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elderberry
USA
49 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 23 2024 : 6:39:05 PM
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I feel my inner silence has been rising lately. It is subtle. Often invisible. Other times undeniable.
As a result, I have been dipping my toes into the self inquiry pool here and there. I am trying my best to heed the instructions of yogani, ensuring I remain in the realm in relational self inquiry, as opposed to non-relational self inquiry. However, I still feel a bit lost in terms of how this plays out in the mind on a practical level.
There are, of course, a number of different questions and methods when it comes to self inquiry. Let's take a classic, "Who am I?".
When engaging in self inquiry, it is so, so tempting for my mind to "pull on the thread", and continue asking questions. I cannot tell if these follow up questions (assuming they are released into stillness) are a natural part of self inquiry, or if they are "building castles in the air" as Yogani might say.
Suppose a self inquiry practicioner is stuck in a long red light, and they are feeling frustration rise up. If I attempt to engage in self inquiry at this juncture, my inner dialogue would be something along the lines of:
"Who am I?" ...
"Who is experiencing this emotion of frustration?" ...
"Is this experience of frustration who I am?" ...
"If this emotion of frustration were removed, would I still be me? And if that is the case then,"
"Who am I?" ...
Or something along those lines.
("..." is intened to represent the attempt to release a question into inner silence)
I try my best not to intellectually answer these questions. I try my best to release these questions into stillness. But I will admit, there is a bit of "pulling on the thread" so to speak as far as the application of questions are concerned.
Is this good self inquiry practice? Or is this "non-relational"?
It would seem that a true relational application of self inquiry would be, while frustrated at the light, ask myself "who am I?" and release it into stillness. And that is the end of that. However for me, this feels rather awkward. And In this application, I struggle to make a connection between what I am experiencing (the red light in this case), and the question (who am I?).
How can I tell when I've crossed over from relational self inquiry into non-relational? Is the very presence of "follow up questions" or more specific applications of the basic self inquiry questions inherently non-relational, or is it good practice?
For someone who is more experienced in relational self inquiry, what might your inner dialogue look like if you were frustrated at a red light?
Thanks in advance! |
Edited by - elderberry on Jun 23 2024 6:40:15 PM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4531 Posts |
Posted - Jun 24 2024 : 10:44:18 AM
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Hi Elderberry,
The easy way to tell if your self-inquiry practice is relational (happening within stillness) is that the practice will lead to greater peace and joy. If your practice is non-relational (mind simply creating more mind), then the practice will lead to increased confusion and a busy mind.
"We will know the approach to self-inquiry we are using is relational, by its ease and effectiveness." [Yogani]
From the Self-Inquiry book by Yogani page 55 |
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elderberry
USA
49 Posts |
Posted - Jun 24 2024 : 1:17:56 PM
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Thank you Christi  |
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Mithuna
France
16 Posts |
Posted - Jun 25 2024 : 11:35:11 AM
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Hi Elderberry,
If we commit ourselves to the Path of Yoga, it is because we aspire to something else. It is this aspiration that will deepen and become our Ishta, the driving force of our practice. However, there is always a risk of coagulating this aspiration in a universe of static representations, which can be very beautiful and noble but which will become stasis focusing and absorbing our aspiration in what may establish in us a form of spiritual comfort but will eventually become a brake on our spiritual evolution in a non-relational approach.
In this connection the Yoga Sutras are unequivocal "Yoga is the resorption of mental operations" (YS 1-2), which clearly means that every representation, however subtle and spiritual it may be, falls into this category and must be absorbed. Any fixation of such representations, conscious or not, represents an opacity that distances us from what Sutra 1-3 announces: "Then the seer is settled in his own nature".
This is why Yogani insists on the practice of DM which is the basis of all our spiritual practice: by concentrating on the mantra, we let the inner silence imperceptibly dismantle all these representations whatever they may be, including in the long term the unconscious conditioning that generates them. By persevering in this practice, which is an undoing, not a doing, then emerges the Witness, the Self, the pure consciousness that is expressed through inner silence in a relational approach.
As this pure consciousness settles into its own nature, it imperceptibly pierces the opacity of our representations and begins to recreate our inner world and restructure our outer world, if we agree to listen to what springs from the inner silence. Any relational approach is re-creation, it brings us into a continuous process of spiritual alchemy.
This state of deep and inalienable peace of which Christi speaks, which is the expression of inner silence, becomes creative. New fertilizing thoughts emerge "in the space between two thoughts" that we open up in meditation. At first these thoughts ? emanations of the Self ? seem strange or even foreign to us because they do not correspond to our personal representations which constitute the framework of our personality. Then, in our daily lives, in the midst of our activities, there emerge bursts of inner silence which, far from causing a rupture by exiling us into an abstract world, fertilize our life by metamorphosing our relationships with everything that is external to pure consciousness: our inner world and contacts with others and the outside world. Where a non-relational approach brings separation, tightness between our life and the spiritual world, by accepting to enter into the relational mode, the breath of inner silence enlivens our daily life.
Yoga speaks to us not only of forms but of energies: as the reactive energies monopolized by our inner representations unravel, new paths are woven within us allowing the circulation of the energies of our Self. It is these energies that, by detaching themselves from the forms that structure our inner world, feed and purify our Ishta, taking us further and further in our practice while regulating it.
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Dogboy
USA
2300 Posts |
Posted - Jun 26 2024 : 02:13:02 AM
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quote:
Then, in our daily lives, in the midst of our activities, there emerge bursts of inner silence which, far from causing a rupture by exiling us into an abstract world, fertilize our life by metamorphosing our relationships with everything that is external to pure consciousness: our inner world and contacts with others and the outside world. Where a non-relational approach brings separation, tightness between our life and the spiritual world, by accepting to enter into the relational mode, the breath of inner silence enlivens our daily life.
Yoga speaks to us not only of forms but of energies: as the reactive energies monopolized by our inner representations unravel, new paths are woven within us allowing the circulation of the energies of our Self. It is these energies that, by detaching themselves from the forms that structure our inner world, feed and purify our Ishta, taking us further and further in our practice while regulating it.
Stillness in Action  |
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Confusion Regarding Relational Self-Inquiry
