I have found myself in good health and a lot of time on my hands due to retirement and an empty nest, with thirteen years of AYP under my belt, it is clear it’s the best time to make the most of the eight limbs while I can and have the capacity. Yogani sums it up nicely here, it is well worth the five minutes of reading.
It is a pleasant surprise how samyama manifests not only on the seat but too in daily life. My path winds through movement (asana, dance, walking, stretching) and driven by a conductive body and strong inner silence. Samyama practice (seven years) has made surrendering somewhat second nature it now happens with eyes open or closed, simply by falling quiet and open, on the mat…dance floor…in a pose, any pose. The ever present white noise raises pitch. Stimulation, integration, radiance are simultaneous on slow intentional breath, it feels like stillness in action, just as promised.
It manifests as playfulness, especially when alone, where there is no one to silly judge, becoming public in attitude and an upcurled mouth and lightness flowing out my face in the grocery store or in dance or asana class or being authentic in front of the wife in the house we share. Samyama has made our marriage age better.
There is always the knowing this body will slow or quit someday but that is not today. Today is all that matters, the rest are memories or stories of something that hasn’t manifested. If I can be quiet and open, and feel today then I should be a better at being and someday understanding why.
I contemplate death daily as well. I think about (or rather cross-check) if my body was to die right now, will “I” be aware and awake enough not to be dragged, unconscious, into the astral and the rebirth cycle? Will I be able to equanimously remain? Then, I think - would “I” have to remain eternally aware to remain the whole or would any small pull of desire (Will) spiral into some kind of becoming (re-birth into the parts).
Am I making any sense? Am I being silly to separate the parts from the whole and to prefer one over the other?
What I wanted to say is that death is daily on my mind
During the day, when I think I am Maha , and death is the final inevitable thing…I think how all of life is absurd…nothing has meaning… I am even surprised how people avoid thinking about death!!!
Maha just like all those people, has time on her hands…so Maha fills it with " activities " until the inevitable happens…Maha goes about her mundane life
Even when Maha identifies as Maha…Maha knows that there is nothing worthwhile in life…Maha would gladly leave any time
The only worthy thing is the connection we have with other people meaning love, affection, friendships, helping each other…that is the only worthy thing in life
Another worthy thing is the beauty we see in nature
Maha also does not believe in any form of after life…does not believe in any god , or reincarnation or after life..
Why there is no belief about anything? Because there is always the asking : is it true? We don’t know anything that is absolutely true. The only genuine attitude is to be agnostic…to admit that we don’t know.
When Maha does not identify as Maha, all of the above applies , but there is a major difference, there is a huge unshakeable feeling of Being
I deleted it because I saw that it just encouraged more non relational enquiry.
I’ve just gone through a whole bunch of non relational enquiry whilst investigating Jungian psychology, coming to the end of that particular thread.
I feel now a deepening realisation that continuing these sort of thought loops is just not being very efficient with energy. So when I wrote that question I instantly thought that I actually didn’t want to engage in another conversation of this kind, as it is ultimately pointless.
I was sat with a friend the other day, having these conversations. I realised that we were just repeatedly diving into non-relational enquiry, only to come to the end, realising that it doesn’t go anywhere, then surfacing again into silence with a grin. It’s fun I guess, in small bouts.
Thanks for the answer though, but I’d rather leave it there…….for now…..
I’ll add that I think my only real concern relating to death, is that I may not be conscious for it, due to some reaction to medicine, or illness. But even that is beyond control really, and also lies (hopefully) in the distant future, and is not here and now.
I feel the same that pretty much everything apart from creating relationships with others seems pointless. Creating loving, caring relationships is truly the only thing that motivates me, which is why I am starting my counselling training today
Beautiful replies from all, the knowing and inevitability of death, ‘the end of ourselves’ of course sparks inquiry, inventions, and coping mechanisms. It also highlights being as absolutely present as my yoga trains me to be, and hopefully in the inevitable moment, passing like a sutra. I agree with Maha not to believe in after or past lives because it doesn’t serve my presence in a discernible way. These practices have trained me to believe inwardly, give my intentions gentle attention, witness and surrender whatever happens in the sacred space of DM.
This yogi is at a point where DM=communion and little death.
What I have found is that if we think we are a wave on the ocean, then we also think that there will be a moment when we come to an end. If we know ourselves to be the ocean, then one wave ending is almost irrelevant. So, the degree by which we are concerned about death is equal to the degree by which we still identify as a wave on the ocean. It can be a useful barometer of where we are on the path.
That idea that we’re identifying by mistake as the wave in the ocean rather than with the ocean presupposes that there is such a thing as unbounded awareness. If there is no unbounded awareness, then one alternative for why the wave is aware, is that awareness somehow emerges as an epiphenomenon of the wave. That this “somehow” seems rather inconceivable is known as the “hard problem of consciousness” in philosophy.
