Ishwarapranidhana

The formless in all the forms,
The larger religion beyond all other religions:
Of the ground beneath at Theosophical society,
Of the morning fragrance - my daughter sleeping next to me,
Of the peacock's screech at Ramanasramam; 
Of the chaitra mooon beckoning me at Gorakhpur. 

The eternal source of inexplicable connections in life, 
Big and small, my Yoga Sangha - 
The miracle of a bird's flight, this airbus taking off.
The wait for the coming of a baby,
A student's pregnancy.
The invisible bonds of friendship,
my friend calls me from her world. 
The overflowing devotion of temple bells at Lucknow.
The kindness in the waiter's eyes there,
Offering me tea well beyond tea-time,
Sensing that I needed it. 
The laughter and togetherness of co-sadhakas,
Moving in the same direction---
But of course! we are on the same plane! 
The efficient care of Chattisgarh,
Welcoming 'Tings!' of teachers' sharings on WhatsApp - 
The love of my partner, watching a movie with me over a phone call,
While waiting until 11 p.m. for a bus.
Much needed sleep and rest - 
Coming to my mother's place. 

To all you myriad forms,
holding the formless in such beauty, 
I surrender. 

Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄ - Possible Practice

The current piece on the practice of Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄ (Yoga sutra, I.36) is a spin-off from another ongoing inquiry on identity - see here and here.  I have until now not given much reflection to this sutra.  Until there was a conflict with it.  During the reflection on Identity, I had interpreted the sutra's process to happen in completely the opposite sequence to what it traditionally states, to fit it to my own experience.  

The sutra classically talks about finding the inner light that ends sorrow - one in a series of methods that Patanjali offers to help in stilling the mind and removing the obstacles that occur in the yoga practitioner's path.  As explained by one of my yoga teachers, Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄  is based on a "particular practice of seeing the light travel through the Nadis, emanating from the Daharam, the minute space where the prānā, jeevātma and paramātma reside".   All this is well and good, but what light? What exactly to practice? How can I locate and work with it grossly? This sounds so esoteric; it's not for me!  With these jumbled thoughts, I dismissed it after a gentle tug of war with my teacher about my interpretation and adding a clarifying footnote in one of the posts mentioned earlier.  I wanted to get back to my original inquiry.  

However, while I was sort of hurrying to be on and going with further reflection and writing on 'Identity', some part of my mind wouldn't move.  I felt like a dog with a bone - no logical thinking or quiet reflection or anything of that sort, just some serious gnawing. My mind was simply stuck with my śoka of Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄;  included now into the 'identity' bag.  The irony.  The sutra and my teacher were surely sharing a laugh over a cup of coffee. 

Because, while I am appreciating the irony, it strikes me that perhaps trying to end sorrow could only lead to more sorrow.  My inquiry and insights therein, are because of staying with my perception of identity, that is staying with my sorrow, looking at it deeply, as opposed to trying to get away from it, or end it.  

So perhaps because I stayed with my tension, the Universe decided to open up for me some simple ways to try and touch this sutra and what it could mean classically.  And initially at least with very seemingly gross aspects of yoga practice - namely āsana and chanting.

In total coincidence (and not), during the group āsana-prānāyāma practice at my yoga community, the instructor for that day brought as focus, prānā. She spoke about the prānā emanating from the heart space, mixing with the outside and then going back to rest there again. So we moved with this bhavana of prānā emerging from the heart space with every inhale, moving out and expanding and then, residing therein with every exhale. This in itself was a revelation, and changed the quality of the practice. As the practice drew me deeper, it felt like some fine energy with my breath was moving my arms above my head as I inhaled, a subtle quality to my breath as I exhaled, which moved my body down to a squat, and thereon gracefully roll back to lie down with arms stretched out on the floor behind my head. In what subtle way was my body moving? I simply noticed that one side of my hip was a little raised than the other, and saw clearly why it was so. Without the usual struggle to get it down. I simply noticed that the misalignment and tilt with the left knee had reduced a wee bit more, without pleasure, and without the usual struggle of trying to get it to align, and without the pain of remembering its causes. I noticed that there was a lack of the usual pleasure and struggle while simply noticing the body, its being and its movement. I was aware of the quality and fineness of my breath throughout that practice. I felt a constant and conscious expansion in the space inside me. 

