Greetings Sadhakas,
This week in class we will be exploring cultivating an alertness to
life without thinking.
Reason is like an
officer when the King appears. The officer then loses his power and hides
himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.
– Jalaluddin Rumi
Thinking, however
useful it may be at times, is not the highest human faculty; it is only a stage
in development. If, for example, in the throes of evolution we had stopped with
instinct, saying, "This is the highest possible mode of knowing," our
human future would have been stunted: I would not be seated here writing these
words, nor would you be reading them.
Like instinct,
reason is only a way station. When friends and I go to San Francisco to see a play, we sometimes
stop halfway along to stretch our legs. But we don't get so involved in
stretching legs that we forget to go on to the theater. Thought is a useful but
temporary stopping station; it should not be considered a permanent solution to
the problems of living. Just as we were able to rise above instinct and to
develop reason, we must one day pass beyond discursive thinking and enter into
a higher mode of knowing.
We cannot solve the
problems of the mind with the mind. We cannot solve our problems by thinking
about them, analyzing them, talking about them. In meditation, we often simply
leave personal problems behind - we move out of the neighborhood where they
live.
Words to Live By:
Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran
The homework is to use your Yoga practices
to encourage a state of being, or an alertness to life without thinking.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
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