Experiential knowledge is a solid foundation

The manual to end all external seeking

In this month's sutra chanting workshop, we chanted the whole second chapter without corrections. A noble effort. Next time, we'll slow it down a bit to increase our acumen and confidence. Mastering the chanting is much more important than you think. You imbibe its powerful, ancient guidance towards a calm, clear state of mind that can distinguish between puruṣa and prakṛti, your steady and wise inner self, and all that prevents you from shining its light in everyday life.

I met with my Yoga teacher this week. My other preferred pathways to puruṣa, second to chanting texts, is one that I highly recommend as the seasons change, or the seasons of your life: book a class with your teacher. I went in with somewhat of an agenda, as always. We’ve been discussing a new meditation focus, following nearly three years of the same practice, over a decade of integrating the focus into my morning practice, and even longer of chanting a mantra exalting it.

Did he give me a new practice? No. Why not? The current one welcomes calmness, patience, compassion and wisdom into a life that would overwise be heavy on the opposites, agitation, impatience, judgement and intellectualization. I’m the first one to admit that, although most people see me as calm and stable, that Yoga itself is always at work on me, soothing and purifying me. I’d operate at a different frequency without it, unaware of unconscious samskara-s, consequently lost in endless cycles of ups and downs.

So, what was the remedy? What emerged from my class? It circled back to mantra. Learning yet another mantra pertaining to the same focus, one that deepens my relationship with it, helps me to know it more intimately, highlights its incredible and much-needed qualities, ones I certainly welcome with an open heart into my days, my nights, my work, my relationships.

On that note, I hope to encounter and support you with a revised, Autumn practice at Yoga Foundation this fall. We’ll see what’s needed to guide you