A Real, Clear Way To Happiness

I knew so little when I started on the path of yoga, I really thought yoga was just about getting into poses and feeling good. Come to think of it, it IS actually about that. I was not wrong, the direction was correct, it is the depth of the journey, and how far that simple act of stepping on the mat would reach, that I had, well,  a bit "off".

Last year, knowing full well that new year resolutions don't work I set an 'intention' instead: that of learning about the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I had been introduced to them years ago but I wanted to get deeper into them. Intentions have a funny way of working.

This year brought me in contact with Ramaswami's 20-hour course on them -which I highly recommend, although it does not seem to be available for 2012- However, do not despair there is this book which is a great substitute as it is notes taken from a student and revised by Ramaswami. [If you cannot see pictures go to ClaudiaYoga.com]

You could say that by setting that intention I fell deeper down the rabbit hole!

Aaaandd.. as intentions have a way of working themselves up, only last week I also read the Gita as It Was (Thanks Grimmly), and through it I became even more convinced that sandwiched between the system of Smakhya (oldest compilation of yoga philosophy),  Buddhism -which work but do not put emphasis on the body- and the yoga system as portraid by the Gita, which has been highly 'adapted'? 'manipulated'?, right in the middle of them, The Yoga Sutras are it.

What I mean by "IT" is that they are the most sophisticated material, written in exquisitely chosen words, describing not just the science of yoga and clear way to happiness but also a whole system of psychoanalysis in 196 sutras.   Where the shrink fails to help the sutras have an answer.

Patanjali noted in his 9 Ways to Fail at Yoga (my title) that an un-healthy body is indeed an obstacle.  I should know. My practice of meditation is only vaguely now coming back.

Practice becomes impossible when sick or with a body
that cannot sit straight

I find that Patanjali saw something, perhaps in his time, that has been magnified a million times with the advent of I-tunes, 3d movies with toilette size Cokes and popcorn, Internet surfing, 9-5 sedentary jobs.  If we neglect the body there is little hope for the mind to be clear, to reach freedom, to be happy.

Chapter one presumes we have tried all forms of existence and got disillusioned by it, so we are now ready to hear Patanjali define the goal of yoga and how to attain it. Chapter one is pretty advanced.

Patanjali

For those of us committed to the practice of yoga but not ready to attain liberation just from chapter one there is chapter two, and portions of three on the eight limbs, the clear way to happiness, the "ashtanga" yoga (ashto = eight anga=limb)  that leads to freedom, to liberation.

More and more these days what I want is more practice, more silence, more of the science of yoga. And by that I mean more of Patanjali's sutras.  It seems that once we fall into the rabbit hole, once we study with someone who helps us sort through the Yoga Sutras, at least once, there is no turning back.

I am grateful that more and more scholars keep on discovering what is real about Patanjali and pass it along. More interpretations come along. Here is an excellent reading recommendation, the chapter on Patanjali. I felt as if I was listening to Ramaswami again.

   

I am also reading this version called The Four Chapters of Freedom from Swamy Satyananda, who comes more from the point of view of a hard-core practitioner (under the watch of no less than Sivananda himself), instead of a scholar.  a great read.

And so I am grateful for Patanjali's Yoga Sutras!

REASONS WHY I AM GRATEFUL FOR ASHTANGA YOGA:

1-  Eye-Focus, Breath and Bandha in Every Practice
2-  Generating Our Own Internal Heat

3-  A Very Personal Practice

4-  Commitment

5-  A Real and Clear Way to Happiness

6-  A Real, Clear Way to Happiness

7-  Becoming Super Efficient

8.- Gunas