Remembering Ourselves

Our practice is receiving what is already there.

Allow, remember, and make space.

This sutra is all about being in the flow.

Sutra 4.3

The practice of the techniques is not the cause of the increase in awareness, but they act as a means of removing the obstacles of the free flow of consciousness.

–  Roy Eugene Davis

This sutra exemplifies the basis of yoga philosophy, the part of yoga philosophy that I really love: we are already connected, we are already one, we simply need to free it. Like water rushing in, we allow it to happen, we allow ourselves to thrive.

A common translation relates this sutra to a farmer opening an irrigation canal and building banks and waterways to carry water’s natural force to their fields for their crops and sustenance. Water is life force.

This is perfect sutra for a spring blue moon. The light has returned. Let the gardening begin!

Let the practice of the eight limbs of yoga irrigate our souls, remove obstacles, and allow us to tap into Ourselves.

The yamas and niyamas (external and internal ethics) are preventive medicine. Practicing healthy ethics is like a spring rain keeping the debris from harmful interactions with others and ourselves from accumulating in our gutters.

Asana (postures), pranayama (breath practice) and pratyahara (turning inward) are the processes of removing obstacles in the physical, energetic, and mental bodies.

Dharana (concentration) and dhyana (meditation) guide life force in the channels and teach us to let go of what doesn’t serve us, especially on the mental level.

Samadhi (absorption) is the free flow of consciousness, the ideal irrigation canal that seamlessly adjusts flow to the nuances of the surrounding environmental conditions.

We must remember that we are not developing and we are not growing in the true sense, but we are removing the obstructions so that we may perceive truth.

– Roy Eugene Davis

I appreciate the reminder that the process of evolution isn’t focused on the process of growing, but on letting go and getting rid of what we don’t need to protect us anymore. The progress and possibilities we seek are already here.

From this perception, we change the intention of our practices to receiving.

The focus isn’t on becoming something. Our intention is on allowing, remembering, and making space.

This turns our practice more and more towards the subtle body and the inner expression of the practice.

In preventing obstacles, we practice moral actions and the channels through which energy flows get wider. By practicing the yamas and the niyamas we carve out more space and time for good to flow in, fill us up, and overflow into our surroundings.

When we focus on the physical, energetic, and mental space of our practice we naturally gravitate towards a balanced practice. Our purpose becomes stirha and sukha, strength and ease. End poses and their competitive nature, specific breath counts and their expectations, and the clitter clatter of the constantly mental madness reacting to sensations fall aside. Instead of hammering away at removing obstacles, we practice making space around the obstacles and let waters magical erosion do the rest. Our asana, pranayama, and pratyahara practice is about space not dominance.

Concentrating and meditation are an opportunity to listen, feel, and tap into the current. We truly become farmers managing an irrigation system. We remember the natural force of water, the natural force of ourselves. We allow ourselves to ride the currents of energy. We become absorbed by truth and we tap into the flow that connects all things.

By allowing, remembering, and making space, we remember Ourselves.

Everything we want to be, we already are.

Like water rushing in, we allow it to happen, we allow ourselves to thrive.

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