Limiting the limitless - pointers to your True Self

The Kaňcukas part 2

Last month I wrote about the five Kaňcukas, which are like veils that limit the vast perfection of the Divine Everything so that it takes form as the diversity that is the manifest universe. Today I will say a few words about each of these.

But first, it is important to note that these limitations, though they lie like veils over our true nature concealing to ourselves the vastness of who we really are, they are not something to be despised or something we need to be rid of. Everything is to be welcomed on this path. And the wonderful thing is that the very aspect that is a covering is also a clue, even a portal through which we might find our way home.

This article refers to the way we can use our iRest® Yoga Nidra meditation practice to help us work with the Kaňcukas. If you are unfamiliar with iRest please visit www.irest.org/ to learn more.

I am also indebted to Christopher Wallis for assisting me in understanding the Kaňcukas and I recommend the relevant section of his book Tantra Illuminated. He explains it far better than I ever could.

Limited agency - Kalā

The first step on this path of creation is the limitation of omnipotence (the Divine power of action, which is limitless). The most important thing to note about this is that it does not make us powerless in our embodied form. Kalā is not impotence. It is indeed the Divine power of action itself, just a little pared down. 

Our spiritual path is to nurture and grow that divine Power until we finally realise our full and innate divinity.

In practice, this will mean that when we encounter the power of action in its limited form we have an opportunity to expand it a little. This is why they are pointers.

So meeting “there is always more needing to be done” and my urge to do more, I can also recognize the divine power of doing that brings all of this manifestation to being and dissolves it all back again. If I meet the feeling of powerlessness, can it point me to the feeling of potency? And while we might see these as two opposites in the movement of emotions in awareness, just as we come to know welcoming, and wellbeing as aspects of awareness, so too both omnipotence in its fullness, and its self-limiting form we experience in embodiment are ultimately aspects of that one consciousness as well.

Limited knowing - Vidyā

The limitation of knowing – Vidyā, is not ignorance. Māyā conceals the fullness of omniscience in order to project Consciousness into manifestation.

We are granted the ability to know something about our world and to continue to learn more about our world. The biggest trap of Vidyā is not the urge to know more, it is thinking that what you know is all there is.

The old story of the blind people and the elephant illustrates this.

“A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.” (Wikipedia's version)

Each thought that they knew what an elephant was, but when they shared what they knew with each other they fell into arguing.

Image credit, medium.com

And this is the trap of Vidyā we see played out in life. This is the human tendency to believe our own limited subjective truth and to ignore, dismiss and even repress the limited subjective truth of others.

In terms of our personal spiritual path, we may fall into a trap based on a limited experience of thinking that we’ve “arrived”. So part of our path is to always seek to expand our understanding.

In fact the manifestation of “Vidyā” of believing “There is more I need to know” is to be welcomed as it keeps us questing.

Vidyā is nothing but the limited form of the divine power of Knowing, jňāna-śakti. As we expand our horizon of limited knowing we more closely approximate towards jňāna-śakti.

Ultimately of course we seek to move beyond words and thinking to the knowing that is an inner wisdom, a lifting of the veil of Māyā to sense that which all the words of teachers, live or in writing, ancient or modern, can only hint at, though they may point the way.

In practice – what we think we know is what we believe. In our quest to expand our knowing, we are seeking to situate what we know in a wider context. In iRest®, our practice in the realm of beliefs does just that. If I am believing “I am a failure, everything I do just turns bad, I have the touch of death for any enterprise” and I come up with all sorts of memories to support that, and I wallow in all the emotions of that, I can use the iRest process to expand that and situate in a broader context, allowing me to move beyond it. I can do that by work in the opposites, what is the opposite or alternative to “I am a failure”? We can work with it anthropomorphically – if this belief walked into the room what would it be … can you dialogue with it. Substitute any belief … “my religion/atheism is true and others are wrong, even evil”, “my politics are the best, the other mob are dangerous”.

The limitation of perfection - rāga - desire

 When the veil of Māyā limits the divine powers, divine perfection is thus limited, and in our embodiment, which is possible only due to all this limiting, we have the sense of not being complete. This leads to desire and craving, raga, as we seek that which will make us feel complete. We misplace the direction of our yearning and crave material possessions, recognition, fame, acknowledgement, food, attention, holidays, physical connection, sex, a different body, and so it goes. We may even fall into addiction to food, alcohol or other substances. If I feel imperfect in this now, in this body, then perhaps if I can get that then I will feel whole. If only everybody paid more attention to me, then I would know I am whole. If only I were 10kgs lighter, then I would feel more perfect. If only I had more money.

