Facebook memories from Rishikesh

 FB Jan 4, 2016: Seems somewhat applicable to my current situation. Only replace Yoga Sutra with Prīti Sandarbha.


I have been too busy to have any original thoughts. Actually, FB often provides me the opportunity to just let my thoughts and words flow. The impetus might just come from the juxtaposition of random things people have said, the media topic du jour, and whatever happens to be preoccupying me at the time.

Of course, it is facile: I turn off the gatekeepers that hold back the doors of creativity and spontaneity and just let it rip. Usually censoring a little for naked irrationality. When I am in a learning phase, I don't like to pretend I know what I am talking about. After all, even I don't really like to make a fool of myself, even though I know that the fastest route to education is to do so, and publicly, why not?
And of course, there is no possibility of love without foolishness. Though I remember this trite and worn cliché, I would prefer not to be thought a fool.
For someone who has come to love meditation and who loves his work, it is incredible how much energy I have to employ to repeatedly force my mind back into the Yoga Sutra. This is not light reading. The very definition of a sutra is that a lot is said in few words. This means you have to think about each word. And when there are time constraints, you have to sacrifice some degree of understanding and those sacrifices might come at crucial points.
And this, of course, has repercussions on how I _practise_ yoga.
Meditation is more fun than work: it is really when I get to digest and examine a little more minutely the meaning and implications of what has been said. That in itself IS the process of samyama.
So, hopefully I will have some sakshatkar of Patanjali's insights. But this psychology is different from that of bhakti rasa. And I am only at the beginnings of understanding their complementarity and respective individual domains.
I will have to elaborate on this at some time. It is no doubt true that bhakti is for one functionality of the psyche, analytical knowledge for another.
Synthesis is the only salvation from multiple personality disorder. Oh, and that is probably why Krishna West is inevitable. But not to worry, everything is going on according to the will of the Lord.
Radhe Radhe!

I miss my friendship with Rupak Goswami. Rupa is a very talented classical musician in the dhrupada style as well as a committed devotee and sadhaka. He is furthermore an ardent student of scripture. He tried hard to get me to learn music from him but much to his frustration I managed to avoid it through my incessant excuses. I would have liked to learn to sing properly in the Indian classical style, but I always claimed not to have the time. How much more we could accomplish in life with a little more discipline and determination! Anyway it has been a couple of years since we saw each other. He seems to have left Vrindavan and gone to live in Rishikesh permanently with his talented Ukrainian wife Anukrishna, teaching Yoga Sutra, using the name Agnideva.  From Jan. 4, 2015: Rupak Goswami came to visit in Rishikesh. We did a program together one evening and participated in the regular satsang on Saturday. I enjoyed greatly.

Comments

Prem Prakash said…
In my experience, Patanjali is less than well understood because the significance of his "ishvara pranidhana," is given short thrift. While he doesn't go into the nature of ishvara in much detail, I'm guessing that wasn't his dharma for this text, this contribution to the Samkhya-Yoga darshan is tremendously important. It's really the key to eradicating the kleshas.
Saturday, 08 January, 2022
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