When will I be ready to change?
The most definitive text of yoga, the Yoga Sutra, begins with a word that is pregnant with all of the possibility of the great adventure ahead - ATHA (pron: ar-ta). The meaning of this word embodies a complete readiness to begin, it is saying ‘I have suffered enough, now I am ready to be soothed and have all of my true needs met’. In short ‘I’m sick of this shit, it is time to do something about it.’ In other words ‘if we develop this ‘atha’ we are sure to be embraced by the totality’ (Dr NC ‘The First Four Yoga Sutra’ 2018).
In this declaration of determination, we already imbue our action with the right conditions for success. We have such a deep, whole-bodied desire to come out of suffering that we will not cease until that place has been reached. Last night I was reading again my teacher’s book ‘The First Four Yoga Sutra’, I opened it at the first page and saw an inscription written in it that I had forgotten was there. It read, ‘Lissie, yoga is intense, incessant, PERFECT ACTION’. This encompasses both the action of atha - intense and incessant (we so don’t wish to suffer anymore that we will continue to progress) - as well as the result - perfect action, something that can only be achieved when the mind has been refined to it’s place as the great servant of the true self. The goal.
My teacher gives a wonderful example to encapsulate the essence of this readiness, a story by Sr Ramakrishna, which reads as such:
‘A Mother likes to give her baby lots of dolls and other things to play with. The baby will become completely absorbed in playing with them and not even notice if the Mother is there or not. There is such distraction in the Universe of the toys, the child notices nothing else. But when the child becomes hungry, the awareness to the need for the Mother becomes so great, the child cries out for her. In hearing the crying, the Mother stops what she is doing and immediately goes to the child, to hug, console, feed and comfort the child.’
In this example, we can see our experience as the baby, so distracted by so many things that we can completely forget about the bigger meaning of our life. Until we suffer or our deeper needs are not met, then we cry out - often we don’t even know what we are crying out for, something that we are perhaps all experiencing and witnessing at this moment around the world, a desperate searching for something deeper that is not affected by even the greatest upheavel. In this suffering we may begin to seek out and understand that there is something deeper than our own minds, we begin to move from the fragility of the baby to the strength of the Tiger - with that which is beyond the mind - we will find all of suffering soothed, the true knowledge to be completely embraced and supported. It is ready and waiting for us to cry out, to say, ‘now I am ready’. The ultimate Mamma, the totality rushing into meet us.
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