Here are a few more pearls from Manorama from our time in Tucson.
How do you know you are a beginner at anything? You are focused on the end. (Manorama talked here about how in the beginning of things we are looking to the end- like in meditation we are watching the clock or in a hard pose we can't wait for it to be over or on a first date we are wondering about whether we will get married. once we mature, we can enjoy the process we are in and be more present for the journey without as much focus on the end.)
In Sanrksit, the sound is the entry point to Awareness.
You must know the difference between a lower case "s" and an upper case "S"
If you ask the right question, the right questions will lead you to the right answer. Instead of looking for answers all the time, look for the right questions.
Meditation is like being on a first date with someone you don't know well.
The big secret about meditation is that no one likes it. (Find me someone who likes meditation and I can bet you money that person is not a beginner.)
Everyone is cut out for meditation, its the ground of who you are.
"Meditation is like practicing death."- Sri Brahmananda Saraswati
You are in for lige and you are not getting out alive. But if you practice, your experience will be different.
Meditation s an experience to understand the relationship between this realm and beyond. Like any relationship, it takes time to develop and dialogue.
Sanskrit is the language of the meditative reality.
If you break with tradition, be Picasso about it. He broke and he did something fantastic.
Yoga is the process of engagement.
Yoga is the union between what you can see and what you cannot see and realizing there is something more.
Walking through fire is required for our development in this realm.
Sri Brahmananda Saraswati- :yoga is the experience of missing nothing."
Yoga is the experience of wholeness.
If the mind is always missing something, what does that tell you about yoga? It must be found beyond the mind.
Yoga teaches you to "make new" out of what is eternal. The mind always wants what is new. That's how "new" plays you. Instead, learn to play the mind. Give it pulsation, which makes new out the old and then absorbs the mind.
rama- to play, to sport, to charm
You don't need your practice everyday but when you really need your practice you are going to need the strength that only daily practice gives.
We all get unanswerable "why's" in life. Maybe these are the things that evolve us. When the thinking mind can't find the answer to the why, you are given an opportunity to go beyond the the thinking mind. What lives there? yoga.
It is not the teachings that we have to manage. We have to manage ourselves in relationship to the teachings.
There is no "advanced" there is just what is. There is only practice.
Authenticity of Voice is not the same as self-expression. Authenticity of Voice is living in contact with the ground of being so that you know what to pull down at what time.
