not to be deprived - to be free

Sutra 2.53 Patanjali defines “Pratyahara”(the fifth aspect of yoga see sutra 2.29):
“Restraint of the senses occurs when the mind is able to remain in its chosen direction and the senses disregard the different objects around them and faithfully follow the mind.” (Desikachar translation)
My first recognition of this sutra is from the trataka-meditation, where the whole world can disappear and there is only the flame of light and oneness. First after this initiating recollection I can relate, and recognize that pranayama is a good source for this type of experiences.
Ups I looked ahead, this is the second last sutra of chapter 2… (and the last one is really very revealing, long and challenging and important so you can look forward to next week!!)
Oh and there my focus went off…. Back into centre Jenni – Pratyahara, restraint of the senses, or focus in the inner world, the possibility to perceive everything directly (Iyengar on this sutra) the movement “towards the realization of the soul” (Iyengar).

What I personally get from reading Iyengar is that now! the journey back to the origin starts. The body and mind have been moving towards something external for gratification. We become hypnotized and drawn outwards towards pleasure. The need of pleasure and gratification (of the ego) is ever ongoing and brings us out of centre. “Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the mind from its contact with the senses of perception and the organs of action; then its direction is towards the soul.” (Iyengar) We get the suggestion that the science of restraining the senses is: “depriving them from what feeds them, the external objective world”.
All this in order to be free. Not to be deprived :-) to be free

Inspiration for class, focus on inner state. Does this mean to lay back on corrections/adjustments? Don’t think so. Maybe it is conscious contact in class to the focus on what is, in asana, before and after. We always do this, but increased contact… Maybe it is a “letting go” of seeking pleasure in every asana, and go for being free instead? To have a meditation focus point for the whole class, maybe personal maybe in fellowship?

Inspiration for my daily practice; I can feel my urge for this withdrawal. External world can make me absolutely disturbed (or I can use external focus to stimulate my own ego to boost and “disturbedness” is absolutely a good ego-booster). These sutras show me the way. I can follow.
Thank you – Namasté
Jenni

great river of life

Sutra 2.39 "One who is not greedy is secure. (S)He has time to think deeply. His (her) understanding of himself (herself) is complete." (Desikachar translation) In me, the sutra awakens the word; “what we own - owns us”. We spend time and energy getting it, keeping it and fearing the lost of it.

Iyengar translates it into: "Knowledge of past and future lives unfolds when one is free from greed for possessions." And he points out that holding on to ones thoughts, can be possessive. We are given the guideline to shun the holding on to thoughts and material possessions.

I relate to the aspect of past and future lives, it reminds me of letting go.
To me, the concrete action, to not gather possessions (material or thoughts/stories), symbolically represents my honouring of the spiritual truth; that I actually cannot own anything and that human life and material conditions will eventually die. This sutra makes me face my mortality.

Sometimes (ok- my darker moments) I wonder if everything I experience has the purpose of making me realize that life in this human body will end. Love stories end, people, situations, conditions I love disappears. “It” hurts, but I guess what hurts is my "attempt to hold on".
Other times (my lighter moments ;-) I see a big slow great river, the stream of life, and I courageously step into it and I lay down and let it carry me - wherever.

The dark and the light stories are the same; the stories just evoke different emotions in me.
This sutra makes me think of "panta rei" -everything flows, Heraklitus statement. I've loved it since I was a teenager and heard it the first time. I thought I could see this great flow in life in glimpses.

I want to let yoga be the big river of life and my role as a teacher is to invite my students to step into the water and let it carry them :-) flow, being carried and not greedy…
Namasté
Jenni Saunte

