abhiyasa, vairagya, and praise
Dear Ones,
My inbox is overflowing. I am awash in petitions.
Federal lands, teacher pay, Medicaid cuts, legal investigations, ICE raids.
At first I was glad to add my voice, glad to be part of a larger process of what comes next. Yet over time my email address was traded between organizations and more people were asking for more of my time. Again, good ,good causes. People doing the good work of trying to hold our fabric together, keep the umbrella of funding and attention over so many homes.
Now however, I feel the petitioning has crossed over the 50% mark and is replacing my day to day exchanges with the world. And the consequence is what is important to me as a yogi.
Actions, thoughts, habits that we knowingly or unknowingly put into repetition are called samskaras. They get a momentum of their own and over time begin to seem “normal”.
This can be useful if the habit we build support us, such as flossing, cleaning out the fridge at the end of the month, calling our moms on the way home from work. But, similarly there is a momentum to the ones that don’t serve us such as desert as necessary at the end of a meal, skipping the stairs to take the elevator, staying up just a little later each night to fit that One More Thing into the day.
In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali describes the act of choosing and embodying things that support the ways we want to live as abhiyasa. We choose them because they fortify the thoughts that fortify positive mental perspective - in other words, clear, kind thoughts. Good sleep helps me wake with clarity and have energy through the next day so I take time to close down my laptop, read a book, dim down the lights an hour before bed, I do an evening sit.
Abhiyasa: do the things that help quiet the noise of the mind and hold a steady, clear vision.
At first the petitions felt like an act of abhiyasa. They were concrete tasks I could add to my day that felt like contributions to my world. They gave me agency and calmed my mind.
Yet, over time and with growing numbers they no longer serve this purpose.
Vairagya is directly translated as “dispassion” or holding something with less emotion - and ultimate so dispassionately that if we were to ‘forget’ to do it it would actually be a blessing. Vairagya is a means of decreasing the acts that create distress in our minds. Cultivating an inner quiet, longer, seamless breaths when I encounter someone or something that is counter to my expectations or personal preference. I make interior space around what may be uncomfortable. I become less reactionary. Sometimes this lessening of engagement is harder than the ‘work’ of abhiyasa when we really show up for what we know is important.
In class on Sunday I talked about it in simple terms:
In our day to day, moment to moment existence, what do I want to dial up, and what do I want to dial down? Even pausing to notice that we have controls in our mind, we can make choices and finesse our response, this is a game-changer.
Over time the ongoing petitions had a cumulative influence I started to see their NO in everything. NO don’t sell off federal land. NO don’t raid places of worship or, schools. NO don’t lie to Congress. NO don’t finish the oat milk. NO don’t forget to clean the catbox.
Enough. What started well had slid into a mental ‘normal’ that was creating more harm than good. Patanjali’s counsel is to step back, be less emotionally engages, see what is happening, make new choices from there.
Yes, I want to be to be engaged. Yes, I want liberty and safety for the people of this country and all others. So what action can I take?
I got quiet. I stepped back. A little less passion. A different action.
I sat at the doctor’s office this morning and this poem landed in my lap:
Oh say, poet, what is it that you do?
—I praise.
But what of the deadly and monstrous,
how do you endure all this, how do you take it in?
—I praise.
But the nameless, the anonymous,
how, despite it all, do you keep calling to them, poet?
—I praise.
Where does it come from, your claim to be true
in every guise and in each mask?
—I praise.
And that the stillness and turbulence
know you like start and storm?
—Because I praise.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1921)
I will praise. I will look to balance petition of what is wrong with praise of what works.
Yoga serves to reconnect us to our Great Self, and the practices of yoga are far more than what we find on the mat. They all serve to address how our ‘self’ is an endless process built of choice after choice. Our minds are innately magnificent and skilled at navigation through this lifetime. But they have to be maintained, tuned, calmed, trained. And when they are, they attract and affirm our Light in many forms.
Put it down if it doesn’t serve you. Dial it up if it does.
Pause. Consider. Let the mind settle. Let the Answer through.
Stay committed. Trust that you are Everything.
More to come. Martha
…
UPCOMING
A/
2 Masterclasses at TRIBE in Baltimore
saturday june 28, 12 - 2pm
The SUBTLE BODY / ENERGY BODY
+ the nadis as our energetic pathways
+ how nadis organize as chakras
+ how chakras organize as upper / lower and left / right influences
+ how kriyas interface with our energies
saturday july 26, 12 - 2pm
The NERVOUS SYSTEM
+ understanding of the nervous system
+ regulating and “locating” ourselves
+ expanding “normal” settings
physical sensation to shift limiting beliefs
Both are free. Bring a friend. Come learn how you are made to move and how moving makes who you are.
B/
Next seasonal 40 day practice starts live on Zoom Monday June 27 Register here.
I comb through the libraries and resources of kriyas and meditations.
I align our sequence with the energy of the season.
I show up live 3 days of the week and you join or replay when you choose.
We meet live on Zoom Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings 8-9am EST. All replays are available.
(They can be downloadable to take with you on summer travels)
I provide the content. I align it to where we are in the year, the energy of everything in this moment.
You build your inner authority, the teacher in you, and you build a place in a committed community.
June 27 - August 10 we are at the heart / Anahata. We are entering Summer. Fruition.
We will be doing a Kriya for Creative Energy. The connection that lives at the heart is made to share our frequency and hear/feel/know others around us. We will add a meditation for Trust. It is safe to be seen. It is safe to feel. It is safe to change, to make, to share, to contribute, to collaborate. You are needed.
I can’t fully explain the riches of this practice. Register here. A recent text I received:
“Wow! I am so thankful and grateful beyond measure… the gift of practice w/you is by far the foundation of all the things I’ve created since our paths crossed… it is the ingredient to creating the life i knew in my heart that i wanted, but was unsure of how id get there/here… I love what you have built, it is a privilege to be a part of it… thank you, thank you, thank you ox.s”