Welcome to today's meditation time,
Inspired by Yoga Sutra 1-8.
As you settle into this practice,
Allow your eyes to softly close or cast your gaze gently down,
Whichever feels right for you.
Allow yourself to settle in comfortably so that you feel safe and secure in the spot that you've chosen for this moment of pause,
And then begin to notice your breath.
Notice what it feels like,
What it's telling you about your day,
About how you have felt in the moments just before this one.
Allow your breath to show you how you are right now.
If you feel like it needs to lengthen,
Allow it to lengthen.
If it feels just right as it is,
Then allow it to just be.
Give yourself permission in these moments together to adjust as you need to adjust.
The breath,
The body,
The shoulders,
The knees.
This is your time,
And so listen to yourself.
The Yoga Sutras offer us guidance and direction on yoga and meditation and breath,
But they also offer us guidance on living.
Yoga Sutra 1.
8 is focused on this beautiful Sanskrit concept of viparīyā,
Viparīyā.
It's a Sanskrit word for misconception or wrong understanding.
And in this sutra,
Patanjali is teaching us that misconception or wrong understanding come when our knowledge of something is not based on its true form.
And on the surface,
It sounds so simple.
Why would we ever claim knowledge of an untrue thing?
As you sit and you ground a bit more,
Imagine this story as a way to understand what he means by misconception or wrong understanding.
A man is walking along a path in the dusk of the setting sun.
The sky is not quite dark,
So he can still see just a bit on the path ahead of him.
Suddenly he notices something to the side and he yells out in fear,
Certain that he's come upon a snake.
However,
Once he pulls his flashlight from his pocket and shines the light into the direction of the snake,
He realizes it was only a stick sitting along the path.
But what made him first think it was a snake instead of a stick?
Patanjali would answer that question with viparīyā,
Misconception,
Wrong understanding.
The fear or discomfort within the man as he walked along the darkening path made him see something different than what was actually there.
But why is this teaching so important for us today?
To answer this question,
Let's look to another teaching,
One that informs our lived experiences every day,
Offered to us in the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
Based on ancient Toltec wisdom,
The Four Agreements give us clear direction on how to break our self-limiting thoughts and replace them with agreements that bring us freedom and joy and peace.
And one of those agreements can help us to truly apply Yoga Sutra 1.
8 into our lives right now,
Today.
It's the agreement of don't make assumptions.
Picture this,
You walk into a room filled with a group of people chatting loudly.
But as you enter,
The conversation immediately stops.
You are convinced they were talking about you.
Viparīyā.
Could this be a misconception?
An assumption?
Imagine this,
You notice an email in your inbox from your boss.
The subject line says,
See me as soon as you arrive tomorrow.
Your heart begins to race.
You begin to imagine all of the terrible scenarios as to why your boss must want to see you first thing in the morning.
Viparīyā.
Could these thoughts just be misconceptions?
Assumptions?
A few days after your annual visit to the doctor,
You receive a call that the doctor needs to see you and that you need to come in for additional tests.
Your mind begins to race as you start to search online for all the possible things that must be wrong with you.
Viparīyā.
Could this just be a wrong understanding?
An assumption?
Like the man on the path,
We jump to assumptions,
Often to find that we were actually quite wrong.
Patanjali wants us to first understand that these misconceptions,
These assumptions,
They happen and they do attempt to convince us they are true.
But as Don Miguel Ruiz reminds us,
As we notice these things are happening,
Let's commit to break the self-limiting thoughts of our assumptions and replace them with thoughts of freedom,
Joy and peace.
So as we sit in these next moments of quiet together,
Let's sit and cultivate this belief that freedom,
Joy and peace are right there available to us,
Just like that stick was next to that man on the path.
Let's choose them over the misconceptions,
The assumptions,
The perceived snake along the path.
I'll offer this word of Viparīyā just a few times to enter us into this moment of quiet,
Of stillness,
Of awareness of whatever comes up,
Knowing that we have within us the capacity to replace these misconceptions,
To replace these self-limiting assumptions with freedom,
Joy and peace.
Viparīyā,
Viparīyā,
Viparīyā,
Viparīyā.
Knowing the assumptions are there,
Let's sit in stillness,
Replacing them with thoughts of freedom,
Joy and peace.
Begin to bring gentle awareness back to this moment,
Fully embracing whatever you learned about yourself in these moments of quiet.
Just as the man on the path reached his hand into his pocket to find his flashlight,
Let's leave today's practice with a commitment to continue to draw on the light that we have and instead of believing the assumptions,
The misconceptions,
The Viparīyā,
Let's begin to believe thoughts of freedom,
Joy and peace,
Basing what we see on truth.
One breath,
One moment at a time.
Namaste.
