This principle applies to yoga's treatment of all addictions too. What we don't feed will wither. Desires, even if only expressed at a mental level, continue to nourish negative imprints. By turning our minds inward (which automatically happens) in asana and pranayama and teaching us the art of constructive action in the present moment, yoga leads consciousness away from desires and toward the inner, undisturbable core. Here it creates a new avenue by which reflexively to perceive, observe, and recognize the heart (antarlaksa). In this way, the meditative mind created by yoga is a powerful therapeutic tool for removing human ills.
Memory is not a platform from which to review the world. It is a ladder whose rungs we ascend step by step...Memory consulted by intelligence gives completely different answers to memory consulted by mind. As we have seen, memory consulted by mind and ego will always say, "What I liked give me more of, whatever the consequences. What I didn't like give me none of, whatever the consequences." Mind and memory reinvoke past experiences of pain and pleasure and equate them to the present situation, however inappropriate. Whereas intelligence makes creative comparisons, mind makes destructive ones, destructive in the sense that they fix us in a rut, an imprisoning pattern.
~ B.K.S. Iyengar
No comments:
Post a Comment