In fact all desire, all craving, is the yearning for Divine Perfection, which ironically is already here, just the veil of Māyā prevents our recognition of it. In our work in iRest® we invite connection with what we call the Heartfelt Desire, (though many like to use other terms and that is fine). Eventually we might come to recognise that Whatever we first identify as our heartfelt desire is ultimately that yearning for the wholeness of Divine Perfection.

Watch for the guises in which desire becomes cloaked by the mind … but I need this. But the other is lacking for not giving me attention. But life is unfair and I deserve such and such.

Other literal meanings of the word rāga are to colour or tint; and a musical harmony or melody.

Desire colours the mind and tints our perspective and influences how we see the world and other people. For example: The desire for attention will see everybody else’s attention as belonging to ourselves and we will become demanding of it, even manipulative to achieve it … and this will colour all our relationships.

In Indian music a rāga is also like a scale, but also like a theme upon which variations can be played. And the musical notes present themselves with dissonance and resolution. The dissonant notes will feel imperfect, they crave a resolution. And then of course the resolution comes and the harmony resolves. That dissonant note is the craving for fullness.

Desire, rāga, shows us areas where we may need to expand ourselves more fully. Self-inquiry, as in meditation but also in reflection, can reveal our cravings. OK if we have a craving for peanut butter that is easy to identify, but truly recognising something like our craving for attention may require us to open our eyes somewhat, to be come more self-aware in the small s sense. 

Rāga is not to be rejected, but transmuted.

• Recognise desire, truly
• Trace desire back to its source
• Recognise your yearning for divine fullness
• Allow that yearning to guide you home – you are just following the perfume!

The limitation of time - Kāla

From the timelessness of Pure Consciousness, linear time is a requirement of embodied experience. In pure Consciousness everything is simultaneous, but as embodied beings we experience one moment after another.

Our awareness of linear time also gives us the sense of past and future. Our sense of the past can make us feel guilty, regretful and also nostalgic. Our sense of the future can make us fear, worry, and also fantasize.

It is easy to appreciate the burden of guilt and worry. But less obvious is that nostalgia and fantasy are a burden. But we are grasping at both, attached to both and in that attachment we are missing the middle point.

Poised in the middle is the present moment, so much eulogised in our age of mindfulness practices.

It is the sense of linear time that seems to be the distinguishing mark of the human animal. Do the animals fret with guilt over their past failings or with worry over the potentiality of the future. Do they have nostalgia or do they fantasize?  Well we cannot know for sure but it appears not. Yet the mindful now we humans seek is not that of the animals. It is in our reflection on the past and anticipation of a future that we find a potential for evolution, for growth.

We seek to stay in the present with full awareness of guilt and nostalgia, worry and fantasy, all the while being free of them. Again, the limitation of time, manifesting as guilt or anxiety, nostalgia or fantasy, is welcomed as the pointer to the state of Presence. – The present which constantly flows, is constantly flowing from Consciousness and unfolding as manifestation and is simultaneously reabsorbed into Consciousness.

We can invite the law of opposites to guide us, working with pairs such as:

• Guilt and nostalgia
• Fantasy and worry
• Fantasy and nostalgia
• Guilt and worry
• Nostalgia and worry
• Fantasy and guilt

The limitation of space - Niyati

Niyati is very interesting. It is the limitation that results in us experiencing individuality and separation.

Pure Consciousness has no dimension. You may have experienced this immense spaciousness. In iRest we often ask the question: is there any centre, is there any periphery, inviting the discovery of, no there is not, there is everywhere-ness and nowhere in particular-ness.

(Richard Miller, creator of iRest, has said that that expression he uses so often, everywhere and nowhere in particular, was how one veteran in one of the early PTSD trials at Walter Reid described it, and he picked up those words as being the best representation he had come across.)

Niyati creates the three dimensions of space, in which materiality is possible, and in so doing the sense of location, of having centre and periphery, comes about. And since we also have the sense of not being able to occupy the same space as anything else, the sense of separation arises. Niyati then is the restriction of the formless transcendence that is Śiva itself!