During prānāyāma, I noticed / recognised yet again that there were layers and layers to our noticing and awareness. So then it came as no surprise when our instructor explained what we are going to be chanting at the end of the prānāyāma - she lead us with vedic chanting of the panca maya koshas - I affirm in progression that I am the body, I am the energy and so on, until moving deeper and deeper, Aham Anandam, I am joy / bliss, and then again that I am all of of this, and then simply, I AM.  Layers and layers of the self.

As we chanted and let the vibrations of the chanting reverberate outside and within and gradually subside into silence, I remembered the Laghunyasam chanting and moving descriptions given by another yoga teacher and friend of mine.  Explaining the portion of the laghunyasam that we had chanted, she spoke about placing oneself in the context of the isha within. Very soon, she'd led another session where we discussed ishwarapranidhana, surrendering to the highest intelligence / ishwara.  And in the silence after the chanting that day, it was the laghunyasam that was resounding in my heart and peace abound. 

For me all of this came together as different threads towards an active practice in the path of Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄, some attempts to touch this sutra: 
- an āsana practice with the bhavana of prānā born in the heart space, through the union of purusha and prakrti every breath
- chanting of the pancamaya with the bhavana of each veil being removed and going deeper with every chant, and then including all, seeing the totality
- an active recall and practice of ishwarapranidhana

As I finish this note, I remember an important aspect of tradition, two words, that Chaturvedi Badrinath describes succinctly in his "Mahabharata, An Inquiry into the Human Condition" and want to say them to myself, neti neti. Badrinath's description: "One of the most significant contributions of the Upanishads has been that in the search for reality, no one proposition about reality could ever be a complete statement about it. Hence their suggestion that, to every statement concerning the nature of reality, the word neti should be added-- and repeated twice. Unfortunately the word neti has always been translated wrongly as 'not this not this' which completely misses its proper meaning. Composed of two words, na + iti, it clearly means 'not yet the end', 'not yet complete'. Neti does not mean 'not this' but 'not this alone'. Something more remains to be said. In its inquiry into the human condition, the Mahabharata applies this discipline of neti neti, it is not this alone, even more rigorously. The discipline of neti neti is quite as much an ethical discipline in the service of truth as it is an intellectual discipline in the service of knowledge."

And so I attempt to hold all of this lightly, and with tentativeness, knowing that there is a lot more to come, a lot more to learn and this is not the entire picture, not close.

A Soliloquy on Identity - Part II (Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄**)

In part I of this soliloquy, I had talked about seeing reality as is, and about a sense of lightness when I drop all my luggage in perception (my filters), and seeing as is. I had had this feeling of lightness, of not being weighted down when some of the filters dropped.  I had also mentioned in consequence, finding the inner light that ends sorrow, Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄**.  

While examining the identity statement that I had mentioned in Part I, “I am a Yoga teacher, therefore I am”, some scenarios came up when I was almost violating another’s space by imposing my yoga solutions onto the situation.  I looked at one of them from various angles.  For example, I asked myself, “what if I did not play the role of a yoga teacher in that space / situation”. Instead, I played only the primary role - that of a friend in said situation. What would I have said and done and not said and not done? How would it have played out? Some clear visuals emerged wherein I was demonstrating being that yoga teacher, true to the qualities of one as I see it and as I have studied, and true to being a friend, listening completely, than when I had carried the tag of ‘yoga teacher’ in me. When that tag (extra baggage) dropped, I felt free, content, unburdened, and there was a burst of light in the region of my heart. This was momentary, and brought to mind, Patanjali’s sutra, Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄** (YS 1.36). In retrospect, it was an apt sutra that presented itself to my mind - because, as it happened for me, when inner disturbance (caused by my stuckness to an identity) subsided, even for a moment, the pain of it also did ( I felt free of it,viśokā), thus discovering inner luminosity (jyotiṣmatị̄) - my burst of light.

However, beyond the momentary feeling, all this is pure speculation on my part to try and fit the sutra to that experience because they happened contiguously. I also see that I am “attached” to my insights and experiences in swadhyaya, such that I cannot edit them out in even in presentation. And this word, attachment, is important, as my examination seemed to point out to me, which I will come to by and by.