reality and obstacles

2.12
Desikachar: “Our actions and their consequences are influenced by these obstacles. The consequences may or may not be evident at the time of the action.”
This is a big one and I can see it unfolds in the coming sutras. I think I need to make it a bit more concrete. To me, in my life and in my asana work, my prejudice and my concepts are both vitally important and big obstacles. They most certainly influence my actions and consequences of these actions.
For many years my labelling me as “weak” kept me from doing certain asanas. The concept was so strong that it overruled my experience in the asana. It was always an awakening to suddenly see that “Hey! I’m doing it!!” This is also true in other areas of my life. For a long time my concepts of a “good” and “bad” day, overruled the experience of the day. I need these concepts to communicate with other people and to relate and play with some of my minds capabilities, but I also need to let go of concepts. They are set in a way that they never express reality. Reality, for me, is richer, more personal, more nuanced, it is moving, flexible, ever changing and reality is whole, full, and dense. I am in reality and my concepts are a communication or mind- stimulating games. So, if I connect this with the last sutra, when my prejudice or my concepts solely rules my understanding of reality I need to move towards a state of meditation.
I still have Iyengar and Bouanchaud to read this weekend.
Love and Namasté
Jenni Saunte

freed from attachments

2.6
Excessive attachment is based on the assumption that it will contribute to everlasting happiness.
2.7
Unreasonable dislikes are usually the result of painful experiences in the past, connected with particular objects and situations.

So this week this applies to letting go of the attachment to a special solution involving someone else. It seems so easy and nice to ask this person for help, but in the long run – I don’t experience it to be for free and for fun. My attachment to this enjoyment and the unmanageability it brings to me is clear. This sutra brings me the clarity so that I, today, to se the attachment vaporise! Thanks tak tak tak - a relief.

I still have troubles starting up my daily yoga-practice. Right now it’s in bits and parts over several hours. I guess this sutra guides me to just pick a time, let go of the idea to wait for the perfect time, than start, just call a time and pray for strength to do it at that time - free from the enjoyment and the dislike (attraction and repulsion) to decide in their fickle jenniform. I’ve tried to get up 30 minutes earlier (at 5) but I seem to be attached :-) to the bed. But now I’ve shared it, so maybe there are some we – power in that.
(I wrote this yesterday – sure of getting an early start this morning, and than I couldn’t fall asleep, and one of my kids peed in the bed and the other one came and kept me awake to 4 in the morning – so at 5 I just closed the alarm and thought “tomorrow…”)

One part of my work I hate (not the yoga work – another work-life-part) I get to know me as a resisting person; I really don’t want to do this. But here the sutra shows me a way that is not based on my “want to”. I find that there is another meaning with this certain aspect of my work life that gives me a break, a pause, that is actually enjoyable and healthy for me :-) so I keep on.

Love Namasté
Jenni – on her way to practice and teaching and singing (gayatri mantra ;) while the leafs are falling down

include whatever

Sutra 2.5
I think I messed up the chronology of my sutras a bit, since I’ve had four of them with me this summer, but now I’m on it again.
“Misapprehension leads to errors in comprehension of the character, origin and effects of the objects perceived” (Desikachar translation).

(His examples: what at one time may appear as beneficial may turn out to be a problem at a later stage. Fool's gold is assumed to be gold. Things that change (beauty of youth) may be considered everlasting. The most important learning may, in time, prove useless)

In asana – this sutra teaches me to keep an open mind – the prayer to be set free of everything I think I know – is good for yoga-practice, because (as one of my guides told me) it’s not the things you don’t know that will kill you – it’s what you know for sure… maybe the asana isn’t about living and dying in the “American movie sense”. But my experience is that my “knowing something for sure” like “I can’t do that” kills something, maybe the power in possibilities? Maybe the energy, maybe the movement and change… Opposite I recognize that what I don’t know can take me to a place where I get to experience the unexpected, the surprising, I love surprises… (now my mind goes philosophical,, and things like “oh the asana is like life it self – a micro cosmos :-) so I move on…)

As a teacher I get to respect and see the empowerment that happen when the student follow their own tempo, breathing, and I get to see change in attitudes, bodies and minds. Respecting what I pass on can always get better, deeper, more open is humbling in the best sense of the word and when I’m there- the teaching act becomes more whole, integrated and honest.

For this week, I’m moved to work with; letting go of expectations and see what happens. To include whatever (any, all) as a starting point to travel deeper into the asana. To bring the book and read his examples.
But let’s see, right now I feel like a phoney. And I better get some sleep.