But the current lack of convincing explanations and ideas on how awareness can be emergent doesn’t mean that it’s clearly wrong. And that some enlightened waves report that they know they are the ocean, doesn’t contradict the idea of awareness being emergent either, since we know conceptually (and scientifically) that waves don’t exist independently of the ocean, in the same way that awareness might not exist independently of the wave. So I wouldn’t be surprised if death (the end of a wave) really just means the end of this awareness. I hope it will be fun to find out some day
The wave is always changing..it is impermanent…it is there for some time…but it is a blip in time…so when it disappears…did it ever absolutely existed? Did anything ever absolutely happened?
That idea that we’re identifying by mistake as the wave in the ocean rather than with the ocean presupposes that there is such a thing as unbounded awareness. If there is no unbounded awareness, then one alternative for why the wave is aware, is that awareness somehow emerges as an epiphenomenon of the wave. That this “somehow” seems rather inconceivable is known as the “hard problem of consciousness” in philosophy.
But the current lack of convincing explanations and ideas on how awareness can be emergent doesn’t mean that it’s clearly wrong.
Hi Tensor,
Lots of people have lots of ideas about things. However they are always simply ideas in the mind, appearing and disappearing on the screen of consciousness. The idea that some of them may be “right” or “wrong” is also another idea in the mind appearing and disappearing on the screen of consciousness.
Yoga is not a process of determining which ideas are right, or wrong. It is a transcendence of the whole process of mind. It is a turning away from the screen to look directly into the projector, and then even transcending that.
A wave does not have absolute independent separate existence, no. It is always a part of the ocean and never exists separately from the ocean. It’s motion is pre-determined by the movement of the ocean and the winds.
It is the same with what we call our life. It never has any absolute independent separate existence. And what happens is always pre-determined by our unique karmic disposition and that of our environment. And our karmic disposition is determined by an incredible number of factors.
And, just like the wave, what we call our life appears on the screen of consciousness and dissolves on the screen of consciousness. And just like the wave, we are always a part of something much greater that does not disappear when our apparent individual life ends.
This is what we come to know when we transcend the mind. In truth, nothing really changes, ever. It just appears to change from a certain perspective. This knowing comes naturally from a deepening beyond the witness that happens as the process of discrimination (viveka) turns into vairagya (non-attachment to the mental-emotional processes) and the body is symultaneously filled with ecstasy.
Whatever our approach to self-inquiry may be, the character of the witness will steadily evolve from a flat separate awareness to a luminous flowing aliveness that we will see expressing through the nervous system and everywhere. We have called it a divine outpouring and stillness in action. Whatever we call it, we come to realize that this is not only who we are and the Self of all, but also that it is unbounded love flowing for us, through us, and for everyone.
It is impossible not to fall completely and totally in love with this Self. We may call it God, or by any name that resonates with our perception of the divine. It is Self. It is God. It is the object of our bhakti, and has been the essence of our chosen ideal since the beginning. The bhakti we have experienced has always been an expression of That. We have never been alone. And now It comes before us in fullness, expressing through the vehicle of our nervous system. The experiential recognition of this is a milestone in dissolving the limited self in the eternally joyous Self. We have been that in seed form all along, and by our dedication and effort, we can move beyond the witness stage and realize That in fullness. [Yogani]
This wave analogy seems very beautiful, but at the same time somewhat strange.
This nothingness from which everything arises and goes, how can it be that our recognition of it, or us living it, depends on particular circumstances?
AYP is a method for purifying the subtle nervous system. And there are things that will throw dirt onto it again. Aren’t these also waves on the ocean? It seems so strange, since then there would be waves that threaten this very perception of reality.
Maybe this is something that just can’t really be answered. It could be that the assumptions in the question are coming from a place of ignorance.
These are really good questions and are actually questions that are addressed directly in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Patanjali did not talk about waves on the ocean, but he did talk about particular aspects of the mind that hinder the clear seeing of reality as unity (kaivalya) and he also talked about things that can arise that help to remove these obstacles to clear seeing.
He referred to things that arise that hinder clear seeing as kleshas, or “obstacles”. He then talked about samskaras (deep-rooted mental tendencies) that can limit our clear perception of reality, and other samskaras that help to remove the hindering samskaras. He said that this second type of samskaras arise naturally as a result of spiritual practices.
So, in terms of waves, there are waves that can arise such as ignorance, aversion, clinging, and fear of death, that can cloud our clear perception of reality, and then other waves that help to remove these obstacles, such as the deep-rooted mental tendency to release everything that arises into silence.
The wave never absolutely existed and once it goes back into the ocean…none of the next waves that appear are exactly like the dead one…the new waves take bits and pieces ( energy, karma, patterns) from all the continuously dying dead waves..
So understanding the impermanence and the absence of a solid individuality that continues on and on in time and space ( the tools that the mind need to understand and project the world) …this understanding lead to a deep unshakeable feeling of relaxation , a silence…where nothing really matters and where nothing is really happening…it is an indifference but in an impersonal ,benevolent , positive and active indifference without the fretting and fuming
