� e Monthly Aspectarian

Every day, throughout the world,
millions of people go to their yoga
mats and begin their practice of poses,
breathing and meditation. In America
however, yoga practitioners are eluding
yoga’s true purpose while their practice
becomes more athletic than meditative.
In traditional yoga teachings, one of the
most renowned yoga texts is Patanjali’s
Yoga Sutras. These teachings begin
with the most important concepts: “The
quieting of the activity of the mind is
yoga” and “When you quiet the mind
you will abide in your own true form.”
(Sutras 1.2 and 1.3)
This, then, is the true purpose of
yoga: to abide (live within) your own
true form. What then, is your “true
form”? Is it outward? The evidence of
dedicated physical practice that results
in a lithe, flexible body? Or is it inward?
Quiet emotional poise in a noisy,
abrasive world?
Yes, and no. There’s even more.
When you come into this world, you
arrive with what is often called a “veil
of forgetfulness.” This “veil” helps you
cope with entering another lifetime.
You forget who you were in other lives
and you forget where you came from.
You forget that everything is Shiva,
the omnipotent divine reality or god
or infinite being or Spirit or whatever
name you choose. You also forget your
true Self. You cannot remember that
24 The Monthly Aspectarian - March 2013
Plug Into
Consciousness
with Yoga
you came from this infinite state and
contracted into this finite form.
With yoga, you can reconnect with
Consciousness; you can pierce this
lifetime’s veil of forgetfulness and reexperience
your true Self as Shiva—or
god, or divine reality. Every time you
practice yoga or meditation you have
an opportunity to connect to this divine
spiritual knowing of your true form.
Much like cell phones running on
battery power: you can function well
for a limited time, but eventually you
must find your way back to your power
source for recharging. Your “veiled”
state is your “battery” state. When you
experience your true Self, you no longer
will be satisfied to run on batteries:
you must connect to the Main Power
Source—Consciousness.
According to Kashmiri Shaivism
philosophy, “Consciousness is the ever
pervasive, omniscient, divine energy
that contracts to create all energy, all
matter, all things.” Consciousness is
there to be experienced from the seat of
your yoga or meditation pose.
Have you plugged yourself in lately?
First contact with Consciousness
may be initiated in the pause. Pauses in
yoga are between the movements from
one direction to the next or between the
inhale and the exhale of each breath.
What is “the pause”?
Margo Gebraski
The pause is the moment or second,
or even less, that allows you to drop
into a calm and quiet state, beyond
the activity of the mind when you are
grounded into your inner being. For
that instant, you begin to reconnect
with your true form, not your external
identity, but your divine essence which
is you, as you in this world.
Many yoga practitioners do
sequences of poses that flow from one
pose to the next, typically connecting
the poses with the breath. When poses
are done at an appropriate pace and with
awareness, the flow can be more than
physical and the pauses can drop you
into a space of quiet. The space when
you can connect with Consciousness.
When your practice is more
physically focused and you are
following an instructor who moves
you in and out of poses faster than
you are able to keep up, you miss this
opportunity to be in consciousness. As
you attempt to catch up to the next pose
you miss the most delicious moments
of ease and peace. Your mind is focused
more on the external pose than the
internal effects and the pauses available
to you.
Then at the very final moments of
the class when you are in shavasana,
yoga’s relaxation pose, the opportunity
is there to experience the pause and
you drop into Consciousness. This is