Last week’s class focused on “tapas” – the energy of self-restraint. When we practice tapas, we choose to restrain ourselves from habits that in the end bring us suffering and/or lead us away from Truth. There are many examples of this, but today we focused on one such habit: thinking too much! (Recall Patanjali’s definition of yoga: “Yoga is the cessation of the waves of the mind,” Yoga Sutras, 1.2.)
The inspiration for today’s class came from a passage I read in David Frawley’s book, “Vedantic meditation: Lighting the flame of awareness.” In the chapter called “Being,” he writes:
“Whatever we think about is not the reality. Whoever we think about, once we have formed an image or identity, is not the real person or conscious subject. The real being, which is one in all . . . can only be communed with in receptivity and silence.
To know being we must first be. Only being can know being. We are That by what we are, not by what we seek or what we desire. We become That by our no longer striving to become something else. This is offering the mind into the flame of awareness that delivers us beyond time and sorrow.” (p.33-34)
Consider this: How can we explain the colour Red in words? For someone to really know the colour Red, they have to see it for themselves. Same with something like the True Self. We can think and talk about it all we like, but to really know it, we must experience it. The words are an approximation, just as a photograph of something is not the Real thing itself. When you’re hungry, do you want a photo of your meal, or the Real thing? When you’re seeking Truth, or Love, or the Self, will words really suffice? No, we must move towards the Real thing, to experience this Reality directly.
So in class today, we practiced restraint from thinking and talking, from engaging the mind to figure things out. Our intention today was to focus on Being – on our direct experience of the Here and Now – our experience of the body, breath, senses and mind as we moved through the postures. We reminded ourselves to feel, to experience, and to witness – rather than to think and label. And apart from a brief introduction and closing, I kept my talking to a minimum. As much as possible, we chose “receptivity and silence.”
We ended our class today with a poem by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (in his own calligraphy):
Hanh teaches that at each moment, we arrive at our destination, our true home, which is the Here and Now. Truth, Being, Bliss – our true nature – are always available to us in the Here and Now. They are only available in the Here and Now. But alas, feeling that we are on a journey, we keep looking ahead, and we miss the fact that we are already Here, right Now. We don’t need to search anywhere else.
Our next classes will focus on “svadhaya” (self-inquiry) and “ishvara pranidhana” (devotion). Questions? Comments? Requests? Please feel free to post them below.