Edward’s Diary Entry 105: Just Keep Doing It

Whatever you’re doing to investigate the mind,  just keep doing it. Whatever increases Self-Awareness is good, whatever decreases it or prevents it, is bad. Life is simple. But many people find it much more simple to complicate things for themselves...

Take doing Bikram, or hot, yoga in the morning. For me, at my age, and having started only 6 months ago, it is a sweaty task, and requires concentration, attention to breathing, effort and then total relaxation in Savasana, the Corpse or Dead-Body Pose, to survive the process – especially the 1.5 hour class, where all postures are done twice. The 1-hour class is now viable, although legs and back have to loosen up quite a lot yet. It is an additional, and for the moment, a purely physical, workout for the body, with cooperation from the mind, which thankfully stays quite still. My eyes are short-sighted, so the mirror is blurry, and in certain postures I see myself as a dwarf or circus freak, a tiny midget with arms chopped off, standing there sightless. I tip over every now and then – my balance is not too great, but too many people fidget, huff and puff, move unnecessarily, drink when they shouldn’t, etc. And I hear that some are thinking a lot of the time – their minds are running over the day: what they’re planning to do, what happened yesterday, who called them last night, whether bills have been paid, when they can go shopping, what they plan to buy, and many others subjects that are totally irrelevant to breathing and compressing organs and simply getting in tune with one’s self and the universe. Yes, it is an unnecessary complication. Yoga is for union with “oneself”, not for reviewing the start of the day – that’s a different exercise, for a different time!

The solution is to use Savasana and relax completely. But to do this, we may need to initiate a definite concentration exercise for the mind at other times, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day. If the wild, roaming mind can be made to focus on one single thought for 15 minutes, then it can be allowed to wander all over the place afterwards, and it will treat us with greater respect when it comes to practising yoga. Intellectuals will say that humans have problems because they don’t think, or don’t think properly. Yogis maintain our problems stem from overthinking. So finding the mean, the right balance, is vitally important. To do this, you need to apply your degree of Self-Awareness, or mindfulness, to the perception process throughout the day. I find it convenient to have a daily plan and schedule and know what I am doing at any given time, sitting, walking, standing, working, enquiring within, or socialising.

Whatever it is, it just has to be continued. Find yourself some good exercises and just keep doing them.