In embodied life we constantly experience niyati by the very sense of our body as a spatial location. We also experience frustrations of space, not having enough of it for example, or the space we occupy not being good enough.

Everyday practice is to reorient ourselves to all our actions being in selfless service. This might seem tricky when we meet our pure motive prayer, I practice out of love for myself, out of a desire to know the truth … until we refine our understanding that it is only in the sense of separation created by niyati that we have a sense of ourself at all, and to serve ourself is to serve all others. HOWEVER, that does not really let you off the hook. In loving yourself, you need not seek endless fruits for yourself, and the more you ardently discover the Truth, the less that is seen as a true goal. And in the prayer for pure motive, it is underpinned by “for the benefit of all beings” which immediately removes “selfish” motive.

In meditation we invite an experiential welcoming of Consciousness – Awareness – as unbounded spaciousness.

That can also be a micro meditation for anytime. Just stop. Expand. Touch into that spaciousness, even if just for a moment.

It is like the dyer dying the cloth. To obtain a really rich colour the cloth goes in and comes out. Then it will go in again, and out, and in again, and so on until the colour is at the rich hue required. So too we are dipping into pure spaciousness, again and again. Eventually we are saturated with it and it never leaves us.

Go to Part 1

Limiting beliefs

What do you notice about this picture?

Do you believe the flower to be imperfect, or perfect and beautiful just as it is?

What if this flower were a person looking in the mirror. Perhaps it would be telling itself that it is not perfect, not beautiful, not good enough. Believing in this it would probably be feeling bad, suffering in other words.

We all have them, those beliefs that limit us.  This article invites you to explore those limiting ideas, what they might be and mean and give you some strategies for seeing them for what they really are. To get the most from it, sit down with a pen and notebook and do the suggested exercises while you read it.

Ready?

See if any of the following resonate with you.

• I am too fat/skinny/unfit/stiff/weak
• People don't love/respect/like me
• I have too much/more/something else to do
• I cannot do or be something as I am too ignorant/young/old/female/male
• I need a bigger/different/better organised/ house
• It isn't possible because I live where I live and not somewhere else

If you can add any of your own to this list. Grab your notebook and jot them down, and jot down the versions of these that most resonate for you as well.  Don't worry about reinforcing them, we are going to work on that.

Take a look at the list. See if you can arrange them under the following headings (some may seem to cross over more than one, just try to make the best fit for the moment.

• I am not good enough
• There is not enough time
• I don't know enough
• There is more I need to do
• I am in the wrong place or lack space

Did they all fit somewhere in thse headings? These categories I have given are not a random choice but a version of the five Kanchukas, or limitations, which the wisdom teachings tell us are clouding our understanding of our true nature.

• Raaga - limited perfection (shows up as desires which seek to fill up that which is lacking)
• Kaala - limited time 
• Vidya - limited knowing
• Kalaa - limited action or doing
• Niyati - limited space (shows up as being confined to a location, as in a body)

But they are not only the limitations themselves but when we start to notice them they become signposts that point us towards our true nature.

• Raaga, limited perfection, points to our inherent wholeness - Perfection
• Kaala, limited time, points to the timelessness of pure Being, which we are - Eternal
• Vidya, limited knowing, points to the all knowing wisdom which is also here, always - Omniscient
• Kalaa, limited action or doing points to there being no doer and the state of not doing that is the state of pure Being - Omnipotent
• Niyati, limited space points to the spacious infinity of pure Being - Omnipresent and Infinite

Now, go back to your list of limiting beliefs. For each of them, find and record next to it, an opposite.

For example, if you have a belief "I haven't done enough" you might take the opposite to be "I always do the best I can" or "I do as much as I can to the best of my ability"

If you didn't get out a notebook and pen, while the others are completing this task, take a moment to think of what prevented you from doing that.  Perhaps it was "I am too busy right now, I just want to read this and get it over with". This would be the limitation of time, wouldn't it? Was there a different reason?  Is there a Kanchuka there?  Not in the right place just now? Limited space. Unsure of where all this is going?  Limited knowing. There is something wrong with being asked to do exercises? Limited perfection. Can't be bothered doing exercises?  Limited action.

OK, so now look at your list and pick the limiting belief that you find most poignant or resonating with you right now in this moment.  Ask your heart and don't hesitate. Take note of the opposite you have created. 

