"It is more salutory to carry out your own Law poorly than another's Law well; it is better to die in you own Law than to prosper in another's."
~The Bhagavadgita, translation by Buitenen
Okay, it started out harmless enough. Sweet little nothings from The Universe in my inbox every morning to get my day started off on the right foot. I'm good with that. For the record, I'm also good with puppies and recycling.
But is it just me or are these missives degenerating? Are we on the slippery slope from the inane to the insidious?
Case in point:
"I'm alright with the concept of Karma as it's generally understood, bernadette, kind-of, sort-of.The idea of spiritual contracts is pretty nifty, too. You've always been a wheeler-dealer.
Except, of course, if either were laws, you wouldn't be unlimited.
Not even a little.
Oh well, they were cute ideas for awhile.
The Universe"
Lemme get this straight--The Universe is just kind-of-sort-of okay with Karma? It's lukewarm on the concept of connectivity? Um, the idea of cause and effect, which affords us understanding and empowers us to be effective in the world, was simply a CUTE IDEA FOR A WHILE? What kind of idiocy is THAT? Yeah, you heard me. I'm disgruntled with The Universe. Cancel my subscription.
So much for starting off on the right foot. Oh well. Everyone knows that tantrikas always lead with the left foot anyway.
Harumphhh.
I just got an e-mail from a friend in San Francisco asking me what I know about Shivaratri, the great night of Shiva, which is tonight. Um, or possibly tomorrow night. Depending on which online Indian calendar is correct. Anyway, on the dark night of Shivaratri, before the birth of the new moon, Shiva dances the anandatandava (dance of bliss) and we're reminded to revel in the gift of life. Shivaratri is the one night of the year on which devotees may say Shiva's mantras aloud all night.
A couple of years ago I was in the jungle the night Shivaratri fell. We were a typical yoga group--fairly earnest, sort of geeky, awfully sweet. The bunch of us tramp off through the dark to make an offering. The path to the ocean was deemed too long, too craggy and with too many fanged creatures in between. So instead we detoured, carefully floating our offering of flowers and candle in a heart shaped shell upon the surface of a reflecting pool in the backyard. The candle, of course, promptly fizzled out, our holy Shiva buoy listing mournfully, going nowhere in a hurry.
Upon retrospection, it is altogether possible that this is exactly what my teacher means when he warns us not to go around acting like idiots. That would be me paraphrasing.
On the way back we encroached upon leafcutter ant turf. They let us know about it swiftly and decisively. Painfully. Most of us ran off howling, a la Shiva, shaking ants from our bitten ankles and toes. I seem to recall one guy with his foot submerged in the toilet in his zeal to rid himself of the fiery critters. Some time has passed though, so my imagination may be painting over the facts.
Needless to say, it was awesome.
I hope you all have memories as sweet.
This year, for Shivaratri, behold: online abhisheka.
Seriously, do you not LOVE the internet?
Oh, I guess I should tell you tht abhisheka is a form of consecration, anointing or ritual bathing. The ablution (water, milk, honey, ghee, rosewater, etc.) may be offered to a deity, person or sacred object.
My plan is to abhisheka myself into a hot bath.
Maybe even order a pizza.
May you be bathed in blessings.
May you recognize the blessings you've already been bathed in.
May the world be blessed for your blessings.
Happy Shivaratri.
Ksanti--[ kshân-ti ]
-noun
1. patience; forbearance
The kind of resolve that's so strong
that you relax into it.
Dissolve into it even. . .
What do you want that much?
One of the most ancient celebrations to grace the calendar, Divali, begins this Saturday, October 21st.
"Diva" means lamp, or to illumine.
So Divali is the Indian Festival of Lights.
But it's not just an Indian holiday.
Know what its Western counterpart is?
Anyone?
What's that you say?
Samhain? The ancient Celtic New Year?
Y'all are so smart.
If you're not the witchy type, though, it may be more familiar to you as Halloween.
Whatever name it goes by, this festival is about marking a particular moment in the fabric of reality,
a liminal reality (www.dictionary.com), a particular moment in time and space
in which the veil between the worlds is thin
and a seam is created.
Here's what my teacher (www.rajanaka.com) has to say about it:
"Divali is the intersection between light and dark,
between now and then,
between life and death.
It's a moment in which a seam is created,
a moment in between,
like the space between the breaths,
like the space between the beats of the heart,
like the moments between waking and dreaming."
The thing about the realms between-
everything is possible;
everything converges.
And the thing about that?
Those in between places-
they're dark
and more than a little perilous.
Anything could happen.
So we shine a light.
It's a universal response.
Divali-or Samhain or Halloween-
it's about casting light
at a time when things go bump in the night.