The fleeting high faded and the tension of the examination returned in the next few moments with a question that my mind threw up, “but I am a yoga teacher, how can I not own up to it, there must be ways where I can keep my commitment to being a yoga teacher and still not violate another”.  Alright then.  I took a deep breath and parked the question for the next day’s āsana-pranayama time, allowing it to simmer in the back chambers until then.

So, I decided to dig into the dense phrase, “I am a yoga teacher” - what in the beingness of the yoga teacher do I identify with?

1. My personal practice of āsana and prāṇāyāma is a non-negotiable part of me being a yoga teacher, because it is the practice that reveals to me what I can teach. However, does this mean that I will not practice if I am not teaching actively? No. My time on the mat is also in some ways the bedrock of my swadhyaya.  I understand my own intentions, emotions and directions deeply, and any ability to stay anchored and dance with all of this comes through my practice. So while the identity of yoga teacher includes in itself the component of āsana-prāṇāyāma and meditative practices, these are today a part of my functioning as a coherent human being.  So in fact, this is a part of my identity as a human being and I can probably ‘lose’ my practice only if I lose my memory, in which case I would not remember any methods and techniques to innovate and create new spaces and ways of sustaining practice and so on.  The process of slowly eliminating component after component of my yoga practice and seeing what remains, that I had written about more in Part I, has been viscerally important, because it confronted head-on some key fears that I held (hold?), and lent itself to discovering the creative ways of working with and sustaining my practice that I had just mentioned above. And hence, I also challenged the attachment that I felt to different parts and aspects of my practice, and the benefits that I think I am getting thereof.  This is when some part of the denseness of the identity started clearing up. Could I go through my practice and its experience, being committed to it, and yet not get attached / stuck to any of it such that I can move on when the next moment presents a new situation to me?  An example that presented itself to me: we all say “get on the mat” for doing the practice, and I use this term quite seriously and extensively - I realised that the āsana component of the practice was (is?) something in the zone of attachment for me. The few days that only prāṇāyāma is possible, surface level acceptance would actually be hiding dissatisfaction. Fine then, what if I cannot “get on the mat”, for practice? What if I could only sit on a chair and breathe? What if my practice could consist only of prāṇāyāma?

This process has moved me definitively in the direction of carrying my practice lighter, and much more in the realm of, it being a commitment and responsibility, which I believe is vital in the smaller and larger social contexts that I live in.  The idea of carrying my practice lighter is something I will examine later.

The discussion is about what in the beingness about a yoga teacher do I identify with.  To continue,

2. It seems very important to me that I help others with their healing and learning processes (and particularly in and through the framework of yoga).  I find such empowerment, continue to heal and understand phenomena in finer ways, in and through my yoga practices, that it becomes crucial for me to facilitate this for others. Why does the latter feel consequential to the former? I have an idea and will get into it through the conversation.  I work with therapy - using āsana and prāṇāyāma courses and techniques therapeutically, say, to alleviate pain, to work with stress, handling disease and disorder and so on.  Āsana and prāṇāyāma practice is like a magic potion that works in miraculous ways to heal the body.  Where nothing else moved my chronic wheezing disorder a millimetre, my yoga practice did.  And how! The key inspiring factor for me in this process is that the raw material and the medicine is (in) one’s self - body, mind and breath.  One needs nothing extraneous1.  This for me lends passion; it is deeply satisfying for me when another feels this sense of empowerment, say for instance, by arriving at an underlying cause for pain in his / her body.

In one way, this empowering that another feels justifies for me my personal practice.  My body and mind is the laboratory.  Teaching another means responsibility, and thus also accountability.  I cannot instruct students without having practiced myself - by this I mean the process of practice, of putting myself through the methods and applications that I may put my students through.  And so we come to the matter of teaching being consequential to personal practice.  I don't exist in a time-space warp of my own - I am made alive and express myself in the contexts and relationships that I live and move in.  And to this extent I am completely connected with everything and everyone around me.  We all experience and manifest these connections in small and big, myriad ways.  I see again and again that my relationship with myself manifests in my relationships with the other.