In a moment take some time to sit awhile with your eyes closed and take the limiting belief, and explore what it feels like?  What emotions does it raise? Where does this live in your body? Sit with that a moment and explore it a bit, being curious. Then take the opposite. If you take this to be true, what does it feel like? What emotions does it raise? where is this in your body. For a little while, as long as you like, go between these two opposites. Take enough time to let the belief, its attendant emotions, perhaps memories, and feelings arise and note the bodily sensations that are there, before moving back to the opposite.

What happens?  Does there come a time when they can both be here together?

Now for a critical question. Who is dong all the observing of these beliefs, these memories and emotions, these sensations in the body? Can you just be there, be that?

Why do we chant mantras 108 times?

At the Yoga Australia teacher's retreat in South Australia recently we took the opportunity to chant the Gayatri Mantra 108 times. This is a traditional practice which is why there are 108 beads on a mala. The fingers are run over the beads to facilitate counting while chanting. There is also a tradition in yoga of doing 108 sun salutations.

The question arose later in conversation, why 108? What is it about 108 that makes it chosen as the number of times to chant a mantra or  do sun salutations?

108 is a number that is ascribed mystical significance in Indian traditions but other traditions as well. Here are some attributions:

• The deities of Hinduism often have 108 names. 
• There are 54 letters in the Sanskrit alphabet; with each letter being attributed with a masculine and a feminine aspect, or more accurately Shiva and Shakti, 54 x 2 = 108. 
• There are said to be 108 Gopis or servants of lord Krishna
• In symbolic terms 1 stands for the one Universal Consciousness from which all arises; 0 stands for completeness or perfection which is also fully spacious (empty, void) that is the goal of the spiritual path; 8 stands for Infinity (laid on its side it is a universal symbol for infinity
• In numerology 9 is considered the number of completion and 12 is the cosmic number. their product 9 x 12 = 108, 108 is the Universal number
• 1+0+8 = 9; in numerology 9 represents unconditional love
• Some schools of Buddhism say there are 108 feelings, multiplying the six senses of taste, hearing, smell, sight, touch and consciousness by the three attributes of  painful, pleasant or neutral, multiplied again by the two factors of whether they are internally or externally generated, and again by the three time divisions of past, present or future. 6 x 3 x 2 x 3 = 108
• 18 is a revered number in Judaism. Gifts and charitable donations are given in multiples of 18 (18 x 6 = 108) and in the number 108 the fullness of zero sits inside 18.
• Many Buddhist temples have 108 steps

But none of this really satisfactorily explains why.

The ancient Indians were keen astronomers (and astrologers) and great mathematicians, so I wondered if all the magical mystical significance comes about due to their understanding of the maths and science of it. And it turns out that there are indeed some pretty amazing things about 108 when we turn to science and mathematics. Like this:

• The average distance of the earth from the sun is 108 times the diameter of the sun
• The average distance of the earth from the moon is 108 times the diameter of the moon

At least it would have been as far as the ancients could observe and calculate it - with modern instruments and computers it is a bit off, but still, I am already going wow!

Now for the mathematics.  I have to admit to quite a lot of  "glazing over" when researching this for I am not noted as a mathematician. But it turns out to be a pretty cool maths idea too. See if you can get your head around these:

• 1¹ x 2² x 3³ = 108 (1 x 4 x 27 = 108) - that is called hyperfactorial. But wait there's more!
• 108 is a refactorial number meaning that it is divisible by the count of its divisors, that is it has 12 divisors, 1 and 108, 2 and 54, 3 and 36, 4 and 27, 6 and 18, 9 and 12, and it is divisible by 12
• The measure in degrees of the internal angle of a regular pentagon is 108 (Euclidean space) - this relates back to metaphysical excitement about the number as pentagons are also considered a magical shape.
•  2 sin (^108°/₂) = ᵩ (the Greek symbol phi which means the golden ratio )

• Apparently it is also a "self number", an "abundant number", a "semi-perfect number" and a "tetranacci number" but this is about where my mathematical capabilities resulted in a headache.

I do not know if all of this has resulted in an answer, really, as to why we chant the mantras 108 times and do 108 sun salutes, or why the deities have 108 names, however with such an amazing number, why not?

Many thanks to my daughter Chaitanya Shettigara for her mathematical input ... she actually does understand it all and was most helpful in researching this article.