In India it's done with lamps.
In the West, with JackO'Lanterns,
with tricks.
With treats.
May you shine brightly.
May you light up the night.
Happy Divali.
Boo.
Samtosha is the practice of cultivating contentment.
Chaturanga is a pose that took me years, literally years, to learn.
Is cultivating contentment harder than holding chaturanga long enough for the self-timer on the camera?
Yessiree.
Some days yoga is hard.
I love teaching yoga.
It reminds me to be a student first.
There's no greater motivation for knowing my stuff than knowing that I'll shortly be facing a room full of people who expect me to know what I'm talking about. And if I'm not interested in the material then why in the world should they be? It's what I think Shakespeare meant when he said, "to thine own self be true." If I'm not having fun then there's zero chance that anybody else is.
Here's one lesson that I really take to heart:
good yoga draws things into deeper relationship with one another. So, what if we did that with the yamas (the 5 things you should theoretically be trying not to do) and the niyamas (the 5 things nice yogins endeavor to do)?
The yamas and niyamas are a set of 5 DOs and 5 DON'TS,
kind of like the ten commandments, or like Cosmo,
get it?
Normally they're considered as 2 individual lists of 5,
sort of separate but equal,
but what if we looked at them in a whole new way-
as 5 complementary pairs?
Let's set them side by side and see what happens.
Starting at the top, our first victims are sauca and ahimsa-
purity and non-harm.
While sauca is often thought to mean "cleanliness," my teacher (www.rajanaka.com) translates it, "purity."
It's tempting to think of purity as a sort of cleanliness.
Especially if you come to yoga feeling just a little impure, just a little shy of measuring up to whatever standard it is you think you're supposed to be meeting. If you start out feeling a little sullied then getting clean is a pretty good solution to your problem.
Yoga makes a great all purpose detergent--
it will scrub your heart stainless, press smooth your agitated mind and fold your body neatly.
If that's what you're trying to do.
(And don't get me wrong.
I like a fastidiously aligned yoga mat as much as the next quirky yogin does. Probably more.
Okay, definitely more.
Um, about that protractor in my mat bag. . .)
Of course, it's hard to know just how clean you're going to need to get.
My teacher asks, "When would you finally be pure enough?"
It's easy to turn sauca into an ideal that slips beyond reach just when you think you're getting close.
But what if purity meant something else entirely?
What if it meant being true to one's nature?
What if it meant being true to yourself?
Gold is pure in this way.
It never tarnishes because it never forgets what it is.
Under every condition it remains
gold.
Think of purity as a sort of authenticity,
as an offering that comes freely and ungrudgingly from the heart.
Sauca, as a practice,
is the practice of offering who you really are.
Sauca means to draws us into contemplation,
to invite us to inhabit the inner landscape, to journey inward.
Realistically, to offer the best of yourself, you must first know who you are and what's yours to offer.
Sauca says, "don't worry about which way the wind of popular opinion is blowing or what the world will think of you."
Instead it asks:
"What do you think is sacred?
How will you embody those teachings?
How are you becoming them?
How are they becoming you?
What are you offering to yourself?
What are you offering as yourself?"
Offer yourself the taste of your own yoga before you offer it to anyone else.
Those are words to live by. Take them to heart.
I practice them every time I teach because they're deeply true.
They're just not the ENTIRE truth.
Because, let's face it, if I'm not connecting with my students then there's no yoga happening.
Literally.
If we're not creating connections isn't it all a bit. . .
masturbatory?
And really--
if there's not a connection,
if there's not real yoga happening,
then we might spare ourselves the trouble of coming to class and just stay home.
Home has cookies.
Sauca's complement is ahimsa, non-harm.
Ahimsa, and its companions, the rest of the yamas, remind us that we don't just live in the world within.
There's a real world out there that we share with other people and our words and actions have a real affect on them.
Sauca and ahimsa are reflections of one another.
How likely is it, anyway, that your most authentic desire is to meet your own needs at the expense of anybody and everybody else? If your practice brings you to the conclusion that "hurray for me and screw you" is an appropriate mantra then, well-
you've got bigger fish to fry than we can deal with here today.
Draw sauca and ahimsa into deeper relationship and they remind us that part of who we are inwardly is what we do outwardly. They point to a world of connectivity and relationship that is ours to negotiate.
But it's not ours alone.
What if the yamas and niyamas are inviting us into a paradox?
What if they're asking us to live more responsibly
inwardly AND outwardly AT THE SAME TIME?
What if the yamas and niyamas go hand in hand
and what if, like hearts,
they reveal more about themselves
in relationship with one another?
Tasmai Sri Gurave Namah.
