Saturday, February 9, 2008

Back with Devotion

A month in London and 14hours in Brussels and 16hours in the sky and I am back in NYC. I love NYC........no city like it. Here for a month and a couple weeks before I head out to asia for about two and half months.

Could not have come back at a better time Ishvara Pranidhana: The Power of Surrender is the focus of the month and it is not written by Sharonji... This might be in fact one of the first times that a fellow teacher has written a focus that has made it to the public. Very exciting. Sofi Dillof is an amazing woman and the author. Ishvara which is our own personal form of the Divine is said to pass down to us through Vishnu the preserver. Pranidhana is to give it up so to speak to Dhan you Pran to offer your life to a higher sense of self and other. Although Sofi does not discuss it directly she is also referring to the practice of Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion. And really devotion is or should be at the heart of all yogic practices if we are desiring the goal of yoga.

"One who practices meditation solely for his own spiritual development may advance on the path but will fail to attain the supreme goal. This failure is because his practice is limited to a desire for his individual accomplishment..."

This is from the introduction to a book called The Yoga Of Spiritual Devotion. It is a translation of the Narada Bhakti Sutras and are to Bhakti what Patanjali's Sutras are to Raja. I will be reading fromt his book throughout the month and I suggest you look into it.

More to come....peace, j