Still a long way to go til Enlightenment

"Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been 2 days since my last meditation." Oops. Sorry. Had a flash-back to Catholic school days. But seriously, I didn't do my sadhana the past two days. I could give you a long list of excuses but none would be a good one.

It seems when I need the practice the most it's usually the first thing to fall by the waste side. Why is that? For the life of me I can't figure it out. We know what's good for us and yet at times, we can't get ourselves motivated to do what we know is in our best interest. We humans are such strange creatures!

What I've noticed in my own life is I am very much aware of the times when the old habits are creeping in again and I can usually get myself back on track pretty quickly. This time it was only two days. I made sure this morning that I did not leave my house without first doing a sadhana.

The difficult part for me is forgiving myself when I slip back into old samskaric patterns. Forgiveness is a really hard thing. I heard an awesome definition of Forgiveness from Oprah Winfrey once. She said that "forgivness is giving up the hope that the past can be any different." Sounds like a yoga lesson to me. It's pointless to dwell on the past. We can't change the past no matter how hard we try.
We also can't predict or control the future. All we've got is the present moment. Here and now.

The bhavana for this morning's class was staying present for the practice and maintaining a state of witness consciousness.

Each time I heard my teacher says "notice where your mind is" or "stay present folks" I was aware that my mind had wandered. Upon noticing this, the judgemental part of my mind would remind me what a lousy yogini I was because I couldn't even stay present during a yoga class. There is almost always a little judgemental voice pointing out our faults. Sometimes it's someone in our life who's giving us what they consider "constructive critisism" but more likely it's our own mind.

When I expressed how difficult I found it to witness myself, my mind, without judgement my teacher pointed out that the judgements will come because it's part of our ego based mind. The key is to not be attached to the judgement. Let the judgement go. Remembering that we are the Atman (the aspect of the Divine within us) Ummmm..... Good point but also quite a challenge.

Okay, so let's re-cap here: I missed two days of sadhana. The guilt sets in. I go to my yoga tool box. Here I find forgiveness and non-attached to the judgement I've made about myself for not practicing. Oh yeah, and gratitude. Gratitude for my yoga tool box, for the teachers who gave me the tools to fill it with, and of course for the Divine who is always giving me opportunities to use these yogic tools.


Gayatri mantra sadhana - Day 1 / Take two!
Even after all these years of practice I am still so easily affected by things outside of myself. I am disappointed about a circumstance out of my control and I get upset about it. I get caught up in the emotion and have difficulty stepping back into a place of witnessing. This witness conscousiness that I practice during meditation I need to practice when I get caught up in emotions.