Love jenni

let go of the detail, focus on experiencing 1.36

1.36
“When we inquire to what life is and what keeps us alive, we may find some solace for our mental distractions.” (Desikachar)
Again, a suggestion to solve my mental disturbances. In my world I call this treasure hunting. It doesn’t have to be inquiries to life, God or good. It can be… just participating in reality – sensing it, instead of living my opinion, my evaluation.
In life I can get mentally disturbed by getting rejected.
I just received a work related letter, which could be read as a rejection of my ideas, my self gets hurt (attachment to my ideas) and I can go into fight mode (who has the right reality:-).
If I live my evaluation of this situation, I can argue until tomorrow, why I’m right and they are wrong.
In my mind I can construct thousands of answers, were I crush them with my wit and sharp words and arguments :-) but than again, what do I get out of this? A night with mental disturbance and little sleep.
Sutras 1.36 suggest some perspective, my treasure hunt.
If I, instead of looking into the fight, choose to look at the possibility that it is “just an e-mail”, it is “just another human being” and I really doesn’t have to do anything with it (right now). Than it’s just not threatening.
My disturbance gets smaller – I love and adore the word “just” -it’s great.
Thanks to this act of faith, I can get to re-read the letter and see if there, possibly, is anything I can use!
Is there something I don’t have to defend myself (yes – self…) against, and when I trust love, to be a solid foundation – unfolded in this letter, maybe I actually can get some treasure out of this mail.
What’s in it for me?!
(and if this fails I have a backup to trust – “rejection is protection” – which is my experience)

Consideration of things greater than jennis selves helps put jenni in perspective.

Perspective of something greater than me, is my truth, I get to practice being “part of” which is true identity for me. I guess that’s why it’s so calming to focus on a greater perspective – it’s simply true, for body, mind and spirit. I get to be whole by being part of – integrity is a grand present.

In asana work, I want to let go of the detail, focus on the experiencing the sensation of life. I also want to try out some of the pranayama, from the workshop I attended this week – pass it on.
Namasté and serene minds – no disturbances whatsoever to all of you :-)
Jenni Saunte

and a litle more on 1.32...

Bouanchaud asks “How can I realize that I have searched long enough and that now is the time to choose a single aim toward mastery?”
Lately the answer, for me, has been; if I search and there is no answer inside me, and no recognition of truth, well something’s off. I let this search go, in faith that answer will come in time (maybe when the question is reformulated).
If I, however, feel that this or that is the truth or the right thing for me, I have a practice; to take a week, some time to see if it was a flick of mind or something consistent… I’ve found that everything that is meant to be will be. I can calmly take my time.
The choices that are really important seldom have a rush to them (I don’t have the right English words here). The “crisis!! make a decision fast!-choices”, rarely are important in a greater perspective.
love jenni

to go slow, deep, clean, clear

Happy new year! I guess we’re all babies in this year :-) I love being new.

Hope you’ve had a nice time celebrating the cycle of the year.
I’ve been to the north of Denmark and there was snow! I love snow, and I miss it, I grew up in the north of Sweden so I’m used to a lot more snow than Copenhagen can offer…
I’m keeping it short this week:

“It is then that one understands the self and gradually clears inner obstacles”

I love that he writes that; “as we gradually acquire something, little by little, something else disappears”. That is my experience. It is not easy to let go off an old idea, but by grabbing hold of the new one, what is ment to disappear will do so by it self.
This sutra affects my teaching to go slow, deep, clean, clear.

Maybe just unfold the breath, and as a teacher, let go of mentioning all the little details I tend to get lost in :-) no… details is fine, they keep me in the flow, in movement and improvement.

So I want to make programs about ease, asanas they know, balances (to work with clarity) and static asanas. And now I get that this is creating a harmony to the dynamic classes that grew out of last weeks “repetition” sutra. Beautiful!

