Ram Dass said, “The quieter we become, the more we can hear.” Winter represents that coiling inward toward the self, so that we can become quieter inside. It makes the resurgence of life and birth in spring all the more beautiful.
We get quiet to pay better attention to sound. We close our eyes so that when they open, shades of light and energy stream in from every corner of the earth. That contrast helps us remember what is beautiful, enduring and lasting: the watching, the listening, the witnessing.
Everything changes
That’s the nature of the material world: birth, sustenance, death. This world is dualistic for a reason. There will always be good and bad, happy and sad, life and death, struggle and ease. The yogis say these are actually one and the same, different manifestations of the same thing. They keep asking: what is permanent? What is lasting?
Quite often we forget how impermanent this world is. When we feel sad, we think we will always be sad. When we are happy, we think we will always be happy. This is maya, illusion. Things are guaranteed to change.
Have you ever been sick and in pain, in pure misery? As soon as you feel better, there is profound gratitude for health. Until we forget. Have you lost a great love and been in agony, only to find a new love you swore you would never take for granted? Until we do.
Soggy socks in Italy
I remember living in Italy in a small apartment with no window screens, heat, air conditioning, clothes dryer or dishwasher. The shower was right over the toilet, and the whole bathroom floor acted as the drain. Soggy socks were a daily annoyance. The television had no cable, in a language I couldn’t understand.
Over time we got used to it. We became content without cars or internet, and we dreamed it would always be that good. When I got on a plane back to America, I cried for my little bathroom. I cried for hanging the sheets on a line on the balcony. I cried for carrying my heavy canvases down the street each day. And when I had first arrived in Italy, I had cried for a bathtub and a screen to keep the mosquitoes out. I kept forgetting. I kept getting attached. I kept getting disappointed.
When I traveled in India, I couldn’t brush my teeth with water from the sink without risking getting sick, something I hadn’t realized I took for granted until I got home. For a week, everyone close to me had to hear about the treasure of using the sink without a second thought. Then I forgot.
The one who remembers
What was permanent through all these experiences was the part of me that kept forgetting: the witness experiencing the smells, the places, the forgetting and the remembering. Yoga encourages us to stop forgetting. It is said that even if a student must hear the same scripture ten thousand times before remembering the Self, that is OK.
The material world changes, and it also makes us forget the luminous beauty of our being. Sometimes that beauty is too expansive, too bright, to process with our limited senses. Each time we wake up from forgetting, it is a new lesson, and a beautiful reminder of why we live here and now.
Spring is a time to remember
Nature is slowly waking up from its deep winter slumber, and spring represents renewal: a time to clear the channels and reset, a time to remember to pay attention. Bright greens, pinks and purples replace winter’s gray scale. Our deprivation makes us wake up, remember and pay attention. Our pain makes us feel pleasure, our sadness makes us remember happiness, and our loss makes us remember we exist here and now. Don’t miss a moment when it comes to you, and don’t forget that it always has to go away, too.
There is a beauty in you that can’t lie dormant and can never change. Let it shine every chance you get, by being here now. Atha yoga anushasanam: now, the practice of yoga.
How do you recognize a yogi?
In the Bhagavad Gita (12.13 to 12.14), Krishna describes the one who is dear to him: free of ill will toward any creature, friendly and compassionate, free of possessiveness and ego, patient, and even-minded in pain and pleasure.
