Back to Yoga - Week 4 - Brahmacharya - Non-Excess

 

Back to Yoga - Week 4 - Brahmacharya - Non-Excess

 

 

Sutra II.38 of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is brahmacaryapratisthayam viryalabhah .

B.K.S. Iyengar translates this sutra in his book, Light on the Yoga Sutra's of Patanjali as - When the sadhaka is firmly established in continence, knowledge, vigour, valour and energy flow to him. 

 

Often written as control of sexual desires, B.K.S. Iyengar writes that "Continence or control in no way belies or contradicts the enjoyment or pleasure.  It is when sensory pleasure is the sole motivating factor that brahmacarya is infringed.

 

Deborah Adele writes in her book, "The Yama and Niyamas; Exploroing Yoga's Ethical Practice", that Brahmacharya can have much greater implications then just celibacy or abstinence. She writes it is dealing with passion of our sexuality, as well as our other desires, in a manner that is sacred and life-giving, rather than excessive. She recounts a story of meeting an Indian gentleman who even though wealthy and successful chose to remain in the house his father build and required him to bow his head when he entered the home.  He said this simple action of bowing as he entered, reminded him of the sacredness of all things. 

I think this sums up greatly brahmacharya and Deborah writes, "Brahmacharya reminds us to enter each day and each action with a sense of holiness rather than indulgence."

 

In this day of excess of everything from food to work to material possessions, Deborah encourages us to tame our overindulgences.  Much of this has to do with the mind, habits and attachments to emotions we have felt either as good or a way to subdue emotions we wish to avoid. 

 

"Non-excess is not about non- enjoyment. It actually is about enjoyment and pleasure in its fullest experience."

 

"We have to be able to discern between what the body needs in the moment and the story our mind is telling us."

 

Take time this week that allow you to live in non-excess, to know what is enough and stop there.  Practice pleasure without excess.  Reflect and journal on this too.

 

With peace and gratitude,

Pam

 

 

Join me to Celebrate B.K.S. Iyengar's Centenary on December 12th!!

December 14th marks the Centenary of B.K.S. Iyengar.  I would love if you would join me to celebrate this event on December 12th in Christopher Lake at the Anderson Community Centre.

Please contact me to register by emailing:  plnyogastudio@gmail.com

With peace and gratitude,
Pam Nelson

Back to Yoga - Week 3 - Asteya - Non-Stealing

 

Back to Yoga - Week 3 - Asteya - Non-Stealing

 

 

 

Patanjali's Yoga Sutra II.37:

asteyapratisthayam sarvaratnopasthanam

When abstention from stealing is firmly established, precious jewels come.

 

In Deborah Adele's Book - The Yama and Niyamas: Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice, she writes that "Asteya, or non-stealing, calls us to live with integrity and reciprocity. If we are living in fears and lies, our dissatisfaction with ourselves and our lives leads us to look outward, with a tendency to steal what is not rightfully ours."

 

I like how Deborah breaks down a few concepts regarding each jewel so that some light is shone on it in a new way, maybe a way we have not thought of before. 

 

For Asteya Deborah has written about Stealing from Others, Stealing from the Earth, Stealing from the Future, Stealing from Ourselves, Shifting Our Focus and Building our Competence.  I'll only elaborate a bit on a few of these so please read her book to delve more into these ideas and also more of the Questions for Exploration at the end of each chapter.

 

Stealing From Others

 

Deborah writes, "An outward focus leads us to compare ourselves to others and send our energy into their lives in unhealthy ways.  When we compare ourselves to others, we either find ourselves lacking, which makes us feel somehow cheated, or we find ourselves superior, which leaves us feeling somewhat arrogant."

This comes from a place of unhappiness with our own situation.  When we genuinely care for others we can find ways to be supportive and uplifting.

 

Stealing From the Earth

Daily we steal from the earth in a way that is becoming irreversible. I like how Deborah puts it, "You wouldn't go to a friend's house for dinner, complain about the food, leave your trash lying around , and walk off with the candlesticks because you wanted them. And yet this is so often how we treat our world."
She goes on saying, that we are visitors to this land, to our bodies, to our minds. "The ownership of things is steeped deep in our language and culture and makes it hard for us to appreciate the extent to which nothing really is ours.

"Imagine wheat would happen if each time we took something, we gave something back."

 

Stealing From the Future

"We are not only stealing from the earth, we are stealing from the future and from our children and their children in such massive proportions ..."

 

"We have lost our sense of gratitude. Our focus seems to be on what we don't have or what we might not have in the future, rather than on the abundance right before us."

 

To me this truth seems a bit grim.  I think to many of us we feel small and wonder how can we help, so we continue to get caught up in the cycle of seemingly not caring. I think it does take just making some small, but valuable changes to how we want to be treated and then we will begin to treat the earth in this manner.