I believe that it is also a cultural learning and value that I carry - that there is a single thread running through all of creation and all divisions are perceptions.  Hence it is also a logical conclusion that whatever I do to/with the ‘other’ I am doing to/with myself and vice versa. We have grown up listening to stories like that of Ramanuja who was told that sharing the mantra that he had learnt with others would mean that the benefits of the mantra wouldn’t accrue to him, and yet, he went ahead and shouted out his teachings from the top of the temple to all who would listen; listening to the value in many stories like this that puts the other first, in our relationships and in different contexts. I realise that this is a background chant that goes on in my culture.

Like many others that I know, I had made this into an oppressive “should” (‘should put the other before myself’) for the very longest time, judged myself negatively and finding myself limited and yet being pulled and acting on strong desires that seem to put me before others, seeing ‘negative’ outcomes, slapping more judgments on myself, and tightening the ‘should’ noose further. This had become a self-fulfilling, degenerative loop. The obvious but regularly missed twist in the story is that what I do to myself, I do to the other.  As a result, many of what had been judgments on myself, got translated and projected as expectations on and from the other. For instance, I judged, losing my cool in a bus and ranting at someone for not passing my money to the conductor, as totally uncouth and uncalled for. (alright, I called myself worse names!) I am not sure if it is obvious, that then I would / may expect my neighbour in a bus not to yell at me if I were unwilling to pass her / his money because of a genuine circumstance.  And expectations blind us from perceiving and understanding the other’s reality and situation. To cut a longer story short, my yoga process cut into the degenerative pattern and stayed with it, and at some point glimpses of the true value of the cultural learning of oneness started showing up, and continue to do so, in countless connections and interrelationship. What remains mostly is the teaching being a consequence and natural extension of practice - a strong thread holding this identity together.

Then, what if I were not able to teach due to life circumstances? I went through the questioning, eliminating and reflective writing2,3.  This has been a tough premise and process, even painful. My mind either refused to stay with it or offered collusions which I accepted until further reflection established them to be what they are really. By collusion here I mean easy scenarios, conclusions and explanations that the mind presents us with regularly to either hide behind or to cover the truth of the situation.  This is the mind’s way of coping and not looking at hard realities which it is unable to accept.  

What remains is the question for me to stay with.  I realise that I cannot in truth ‘resolve’ it.  This can happen (if at all) only if the situation comes to pass (my mind is automatically saying “God forbid!”), that is, with the experience of it. Until then, any ‘resolution’ will remain intellectual.  Life is happening in the meanwhile and I can be alive, vibrant by staying with the question and hence with the possibilities that get thrown up in my relationship with my question.  I am probably going to dig into this further, later.

For now, to move on with the present discussion of what in the beingness of the yoga teacher do I identify with,

3. It also seems that I seek to be seen and known as a yoga teacher.  This recognition is important for me.  In fact, this conversation on identity began faintly in my mind with a discussion about ‘recognition’ several years ago, with an artist friend.  He was telling me that it doesn't matter to him if he does not get the credits for his work (art).  My point had been that this could be indifference to one’s work / commitment at some level, wearing the mask of virtue.  Today, I think that it could additionally be masking fear of failure or non-acceptance (not necessarily in the case of my friend).  Actually, he was so much at peace (or seemed to be so) with what he was saying, and I felt I knew him enough to think that he is not an ‘indifferent’ person. However, this conversation lodged in my mind to come up time and again, because I realised even then that I seemed to need recognition for my work, for all that I am and do.  

Now, examination reveals that I don’t seem to seek recognition from strangers. It may be fine with me, say, to have my work in the public domain with no one unknown to me, knowing its my work.  I seem to seek recognition from my own world, the people I know, love, respect and admire. I will go down this road a little later.

Right now, I sit down to look at something that has come up a couple of times in the examination, and came up again at present with this question: will I continue to work even if I do not get this recognition from my people?  Yes, I most certainly will, however, the way I work, what I feel while working, my expectations, how much of myself I invest, all of this will depend on the extent of my attachment to the recognition and to the seeking of it.  Here is ‘attachment’ again.  The intensity of attachment I feel to the various aspects of the identity statement seems to be determining their respective forms.  On the surface it may seem obvious: “Hey, you are talking about what you identify yourself with - you are then attached to it, right?” Right. So, let’s dig into that attachment.  Perhaps the matter of attachment is one of degree. Intensity.  When I am stuck in these identities, then I cannot flow with the current.  Then that creates disturbance, suffering. The more intense my attachment to (my idea of) recognition, the more intense is my suffering!

