Patañjali and Practice

How challenging it is to stay in the moment!

 -- So many obstacles to seeing clearly what is in front of us.

 -- So many obstacles to just staying here, now, on this page, on this word, now the next...right here, whoa, the street dogs in the field outside sure are raucous tonight ...oops, right here....are you still with me?

You see, our nature is such that we are always thinking, thinking, thinking.  Even when we are not thinking thoughts, our mind is still in "thinking" mode.  Staying with one feeling, one thought, one action, one visual in our brain, really seeing it and understanding it, puts us on the path to understanding our true nature.  The poses, the breathing, the meditation...those are tools to help us train the consciousness not to fluctuate so we can see and understand more clearly.  And it's hard!

Geeta, Prashant and Abhi have been masterfully weaving this philosophy of Patañjali's Yoga Sutras through out their classes.  Each in their own way has focused on the notion of being in the moment.  

Let me share some examples. 

In both the first "swift" class and the second "jumping" class, Geeta Iyengar, emphasized being in the moment even in movement.  Paraphrasing her discourse:  

Every moment you have to watch because when your consciousness will fluctuate is unknown.  The citta doesn’t remain stable.   Every moment has to be noticed when the consciousness is moving.  Every moment has to be observed when the consciousness is silent.   

Making her point about staying in the moment even in movement was woven throughout the asana classes that first week.  Whether we were moving swiftly into or out of a pose, or whether we were preparing to be in a pose, she would catch us with our citta, our consciousness, not in the moment.  One fine example was in Sirsasana (Headstand).  

The pose was called out and while some folks folded their mat, arranged their hands, their forearms, and waited...others dove right in and went up.   Still others went to offer their explanations about why they couldn't do the pose for too long.  And that's when Geeta saw another opportunity to explain: 

"You lose the moments when you go up fast…what movements you need there...watching the movement in the moments you can stop the tricks of the mind and be honest to yourself.  Those who are already thinking of the pain in Sirsasana, and those who are with their ego and are already up in Sirsasana…both have already lost the moment.

Every moment you have to watch, one after the other.  You have to practice in that manner."

My homework for the next personal practice that week was to watch the moments at each part of each pose, but especially Sirsasana, and not rush ahead...exploring the body mind and breath at each moment.   Patañjali (and Geeta) encouraged abhyasa and vairagya,  practice and detachment with an eye toward "heyam duhkham anagatam"..."The pains which are yet to come can be and are to be avoided."  

Prashant Iyengar continues to impress with his storytelling approach to philosophy.  And while one does poses in his class, one isn't being taught the poses in the traditional way of instruction through the asana.  The idea is to do the pose he calls out, but work with whatever idea he is developing in the class, and then come round and sit for more story gems that help illustrate the philosophy.  He often makes himself, and us, laugh with his analogies.

One common theme over the course of my visits here is to distinguish the difference between "doing" yoga and yog.  One class this month was also about recognizing the value of each moment... not to be in a hurry to get to the final pose (doing) but to USE the asana for breath-mind-body connections.   He told of a friend of his, a business owner, who went by train weekly to Mumbai to develop new business.  The friend would ride the train the many hours there, and many hours back, but wasn't able to do much in the way of deals once there.  One trip it occurred to him that he might make some connections ON the train, and by the time he arrived in Mumbai, had created more connections, more business deals than he had ever done Mumbai.  The train trip was the asana, the business deals the connections

Abhijata's classes are infused with her youthful personality and sense of humor.  One day she noted that smrti (memory)  can be both a good and a not-so-good fluctuation of the mind.  Memory allows us to remember how to drive the car, when to arrive for class, how to turn off the gas stove when we are done cooking.  It can also be an obstacle to seeing clearly if we think our memory of something is the only way or that we "know" already, then we are not open to new awareness and learning.

Another class she continued on with this idea, saying, "When you know you are ignorant, then the learning begins."  We were doing back bending poses, and because one can't see the back, understanding and learning have to come through direct perception.  But that too can be illusive...we can think we are working “correctly” but not be integrated in our actions and therefore not experiencing “pramana” (correct knowledge)  but “viparyaya” (wrong knowledge).  She gracefully gave us clues for how to integrate our actions through many poses until we reached the final pose, dropping back from Sirsasana to Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana. 

To read a little on the idea of the moment, see BKS Iyengar's commentary on sutra III.53:  

ksana tatkramayoh smyamat vivekajam jnanam   

"By samyama on the moment and the continuous flow of moments, the yogi gains exalted knowledge, free from the limits of time and space."