Thursday, October 15, 2009
Pratijna
The word in Sanskrit for promise is pratijna. Pratijna literally means "to know" from the verbal root jna as in knowledge, and prati which means "to or with respect to." Yoga is knowledge as the Shivasutra says in its second sutra - jnana bandha or knowledge is bondage. Yoga begins with a promise - the invitation to know yourself, but the goal of yoga is pratyabhinjna or recognition. But if you look closely you see the word for promise is in there, prati + abhi + jna, which literally means "a return to knowing." Yoga begins with a promise, but it lives in the returning to what you know. Yoga is a promise - knowing what you desire, what you commit to, what you hold, but the beauty of your promise is returning to it everyday in both the original and news way you choose to commit to your desires. It's right there in the language. The promise and the recognition are inseparable. Make a promise today, but return to it and turn yourself into it everyday.
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Had a brief conversation today with Lyn about how one internally reconciles the guilt of not being able to keep a promise? For example, I promised Heidi I'd get to her noon class today but instead was stranded home with no child care. Already upset that I couldn't attend a wonderful yoga class, my disappointment was coupled with knowing that I had broken my promise to Heidi. Now, I will happily return my other promises when the sun rises in the morning however sometimes I wonder if a promise should really be more "grand," more sacred, more something other than the daily things we "promise" to each other?
ReplyDeleteI love this etymology -- just the fact that you've broken down the word is an exploration in itself. -Perkins
ReplyDeleteI think all of our promises are on a scale like everything in life. To choose vanilla or chocolate may have little value other than your preference (although a vanilla bean is quite expensive to pick compared to a cocoa bean), in comparison to something that has sentimental value to you, which usually has little value to anyone else, to clearly making a choice that has social value, like buying the expensive item on your credit card when you have no money. In each case you are making a promise, you make a choice and that creates momentum. The consequences can all be quite different, but when you return to things you have the opportunity to realize they are not fixed, finite or finished promises. You may make a commitment, like vanilla today but that doesn't mean you can't have chocolate tomorrow, or you bought the dress and decided it was best to return it, or you realize the best things in life to give away are the things most valuable (sentimental) to you, like a father giving his daughter in marriage. You make them sacred by the ways you engage in them and with them, so dad gives the daughter away in marriage rather than buying one like chocolate or vanilla. Yet the way the world turns (not to be confused with the daytime soap As The World Turns) will have real implications on your promises. You can't control everything, but you can control how you choose to return to things and really turn those things so they adapt and become new promises. Some may be huge life altering promises, but what you will find is those are less in number than the daily, ordinary promises you make and return to everyday. If we can find the beautiful in those promises then it is the everydayness that turns our lives into the beautiful that we all desire.
ReplyDeleteThis is what always inspires me most about yoga - finding the beauty, the "the revelation" in the every day. It really is that simple, but then why is it that we struggle so much to realize that?
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting that you use the "returning" a dress as your analogy to the pose to illustrate your point about what and how we chose to value things, how we learn to shift a pattern that has been playing itself (well, we are the ones that conduct that instrument, aren't we? Things do not just play themselves?) Anyway, couldn't help but think we were thinking about me when you came up with this analogy...
I realized that I dont make promises because my word is something that I do not give lightly, to others or to myself. I always my mom saying "don't make promises you cant keep", and i realize it is almost impossible to keep the promises that really mean something and when you are unable to keep them there is the guilt that will naturally come up. Promises always seem so cliche. I almost didn't participate in The Promisland because I was uncomfortable with the name, but then I figured just do it. So who knows maybe somthing will come to me, maybe not. I am posting this anonymous because i cant figure this thing out. JoAnn
ReplyDeleteI am trying to understand why I am having a hard time coming up with a promise and making that kind of commitment. It is not like me, I am a committed person. I have been seriously committed to this practice for 3 years. I feel it must be because i don't want to disappointment myself or my yoga family.
ReplyDeleteMy very dear best friend and i like to write Haiku. Haiku captures the essence of nature usually or a moment in time. Yoga too captures those moments and focuses our awareness in that moment. He suggested that I promise to write a haiku for each day.
So here is my haiku for Promiseland Day 3
Colors of dawn sky
canvas awaits unpainted
anticipation
It's funny (and not so funny) that we seem to all share the same "stock" opinion around making promises -- I mean it was no joke when Donna said in our interview that she thought this whole P-land thing was so ironic because she thought that the idea of making promises "kinda sucks." (see blog T and J talk the talk). But, after spending a lot of time "prepping" for the first big class yesterday, I had a hard time defining universally what this idea of a promise meant without the cliche obligatory vow kind of thing coming up. So this is what I discovered after mulling it over with Mitchel -- The promise you make is your "HEART" and the Hold is the "promise" -- in yoga and in life (these are interchangeable prepositional phrases, btw) we are always considering how we hold what we value -- just think of the kind of strength and conviction and passion and beauty you possess to hold such a beautiful thing as your own heart? Your own being?? That kind of promise needs to be malleable, appropriate and evolving.
ReplyDelete