Day 19 - Can you Control Your Suffering?

Today's Tarka Practice

Many of the great eastern religious traditions tell us that suffering is optional. Is it? Do we truly have this much control over how we feel? Both the Gita and the Sutras tell us that we do have this kind of control - that we can control our suffering and that we cause ourselves to suffer. We are told in these ancient texts that it is our thoughts and attitudes towards those thoughts that cause us to suffer. If this is so, then we can learn to control our minds, change our thoughts and change our attitudes. Is this true? What about someone who is mentally ill or someone suffering through a great illness, like cancer? Are they still in charge of their own suffering?

For today's journal entry, I want you to reflect on your attitudes towards suffering. Try to answer some of the questions that I pose above and write down how you feel about each one. Talk about how much control you feel you have over your own life. Try to think of some examples from your experience in which you were suffering and were able to change your attitude in order to allieviate that suffering. Also, write down some examples of when you were not able to change your thoughts and attitudes and continued suffering. What was different about each of the situations you wrote about?

Shanti

Day 24 - To Yoke Together

 

Today's Tarka Practice
 

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India.

To begin, the Bhagavad Gita or the Lord’s song is an epic poem specifically discussing the very nature of yoga and what yoga means. If you have been a student of yoga for a while, you will know that yoga means to yoke or put things together harmoniously. But what, you may ask, are we supposed to yoke together?

The Gita tells us that in order to live a harmonious and happy life, we must yoke together our earth life with our spiritual life. But again, what does this really mean? It means that we should work towards creating our life on earth in such a way that it matches our spirit or what is deep within.  Here, we should strive towards manifesting those things that are most important to us. Those things that are most important to us are written onto our very spirit itself.

Another way of thinking about this would be to consider whether or not you are leading the life you wish to lead? When we are doing exactly what we want to be doing in our lives, we feel a deep inner harmony. However, when we feel like something is missing or there is an emptiness, most likely there is a discord between what we are doing in our earthly life and what our spirit is meant to be doing in our earthly life. The goal is to make these things match or to make them consistent with each other.

For today’s journal entry, the first thing I want you to think about is what does what I have said above mean to you? Do you feel your earth life and spiritual life match each other or is there a discord of some type? Reflect upon whether or not you feel like what you are doing in your life is what you feel like you were born here to do? This is the first step.

Shanti

Day 26 - Beginning to Know Your Dharma

 

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India. If you have not read Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts, you may want to start there before reading this post.

 

 

For the last two days, we have been talking about our own life’s song or our life’s meaning or purpose. We have discovered that the overall meaning is to serve – to serve others, to serve ourselves and to serve life. How can we serve life? The answer to this question brings us to the next part of the Gita.

In the Gita, there are many key players. Today, we will talk about the two most important players – Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna symbolizes the human being, a person, or even more literally, you – the person you are in this life. Krishna symbolizes God incarnate but can also be seen as symbolizing the oversoul or our higher self or spirit.

So, what is happening in the Gita is this – a conversation between Arjuna (your earth self) and Krishna (your spiritual self). Depending upon your religious beliefs, you can also see this as a conversation between you and God.

The conversation that is taking place is this: Arjuna is trying to figure out his life’s purpose or his life’s song and he is asking Krishna for help. Krishna’s response to Arjuna is this: your life’s song is your dharma.

In yoga, dharma has many meanings. For the purpose of our discussion here, you should think of dharma as the nature of life. Krishna is trying to help Arjuna understand the nature of life, more specifically, the nature of his life.

For today’s journal entry, I want you to think about the nature of your life. What is your dharma or purpose in this earthly life? Most people do not know the answer to this question or are uncertain. That is fine, for this is the place to begin. Many people come to yoga to find out the answer to this question, so for now, if you do not know your life’s purpose, make a list of your strengths and what you feel you do well.

 

Shanti