How did I miss reading Richard Freeman all these years? One of our yoga class references is his CD series titled The Yoga Matrix: The Body as a Gateway to Freedom. Freeman takes on a huge task in the series: to orient us to the huge, multi-layered world of yoga.
What follows are a few notes from listening to the first CD.
The Greek word for body is soma, which is the root of our English word somatic. The ancient Indians used the same word to refer to a plant extract which heightened their abilities to concentrate and meditate. (No one knows which plant was used but an internet search turns up lots of speculation. Aldous Huxley borrowed the word for his own purposes in Brave New World...) Freeman links the Sanskrit and the Greek meanings to explain that in yoga, the body itself offers in its essence a path to concentration, meditation, and ultimate comprehension of the nature of Reality.
Freeman goes into detail on an ancient metaphor for the body: as one jewel in the bejeweled, mythological net constructed and employed by the deity Indra.
Wikipedia offers some background on Indra's net:
Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon; Watson, Gay; Batchelor, Stephen; Claxton, Guy (2000), "Indra's Net at Work: The Mainstreaming of Dharma Practice in Society." in: The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and Our Day-to-Day Lives, Weiser, 2000
Per Timothy Brook In Vermeer's Hat:
... to describe the interconnectedness of all phenomena [there is the metaphor of] Indra's Net. When Indra fashioned the world, he made it as a web, and at every knot in the web is tied a pearl. Everything that exists, or has ever existed, every idea that can be thought about, every datum that is true—every dharma, in the language of Indian philosophy—is a pearl in Indra's net. Not only is every pearl tied to every other pearl by virtue of the web on which they hang, but on the surface of every pearl is reflected every other jewel on the net. Everything that exists in Indra's web implies all else that exists.
Brook, Timothy (2009). Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World London: Profile Books
The significance of this ancient metaphor for the body? That beginning to work on the body through physical practice provides an entry point to all areas of one's life. We accept our present status and condition, work with it, and find that work leading to much more. We can for example begin with motivation to improve physical health, to find that with increased physical health comes mental clarity.
According to Freeman, because the body operates via principles of consciousness, through yoga we gain awareness not only of body but of consciousness.
One yogic view of the ego
Freeman explains that the ego, from a yogic point of view, is the force that keeps pure consciousness, which is part of each person's makeup, tied or bound to limited, separation-aligned consciousness.
In Sanskrit, chit - achit - granthi = Consciousness - Not-Consciousness - Knotted together
Or put another way, the ego confuses pure consciousness with the contents of consciousness.
Or yet another way, ego provides the imaginary and erroneous sense of separation from the whole of the Creation.
How does this apply to you and me? For myself, too many times I've put the emphasis on feeling separate from others. Or have assumed I wouldn't belong somehow. Or have made premature decisions about situations or people, decisions that have closed me off from possibilities.
The ego in the life of the individual has its useful purposes, I'm sure. But in the life of someone seeking unity, this fellow the ego can get out of bounds.
Habits, tendencies, favorites, aversions
Freeman attempts to school us in the concept of samskāra, literally from Sanskrit collected + actions. These are patterns, shaped by life experiences, held deeply in the body, deeply in the ego, which shape our behaviors.
Samskāras form our habits, tendencies, favorites, aversions, our likes and dislikes.
Things like just having to read the Sacramento Bee before breakfast. Or always craving dark chocolate after tacos -- admittedly a bit peculiar. Or finding the bark of certain small dogs annoying -- apologies to the doggies' owners.
Freeman claims that by the simple act of observing a rooted tendency, one can begin to shift it.
Readers can stay tuned henceforth to experiments on changing newspaper reading habits, or dessert after Mexican food habits, or canine preferences! or even weightier matters.
Aren't these talks amazing!
ReplyDeleteYour statement: " For myself, too many times I've put the emphasis on feeling separate from others. Or have assumed I wouldn't belong somehow. Or have made premature decisions about situations or people, decisions that have closed me off from possibilities." applies SO MUCH to me too! One of those AHA moments that when I read it in your writing I thought, yeah... oh yeah... hmmm....
And no, that stupid yapping yammering little rat dog whining IS really annoying, not sure it is anything we can get past -- we must have had the same neighbor at one time! LOL