Namasté

Jenni

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

This week...awareness

Last week was all about “letting go”, vairagya, we worked with it by working us into the poses and than surrendering into what is and how it felt.
The classes were good for me. I prioritized to take extra time to the ending relaxation and took my students on a “letting go- mountain journey”, it was nice. The 15th sutra told me that; “At the highest level there is an absence of any cravings, either for the fulfillment of the senses or for extraordinary experiences”. It was rewarding to se that spiritual pride is just as big an ego booster as “I’ve got the biggest car…” is.
This week sutra 16 tells me that; “When an individual has achieved complete understanding of his true self, he will no longer be disturbed by distracting influences within and around him”. What a great promise!!!
And I recognize my truth. So we will work with sthira, (awareness, awakening, stability and steadiness). By focusing on what is, I often have received the gift of connection to my inner truth and distance from outside- and inside- “stories”.
Breath, heart and spine – keeping it simple, that’s my take on this.
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

Memory letting go and inspiration

Welcome sutra 1.11 I love that you restates that my mental activities are neutral. Here I’m told that memory is a mental activity that retains living (conscious) experience. It can help me progress and it can be an obstacle! I relate to this in my asana work. Remembering how the pose is done can help me get deeper into it, but remembering what I, for example, cannot do, can hold me back from experiencing that I’m new and so are my possibilities today.
I worked with this sutra in my classes in several ways, by giving time to work with the mind, doing a sunsalutation but not actually moving the body, by talking about memory and by letting go. Letting go, is one of the tools for me – to balance the memories that holds me back. So, for me, it’s so many great things to learn from letting go in my yoga work to rub off into my everyday.
It’s a balancing act – again. I love that I just have to try and than… try again :-)as Solomon burke said about his love life at the concert in Malmö ”If practice makes perfection – I’m perfect now!”. I’ve attended some great classes at my colleagues and I get inspired. I decided not to get down on me for getting a bit rigid, but just trying a whole lot of new stuff. Grateful for receiving inspiration! It’s a true position for me.

Deep sleep and heaviness (sutra 1.10)

Well it’s perfect! After some weeks of confusion and unusually bad sleep, I found the releasing ending and the nakedness of a new beginning – and suddenly I can sleep again!
Yoga sutra 1.10 tells me that “deep sleep is when the mind is overcome with heaviness and no other activities are present”. I love that one of the mental activities is a “non activity”!!! That’s my experience, sometimes the most powerful and demanding act is to do nothing. So this is my practice this week (and last week). Sit on my hands and let things go. Watch it pass.
In this “don’t act!”-practice; I find how my daily yoga+fellowship +philosophy +spiritual- acts is carrying me and being my center when everything is unstable and confusing. GratefulJenniSunbeam. I love that that Bouanchaud calls deep sleep a meditative state, in which I’m just not conscious! And that there are people who believe that, when sleeping, we are with our greater power, getting nourished by this power and therefore are so refreshed after a good nights sleep. In my class (only hold one this weekend) I planed to take time to do a yoga-nidra, but since it was even longer time since we made a pranavidya, we did that. It affected me to use words like “bring wholeness”, “bring harmony”, “bring heaviness” and “release any blockages”. Grateful for my work! My personal attention, every night for some time, has been on; what am I letting go, into the stream of life today?

State of ease and rest, sutra 1.3

My mind is wondering, strolling happily ever ongoing towards whatever object pops up. Annoying. But it turns into a great material for my meditation on being here and now. Several different teachers, from very different areas in my life, have told me that meditation is the ever ongoing process of “getting back”, “return” so I guess I’m grateful for the possibility to practice this :-)
Monday’s class had another focus, we worked on flexibility, stretches and it gets so clear that, for me, it’s the same as working with my love for being human, for having limitations, what a difference to work with stretches and loving the limit instead of fighting it.
I also found that balance poses, for me, contains the essence of the 1.2 sutra, of being balance, outlived focus.
Sutra 1.3 tells me that; “With the attainment of focused mind, the inner being establishes itself in all its reality”. This relates to my experience of “I’m not my feelings, my opinions or my doing… I love how the word Drashtuh is translated to inner being, seeing entity and witness! So when I work with focus I get to experience my true nature, I’m the one observing Jenni having opinions, feelings… I do get this in my meditation and in my daily yoga practice; it’s a great restful, soft and easy place to be. I can get there by letting go, into stillness of a stationary asana or by real dynamic strength demanding work.
Maybe something provocative is good? To get to experience the opinions, so that we can experience our true nature besides these? I guess I will do both stationary and dynamic asanas.
Peace and love
Jenni :-)

