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.