Here is my feeling of viśokā, my jyotiṣmatị̄ again**.  And here is yet, my attachment to the sutra! It’s time to stay and simmer with the question of attachment, and that of attachment to recognition.

---------------
** Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄ - The classical commentary and interpretation of this sutra is "finding the inner light that ends sorrow". As explained by one of my teachers, this is based on a "particular practice of seeing the light travel through the Nadis, emanating from the Daharam, the minute space where the prānā, jeevātma and paramātma reside". It becomes necessary to state this since I have incorporated the sutra into my own experience and interpreted the sequence of the phenomenon to suit me.

1 One of course needs a teacher and may need crutches and aids sometimes to achieve certain functions, but the reader is requested to see the essence of what is being said - that the body-mind-breath is the medicine, besides also, self-effort or Will if you want, which is the raw material (the potential), and hence one already has what it takes.   

² In fact, this series of longform essays is based on the notes from my reflective writing besides the examination and drawing, and then fleshed out with some thinking, studying, and editing and further writing.

³ Reflective writing is meta work. Meaning, it is writing based on what is happening with the writer and the writing while writing; her emotions primarily and secondary processes based on those. It is not writing based on thought, analysis and intellectual processes. However, by the very nature of the writing, this aspect (of form, and process in this case) also comes under the microscope of the process since the dominant and pervasive mental activity of these times seems to be intellectual thought, and it is quite easy for this part of the mind to take over and masquerade.  

The Time of the Eagle

Residing in, and being, that deeply abiding Joy,
Is this fledgling eagle,
Testing her wings,
Trying to wheel,
Trying to glide and soar,
Training her vision.
Practising breathing at high altitudes,
Striving to swoop down on prey -
Diving straight into the water
And SPLASH!
Diving again.
(Just how does Teacher get that perfect dive in and dive out!)
Letting go of those,
That are not friendly to her practice,
Enjoying solitudes and swadhyaya
Discovering intelligence and grace there,
The far horizon of effortless effort.
Establishing herself in eagle-dharma,
And strengthening,
As she recklessly leaps off the cliff,
again and again,
Soaring, swooping, diving, gliding,
Surrendering to the eagleness within.

------------

NOTE: This is a sort of sequel to an earlier post, The Joy of the Eagle. The wish sent out in the earlier post of wanting the joy of the eagle, must have whispered itself to the Universe and thereon into the ears of the Yoga instructor who lead our practice today. She included a meditative practice that focused on the joy in one's heart space, where prana is born every moment, and also a chant, "Aham Anandam" (I am Joy / Bliss). Such are the ways of Life.

Letting Go... Holding

Letting go of this and that and everything
Letting go of zest and zing,
Letting go of peace and settled,
Letting go of the unsettled,
Letting go of control,
Letting go of the goal,
Letting go of expectation,
Letting go of being on time at the station.
Letting go of comfort,
And for that matter, discomfort,
Letting go of effort,
Letting go of emerging triumphant.

Letting go of the pursuit of pleasure,
Letting go of displeasure.
Letting go of the fear of change,
Letting go of the need to rearrange.
Letting go of the anticipation of the future,
Letting go of past-hurts-repair, with suture.
Letting go of achievement,
Letting go of unfulfillment.
Letting go of the result of my yoga practice
And letting go of its process,

Can I breathe in just this moment?
Also letting go of this endowment,
Letting go of all that I am,
and all that I have, including this epigram-
Can I be a container yet-
Playing eternal Romeo and Juliet,
Holding all of the above in steadiness,
While letting go of this question too, with all readiness?

The Joy of the Eagle

The deeply abiding joy of the eagle--
cruising high up near the mountain peak,
eyeing the panoramic whole;
and yet, alert,

swooping down for a kill when necessary,
being careful of what she ingests;
moving joyously towards the oncoming storm,
having already sighted it from afar,
and leveraging on the wings of the wind,
finding further force and strength, and rest
right in the middle of the whirling action;
alone at that altitude, yet not lonely;
possessing great discrimination,
with right and wrong-
and where she places her trust;
investing in the training,
to raise her family-
and sustain her eagle-dharma;
investing in the practice,
that is required to find and be herself;
such that,
when all seems lost,
retreating,
plucking out all her feathers,
laying herself bare,
until, growing anew, afresh,
bringing herself to life again,
she is soaring, gliding, spreading her wings, taking off--
I want that joy.

