The Ocean

Welcome to Sutra a Day.

Sunday has arrived and with it the beauty of winter sun which is somehow sharper than that found in the heaviness of summer. Sometimes I go to church, sometimes I listen online, sometimes I go to yoga, but for me, this day is usually one of some sort of attempt at spiritual grounding. This morning, I was trying to remember my own first yoga sequence for my first class that I’m teaching today. I intend to read them a poem, one that I can’t take credit for, but that I find so beautiful that even if the class is a flop, at least Kahlil Gibran allowed me to offer this. I’ll also offer it to you. 

 The River Cannot Go Back

It is said that before entering the sea

a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,

from the peaks of the mountains,

the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,

she sees an ocean so vast,

that to enter

there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk

of entering the ocean

because only then will fear disappear,

because that’s where the river will know

it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,

but of becoming the ocean.

We Are One.

4. Vrrti sarupyam itaratry.  “At other times the Self appears to assume the forme of the mental modifications.”

In the last sutra, I was left with a lot of questions. The primary one was Who is that seemingly inaccessible self? Because as this sutra reinforces, the self is NOT the mind, even though we confuse the two. As Sri Satchidananda explains to us, we often identify with our minds and our bodies. I am a woman, I am a scientist, I am tall, I am a daughter.” And these things do characterize how we present individually to the world in this life.  These are filters – filters through which we view the world around us AND ourselves. But they aren’t the self, the Seer. 

He says: “If you detach yourself completely from all the things you have identified yourself with, you realize yourself as part of the pure “I”.

Okay dude. What is this pure I?

Well, it’s the I that doesn’t rely on all these individual traits that filter how we see ourselves and the world.  It’s the I that connects with you. With Everyone. It’s like the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, but it goes a step further – your neighbor IS yourself. Sometimes that might suck because you may not like your neighbor. But is it really the person you don’t like or the traits of the person? And might it be possible that you also carry some of those traits? Good thing those traits aren’t synonymous with the Seer. 

We are One.