoga-serenity, peace) can be reached by longtime correct practice, without interruptions, with a positive attitude and eagerness.”
I ask myself is this my experience, yes it is :-)
I get to discover how a longtime daily practice has built an inner perspective that puts everything else in right proportions. I don’t feel like I’m the one doing it though… I’ve tried so many times to get a stable daily meditation/yoga practice, and always failed. This time (now for 4 years) I’ve stopped looking up, thinking that I’m the one doing this, I’m just the one showing up on the mat. I don’t think to much about how long this will continue, I just look at today. One of my teachers tells me, that just like the body cannot live from food it eat last week or could eat tomorrow, the spirit (or consciousness if you want) cannot live of practice done yesterday or tomorrow…
I like that; it’s so tangible that I get it.

I work with “sthira” the principle of steadiness, awareness and perseverance in every asana, exploring this concepts in micro-form, the asana to get to know more about the macro-form; life…me… the world, lets be ambitious!!! :-)
Namasté
Jenni Saunte

Persevering practice, daily work sutra 13

Sutra 13 explores the same theme, and that’s good for me. I’m told that: “Persevering practice is the effort to attain and maintain the state of mental peace”. This message has arrived from so many different sources in my life so I’m open to try whatever is suggested! Bouanchaud tells me that it’s about setting a course in a direction, what brings me out of course can be my own inner personal leanings or outside circumstances. My only direction is, when out of course - get back! And I will get out of course, it’s ok. Today I know I’m out of course when it hurts, pain is a good indicator, or when I’m identifying with being only my mind, my thoughts or my feelings. For example, when I identify with being the “great giver” or “receiver” instead of just being… in a flow, eventually it hurts. Persevering practice can be boosting my ego or killing it. Different kind of pains follows. When it’s boosting my ego, it eventually always hurts, since the boost is “look at me-and my accomplishments”, it hurts when “they” don’t get it, or it hurts when I cannot do it. The ego kill hurts in another way, I can’t take credit for persevering practice -I’m not the one doing it, I can’t be sure that this is the right way, the only way; I’m just showing up, every single day- in spite of this. In no way can the practice be used as a tool to get credit, since it is a gift and without it I loose my serenity. I haven’t explored this with words, so I get to feel my shortcomings here…
In class I worked with the to principles of abhyasa and vairagya, to keep on trying to improve and to let go. It’s giving to me.
Namasté
Jenni Saunte

preserverence or letting go... sutra 1.12

Oh man! This is too much… too big... This is what I’ve actively, on a daily basis, have explored the last 4 years. Sutra 1.12 tells me that “The mind can reach the state of yoga through practice and detachment.” And the two principles of abhyasa (practise, preserverence ) and vairagya (detachment, letting go) is introduced. I get to look at myself in many ways, but two stands out, today, I’m asked what is easier for me, to let go – let everything be, to a natural unfolding or to engage in a practice that demands discipline from me.
I really have them both, and often in a beautiful balancing harmony, but there is a tendency to “love the ritual” and “strive for perfection” or overdoing things for me… It’s interesting to see how the last 4 years have enriched my life by this awareness of these two principles.
Can I detach from the path I choose? I love this question, for it hits me right at a soft spot. When my tendency is to get over- :-) excited, ambitious or responsible, a side effect is that I can get narrow-minded – not see the greatness in pluralism (loving all the other paths), or not feeling good when I cannot or don’t get to, do things according to the path I’m following.
And this is not only spiritual blabla, it’s the same when it is about “how to raise a child”, “how to move in traffic” or “how to show love” and off course it’s about “how to practice yoga” :-)
So we will work with these two principles. I could go on writing about this, but now I will take a shower instead.
Namasté and serenity to all of you.
Jenni Saunte

What a week!

Ambitions surely have been faced. My oldest daughter has had two birthday parties, one for her school class and one for family. In my head this events gets the time that the guests are here. That’s soo not the reality, they take loads of time.
I don’t like to be the only responsible one – but I am.
I don’t like to set aside my studies – but I have to.
I don’t like prioritizing – but I get to.
Obviously this is the blessing of the week.
I get to look at my priorities, and act on them.
I get to let go of the idea of “doing everything”.
I get to be the responsible person that I sometime can be. I grow with this.
My daughter loved her birthday. It’s all good!

