Saucha

I've been practicing yoga asanas for just over three years.  My practice is regular, usually two times a week: one vinyasa class, one hot vinyasa class.  I enjoy it. I might actually love it.  And during these three years a few things have begun to sink in.  Each month at my "home" studio, we have a different focus on some yoga topic, and as it turns out, yoga is not just a physical practice.  As a matter of fact, there are eight limbs of yoga.  Patanjali (credited by many as the "father" of yoga) outlined the limbs in the yoga sutras.  Briefly they are

Yama :  Universal morality

Niyama :  Personal observances

Asanas :  Body postures

Pranayama :  Breathing exercises, and control of prana

Pratyahara :  Control of the senses

Dharana :  Concentration and cultivating inner perceptual awareness

Dhyana :  Devotion, Meditation on the Divine

Samadhi :  Union with the Divine

I cannot even begin to explain these.  That is what Patanjali is for, as well as the many teachers and gurus to follow.

 Anyway, this month our focus is Saucha, one of the Niyamas.  There are many ways to expound on Saucha, but the most basic definition is cleanliness.  This cleanliness is physical, as in keeping a clean home and clean body.  But it is also more theoretical purity.  Or maybe to me it is theoretical.  This purity is an inner purity.  One must keep one's thoughts clean, pure...and even more so, distinct.  Thoughts, intentions, goals, paths, asanas, meditations, each of these need to be distinct so as not to be muddled.  I haven't quite wrapped my head around it just yet.

Swami Krishnananda says, "Any entanglement of consciousness in things or circumstances which have no constructive relationship with the goal of Yoga is to be regarded as an impurity."

Aha...ok, I think I'm starting to understand.  I'm beginning to picture a bunch of threads.  My life, your life, everyone and thing.  My actions, your actions, all actions. My thoughts.  My practices.  My relationships. When they are tangled, all you have is a big giant knot.  What these threads need to be is, I think, untangled.  Straight, clean threads.  What then needs to happen is that only particular threads should come together to weave a fabric.  A "pure" fabric. This is how I picture saucha.

Some of the ways we can practice saucha is by keeping a clean and orderly home.  Not my biggest attribute.  We can keep a clean body.  Ok. I'm pretty good at the whole showering thing. Being clean feels good.  We can focus our thoughts. Well, ok. I'm getting better at that, but I sure do get distracted a lot.  I'm not even inclined to meditate, except when guided or in the form of an activity like running...and even while runningI can become distracted.

Tonight I practiced hot vinyasa.  In class we are invited to set an intention, and tonight my intention was to have a pure intention.  To move through each posture and breath focusing on just that.  And not letting my thoughts wander.  Looking back, I think I did pretty well.  I don't remember thinking of anything other than the practice.