The dance of ever renewing delight

I recently spent a week on retreat, in silence, while also being in community. Try imagining sitting in a dining room full of other people and talking to no-one. Many find it impossible to imagine.

What a treat it was! And a week did not seem long enough in the end.

Silence doesn't only mean "not talking". It means "not doing anything that will take you away from the ongoing meditation and stilling of the fluctuations of the mind". Pretty much no texting, emailing, reading the frivolous, like Facebook,. I didn't take a computer, and the only book I had was my handbag sized copy of the Yoga Sutras interpretively translated by Swami Venkatesananda, as it goes wherever my handbag goes. I did indeed open and read it on a few occasions at night and during the long afternoon breaks, finding that it could take me deeper, rather than taking me away.

Another text that might have also taken me deeper would have been the Radiance Sutras had I thought to take it. Many of the meditation practices we did on retreat were from the Radiance Sutras.

The retreat was titled "Embodied Awakening" and was led by a very talented teacher, Anne Douglas. The title indicates that the body itself is a gateway to awakening. As we come into a heightened sensitivity to information of the body we start to open all of our perception, including to the experiences that are beyond the body.

Through repeated body-sensing practices, meditation and Yoga Nidra, and by not interspersing this with the things that would take us away, we began to enter a more awake state.  An awakeness that is awake no matter what the state of the body, awake even if the body sleeps, dreaming or dreamless, and awake in a vaster sense than ordinary wakeful states.

The Radiance Sutras are Lorin Roche's beautiful, modern, interpretive translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (c.800CE), a lovely text from the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. The title of this post is taken from Sutra 156.

Let me share Sutras 155 -156 with you.

155
Breath flows
Into this body
As a nectar of the gods. 

Every breath is a whisper
Of the Goddess:
"Here is the ritual I ask of you -
Be the cup
Into which I pour this bliss,
The elixir of immortal peace." 

156
The breath flows out with the sound sa,
The breath flows in with the sound ha.
Thus thousands of times a day,
Everyone who breathes is adoring the Goddess. 

Know this, and be in great joy.
Listen to the ongoing prayer that is breath.
Life shall dance in you
A dance of ever-renewing delight.

Perhaps you are put off by this talk of "the Goddess" so lets talk about that. Who is this Goddess?

The text comes from the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. The "Goddess" is, at a story-telling level, the consort of Shiva, who is sometimes called Parvati, but also is known as Shakti. But such terms are actually metaphorical. This God and Goddess are not personalities, they are the Universe, and they are in fact one. The Goddess is the energetic aspect of Consciousness that causes manifestation. In other words, Shakti causes Divine Consciousness to pulse, and matter to come into being. These concepts have a very nice correlation with astrophysics!

So everything is really Shiva-Shakti, and you can experience this, in your body. Your body becomes a pathway to knowing the Divine and a pathway to returning to the knowledge of your True Nature. So the 112 meditations of the Vijnana Bhairava are 112 gateways of the body to returning to your True Nature.

Here in these two sutras our gateway is the breath. "Be the cup into which I pour this bliss", be receptive to the breath, "be in great joy", "listen to the ongoing prayer", "life shall dance in you".

So next time you are lying quietly - in savasana at the end of your next yoga practice perhaps, or even in bed tonight, waiting for sleep, be receptive, open, listen, feel and quietly let this wondrous experience of the breath be meditation and prayer.

There is a poem about how I was feeling when I returned from retreat here.

You might also be interested in a previous post, Siva - Sakti.

Surrender

Could surrender be the next big step in your yoga practice?

Remember the Niyamas?  They are the second limb of the eight laid out by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. The Niyamas are the personal observances such as purity, contentment, diligence, and introspection. The fifth Niyama is "Ishwara Pranidhana".

Ishwara is often translated as "God" but is more of a concept with a wide range of meanings depending on the philosophical underpinning of its use. It could be translated as Higher Self. Depending on belief, faith or lack of it, the word Ishwara may be challenging for some.

Then there is "prandhana". Layered with meanings of devotion, dedication, respectful attention, the word often is translated as "surrender".

The English word surrender may seem to render us weak. Vanquished armies surrender, the loser surrenders. Is Patanjali asking me to be a loser? It is possible that the whole concept of surrender does not sit easily with us, especially for individualistic Westerners in a culture that makes dominance a virtue. I might think that if I surrender I will become a door mat, and the I that is doing that thinking rebels against that.  This is the ego-I at work.

