Yoga sutra chapter 1 verse 2 yoga is the containment of mind

And my post hip replacement connection to it.

Oh yes!, it did hurt before the op, but I could move! , 

I was still free.!

Both my legs seemed to be the same length before

I think that may have changed now.!

I could forward bend before, but I’m not allowed to, at the moment!

I have to wear pressure socks, but I can’t bend to put them on.

So many dos so many don’t

And now here I am stuck in the house, slowly recovering movement, and it turns out the word slowly doesn’t seem to be something I’m very comfortable with.

So as always I look to the yoga sutras to support me and shouting at me loudly,at the very beginning of the text, is

YS 1.2.

Yoga is the containment of mind.

Why does it stand out so strongly?

partly because we know it as the point of our practise, our path to freedom. 

So I know the words well. I can chant them. It’s familiar.

But partly because whilst stuck here at home my mind has decided to play.

And right now it’s making me go crazy watching posts on social media that rarely talk about mind stuff, and only show beautiful women and men doing asana.

You would be so forgiven for being confused about what yoga is.

I keep having to remind myself.

There’s a path to yoga, a pattern, woven in the threads of Patanjali yoga sutras and it’s always about mind.

Written before asana was thought of, and when it only meant seat for meditation, it’s a path that takes us on a journey.

And that path explains to us that there is a practise we can use to help us contain the mind, because to contain the mind is our way to freedom. 

So yoga isn’t downward dog then?, 

No idea when I will be able to do that again!, 

thank goodness!

So it’s a good idea, occasionally, to visit your reactive mind especially when you’re struggling, and see what’s disrupting it at the moment.

And for me, well!

It’s lack of movement, frustration, and learning to go slowly, but it’s also what I’m feeding myself with, what we are all feeding ourselves with. What our eyes see affects us, there are many forms of food.

Our yoga is important to us, 

We start in the shallows, but if we don’t move into deeper water this is where we stay.

You can’t swim in the shallows. 

The shallows is where yoga is becoming stuck, and bogged down. 

Or is it just us, are we what’s becoming stuck and bogged down.?

So I’m turning off social media for a while

I think I will swim around in the deep end for a bit.

Let’s call it hydrotherapy.

Now, where am I going to put this post! ??…………

Discuss

Is it possible to live with these things but not be influenced by them

We don’t have to turn away, and we don’t have to embrace.

But we can observe, that’s the practise I’m working on right now. 

Yoga Sutra chapter 1 verse 2

Yoga’s citta vritti nirodha.

Yoga is the containment of mind.

Gill Ansty YHET trustee