Inside Yoga 213 (16/10/17)

Why? It’s a question many of us ask… about our life, existence, its meaning, purpose and so forth, but how many of us find out the definitive answer to this important question? And do we really need to know the answer?

The paradoxical nature of yoga practice talks about the answers and the routes to the answers but in practice we are asked NOT to focus on the question or the answer.
The purpose of asking us to focus on our breathing, our body and the stillness of mind (that is devoid of thinking but filled with awareness and consciousness) is that we are then in the present moment, the here and now, the eternal moment that is the present… and here there are no questions nor answers.
And here is the other paradox, while striving for the quietness and stillness of mind our questions might be answered, because it is only in the quiet of stillness do we have the clarity to see answers as they rise.
When profound thoughts do pop into our head, we acknowledge their importance or lack of importance and return to the practice. And carry on with our yoga practice. The thoughts keep rising and we keep dropping all thoughts including the ones that answer the most important questions as well as thoughts that are clearly chatter and useless.
I have been practising more than 22 years and from the beginning I was looking for answers. I kept following the instructions to drop thoughts, and I might have found some answers along the way, but the stubborn part of me took a while to understand this point. We can be very attached to our own thoughts, including the profound and important and these are the ones we find hardest to drop when practising, yet we must, because stillness is absolute: there are no thoughts, including the ones we want and like, and feel proud of.
Of course, we need to ask questions, including the basic ones of how to practice yoga asanas (the physical positions) but there comes a point when we need to stop thinking and concentrate on the action of the posture. This is why there is so much emphasis on the word “practice”, as it takes time to perfect the practice, and even then we need to maintain our level of experience.
There are numerous meditation practices that help us to understand this point, for example, the form of inquiry, where we sit meditating and periodically ask the question, “why?” or “who am I?”. We then watch the thoughts that rise in answer, and after a few moments, we acknowledge the thoughts, drop them, and then ask the same question again. This practice continues like this. In time we begin to see the fluidity of thoughts and the repetitive nature of our thoughts, and importantly we begin to see how we can drop our thoughts however important they might feel. And we continue. It teaches detachment yet improves clarity and awareness.
Paradoxically, we needed to ask the question to start us on this journey, even if we realise we don’t need to hold onto the question or the answer.
Meditate on this and keep practising.
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