Furthermore, "surrender to God" might really be a step too far!

Surrender is the ultimate act of letting go of our ego. Love is surrender. Think of a time when you were consciously loving, filled with love for another. Love places the other ahead of oneself, and as such it is devotion, dedication, respectful attention and surrender. The ego-I that does not wish to be a door mat has no place in a heart filled with love.

Patanjali points us to surrender to "Ishwara" as this is the path to move beyond that ego-I that stands in the way of our unification and wholeness with the ground of our Being. It doesn't really matter how we conceive of Ishwara - for some it will be Jesus, for others Mother Mary, or God, for others an Earth Mother, or Siva ... that which resonates with the individual is what is important.

Whether we are on the mat or in daily life, the fifth niyama invites us to dedicate all action and all inaction to that higher force, so that we can shift that ego-I out of the way and transform our lives into an congruous flow of love and wholeness.

When you are next on the mat practising yoga, could you surrender, to the breath, to release, to the felt sense of the shape you are adopting? Could you surrender thoughts to sensation, sensation to just being?

How to catch a monkey

• Take a coconut and drill a hole in it just big enough for a monkey's open hand to fit through.
• Tie the coconut down to the ground
• Put something inside the coconut that the monkey will find irresistible, such as peanuts or banana
• Wait

The monkey will soon come along and reach inside the coconut to grab the delight inside. But with his fist firmly around the treat he is unable to draw his hand back out. The monkey is most reluctant to let go of the treat and remains trapped!

This simple method of catching the monkey is a parable for our own suffering. Our attachment keeps us trapped in the condition of suffering.  Just as the monkey would only need to let go of the bait to be free, all we need to do is to release our attachment.

The Buddha gave the three causes of suffering to be attachment, anger and ignorance.

Patanjali, who wrote the "Yoga Sutras" lists five causes: ignorance (of our true nature); our ego, which defines us as many things, but blinds us to our true self; attachment, like the monkey; aversion or resistance, which is the flip side of attachment; and, fear of death. 

We are advised by the sages to still the mind. I suspect that this is even harder for modern people in the information age to do than it was before the endless barrage of electronically conveyed visual sand mental stimulation. 

I have noticed that when people come to meditation courses quietening the mind is often one of their motivations, yet when people sign up for asana classes relaxation, flexibility, strength and fitness are more often the reasons given. It doesn't matter really. 

If we learn the techniques of meditation we learn techniques to still the mind. It will however be challenging.

In a movement based asana practice, we may first engage in the outward sensations of the body, and the mind may be challenged initially to connect with the body, to discover a sense of its place in space. We may be confronted by limitations of the body. Yet the more we practice, the more we familiarise with the poses of yoga, the more we begin to turn inward, and the practice becomes a moving meditation. In the end we do begin to open to ourselves, to the possibility of discovering our true nature.

Cultivating right attitudes

First published in "on the Mat", the newsletter of Yoga Spirit Studios

Switching on the news can be quite depressing can't it? We should ensure we are informed about what is happening in our world, hiding our heads in the sand will not help. But there is so much violence, and so many people swept up in terror, death and destruction. I find myself very moved by it and frustrated too that as individuals we can do nothing to change it.

What we can do is cultivate the right attitudes in our own heart, ensure that we are wiring our own brains towards non-violence.

Non-violence, or ahimsa is the first practice that Patanjali offers in the Yoga Sutras, the very first of the yamas, which is the first of the eight limbs of yoga he lays out in Book 2, the Book on Practice.

However today I am drawn by a sutra in Book 1, sutra 33.

The mind becomes quiet when it cultivates

friendliness in the presence of happiness, 

active compassion in the presence of unhappiness, 

joy in the presence of virtue 

and indifference toward error. 

Sounds easy enough. But is it? In this sutra we are being given the clue to much needed equanimity in the face of all we meet, equanimity that will guide us into right action to fulfill our responsibilities.

Friendliness in the face of happiness: Sometimes another's success serves to remind us of our own failings and this may set our minds in an unfriendly direction. cultivate friendliness. Note the feelings of unfriendliness if they arise, invite it in, and then also invite friendliness. Move back and forwards between them. You will find that the unfriendliness loosens its grip upon you and you have cultivated friendliness.

