March 2024 | Salve
NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in March 2024. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.
According to his students, the Buddha used to say that the most important part of any meditation practice is when we get up and step back into our day to day life. The challenge has always been to carry that sense of inner focus and resolve back out into the wider world. As an addendum, the meditation and spiritual teacher Ram Dass in more recent years stated: “if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”
One of the elements of Tantric philosophy that has always rung true to me is that our most important lessons for self-development are found within the messiness of everyday life.
Or, to paraphrase my yoga lineage-holder Alan Finger: ‘It’s easy to reach enlightenment by hiding away in a cave for six years. It’s harder to get there in the middle of a busy city while maintaining all of our social responsibilities and worldly attachments.’
Imagine the richness of the moment in which everything is present all at once: the delicate beauty of spring blossom, the pain of a broken heart, the ecstasy of young love, the grief of losing a loved one.
All of this co-exists within every single fragment of time and each of us holds the capacity to live in this full experience of life - with joy, with suffering, baring witness.
To arrive at this place of true acceptance where we’re able to observe the flow of life without judgement of what is good or bad is the goal of yoga, and although many roads lead to Rome, the eight limbs of yoga signpost the way.
In class we’ve been exploring the first limb, the yamas, which guide our daily actions in relation to our environment for the benefit of all beings.
However altruistic this endeavour might seem, the actions of the yamas are intended to be purely practical with each of its aspects leading us towards equanimity and insight by eliminating a set of distractions. These are not the moral commandments of Christian faith, but skilful ways of relating to the world without adding to its suffering or ours.
In my time as a yoga student I’ve witnessed my fair share of dedicated movement and meditation practitioners journeying so far inwards that they lost sight of their relation to the wider world, leading to an almost navel-gazing sense of narcissism. Falling into the mirror-image of their own reflection like Narcissus.
So although I still consider it perfectly acceptable to attend yoga classes purely for the physical asanas, I would also argue that the philosophy of this practice grounds us within the world in a way that matters. And (based on my personal experience) life is richer, more colourful when viewed through the lens of philosophical context.
With love,
OM x
Monthly Mantra
“Our arms start from the back because they were once wings”
Martha Graham
March Playlist
A mellow mix to accompany you on your next Spring stroll through the park
Featured Flow
Although we’re likely to feel energised by the extra daylight, here’s a gentle flow to help you prioritise restful nights
Reading Recommendation
Written around the 4th Century, the Tao is a book of aphorisms (not unlike the Yoga Sutra’s) that draws life lessons from observations made in nature. Reading it for the first time during my art foundation degree gave me a glimmer of a different view on life - one that was more poetic and looked beyond the superficial layer of fact. I hope Ursula’s wonderful translation might do the same for you.
Thank you for reading - if you have any questions please feel free to reach out via email.
Copyright © 2024
Oceana Mariani
