PLAYING THE EDGE Here is a classic Yoga article that Vignesh and I are exploring, based on his question, But why doesnt it feel so fantastic as they describe? Yoga is a process of opening, of moving beyond the physical and conceptual limits of conditioning. [Conditioning is part of the organizational principal of universal energy which builds patterns and systems that are the stuff of life.] Experience by its nature conditions, so that moving out of it is an endless process. There is no mastery of yoga since one can only master that which has an end. The concept of opening, however, can slyly become just another idealized goal to be achieved. Actually, awareness of the tendency of the very nature of thought to stop process is part of what Jnana Yoga is about. A key to the process of opening that keeps you truly opened is what I call playing the edge. The bodys edge in Yoga is the place just before pain, but not pain itself. Pain tells you where the limits of physical conditioning lie. Since the edge moves from day to day and from breath to breath (not always forward), in order to be right there, moving with its often subtle changes, you must be very alert. This quality of alertness which is a meditative state is at the heart of Yoga. A great danger in Hatha Yoga is going on automatic so that the postures become mechanical exercises, bringing with them dullness, fatigue, and resistance to doing Yoga at all. Just as the mind is more elusive than the body, so the edge in Jnana Yoga is not as obvious as in Hatha. The habits of mind that have accumulated over time continually reinforce themselves. Habits of mind are repetitive ways of thinking about things and of structuring the world in such mental patterns as beliefs, values, fears, hopes, ambitions, self images, images of others and of the universe itself. For more juicy stuff: yogajournal/wisdom/2595 Playing The Edge Of Mind & Body by Joel Kramer ( a classic)
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 02:15:58 +0000
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