Can you hear me?

I am exhausted. I have just got back from a class in how to use an overlocking machine but I really want to post.


I would strongly urge all of you to try an evening craft or sewing class. A group of women of different generations sitting around a table chatting and sewing was an intrinsic part of our culture for hundreds of years and is now something we never do. I met some great people, amongst others an awe-inspiring 23 year old Katie - going to post the link to her stuff tomorrow - who is a pure artist and free spirit. It also brought back so many personal memories, standing by the kitchen table when I was about 5 with my venetian grandmother explaining to me how to cut cloth, being a child playing with the cloth scraps, and the murmur and hum of conversation and stories as the soundtrack in the background. When is the last time you sat down at a table with a cross generational group of people with no food involved and talked? and a work meeting doesn't count....


Do you ever find that sometimes no matter where you look the universe seems to be trying to give you the same message? Until you, like, GETTIT??? (yeah ok I never pretended this was going to be a blog about enlightenment....)
Wherever I look and wherever I turn I seem to be getting the message how to manifest an intention and to let go of my ego. I got a new yogitoes (anti slip yoga towel that goes on top of your mat to stop you slipping when you practise and get hot and sweaty). It’s a lovely soothing sage green but it came packaged with yoga sutra 1.2 on the package and written on it too. I had no idea about the sutra when I ordered it, but it seems like the perfect thing for me to think about when I practise.

Yoga (to yoke) is the process of uniting the opposites whereby one settles the mind into silence” sutra 1.2

In a wider context this strikes me as being about each of us learning to respect and accept the duality and contradictions of our personalities in order to find peace, rather than suppressing aspects of ourselves on the fallacy that it makes things easier. 

And then I did a search on the Internet and found this

http://www.swamij.com/yoga-sutras-11922.htm#1.19

This is the passage that caught my attention which is basically a reiteration of all of Shelia's points on how to manifest an intention, although here they refer to it as the path to self realisation. Some how everything seems to bring me back to this message and I suspect the universe will continue to scream this message at me until I start to listen and do as it suggests. I know. Sorry its a lot to read but I have taken out some of the more yogi bits to make it more manageable.


"Simple, straightforward outline: The five principles and practices in this sutra form a very simple, straightforward outline of the personal commitments needed to follow the path of Self-realization. It is very useful to memorize these five, and to reflect on them often. This five-point orientation works in conjunction with the eight rungs of Yoga introduced in Sutra 2.28.

Shraddha is a faith that you are moving in the right direction. It is not a blind faith in some organization, institution, or teacher. Rather, it is an inner feeling of certainty that you are moving in the right direction. You may not know exactly how your journey is unfolding, but have an inner intuition of walking steadily towards the goal of life. The "faith" of Yoga is not one of "blind faith" as is the case with some, if not most religions. Oral tradition of Yoga suggests that the aspirant not merely "believe" in anything. Rather, it is suggested that one test the ideas in one's own inner laboratory, with the "faith" of Yoga thus being based on direct experience. 
Virya is the positive energy of ego that is the support for the faith of going in the right direction. This energy of virya puts the power behind your sense of knowing what to do. When you are strongly acting on what you know to be your correct path, that is virya. When you feel weak or uncertain, and are taking little action, that is from lack of virya. Virya is that conviction that says, "I can do it! I will do it! I have to do it!"
Smriti is cultivating a constant mindfulness of treading the path, and of remembering the steps along the way. This memory is not a negative mental obsession, but rather, a gentle, though persistent awareness of the goal of life, of faith in your journey, and of your decision to commit your energy to the process. 
Samadhi is intently pursued through the various stages of samadhi already described (1.17-1.18). It means committing to systematically moving through the levels or stages of samadhi, and to using these skills of attention as the tools to discriminate (2.26-2.29) the various forms of ignorance (2.5), and remembering that this is a process of systematically moving through the ever finer levels of our being (3.6).
Prajna is the higher wisdom that comes from discrimination, and this wisdom is assiduously sought through the process of introspection (2.26-2.29), utilizing the razor-sharp tool of samadhi (3.4-3.63.38)."

I guess the real question is what will it take for me to sit up and start to listen? What will the universe have to do to make me listen? I wonder if perhaps this journey and life change is just that - my journey to self realisation? Who knows... 


What does it or would it take to make you listen? Or perhaps the question is what are you trying not to hear?