zilya18: переводы

→In samyama we become aware of life as thought and energy. The most complex physical movement is, at the same time, an idea; the most profound insight, an energetic opening. In the stillness of samyama we connect to the eternal dance of energy and matter—no beginning, no end. In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra stands linear thought on its head, stating that giving is receiving, and receiving is giving—no beginning, no end. This understanding has transformed my relationship to both giving and receiving. Prior to this awareness I felt guilty about receiving, and therefore experienced reluctance when giving. Because I lacked insight, my relationship to giving and receiving was tainted. I avoided both. I was blocked energetically. As a result, the world received only a small portion of what I had to offer. As my understanding shifted and my guilt fell away, I was opened up energetically. My gifts have poured out into the world, and the world’s gifts have poured into my life. Time spent in samyama explains all of this. We connect to the real, the place where all things connect, where there is no time, no you, no me, no beginning, no end.

→The state of being my friend Roman is describing takes time. Most of us spend years pushing our way through our practice, managing and striving, exhilarated and disappointed, ambitious and lazy. We stay busy. We make an effort. Eventually, though, we start to take tentative steps toward getting less busy. As our attention turns inward, we discover another layer of activity. Beneath the physical sensations of our postures we discover our emotional responses. We connect at the level of samskara, or personality. Our habitual responses to situations become plainly visible in the stillness of our inwardly turned attention, the stillness of samyama. As we become still here, real change begins to happen because we are removing whatever creates the impression that we are separate. We are dissolving the false persona that obscures our true nature. We are stepping out into the light. All that is required to do this is willingness and practice. In time the clamorings of our false self grow faint and the quiet of our soul fills our lives.

→As our practice deepens and expands to encompass our entire lives, we find that we are accomplishing more and more, and doing less and less. We learn to allow the same force that keeps our heart beating, digests our food for us, and maintains our health to guide us through our lives. As this process unfolds, our faith in it deepens. The love that brings peace becomes a living presence in our lives. Where once we thought and controlled, we now allow our minds to become spacious; we turn the results of our actions over to a loving universe. Our lives become an exploration in surrender. There is a new serenity in our hearts, and it shines through our eyes. We have come home, we are free.

→The final aim in life is moksa, liberation.

→For me these days, kama has two great teachings. The first is not to take anything personally, least of all myself. The second is to let go. I come to the mat scattered, with many different stories about how I should take this personally or hold on to that. Then I spend time connecting to my body, to my breath, time “close to the bone.” At the end of my practice I am amazed—I am experiencing joy, a joy that I am learning to bring out into the world.

→I think that kama, the enjoyment of life, is at the heart of why yoga has become so popular in the United States. Yoga teaches us how to enjoy life, how to work, and how to rest. Most of the forces in our lives telling us how to work and how to play have a vested interest in the outcome. The airlines want us to fly, the travel agents want us to travel, our bosses want us to work for less than they are paid. Yoga is indifferent. It is like a tree in the middle of a vast forest—it just is, and it is nothing. The information we encounter in yoga is our own. Yoga does not enhance or diminish us, it simply reflects us back to ourselves as we are. One of the truths we discover in the mirror of yoga is that we are often unhappy, and that most of the time there is something we can do about it.

→The second aim in life is artha, or worldly purpose, meaning the role we choose to play in our own lives and the lives of others. Anwar Sadat’s experience of samyama changed his life and uplifted humanity. The work we do can change water into wine when it is infused with the love we find at the center of our being. We do not fulfill the aim of artha by having a job, writing a check, or participating in local politics. We fulfill the aim of artha when the work that we do, the way we relate to the people in our lives, the decisions that we make at every level reflect our deepest beliefs. Dharma is the work we do to connect to our true selves; artha is sharing our true selves with all beings.

