I woke up at 2:15am to do a class at with Lois Steinberg. It was early but soon time seemed quite irrelevant as I sweated and moved, feeling into all those parts of my back I will never be able to see with my physical eyes. The practice of Yoga moves us beyond the realm of the senses to a knowing deeper within. The experience of backbends begins to move us in that direction…we are still operating in the realm of senses, but we are feeling instead of seeing with our eyes.
Lois read from the Yoga sutras at the beginning of the class to inspire the practice. I tried searching for the sutra she used as an example but cannot seemed to find it. Maybe because it’s still beyond my comprehension, ha ha! Meanwhile as I searched, came across quite a fine compilation of the sutras with simple translations at stillnessinyoga.com this sutra spoke to me today…
From Kaivalyapada
3 Sutra IV.3
Nimittam aprayojakam prakriinam varanabhedah tu tatah ksetrikavat
It’s not a matter of stirring the potential tendencies into action but removal of the obstacles. Like a farmer irrigating his field, he removes the obstacle and the water flows freely on its own accord.
This seems to be the entire process of practice. Removal of dust from our eyes so that the light of truth shines through. It’s not that we have to develop our potential, more we have to work on removing whatever obstacle is obscuring it. Once freed of the obstacles the potential will move through us as it needs to. In a way our work and practice is clearing the path.
We repeatedly fall asleep, repeated engaging with narratives and self creation fueled by the defilements of greed, aversion and delusion which prevents us seeing the light. I see this process take over many moments in me. Then what am I to do? Simply come back to the practice. Until holding this unwavering position of the seer repeatedly starts to loosen the bonds the entanglements of karma and samskaras. And the more we stay in this space the more the lure of the senses seem almost ludicrous. Detachment and dispassion is a natural process. It’s giving up the pacifier for the real thing.
When the sages and yogis say we are living in a dream, or that samsara is an illusion. They are right, in a sense that Samsara does not have any independent origination. It is a fabrication of the mind, false construct. The more we stay as the knower and simply watch the process we begin to sense into a inner sweetness that far surpasses all enticements of the senses. Yet Mara’s army, the agents of delusion quickly rise inviting us into the ignorant dream, and we fall into the entangled web yet again.
So what now. I hope intellectually understanding the process, occasionally glimpsing the outskirts of this space of still knowing, inspires me to apply myself diligently to the process of disentanglement.
Now whatever I end up doing, the heart of my interest is to develop this. And in a way this simplifies things for me. To practice with ardency and diligence to wake up from the dream hopefully over a few lifetimes. The conditions of my life are favorable, I have encountered the Dhamma, I can practice the Dhamma and I have the guidance of so many awakened beings to learn from. So that I can remove the obstacles on the way, one by one. As a good friend said yes we are removing the blocks on the path already bathed in light!
