What Matters
It doesn't matter how far from perfection you are ; it matters that you are headed in the right direction now.
I attribute this comforting quotation to Ganesh Baba, but, to be honest, I don't know who said it. Baba's soft, comforting side was one I knew well, but it's not the side he shows in his writing and it emerges only rarely in the recordings I've listened to. What he does say about perfection is almost always about the importance of striving for it.
The statement arrived in my consciousness one morning some months ago as I stretched my leg and back in the mahamudra. Baba was watching from his picture on the altar.
Deeply engaged in the practice, I was attending to my body's subtle and not-so-subtle responses as I inched closer and closer to closing the circuit when the thought came.
Yogic and tantric lineages use the term mahamudra -"high" "gesture"- for practices they consider most central to their teaching. I've been practicing the Kriya mahamudra for more than thirty years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Over the years it's improved, but my 60-year-old body, while built very well for carrying babies both inside and out, was never perfectly aligned; and my mind, which leans toward being in charge and being right, is not inclined to focus on weakness.
For many years, I always felt not-good-enough about the physical aspect of my practice - however much time or effort I put in seemed not-enough. Only relatively recently have I begun to able to override the constant vague feeling of guilt by giving my full attention to the practice itself, a big step.
When the new thought arrived, my last underlying feelings of inadequacy faded away.
We are all imperfect; there's no more point in dwelling on our weaknesses than there is in dwelling on our strengths. It's ego both ways.
Baba tells us that conscious evolution is about using humanity's specific gift of free will to strive for an ideal state in body, mind and spirit. Accepting what is as it is, the feminine side of the practice, is as much part of the ideal as inching forward, the masculine side, is.
"It doesn't matter how far from perfection you are; it matters that you are facing the right direction now."
I attribute this comforting quotation to Ganesh Baba, but, to be honest, I don't know who said it. Baba's soft, comforting side was one I knew well, but it's not the side he shows in his writing and it emerges only rarely in the recordings I've listened to. What he does say about perfection is almost always about the importance of striving for it.
The statement arrived in my consciousness one morning some months ago as I stretched my leg and back in the mahamudra. Baba was watching from his picture on the altar.
Deeply engaged in the practice, I was attending to my body's subtle and not-so-subtle responses as I inched closer and closer to closing the circuit when the thought came.
Yogic and tantric lineages use the term mahamudra -"high" "gesture"- for practices they consider most central to their teaching. I've been practicing the Kriya mahamudra for more than thirty years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Over the years it's improved, but my 60-year-old body, while built very well for carrying babies both inside and out, was never perfectly aligned; and my mind, which leans toward being in charge and being right, is not inclined to focus on weakness.
For many years, I always felt not-good-enough about the physical aspect of my practice - however much time or effort I put in seemed not-enough. Only relatively recently have I begun to able to override the constant vague feeling of guilt by giving my full attention to the practice itself, a big step.
When the new thought arrived, my last underlying feelings of inadequacy faded away.
We are all imperfect; there's no more point in dwelling on our weaknesses than there is in dwelling on our strengths. It's ego both ways.
Baba tells us that conscious evolution is about using humanity's specific gift of free will to strive for an ideal state in body, mind and spirit. Accepting what is as it is, the feminine side of the practice, is as much part of the ideal as inching forward, the masculine side, is.
"It doesn't matter how far from perfection you are; it matters that you are facing the right direction now."
Labels: conscious evolution, Ganesh Baba, kriya yoga, mahamudra, perfection
posted by Eve at 10:17 AM
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