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Friday, January 15, 2010

The Company of Great Souls




"Bhranti Darsana: A person afflicted by false knowledge suffers from delusion and believes that he alone has seen the true Light. He has a powerful intellect but lacks humility and makes a show of wisdom. By remaining in the company of great souls and through their guidance he sets his foot firmly on the right path and overcomes his weakness."
-B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga, 40th paragraph of the Introduction.

How does someone know if they have been afflicted by "false knowledge? I'm gathering from this excerpt from Light on Yoga that the afflicted person thinks that they Know. This sounds a lot like some teachers: "He has a powerful intellect but lacks humility and makes a show of wisdom." Making a show of Wisdom is seductive. Don't many of us want to be told the Truth? Wouldn't it be nice if someone else could do our work for us? If it were possible for someone else to do Yoga and gain Wisdom, and then we could just buy it from them, wouldn't that be easy? Problem solved. Except it's not really like that. Everybody has to do there own Yoga. That's just how it is.

The Teacher is valuable and even a blessing, but we need to understand what that is, otherwise we might be led astray for a while. The Teacher is everything; the Teacher is the World, Your Life and Your Heart. And yes a beautiful form of Teacher stands before you at sacred moments for the purpose of "teaching" or supporting your Self-inquirey in a direct way.

If we ever get too high on ourselves a good way to come back into balance is to connect with other good people in our lives. Limited periods of isolation can yield positive learning, but make sure to get connected again. Together, we have an opportunity to grow great, but alone, we could fall into just tooting our own horns.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

1 comment:

Ilovemusic said...

Hey Brooks!! Yeah I used to think learning could be done intellectually. And it can! But the experiential part of putting that learning into practice in one's own life is for me the trickiest part! Stepping up to the plate and perhaps doing what a guide or a teacher or a person with some wisdom talks about is taking it another step further. Thank you for this - as usaul - enlightening piece of insight! xo