Active compassion in the presence of unhappiness: It is relatively easy to be compassionate in the face of a friend's bereavement but what about the unhappiness of a homeless person, or a drunk or drug addict. Faced with the homeless person, drunk or drug addict, right there in front of us, do we feel compassion or aversion? First we can note that tendency, but then can we open ourselves to be with the other's suffering, acknowledging our oneness?

Joy in the presence of virtue: Is there a contraction present when we see the good works of others, perhaps because we feel ourselves to be unworthy or incapable of such giving? Note that. Then can we cultivate, feel its opposite as joy?

Indifference towards error: Why indifference? Does that mean we should not act when error is present, as in the bombing of children or passenger planes? The lesson here is to note the passion, the sadness, the anger, and the sense of impotence that arises in the face of error, note it and welcome it, and then chose equanimity, (indifference) as its opposite and cultivate that. Then we can act from the correct place, we can respond rather than react.

So much of the ever spiralling vortices of violence we see are fuelled by unskillful reaction based on hatred and fear. Patanjali offers another way and what better place to start than with ourselves, where we can act to make a change.

Patience, perseverance, optimism and faith

Ram Dass wrote in his book Be here, now: "If you think you are enlightened, go and visit your family." The message is that the road is long and the potholes many if we are applying ourselves to our personal growth, the spiritual journey.

I often disappoint myself! Just when I think I am making progress, peeling off the layers of conditioning and learning to respond from the supportive home ground of Being, I bump up against my limitations and I react. Rats!

No point in cursing. I just have to welcome the limitation and get back to the meditation, and practise, practise, practise. Keep on dipping into Awareness, practising meeting what arises with welcoming, and repeating the heartfelt desire expressing that I am not limited by all of that conditioning.

I remain hopeful and am grateful for the fabulous tools that yoga teaches us. It can take some time to find the tools that will resonate for our unique vibration. I am also grateful that I have found the tools of iRest® Yoga Nidra, with its core principles of Well-being, Welcoming and Witnessing Awareness, and its delectable practises.

Your path may be different. Yours might be fishing or walking and the meditative experience that gives you! Whatever our path, at the end of the day we need patience, perseverance and optimism to stay the course.  We might fall off, but we can always jump back on.

We also need faith.  Not blind faith, but faith that we do have the tools that will serve us well and guide us home. I wish you all faith in your path. Om shanthi.

Namaste

First published in "On the Mat" September 2011

Namaste - though it literally translates as "I bow to you", some say it signifies "the Divine in me salutes the Divine in you".

First day of September was Ganesh Chaturthi this year. How apt! Lord Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, is propitiated for all new beginnings, and spring is a great new beginning. It followed closely upon the birthday of Lord Krishna, Krishna Jamnasthami, on 22 August. 9 September is Onam, a harvest festival in the southern state of Kerala. Soon arising on the Hindu calendar are Navaraatri, the nine nights of celebration of the Goddess in her many forms, commencing 28 September, and Diwali, the festival of lights, on 26 October.

Always comfortable with paradox, Hinduism has many deities, yet still acknowledges just one Divine Presence. Whether we focus on the Divine Mother, powerful Shakti, the Remover of Obstacles or the Divine cowherd, all are aspects of the one, and the One is everywhere, including in ourselves.

When we salute the Divine in other people and in other life forms, and treasure it in ourselves, we have the foundation of Ahimsa, non-violence and compassion, first of the Yamas which comprise the first of the eight limbs of Patanjali's Yoga. To acknowledge the Divine flowing through us all, how could we not be compassionate.

Shiva - Shakti

Everything manifests as a duality. Can you think of the idea of hot, if there were no cold?

In Indian philosophy, Shiva and Shakti are like this, the one does not exist without the other.

Shakti, from the Sanskrit "Shak" - "to be able", is the enabler, the dynamic force which manifests the Universe.

Shiva is the transcendent ground of being.

Without Shakti, the ground of being remains unmanifested and all that we call our physical reality would not exist.

Different cultures have intuited Shakti by different names, but most have a divine feminine, a Great Mother figure.

Have you ever moved amongst great, old trees and felt an undeniable force emanating, a force that evoked feelings of reverence, even though you may not have had a philosophical or spiritual framework to reference it? At such times we are sensing into Shakti.

In yoga we sensitise ourselves to flows of energy in our bodies. Any flow of energy is Shakti.

So although Shakti is characterised as feminine and Shiva as masculine, both are present within all of us, men and women.