Today is yogaday, I am following up on last weeks viniyoga treat, and reintroducing ashtanga yoga’s sun salutation A. I think a lot of the movement’s that shows up in my programs right now is about energizing the body. I still talk a lot about “attach not, resist not and judge not”. But today the focus landed on “resist not” in form of; not fighting anyone or anything. An example from my own life is; when my older daughter criticise all the words of her kid sister – I do not fight it, I do not criticise her for doing that. Slowly the recognition grows in me, that I love to be (and I am) the person that don’t criticise. That’s what makes me happy. And after some time I can tell this to my kid, instead of telling her that what she do is wrong. Well that’s one way that yoga comes into my life, and I’m soo grateful.
Namasté Jenni

Sunlight and jumping kids

Yes, that’s my day. I woke up with an inner judgemental voice, but it faded when my kids jumped into my bed and we cuddled while the sun coloured the sky red.
Sometimes during the day this cousin of my judgemental voice came, I call her ambitiousa, she is the one that wants me to do everything ,,, NOW! Lucky me! I’ve got kids, so I really don’t have time to listen to theese voices, I’m so grateful. Now they are jumping at the spring board and sun fills up my whole kitchen and it’s just perfect for me to cook dinner:)

Classes

This week, my classes have been more “pedagogically correct”. I mean, I’ve looked at what we’ve been doing and followed up on some asanas and adding whats missing. But there was a theme of different kinds of sun salutations, another was hips and flexibility. But my favourite was yesterday, I let my colleague decide what my theme was going to be, she told me to work with feminine and masculine attitudes towards the asanas.
I found that I connect the masculine with the principle of abhyasa and the feminine with the principles of vairagya. More on, I found that I somehow connects the masculine with the inhalation (the active force) and the feminine with the exhalation (the passive force). I haven’t got a clue about this. I haven’t used the thoughts of masculine and feminine since I studied “bodymind” with my masters. I have to search books, friends and colleagues to see how they do it, what do you think?
I can clearly see how much integrity and attitude work there’s going on in my classes! It’s beautiful! The hunched old lady that is so much into her breath that she finishes her asana far behind all the others, but everyone loves to get to do stuff in their own time, following their own breath, it was beautiful! So much accept of the self and the other “selves” in the same room. It was a good to see how aware we all became of our own attitudes and what effect they have on us. How our attitude forms the reality that we sense. I think there is more for me to get there!

Serendipity and yoga

I think that “unsought findings” is one of the great promises in yoga. Since yoga work so much with the present and with awareness (sthira) we are bound to find something. Maybe that’s the essence of body consciousness, the sum of unexpressed knowledge and the unsought findings?
I find so many new experiences by working with yoga, when I succeed in letting go of my ambitions, my “I want”, my evaluations “I mean/this means” and my expectations “I cannot”.
When I surrender to the next inhalation or exhalation, I truly find experiences in myself I never knew existed. Get to the matter, an example. Some years ago, I played with my sense of moving my back muscles standing upside down, I suddenly found that; in order to lift my legs calmly up in any variation of a headstand; I use my but as a counterweight to my legs. I didn’t set out to find this, but it was there. Every yoga practise gives me unsought findings, in myself, my body (anatomy and physiology), my spirit, philosophy and life. And many of these findings/experiences can be applied to completely other parts of my life. Love it when one part of my life can enrich another or in this case give me some words to explain my experience.

Judgment day

Today I criticize me for not being good enough. Not doing more, not being able to cope more in my everyday, for having a sloppy brain. Yep, exams often have that effect on me, tickles my perfectionism. Really sucks.
It was a good exam, I was fairly treated, so what can I do now.
Maybe, I should do a really sloppy yoga practice, not do anything “perfect” and try to love that?
Or maybe I should do a headstand to change my perspective?
I’m really just tired, so sleep and do nothing is probably what I should let in.
zzzzzzzzzz

Gratitude

Today I felt crappy, and my kids did act out, just like I felt inside,,, so I got irritated on them,, buggery, buggero
I’ve been thinking about how to start this blog. I was inspired to write, since I’ve enjoyed some other bloggers writing about their journey of recovery, or spiritual search.
I delayed the start, since I didn’t want to start out with frustration :)
But I gave up, so here we go,,, and as I opened my writing space I felt gratitude!!! Well, what do you know! I’m so thankful for my work, my kids and my studies. For having this computer and the web, so that I’m never actually alone,, I have to face that loneliness is an illusion.
The hard part these days is to wait, to do nothing, pure ahimsa. I observe the insanity rush around and I try to do nothing. Good on me! That’s new!!
For example, I want to do several new years’ resolutions, bad old habit, (for me). I just love to plan the splendid changes rather than give some space for universe to start doing them, little by little in my present day :) So now I sit on my fingers (Nordic expression ;) and try not to fix myself! I'm surrendering, vairagya!!