Tag: yoga

backdrop and foreground

consciousness is both the backdrop and the foreground player upon the stage of life…

however, experience can be subdivided into the phenomenal and the noumenal.

the phenomenal is that which dances, acts, plays, and moves,
that which is witnessed, that which is perceived as objective existence,
that which lives and is born and will die,
it is consciousness-in-motion.

ruled by the metres of time and space, the phenomenal is the realm of the body/mind.

the noumenal is that which perceives, the ultimate reality,
that which never comes and never goes,
that which is limitless, boundless, eternal and free,
the true, imperturbable self,
empty of concept, percept, or object;
it is the absolute, it is unshakability itself,
it is that which truly is and which will never cease to be,
it is consciousness-at-rest.

unruled by any limit or form, the noumenal is the realm of consciousness, Brahman.

~

yoga means to yoke, to tie together, to bind.

these two realms – objective phenomena and non-objective infinity, are yoked in our sadhana through the exercise of conscious yoga: the permeation of the non-dual understanding through the body…and into all other realms…

it is the body that is the bridge from the limitless into the time-bound.

so the true non-dual yoga (as I see it) is first to understand, and then to feel.

understand your reality as infinite Consciousness,
and feel the present sensation as the doorway into the unknowable.

…without agenda, give yourself to the felt-sense of Now…

in other words…

know yourself as infinity;
feel yourself as the expanse of this moment…

the rest lies in the hands of the unseen.

sensation and consciousness

the reality of the body is consciousness.

whether we think of the body as the current, present-moment sensation,
or as the physical, biological body we have inherited as our vehicle through this realm of form, its reality is always consciousness – for consciousness is the one reality of all appearances, regardless of whatever ways we consider or subdivide the relative.

reclaiming the body as an expression of universal consciousness involves merging the two seemingly disparate realms of sensation and consciousness.

consciousness is the presence that perceives experience,
always unaffected by the appearances it displays within itself,
and is not a sensation nor is it limited by any sensation.

sensation is just the body-of-the-moment stripped of any psychological storyline,
it’s an ever-changing, raw, evolving expression of the mysterious intelligence of form.

the bridge between these two worlds (sensation and consciousness) is ultimately poetic and free from logic, but we could say this merging involves both:
knowing ourselves as the infinite presence and
unknowing our preconceptions about our expressive limits.

it is an offering of sensation to the altar of experience,
with the grace that allows and unfolds sensation moment-to-moment as the guide.

as the body becomes more integrated into the experience,
the sensory body becomes more and more consciousness-like.

it feels spacious, transparent, luminous, and free;
and in its natural expanse it is felt as undifferentiated from the consciousness that perceives it.

in the experience of the limitless sensory body,
yoga turns back into meditation,
and the body no longer obstructs or distracts from the experience of pure consciousness.
non-duality is known in both immanence and transcendence.

it’s not that sensation stops;
it continues to express deeper layers – and that journey never has to end.

if there is interest, the accent can always be placed on the body-sensation, the yoga of the moment. you can live through this yoga, and it remains an expression of non-duality, having understood the infinite reality of consciousness.