Forgetting and Remembering

Forgetting and Remembering

Last Monday I sat down to write the “weekly” blog. I put weekly in quotations as it does not get produced each week as I would like. Life tends to not always cooperate. The focus of the blog was to be on the hip joint and its relationship to yoga and to the energy of the rebirth of spring. I sat in front of the computer, got two lines written and then realized that I did not have the energy or brain capacity at that point to write it as I was still recovering from the flu. Honoring my body’s needs and reality, rather than my cognitive intention, I shut down the computer and laid down on the couch.

Getting the flu, a full blown case with 102 degree temperature like I had not experienced in probably 15-20 years, brought me right up against my ego and out of touch with humility. Thoughts such as “why am I sick, what did I do wrong, let me take this remedy and it will go away, I can’t be sick, how will I reschedule all my clients, etc.,” filled my head. I was so convinced that I could will it away that I even worked until my body put the brakes on and I came to a full-blown stop.

I have worked hard in the past year to be more present to my needs, to surrender to the moment and to reach out for assistance. My old pattern had been to push through and think I had to do much of it myself. With the crisis of illness, all the new coping mechanisms I had gained and celebrated seemed to momentarily be forgotten. Does this sound familiar? How does this happen? The yoga sutras of Patanjali give us some insight. In book two of the sutras, Patanjali outlines the causes of suffering. They are:

Avidya (ignorance of our eternal and connected true nature; the loss of true identity.) This ignorance is a normal part of the human condition. With birth an individual form is adopted. In that individuation there can be a sense of abandonment and loneliness leading to a feeling of vulnerability.
Asmita (false sense of self, ego.) To guard against this feeling of vulnerability, a protective structure known as ego is developed. Because the ego is external, it tends to require external support to maintain its existence, which leads to
Raga (attachment to that which does support the ego.)
Dveshya (aversion to that which does not support the ego.) There is a natural tendency to become attached to things that support the sense of self while rejecting or avoiding those things that do not. In Western science, this might be referred to as the fight or flight response. This up and down ride of raga and dveshya leads to behaviors of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, which leads to suffering.
Abineveshah (fear of death.) The reality of life is that everything except “essence” or “Source” is impermanent. We experience death every moment. It may be the death of a cell, (our bodies are said to be totally new every seven years), the death of an identity, a relationship or a season. The only constant is change. The greater the attachment to the false sense of self, the greater the fear of loss becomes. Running from this fear reinforces the basic misunderstanding that keeps us stuck in the cycle of suffering. Reinforcing abineveshah takes us right back to avidya, ignorance of our true nature.

How did this play out in my illness? The illness created a sense of vulnerability. In that state I clicked in to a sense of aloneness. This was absolutely not true, I have wonderful sources of support, but in that time of crisis, I forgot. And that forgetting truly is the cause of suffering. From that basic misunderstanding I fell back into old ego patterns. This is true for us all. What varies is how our ego patterns show up. Mine showed up in that “push through and carry on” way. In hindsight it was a gift to be able to see where there false belief still exists so I can continue to unwind it. This ego pattern took me into behaviors that supported the false belief system by the acts of attachment or rejection. And that took me further into the fear of death. In the thought patterns I mentioned in the second paragraph, can you hear the resistance to accepting some of those mini-deaths of ego and false beliefs? Resistance to accepting that I can do my best but I am not in control of the world, and stuff will happen, despite my best efforts and intentions? All of this cycled me back to avidya, the basic misunderstanding.

What got me out of the cycle? I was intelligent enough to cancel teaching yoga classes. In putting that word out some friends reached out. In that reaching out they reminded me of my present reality – that I am not alone, I have support, that stuff happens, that lots of folks have been getting the flu, i.e., I didn’t do anything “wrong.” They brought me soup and tea and relatively quickly, and this is an improvement from the past, I got out of my head and into my body. I received the love and support and offered it to myself. I was able to let go and rest knowing that if I got out of my way, my wise and intelligent being would do the healing. This is the return to vidya, or truth. This brought me back to humility, which bought me back to remembering, which brought me back to wholeness.

This is my story. I wanted to be honest about my process in hopes that it will support you in remembering. I would love to hear about what takes you into forgetting and what brings you back into remembering.

Next week I hope to write about the hip. If you have some issues or questions about that topic, or any other, I would love to hear about it.
Shanti, Janice