Week 8: Atha

 

Forever is composed of nows. – Emily Dickinson

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

 — Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. – Buddha

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time. - Leonardo da Vinci

The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.

 — Ram Dass

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.—Albert Einstein

You have to wake up a virgin each morning.  — Jean-Louis Barrault

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present. — Albert Camus

Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it has expected to find itself: what’s called at home — Chistopher Isherwood

 Yoga in the Modern World

Week 7: Satkara

सत्कर

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
Mahatma Gandhi

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

Plato

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

Albert Camus

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
  Henry David Thoreau

Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
Tertullian

Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.
Phaedrus

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

Swami Vivekenanda

Pranayama Week 7
Yoga Sutra 1:14 

Week 6: Kriya Yogah

क्रिय योगह्

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. — Rumi

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you. St. Augustine

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.
—Albert Camus

Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.
—Confucious

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.—Kahlil Gibran

 

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
—Gustave Flaubert  

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. — Lao Tsu

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
Leonardo da Vinci

I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel — Florence Nightengale

 

A person however learned and qualified in his life's work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant.
—Hazrat Inayat Khan

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Aristotle

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
James A. Baldwin

Readings for Week Six

Bhandas from "The Heart of Yoga" by TKV Desikachar

Yoga Sutras 2.1 - Kriya Yoga

Pranayama for Week Six
Anuloma Pranayama Week 6 

Week Five: Isvara Pranidhana

इस्वर प्रनिधन

God enters by a private door into each individual.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel 

In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase

—Abraham Joshua Heschel

Certain thoughts are prayers.  There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.  —Victor Hugo

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. .... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe in the God idea, not God himself.   
— Miguel de Unamuno

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.  — Emily Dickinson

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself. 

—Henry Miller

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.  — St. Augustine 

Perform your duties in an unselfish spirit.
Always try to perform your duties without desiring any result.
All, without exception, perform work.
Even to chant the name and glories of God is work,
as is the meditation of the non-dualist on 'I am He'.
Breathing is also an activity. There is no way of renouncing
work altogether. So do your work, but surrender the result to God.

—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

5 Qualities Determining Adhikara or Student Readiness

• Open Mind/Heart-Beginner's Mind
• Intellectual dexterity and cheerful curiosity
• Drive and confidence—the wish/will to transform
• Steadfast and patient
• Type of Student—discovering who you are/ discovering with teacher the right practice for your disposition and current place in life

Practice and Pranayama For This Week:

Pranayama Week 5

Yoga Sutras 1:20 and 2:1