Moment to Moment

Every moment is a beginning- 
Every moment, an end.
Every moment is what is in-between.

Every-moment then, is an opportunity 
To practice (simultaneity) 
Every moment breathes in 
Newly born Prana,
The coming together of Purusha and Prakruti.

Every moment then,
I am new. 
Every moment is a re-engagement with Life, 
A re-cognition of all that Life is. 
Every-moment can be surrendering to that Life. 

forms and forming

a million possibilities
a zillion paths 
diverge every moment
where is the beginning 
of this path
where is the end of that path
does it matter
such an immense canvas
i am but one speck 
a micro speck 
zeroed in for responsibility 
for i have brought together 
everything in this moment 
around me
and then so have you 
which means 
i am not if you all are not
you are not if everything around you is not 
then where am i
and where are you 
what am i 
what are you 
a million forms 
shifting and shaping themselves 
every moment 
then like i said 
i am responsible 
for every form 
that i have conjured up 
in and around me
including you
and so are you
responsible for every form around you 
including me
every form an angle 
a perspective 
what powerlessness 
how empowering 

A Soliloquy on Identity - Part I (Looking through the lens of the Yoga Sutra)

So many of our routine, everyday statements are identity statements - what I am, what I am not, What I like, What I dont like, What so-and-so does to me, I dont usually....

And I carry all my identities with me, all the time, protect and nourish them, put them in glossy packages, unpack and repack and organise them in various ways.

All these identities create the form of the 'I' - Asmita¹ (YS² II.3, II.6).  This means that the more identities I collect, and create distinct shapes of the 'I', the more distinct, clear form of the 'I' emerges, and gets sharper and sharper.  And I get stuck in that asmita. 

"I am a Yoga teacher, therefore I am" 

Now, wow. That is a strong identity that I seem to be carrying.  Even as I am writing it, I can feel its pull-push. I am quick to put up defences to protect this statement (identity) and my mind seems to be bent on sabotaging any efforts on my part to try and play with this statement, try and drop it and see.  It took a long while for me to stay with trying to drop this. So my hands and feet became cold, my stomach started churning.  I stayed with these sensations and persisted with trying to drop it, by returning to it after every distraction and detour that my mind presented to me.    
What if my limbs do not move, are paralysed? I cant do the āsana practice that am able to do today. I have my breath, my head and neck can still move, perhaps my hip can twist. Alright. 
What if I lost my voice? Maybe I cant facilitate and instruct to teach others.  Perhaps I will come up with other ways to teach. 
I went on in this manner, until I reached bare basics - being left with my breath and mantra for a personal practice. 
Then, what if I started losing my memory...

So, reality is changing all the time. Sat Vada and Parinama Vada - What I am experiencing now is true, and that it is changing is also true. However, I find that my identities are not fluid enough to change and move with reality.  I am stuck in the clear shape of the "I" that I have created.  I only see my identity, not reality. 

How do I see reality, as is? What has helped me is my āsana and prāṇāyāma practice, and swadhyaya.  Though consisting of many methods and exercises to help facilitate self reflection, my swadhyaya has been to a large extent through my āsana-prāṇāyāma practice, locating myself in my body and understanding how it works, and through this, my mind.  This has helped me to at least step in the right direction many times, sometimes to have glimpses of situations, myself, the world around me, without the filter of my identities.  By "step in the right direction" I mean, to begin to notice an identity statement, understand its triggers, origin, how it works (in) me; such that at some point I can begin to work it, play with it and so on.  Something like what I did earlier with the yoga teacher identification. 

When I see reality, as is, there is no identification, no identity, only reality.  I drop all the luggage I am carrying and hence there is a sense of lightness.  Then one may find the inner light that ends sorrow, "Viśokā vā jyotiṣmatị̄" (YS, I. 36).  

