Strong threads to help repair a community torn by grief

Yoga has been my saving grace through many crises in life:  the pain and stresses around my divorce, losses from a con artist, and my mother’s death just to name a few.  For many years, I associated the daily asana practice to helping me move the negative energy generated by these events out of my body and mind.  And while that is true, as my practice deepens and my understanding of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali grows with the help of yoga teachers like Kquvien DeWeese, I know there is more happening. These pithy 196 sutras or threads were developed to clearly articulate how yoga can help us strengthen the fabric of our human experience. 

On the inside cover before the foreward of BKS Iyengar’s Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, it states:

“The Sutras were the earliest –and are still the most profound and enlightening –study of the human psyche.  In them, Patanjali describes the enigma of human existence.  He shows how, through yoga practice, we can transform ourselves, gain mastery over the mind and emotions, overcome obstacles to our spiritual evolution.  In this way we attain the goal of yoga:  Kaivalya, liberation from the bondage of worldly desires and actions, and union with the Divine.”

Even after over 2500 years since Patanjali first distilled the practice of yoga into these succinct aphorisms, the guidance is as applicable today as it was then.  The human predicament has changed very little. 

Recently, the shock of the death of a friend's son in our community has been devastating to everyone in it, whether they knew him well or not.  It demonstrates that while we can argue detachment with our TVs, computers, ipads, and smart phones – we are still deeply connected to the lives of those around us.

The late biologist Lewis Thomas in his book, The Lives of a Cell was able to poetically describe our complex interdependence.  The book though written in the 70s was prophetic in terms of anticipating the likes of Facebook, which unites us in virtual communities all over the world.  The impact of a single tragedy is not just a news story anymore.  It becomes a part of the tapestry of human existence and it is held together by common experience beyond the borders of close neighbors and friends. Princeton University's Global Consciousness Study is a wonderful way to witness this first hand:  http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

In my community, while student arranged vigils and school assemblies have been incredibly beautiful ways to give voice to the grief of this great loss and promote the healing process, I can’t help but be concerned about the group thought that lingers.  It is all too easy for us to get attached to the pain and its story --like I mentioned in a previous blog (though it addressed it from more of a physical pain perspective).  Kquvien furthered the lesson with reference to our attachments to mental and emotional pain in class the other day.  We focused on a few of the following Sutras of Patanlaji (written here in Sanskrit with English Transliteration by BKS Iyengar), specific to techniques that can help stabilize our mind so we can begin to find peace:

1.33 maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhka punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatah chitta prasadanam

Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favourably disposed, serene and benevolent.

1.34 prachchhardana vidharanabhyam va pranayama

Or, by maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of soft and steady exhalation and during passive retention after exhalation.

1.35 vishayavati va pravritti utpanna manasah sthiti nibandhani

Or, by contemplating an object that helps to maintain steadiness of mind and consciousness.

1.36 vishoka va jyotishmati

Or, inner stability is gained by contemplating a luminous, sorrowless, effulgent light.

1.37 vita raga vishayam va chittam

Or, contemplating on enlightened sages who are free from desires and attachments, calm and tranquil, or by contemplating divine objects.

1.38 svapna nidra jnana alambanam va

Or, by recollecting and contemplating the experiences of dream-filled or dreamless sleep during a watchful, waking state.

1.39 yatha abhimata dhyanat va

Or, by contemplating or concentrating on whatever object or principle one may like, or towards which one has a predisposition, the mind becomes stable and tranquil.

The entire purpose of yoga according to Patanjali is Citta Vrtti Nirodha, stilling the fluctuations of the mind.  Basically, the door to freedom on earth is through our ability to control our thoughts. Therapist can be a great aid in helping us uncover the layers of thought processes, but we must realize we have the power to control where our thoughts take us day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute.  We are all capable of attaching to unhealthy thoughts or spiraling into negativity and hopelessness in troubled times just as we are capable of getting caught up in great joy, expectation, and desire. 

The mind is a muscle and though it is well accepted to workout like crazy to build our external physique or build our intellect, we neglect to spend time mastering our thoughts. However, it is an exercise worth committing to  --- not only for ourselves as individuals, but also for the many roles we play in our community:  parent, partner, relative, child, sibling, student, teacher, employee, boss, leader, neighbor, and friend. Each one of us is a thread sewn into the fabric of humanity that holds us all together – so we have to be strong.