Persian style tea beautifully served by a beautiful generous soul with a natural touch for impromptu entertaining, pulls together a full dinner at a moment’s notice – I wish I could be more like her … reminded Hafez too was … Persian. Thought provoking and so visual – Even in translation, his way with words are … magical.
Tripping Over Joy
What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
― Hāfez, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
Without a mat, my hands and bare feet kept on sliding on the dry leaves and twigs… flipping over joy? tripping over joy? Can you believe that maybe 10-ish years ago, during a period of time when I was “too busy to do yoga”, after a loooong international flight and an evening on a sofa bed in the living room stay as a guest in Tokyo, my lower back just gave up? Guess my lumbar spine was no longer able to take the abuse – Piercing pain with each step I took – luckily a medicine man with a magic touch fixed me as he thumbed his way up each vertebrae from my sacrum to lumbar spine… a quick fix – and now – To Urdhva Dhanurasana or to Camatkarasana (wild thing!) with ease ! That would have been unimaginable back then …Thank you Yoga:)
There’s a lot of “YOGA is …” yogaism out there …
Beyond the physical…
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah.
Yoga is the ending of disturbances of the mind.
—Yoga Sutra I.2
How? Through practice… not only of asana (poses) but with pranayama and meditation.
