A Sutra a Day: III-42 – Lightness of Being

Nov 23, 2012 | Healing, Pranayama, Wisdom, XSutras, xTmp, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali | 0 comments

The feeling of heaviness inhibits; the feeling of lightness confers great freedom… to make the changes and transformations that are indispensable to life.*

Here are a few things I’ve done at different times in my life to create the quality of lightness:

1. Emotional cleansing – you know those occasions when you bare your heart to a compassionate other and it enables you let go of guilt, negativity, judgment, righteousness and all those things that were weighing you down.

2. Releasing tension – for instance, the times when you’ve surrendered to a good massage and you arise from the table with the feeling of having been given a new body, a fresh start.

3. Completion – Finishing an exam or a to-do list, graduating from school, healing  a relationship.

4. Fasting, doing a silent retreat, sitting in pranayama.

5. Dancing, singing, yoga-ing, making love… until you lose yourself.

6. Doing random acts of kindness, giving generously, risking, loving unconditionally.

What are the things that foster a feeling of lightness for you?

kaya-kasayoh sambandha-samyamat-laghu-tula-samapatteh ca-akasa-gamanam

Mastering the relationship between the body and ether, then meditating on the lightness of cotton, brings displacement in space.*
*The Essence of Yoga – Reflections on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Bernard Bouanchaud.

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