But then, I do need identity.  I am reminded of the story of the mendicant and his loin cloth that was told by one of my teachers recently.  That mendicant identified with 'his' piece of loin cloth so much that he slowly started accumulating other identities one after another, in protecting that one, until he had a homestead, complete with wife, children, cows, the works.  His single piece of cloth became his consuming identity. He made it so.  However, what about the will to practice every day?  I need my will to do my sadhana in the direction of "Chitta Vritti Nirodha" (YS, I. 2), when all the movements of the mind cease. That will is part of Asmita, and it is necessary for me, to get to the point where it drops away by itself.  

Until then, I do need the Asmita. Actually, whether I need it or not is immaterial. It remains! All I can do is to acknowledge it, examine it, inquire and stay with my practice.  However, as a Yoga practitioner, I am given a direction, and clear signposts on the path to see if my asmita is moving in the right direction - the Yamas (signposts of ethical conduct) and Niyamas, observances towards self discipline (YS, II.28 to II.32).  

The niyamas, inner and outer purity (Sauca), contentment (Santosha), austerity (Tapas), self reflection / study (Swadhyaya) and surrendering to a higher intelligence (Ishwarapranidhana) are clear ways of quietening the mind / checking in with one's quietening, such that the self more and more stays with itself - self discipline. Prana gets dissipated lesser and lesser as the niyamas strengthen. This gets manifested externally as the yamas - not-violating (Ahimsa), seeking truth (Satya), not wanting that which is not one's (Asteya), moving towards truth / continence (Brahmacarya) and not being covetous (Aparigraha).  Patanjali goes on further to state that staying with the yamas unconditionally, irrespective of circumstances, is a great vow. And I am discovering in my practice that staying with the niyamas facilitate the yamas.  These two for me are intertwined, braided together with the same thread, lending themselves to my favourite definition of Yoga, as relationship, as union (although in seeming contradiction, it is also about separation of the "I" from Identity!). What I do with the other, I do with myself. What I do with myself, I do with the other.  This is a simple truth that has been coming up again and again in my practice.  How much of my fears I project to the people closest to me. How I have been taking on my parents' anger. How much of love reflects and re-reflects like in a hall of mirrors with my children. The niyamas work with the "I" and the "I"; the yamas with the "I" and the "other".  Each reflect the other.  How beauty. 

In considering the beauty of this connection, I feel that all the components of the yoga practice are so woven together, intricately.  I find such logic in the connections that make that fabric.  It is commonly felt and said that āsana practice today has been taken out of the larger context of yoga sadhana itself and practising postures for physical fitness and beauty alone will take us away from wholesome meaning and direction.  However, then that cannot be Yoga. The practice leads us to the next step.  I have found in my āsana practice, that whenever I allow the intelligence of my body to lead the way, I make progress with the practice in whatever way. "In whatever way" is important because many times our minds set goals or targets for the practice that are not in tune with the inherent rhythm and intelligence.  Remember, its a mind that is stuck in its identities.  Hence, the surrendering to the inherent intelligence is a useful check-in. So, whenever I am struggling in the practice, it is more often than not that I have stopped listening to that inherent intelligence, wisdom, and have allowed the mind to take over.  Then I've got to simply exhale, and inhale and allow the practice to fill me.  It will show me the next step.  Vyaasa states in his commentary to YS III.6³, "Yogena Yogo Jnaatavyo; Yogo yogaatpravartate" (Yoga is known by yoga; Yoga becomes manifest by yoga").   And hence, even if practiced for supposedly lesser goals (check-in: this could be an identity statement if we are making it so), the āsana practice could inevitably lead the practitioner to the other components in the path (they are so connected) and thus facilitate meaning and direction. 

But yes, what is required is to get on that mat, every single day. I cant lose my practice. It took me 6 years of irregular, irreverent and piecemeal practice and corresponding benefits before I committed to deep and steadfast practice.  It took another 4 years of that practice, before I was ready for the practice to show me the next leg of the journey. If my practice is consistent, and I keep returning to it without losing my way and I do so again and again because I hold my practice in such faith, reverence, then yes, it holds steady and stable and shows me the next ground to achieve, "Sa tu dheergakala nairantarya satkara adhara asevito drdha bhoomih" (YS I.14). It is just right here to pause and feel the gratitude for a teacher who had immense faith in me and never let up on me, never gave up on me. It took a while before it sunk in that it is simply her process, her faith in her practice that propelled and reflected her. How best can I honour this tradition of teaching and learning than to offer her and all my teachers and this tradition (where the greatest teachers have teachers), all my practice and continue the work.  

