Oh Yoga Books, You are so Timely/Prescient

It frequently happens that something I have buh-logged about is immediately addressed by part of a yoga/meditation book I am reading.

So this time yoga is speaking about my trip to Chile I wrote about (a few posts ago). In The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar I am in the section about the search for clarity and the concepts of duhkha and sukha. Duhkha being, generally speaking, a place of constriction or limitation or choking, in which we do not feel free. This can come up when we want something but can't seem to get it, for example. And sukha is a feeling of freedom, a place of light.

Desikachar notes that "it is precisely those who are searching for clarity who often experience duhkha most strongly." He goes on to reference some commentary on the Yoga Sutra that says "dust that lands on the skin is harmless, but if only a tiny particle gets into the eye, it is very painful," because "someone who is searching for clarity becomes sensitive because the eyes must be open, even if what they see is sometimes very unpleasant."

This was sort of my experience in Chile. Of course when you are looking for freedom you become more aware of your cage, of course this is true. Of course looking for clarity makes you see all the layers obscuring your vision. I don't tend to articulate it this way to myself though. This helps me sort of rewrite my version of my time in Chile - I tend to think of it as a huge failure of will, of weakness and lack of discipline. But another way to view it is that the hyper-sensitizing of my awareness of myself, especially when all I wanted was to find sanctuary within myself (with very little guidance), showed me everything I had to cut through on my way to a more peaceful and accepting state of mind, and it was totally overwhelming. No wonder people always have intense experiences on retreats and stuff. If you want to clear the garbage from your mind, you kind of have to wade through the refuse, and pick it all up piece by piece with your hands. No wonder paths to clarity are so hard, and it feels easier to just immerse in distractions instead of renewing the confrontation day after day after day.

I wish we could get to clarity but skip the clean-up process. Anyway I feel more charitable towards myself when I think of my trip to Chile, and that's a nice thing.