 

Deborah writes that we must take the time to reflect and contemplate so we no longer steal from others, the earth or ourselves. 

 

 

Some ideas Deborah gives to journal and reflect on:

-Notice when and how you steal from others through time, attention, "one-upmanship", power, confidence, and not being able to celebrate others successes. Notice what is happening in you that prompts this stealing.  Try to counter this with ways that will uplift the other person in your presence.

 

-Notice where you are stealing from the earth and stealing from the future. 

 

-Try and live as a visitor



 

With peace and gratitude,

Pam

www.plnyoga.blogspot.com

 

One Hundred Days of Celebrating B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes and Sutras - Day 61-70

 

One Hundred Days of Celebrating B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes and Sutras - Day 61-70

 

https://youtu.be/jAKJ915lgMQ - audio of sutras II.36-II.40

https://youtu.be/XkjAGcb4pog - audio of sutras II.41-II.45

https://youtu.be/9MUktvU82F0 - audio of sutras II.46-II.50

https://youtu.be/HCMpr5cdL-M - audio of sutras II.51-II.55

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~~~ This ends the Sadhana Pada  ~~~

 

 

Back to Yoga - Week 2 - Satya - Truthfulness

 

 

Back to Yoga - Week 2 - Satya - Truthfulness

 

 

Patanjali says in sutra II.36 - satyapratisthayam kriyaphalasrayatvam

When the Sadhaka is firmly established in the practice of truth, his words become so potent that whatever he says comes to realization.

 

Deborah Adele writes in her book, The Yamas and Niyamas, Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice, that truth has the power to right wrongs and end sorrows.  It is fierce in its demands and magnanimous in its offerings.

 

This next sentence really spoke to me, "It invites us to places we rarely frequent and where we seldom know what the outcome will be. If we don't approach truth 'with our knees knocking', we haven't really understood the profoundness of this guideline."

 

It is true. When I first started studying the Yamas and Niyamas I read through them and thinking that I am a pretty honest, non-violence, non- greedy, clean, etc. person you kind of skim over them.  It is when I really started to delve in, become more aware, be reflective that I realized how much more to these seemingly simple sutras there is.

 

"Truth demands integrity to life and to our own self that is more then not telling a simple lie."

 

Some concepts Deborah brings forth are:

Being real rather then nice, self-expression over self-indulgence, the need to belong vs. the need to grow, Doing it right the first time, truth is fluid, truth has weight and the power of truth.

 

I will touch on just a few of these ideas and I highly recommend you read this book.

 

Being Real Rather Than Nice:

Deborah tells a story of how her teacher said to watch out for nice people, and that thinking of herself a nice person was a bit confused and put off at first.  I think initially I would feel the same way. We have been taught to be "nice". 

There is distortion Deborah writes between being nice and real. Nice is an illusion, it is an imposed image of what one thinks they should be.  Being Real comes from the center of our unique essence and speaks to the moment from that centre.

 

Self- Expression vs. Self-Indulgence:

Constantly living in a way that distorts who we really are takes a lot of energy and causes us to lose that lust for life. This may cause us to look towards other things to fulfill us.

Deborah writes how this misdirection of energy ends with a feeling of settling for less and we may hid in over eating , over working, etc. rather than doing what we really want to do.

 

"Living the life that cries to be lived from the depth of our being frees up our energy and vitality.  we benefit and everyone around us benefits."



 

I'll just write on one more of her topics.

 

The Need to Belong vs. The Need to Grow:

I think this topic is probably something most of us have felt at least once in our lives. 

The guilt of wanting to belong to a group but also needing to expand and grow. So the truth of our freedom carries the price of guilt.

Deborah writes too how we really belong to many groups; our country, our culture, gender, class, age group, race, religion, family, community, workplace, etc.  All of these groups have rules and belief systems that must be followed to be part of that group. A conflict arises when these rules are not the same anymore as our inner longing.  So we must sacrifice a part of ourselves to maintain our belonging, or we must risk the approval and support of the group by growing. This speaks to being truthful.

 

"Truth rarely seems to ask the easier choice of us."

 

One of Deborah's suggestions is to take time journaling and reflecting on the difference between being "nice" and being "real".  Notice situations where you were nice.  What did this experience invoke in you: What were the results? Notice situations where you were real. What did this experience invoke in you? What were the results? From whom or what do you seek approval? 


Deborah gave a few other great suggestions to do and think about. Maybe I will blog about them one day too!

 

One Hundred Days of Celebrating B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes and Sutras - Day 51-60

One Hundred Days of Celebrating B.K.S. Iyengar Quotes and Sutras

Day 51-60

https://youtu.be/V_aB_rLnHZ4 - audio of sutras II.21-II.25

https://youtu.be/_3dMouLpwUo - audio of sutras II.26-II.30

https://youtu.be/EW6Myw7Na8k - audio of sutras II.31-II.40