→The simplest answer lies in another question: “When does it not?” I believe we can hide out in yoga. We can use our practice as a way to hide from the necessary pain of life. We can also justify selfish acts with fanciful yogic notions: “He does not respect my practice, therefore I do not have to treat him with compassion or with respect.” That said, if we show up on our mats and in our lives with integrity and good intentions, there is no aspect of our yoga practice that does not promote the care of our souls. All of the limbs of yoga either support that which is pleasing to the soul or bring us into direct knowledge of the soul, as in samadhi. If we are actively practicing the eight limbs of yoga, we are performing our duty to ourselves and living our dharma. It is that simple.

→Near the beginning of this book I talked about the purusarthas, the four aims of life. Let us now use them as a means by which to evaluate the place samadhi has in our lives. The four aims are dharma, or duty; artha, or worldly purpose; kama, or enjoyment; and moksa, or liberation. Dharma, in this sense, is the duty that we have to ourselves. To use Thomas Moore’s words again, it is the “care” we must take of our souls. How does yoga in general, and samadhi in particular, aid us in care of the soul?

→Ecstatic oneness. Stephen Cope’s description of his experience of entering samadhi while painting a house one summer is so compelling because the images he describes are at once so ordinary and yet so haunting in their crystalline clarity. He is recounting an experience we have all had, and yet have probably discounted and relegated to our subconscious. Reading this deeply evocative passage, we can’t help but pause and reevaluate our own experiences, our own sacred moments of knowing that we are utterly OK, that all is right with the world—the afternoon in the forest, the dawn on a river, the timeless morning spent absorbed with a task. I actually had a similar experience painting a friend’s kitchen over Christmas break one year. I have never had much aptitude for painting before or since, but the deep samyama I experienced during those winter days facilitated a patient competence that I marvel at to this day. We have all known such moments. The question is, what do we learn from them?

→We show up, burn brightly in the moment,live passionately, and when the moment is over,when our work is done, we step back and let go.

→From mastery of samyama comes the light of awareness and insight.Yoga Sutras

→Consider [the forest lake’s] silent economy and tidiness; how the sun comes with his evaporation to sweep the dust from its surface each morning, and a fresh surface is constantly welling up.Henry David Thoreau

→Why should a man consider himself separate? How was he before being born or how will he be after his death? Why waste time in such discussions? What was your form in deep sleep? Why do you consider yourself an individual?

→The universe operates through dynamic exchange … giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.Deepak Chopra

→Very often, understanding and practice do not go together. One student may be better able to understand, while another may have better skill in practice. In each case, he has to develop uniformity in skill and intelligence and use them harmoniously.B. K. S. Iyengar

→As you comb through your body for tension you learn how to go beneath the surface of what you see, to connect to what you feel, to the emotions inside the sensation. When you can discern what is behind what you feel, you can practice becoming still there.Roman S., yoga teacher

→In absorption, or samadhi, the witness or meditator is fully absorbed into the moment. There is an ecstatic experience of what I call the living moment. Our perspective is an unfolding, flowing continuum that is happening all by itself.Sudhir Jonathan Foust

→Before yoga, I worked out a lot. I was a workout maniac, the harder the better. Then one day I woke up with sciatica pain down my leg. I thought it would go away, but it got worse and worse for the next two years. I couldn’t work, sit down, or stand up. I went to all the doctors and tried everything from deep massage to chiropractors. Finally I quit the gym and went to yoga. I lost weight, and after three months 75 percent of the pain was gone. Then came other painful lessons in my life. I kept practicing, and I started reevaluating everything. All my angers and resentments came up. I think it was all stuck in my body. I buried all of my emotions and I didn’t know that I was doing it. I started seeing things clearly. I remembered being seven and that my leg hurt back then. I realized that that’s where I started holding everything. With the opening of my body, all this stuff started flowing out. I faced things head-on, felt them, and let go. It changed me completely.Jene R., yoga teacher

→I taught a class last night, and the students came in all scattered and going every which way. And you know, at the end of class, they were all close to the bone, and they had eyes that were bright and clear. That hour and forty minutes, it was miraculous. It was a kind of joint feeling in the room. Sixty people came in with all their different stories, and afterward they were all saying they were amazed, amazed by their own tranquillity. There is something about being close to the bone.Eleanor W., yoga teacher