What is your Life Saver? YS II - 33

What is your life saver? Technically one would picture a ring like in the picture on this post. A life saver is defined by www.thefreedictionary.com/lifestaver as :

1. an attendant employed at a beach or pool to protect swimmers from accidents and or
2. a life preserver in the form of a ring of buoyant material

Then you might wonder how does this apply to you? As you know, if you are a reader of this blog, that this blog entitled "Always Be Om," consists of yoga related information related to this theme. So in that context I am now using the live saver as a metaphor.

What got me to think of this subject is the energy of the time we are living in. According to the news we are in" a recession". This is affecting everyone, depending on how they see as I spoke about in the posts on "Thoughts as Eyeglasses" and "Taking Pictures". Thus, whatever we choose can fall between "Bondage and Liberation" for us.

So getting back to the original question of what is your life saver, for me it is my yoga practices. Case in point my practice of swadhyaya, self study which includes studying the yogic texts like the Guru Gita, which is latter part of the Skanda Purana. (The Guru Gita is a Hindu scripture of 182 verses, authored by the sage, Vyasa. It is a part of the larger Skanda Purana.) You can also see the post I did on swadhyaya.

I was feeling a little down noticing some thoughts I was having. I won't go into detail about the thoughts as what you focus on expands, however I do acknowledge the process. So I applied pratipaksha bhavana (a Sanskrit term)- When disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite ones should be thought of. Pratipaksha bhavana is a method which is given as a clue to control and obstruct thoughts in Yoga Sutra II - 33 - VITARKA BADHANE PRATIPAKSA BHAVANAM .

I had not sat down and chanted the Guru Gita for a long time, even though I do play the CD of it from time to time. So I sat down and recited this text. I cannot begin to describe how much better I felt! My focus was no longer on the thoughts I had or how I was going to solve the situation. I was studying my Self and refreshing my self with the text of the Guru Gita. This was better than attempting to numb myself with other alternatives, which as a yoga teacher I do not do anyway. But one can see pretty much that when others do not know of yogic/or other healthy alternatives that they may attempt to "escape" through other means such as drugs, alcohol, food, shopping,etc.

So hopefully I can probe you to ask yourself what do you use as a life saver? Is it a positive tool? Again for me, my tools are the many branches of yoga which are really life savers.

Stay tuned. Check out the workshop I will be doing on 12/14/08 at http://www.bometernally.com/

Taking Pictures

In the times we live in, everything is documented with pictures. Our phones have cameras, we look at moving pictures, paintings, artwork etc. The media bombards with pictures of people and places whether by television, movies or the Internet. "Celebrities" can't seem to go in public without being harassed by the paparazzi.

I, myself, love to take pictures. In fact I just had a dialogue with someone about it. It got me to think about what the pictures represented. I was looking at some pictures that were taken more than 20+ years ago of myself and family members. I realized that a picture freezes the moment in 'time'. It is amazing to see how the body was at the time - younger.

It is not surprising that we get 'stuck' in how we think. Our mind is filled with endless images. It's no wonder that we have a challenging time to keep the mind quiet or have a clear perspective on things. Then on the other hand, pictures can help us to study events, appreciate nature, can be very soothing to the eye of the soul.

What we have to remember is that "I" that is looking at these pictures, like the body changing, is unchanging. "We are not the body" and this is where yoga comes in as a handy tool to help us navigate through life. Through the discipline of practicing meditation, we can use discrimination as to what we look at and bring into our consciousness. Practicing asanas consciously can help us to move the body and mind from moment to moment. Studying the texts like Patanjali's Yoga Sutras helps us not to be "stuck" in the maze of images that bombard us. The practice can give a clearer, deeper picture of who we really are.