Yogis at Ashtanga Yoga Montreal know that class with Allison always begins with a short talk explaining a yogic concept. She often uses real-life examples to illustrate what she means and likes to ask us questions to encourage our participation.This Saturday, she asked, "Why do we chant?"
So I cast my mind back over the numerous readings we did during teacher training, and skimmed memories of past lectures in search of an answer. Nothing rose to the surface. In the meanwhile, another student responded with a personal experience.
Although I didn't quite understand the context of the story being told, Allison nodded her head, "Yes, what you are saying is, we chant to quiet the discursive mind."
The thing is, I knew that... I was just looking in the wrong place. I learned Ashtanga's opening chant while trying to mend a broken heart. One line every day - or every two days - depending on how hard the pronunciation.
Whenever I started to think about the man in question and obsessively go over all the ways in which he had betrayed me, I would sing the increasingly familiar syllables of the chant (in my head) until my mind became less fevered. No matter how many times my monkey brain wanted to enumerate all his sins, I would gently steer it away with vande gurunam.
Our experiences are an important part of our knowledge. We sometimes wish to clear our memories of bad experiences and past upsets, but they are valuable moments in time that can be added to our future wisdom. I have a tendency to rely on my intellectual side to provide answers to difficult questions, but sometimes (as I was reminded yesterday) my heart is equally capable of answering.
Posts
2 comments:
Re: experience:
Many religions and belief systems (or whatever you want to call yoga) have some sort of ideal attached to them that, on the surface, appear to have little to do with a person's actual experience. We are usually supposed to suppress those and their personal effects, like in asceticism, Buddhism and certain forms of Christianity.
Science is like that as well. The scientific method require you to push aside your personal experience and look only at the facts. Of course, this isn't really possible, but that's the idea. Much of our world is based on scientific ideals and religious ones, yet, as you say, our experiences are an important part of our knowledge. Maybe that's only true on an individual basis.
The man in question: I wonder why he betrayed you. The real reason, from his POV. I wonder how he sees it. Things are rarely as obvious as the hurt party says it is when it comes to matters of the heart. Do you enumerate your sins when someone does something bad to you? I think that's actually a very healthy exercise, but I won't get into that here.
Verification word: priosess, as in to previously have something. Possibly the having equivalent of predrinking.
Actually, I do evaluate my behaviour when someone hurts me. I always try to see the whole picture, to understand all the forces that were at work.
But there comes a point when obsessing about a past you can't change prevents you from transforming that experience into knowledge.
Quieting my obsessive monkey brain helped me to turn that corner. In that instance, learning a chant was the tool I used. Another time- who know what tool will present itself?
My happiness resides in knowing those tools exist and knowing they are accessible to me.
Post a Comment