Nixa De Bellis - Yoga Ritual

Jamaica 2008

the yoga of pleasurable living
poses
poems
potency

on becoming the subject of pleasure...

recall:
64 skills that make you charming
(from the kama shashtra)
because they pleasure the senses
AKA leading a pleasurable life
a worthy and YOGIC pursuit

the 4 pursuits (PURUSHARTHAS) of yogic life:
DHARMA righteousness, right conduct, learned early on in life from your parents and culture, and the foundation of all 4 pursuits
ARTHA goals towards prosperity and well-being conducted in early and mid adult life. getting the goods that enable contentment
KAMA the pleasure principle, also in the early and mid adult life. the life is to enjoy!
MOKSHA freedom, liberation, enlightenment. usually recognized in later life, but with practice can be had NOW!

there is an order to the 4 (krama)
yet they are all happening at once (akrama)
so tantric!

KAMA DEVATA
pleasure as a deity or an energy of cosmology...
you know, the one who is YOU, who carries a sugar cane bow (the stalk of passion), strung with honey bees and a gentle breeze and a quiver filled with arrows tipped with 5 kinds of fragrant flowers, dripping with desire and surrounded by butterflies and coquettish honey bees, hovering about the aromatic nectar and riding a parrot! yes, YOU!

PAUSE. TAKE 3 BRAHMARI BREATHS "MMM"

when the 5 sense organs--
the ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose--
presided over by the mind and the heart
derive pleasure from objects suited to each,
such an inclination is called KAMA
and it is of the subject.

"the seeing does not belong to the flower, it belongs to your eyes" ~bhagwan sri rajneesh

KAMA is as essential as FOOD for the well being of the body mind heart
get at it!
target your pleasure.
and
become it.

it is one of your greatest responsibilities.
choose to celebrate the life, the privilege of this day,
falling to your knees in gratitude
or singing a silly song of ecstasy.
don't miss the chance!

in the time it takes to blink, the yogi and yogini
can penetrate momentarily in to his or her own expansive, authentic
siva-nature
thru contact with pure subjectivity.
like rapture, in a lucky minute, dissolving time space and form
allows you to taste that sort of formless essence,
you can find this refined perception of existence itself
if you take your mind and heart there, with practice.

pleasure
gets our full engaged attention.
that is why it is a useful sadhana.

mark dyczkowski
revered scholar and practitioner of kashmiri shaivism
can help us understand with the following excerpt how consciousness is literally aroused
by the experience of something beautiful or delicious...

"in states of heightened psychic intensity all the powers operating through the mind and senses
are suddenly withdrawn in to the pulsing core of one's own nature, just as a tortoise contracts it's limbs,
and the continuity of mental life is suddenly broken. the ordinary man, hopelessly distracted, is carried away by this flood of energy. the yogi, however, can by the sheer intensity of this energy, penetrate through he flux of his feelings to the 'firmly fixed vibration'
of his own nature.
he must learn to do this the instant fear arises in him or when he begins to feel depressed or disgusted, no less than
when he is confused or wondering what to do.
equally he must try to penetrate in to the source of the vitality which intensifies the activity of the senses
during the ecstasy of love or of joy at beholding a beautiful object or seeing a close relative after a long time.
overcome with the awe of self-realization,
the yogi intuits the intense feelings welling up inside him as aspects of the aesthetic rapture of consciousness.
the alert yogi
reflects upon his own nature and in so doing
instantly penetrates in to the initial tension of the will
during these heightened states of emotivity.
the instant they arise
he is elevated beyond his conditioned state of consciousness.
the unawakened, however, fall victim to these states
believing mistakenly that his many perceptions and actions are independent of the universal pulsation of his own authentic nature."

10th c. sage abhinavaguptha explains:

immersing himself in the supreme reality
clearly aware that consciousness is all things,
the yogi's consciousness vibrates.
in the privacy of his own experience
established in his own nature
the yogi's awareness
relishes the objects of sense that spontaneously appear before him.
perfected yogis devoted to bliss
are ever steadfast in this, the Supreme gesture,
the perfect and unobstructed expansion of the Awakened.

yoga is cultivating the awakened outlook of wisdom
by practicing drawing ourselves in to our own hearts,
the seam of awareness
to savor any experience as an aspect of our own self,
our own subject.
we can cutlivate in a moment of pleasure
a doorway to ecstasy.

we gain attentive hearts
and that
is supreme bliss

~
taste that!

may you be fragrant and followed by birdsong
kama-tattva
is the enlightened state desired by all.
pleasure is not the "extra".
it is how you know you're a worldling.
real, valuable stuff.
take a deep satisfying breath,
love,
nixa