Comments for Deepening The Practice | Yoga Philosophy Discussion | First Street Yoga

Comment on finding the way: pairs of opposites by Bhuvanisvari

Bhuvanisvari — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:25:14 +0000

Satya is my favorite. When I first started studying the sutras (many years ago now!) I was struck by this concept — because of course I thought I was always truthful! When I started to examine a little more closely; turns out I’d let slide a few, well, shall we say perhaps half-truths? White lies? My friends would say to their young children, “No you can’t have any more–it’s all gone.” But it wasn’t gone — the parents just didn’t want the child to have any more cookies. I became more careful about saying more truthful things, like, “No honey, I don’t want you to have any more. I think that is enough.”
Truthfulness, to me, means what feels right. What feels right when we really tune in, and are honest with ourselves. Often that is not the same thing as what we are told is right.

Comment on who are we and what are we doing here? by | body detox

| body detox — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:13:44 +0000

i am currently enrolled in a Yoga class. the health benefits of Yoga on myself is great. I am more relaxed and i can sleep well at night.

Comment on finding the way: pairs of opposites by Jane

Jane — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:40:19 +0000

Infadecimal objects to a philosophy of instant gratification. Indeed. But all gratification (all experience and perception) only occur in the instant. When we talk about instant or delayed gratification, we are referring to a preexisting desire. And yogis know that we are cautioned against being driven by desire.

But it’s a good point; there is something unsatisfying about imagining that we hop from experience to experience without any meaningful connection. Desire often supplies that connection. But as Gail points out, another thing that supplies that connection is intention, formed from belief.

This is an interesting thing to observe: when are we acting from desire and when are we acting from intention. Do these motivations overlap? Always? Sometimes? Never?

Comment on finding the way: pairs of opposites by Gail Toien

Gail Toien — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:47:22 +0000

Monday morning I reviewed our truthfulness discussion with Darcy. She added the notion of “intention” as an important factor. That is similar with number’s 1 and 2 in your comments. It also reaffirms the part of our discussion about knowing what is true about yourself. When she said “intention” it opened up, for me, another layer of the meaning of the concept of truthfulness.

Comment on finding the way: pairs of opposites by Infadecimal

Infadecimal — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:02:09 +0000

One thing that I don’t quite agree with is you say that “Yoga would say we are wise in our ignorance, that we cannot know what is right for us. But we can tell what is wrong. Too hot. Too cold.” Right and wrong are part of perspective. Choosing porridge to eat is only in the present. Wasn’t the porridge that was too hot the right porridge to eat in a couple hours? From that, can’t we say that wrong is only the absence of situation? But that means that everything is right in it’s time and place. I want to bring in a movie I love, “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” The answer is 42. The computer then said that they would only understand the answer when they knew the question. So it seems, through the Goldilocks metaphor, you stumble across the instant gratification piece of life. Is that what truth is?

“So, finding our way in yoga is like traveling down a dark hallway. We cannot see the way (which is faultless, infinite and indescribable); we follow it by bumping into the walls. Too hot. Too cold” I would argue that the hallway we are walking down has no walls, just a whole bunch of shut doors. So why don’t we wait for one to open instead of following the easiest path of instant gratification?

Now back to truth. Is truth just instant gratification? Do we give the easiest answer which we know is true to the best of our abilities. I will quote another movie, “Men in Black,” “1500 years ago, we knew the earth was at the center of the universe. 500 years ago, we knew the earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago you knew humans were alone on this planet” (referring to aliens living among us). So to state truth is only an opinion base on what you know. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Comment on finding the way: pairs of opposites by Jane

Jane — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:44:55 +0000

I had trouble observing truthfulness (or its failure) in the moment. The issue of truthfulness came up in the excitement of interaction — in the middle of conversation, during disputes and during the irresoluteness that sometimes precedes action. When I was quiet and reflective, truthfulness was not much of an issue.

When I sit back and think about truth, I think of it as an objective standard, an ideal. When I observe truth in the moment, it appear subjective and contextual.

My dictionary defines truth as “conformity to knowledge, fact, actuality or logic”. But all of that is determined by individual perception which is subjective. What we think of as “the facts” are selected and organized in the moment to serve different purposes. I came up with the following layers of working meaning: 1 – Not purposefully misleading.
2 – Not accidentally misleading.
3 – Actions line up with beliefs.
I’d be interested to learn about others’ working definitions. Is truth subjective? Then what do we mean by truth?