Monday, December 1, 2014

Patience


Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring Patience.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.
 
                                                  – I Corinthians

To excel in anything you have to have patience; but if you want to love, patience is an absolute necessity. You may be dashing, glamorous, fascinating, and alluring; you may be tall, dark, and handsome, or whatever the current fancy may be. Without patience, you can never become a great lover; it would be a contradiction in terms.

"Well," most of us say, "I guess that leaves me out. Patience has never been my strong point." Very, very few of us are born patient. Our age has been called the age of anxiety, the age of anger; but we could just as easily say the age of impatience. You see it in supermarket lines, on the highway, on the tennis court, in the schoolyard, in the political arena, on the bus. With all this we have begun to believe that impatience is our natural state. Fortunately, love is our natural state, and patience is something that everybody can learn.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to learn first to be patient with your practice of Yoga asana. When you are faced with something you cannot physically do see what it is you can do and be content with that. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras present Adhyatma-prasada means calmness, or clarity, of the inner being,  (1:47) and  Upeksha which means equanimity, (1:33). Together these words convey the meaning of patience. Through the observation in your practice and your experiences off of the mat see if you can move towards this native state of being.

Excerpts from “Living your Yoga, Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life”, by Judith Lasater.

Blessings,

paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com

No comments: