Cleaning My Closet

I was searching for a name for a blog on the practice of yoga. When I say yoga, I mean the eight limbs of yoga passed down by Pantajali. Although I first started yoga as a means of staying fit while in college, I soon discovered many additional benefits such as calmness and relief from the chronic asthma I had suffered from since early childhood.



At the same time, the title for this blog comes from a dear guru, Swami Satchidananda. In the film Living Yoga about the life and work of this man, Felix Cavaliere, from the 60's group the Rascals, asked Swami Satchidananda about the ills of the world and how can we just practice yoga and forget those problems. The wise Gurudev, as he was affectionately called, answered with his characteristic chuckle, "I gave you a broom and told you to clean your closet, and you want to clean the whole house! Finish your closet and then come back and talk to me."



Similarly, the great yoga master, B.K.S. Iyengar, told his student Patricia Walden when she came to him seeking enlightenment, said to her and his other students, "You want enlightenment, but you don't even know your big toe."



So this blog is the beginning of me "cleaning my closet" and "getting to know my big toe" through the teachings of yoga. If any of this helps anyone in their journey to clean their closet, then I am pleased. If it doesn't, well it won't hurt anyone. :)

Peace,
Deby

Pulling Weeds

Yesterday I pulled weeds. I made my mind up to tackle the weeds before they took over the lawn. I learned something that now, of course, seems obvious: pull weeds early and they are a cinch to get rid of. Let them take root and a battle is in store. The weeds/Life metaphor kept going through my mind as I wiped away the sweat that was rolling down my forehead into my eyes. I thought of how James Allen, in his little book, As a Man Thinketh, compared the mind to a garden.

"A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intellectually cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, it will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of weed seeds will fall therein and will continue to produce their kind."

The tiny beginnings of a weed pulled out easily, root and all. Those large ones I hacked and hacked on from every angle with the garden hoe then I twisted and pulled, sometimes with my whole body. At times I thought, these weeds might just win.

My own habitual thoughts came to mind. I had become so very negative at one time. Being positive almost seemed to be a mountain I couldn't climb, much like the embedded weeds I couldn't pull loose from their stronghold. As I pulled, dug, twisted, ripped, and hacked at the weeds, I decided I would not give up. I would win, not the weeds! Then I made the same pact with myself in weeding out the negative thoughts and attitudes, vowing to replace them with positive ones.

Uprooting negative thoughts that have entrenched themselves in the mind may take work, but it is time and effort well spent. Like most people, I prefer flowers over weeds, and positive thoughts are the flowers of the mind; they are perennial, spread joy and inner peace, and the more they grow the more they multiply, leaving no room for the weeds to take root.