So the more work I do, intense āsana-prāṇāyāma practice, and understand through āsana more and more of how my body works, and through that, my breath and my mind, initially going in and out of swadhyaya and then at some point, firmly being established in the ground and practice of swadhyaya, more are the insights that I seem to gather about the workings of the "I" and the world and the engagement of the "I" with the world.  And then, I start identifying with my insights.  After all, I do have the working of the asmita within me. My insights start becoming more identity statements that I gather and may hoard.  I have newer insights and carry those luggages too.  I can forget on a daily basis that the measure of what is real is changing from moment to moment - Maya. And get stuck to the insights of the previous moment and start thinking that I am the next best thing to Patanjali! Bhrantidarshana - misapprehension / delusion.  This one obstacle that Patanjali mentions in the path of practice, is a quagmire and can in a snowballing effect lead to all the other obstacles that are mentioned. (YS I.30, vyadhi styana samshaya pramada alasya aviratti bhrantidarshana alabdabhoomikatva anavastitattvani chitta vikshepa te antarayah) In my experience, any one or the other can lead to the rest in a chain reaction. I am ill and weak, more liable to fears and doubts, my mind could be hazy and unclear leading to fatigue and carelessness, which leads to mistakes, then I doubt my abilities and my path, want to try other things and regress in the progress I have made so far.  This is the simplest and most obvious connecting chain of reaction that I see time and again.  Another cycle could begin with self-doubt, a complete non-starter freezing action, evoking inertia, and over time carelessness, leading to misapprehension and restlessness, giving way to taking refuges in different ways, further leading to ill health, inconsistency and regression in practice. 

I am in the trap of bhrantidarshana.  What now? Here is where the yamas and niyamas come into play. The logic of the yamas and niyamas is inescapable.  I simply get on the mat again the next day. I do my prāṇāyāma. I have my breath. I inhale my commitment to practice and inquiry.  I exhale and seek the truth.  I hold ahimsa as the paramo dharma and in reverence my dialogue with compassion in intent, word, action and response, and above all, offer every moment of practice in surrender to this Universe. (YS 1.34, Pracchardana vidaranabhyamva praanasya) I live the prasada that the Universe gives me. And the cycle starts again the next inhale / exhale. As I allow this prana that is born every moment to suffuse my body, my being, it leads me to "what now". I am then in that apavarga location (of learning and inquiry) and all that I see is for me to learn, understand and move towards truth and freedom, and I do not consume and / or be consumed by the experience (say, of Bhrantidarshana)  (YS II.18, Prakasha kriya sthiti sheelam bhootendriyatmakam bhogaapavargartham drshyam).  I stay and watch the bhrantidarshana, watch the mind perform its tricks and understand some more. 

What I see is that, even as I read and talk about dropping the mind and getting into the realm of being a witness, an observer (the drshta), it is all still the mind. It is the mind which is observing itself. And hence there is a chance it gets sharper and clearer with relentless practice. There is also the chance here again of bhrantidarshana, I can easily think that I am already so much in the observer state, that I am the observer (though the thinking faculty is still the mind!).  This could be the ultimate bhrantidarshana. Action from this state could become extreme himsa then. However, bhrantidarshana is an inevitable part of this process. It is hence useful to be sceptical about one's own insights and treat them lightly.  They are simply signs and sights on the way. And still, perceptions of the mind.  They will pass.  It is work-in-progress.  It is all play and experiment as well. The social boundaries for compassion, peace and happiness are clear - the yamas and niyamas indicate them.  And the direction is crystal clear - As the practice matures, Intelligence acts through us⁴, "Tada drashtu swaroope avasthanam" (YS I.3). 

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¹Asmita - The identification with the "I", self construct
²YS - Yoga Sutra, the text of aphorisms on Yoga given by Patanjali 
³Sutra on viniyoga - intelligent steps, application on the path. 
⁴Sutra translation - Raghu Anantanarayanan