The yogasutras

With inspiration from T.K.V. Desikachar and Bouanchaud I’ve decided (for today-I’m so limited) that my yoga classes will be an exploration of the sutras, one at a time. My spiritual path is the most practical and most grounded experience I’ve ever had. I always thought that it would be the big “out of body” or “burning bush” experience, I’ve had some of these as well, but what I love is what shows up and is in my every day.
So that’s why I take a sutra and unfold it into my yoga class asanas, letting go of the idea, that I have to go to India and become mahatmajenni before I can start to even touch these, for me spiritual principles, sutras.
The first sutra has two consequences for my class, partly I want to get in touch with “why am I here” my prayer for this class (I am living prayer) landing in the here and now, which is my second consequence for the class, I have to stay on my mat, minding my practice and I have to be in constant connection with now. It is, for me, practicing the principle of “shtira” being aware, alert and steady. I love that both Desikachar and Bouchaud gives me that I start in God. I’m not the source of the experience my students have of yoga, I’m just a tool, that’s sane perspective to me.
My own meditation is not controlled by me, I let go and to my surprise, my meditation this week have mainly been on limitedness of human form, which is somehow soothing and amending to myself.
Serenity and love jenni

Confirmation as fuel ;-)

The bija mantras were amazing to work with, I love to stand and listen to the beauty of the voices in the yoga room. Maybe it was to cross a line for some of my students, to use their voices so integrated in the yoga work. I never asked, so I hope I remember to do that this weekend. In my other project we’re close to deadline, there is a lot to do, it effects my yoga teaching to get more dynamic (again,,,) I ,suddenly, find that the clock is a great tool for not speeding the tempo up, and I always plan some of the big slow positions. But I think it’s good that teaching changes following were we are as human beings, dynamic is good. Changing is a fact I’m just giving in to it. As if I have a choice to be anything but honest.
My meditation and prayer is founding itself in my breath. I breathe in, to receive and to listen, to meditate. I breathe out, I give, I let go, to talk, to pray. I breath in that everything I need is already given I breathe out what shall be given through me. When I no longer feel the burden of responsibility for oh, soo many things, I suddenly get to be free. My work load is as big as ever, but I’m somehow not the one carrying anymore, how amazing! I always thought I had to,,, Today I just meet up in the next action as open minded as I can.

eternity in my movements

In my daily praxis I feel the circular movements clearly.
I’ve been telling my students to ”turn the movement into a meditation of ex the hip”. When I do that my self, what I actually do is to let go into a flow, that always contains a circular pattern. Even the straightest “back and forward” movement have a circular movement often in the joint, the bone makes a beautiful circular pattern, for me to enjoy when I seem to move “back and forward” on the outside.
How lucky am I!? to have a work where I actually get to say: “create a sun around your heart”. Hmm I might just as well say “enjoy the sun around your heart, I’ll try that out next time.

serenity

Noise is my friend
Kids everywhere, jumping, crawling, screaming and vividly discussing their steeple chase course in the living room. My youngest is sick, so we can’t get out to the good stuff. I had to overcome myself because; this was not Jennis plan :) And I prefer my plan,,, but I have let go and actually enjoys the noise, realizing that serenity is in my acceptance of my day and moment not in the silence or in my plans and control.
I’m so glad that I can write here, feel a connection to you, and not feel locked inside.

start

The start of a new semester can first happen when I’ve let go of the last. I went north, got some snow and skiing done, fixed my acute need to get out of this big city and my even more urgent need to be embraced by a completely snow covered world. It was great, even though my youngest threw up and coughed every night, so we were tired, it was still great! Even for her! She tells proudly, to every one, that she threw up at grandmas :)
Now a tension of some excitement rises in my lower back, it’s my inner “Peter pedal” I think he’s called “curious George” in English. I know this is a sign of readiness to the next semester; bring it on!!!
hmm probably have to rename this blog, it’s not centred around yoga (even though I think so;) it’s all jenni.