And so it goes

Sadhana finished more than a week ago and I've returned to my regular solitary practice in the mornings. I feel a bit lost left to my own devices.

Sadhana = "accomplishing", spiritual discipline

Twenty minutes meditation/pranayama and twenty minutes of poses now leave me feeling a bit like a slacker. Wonder what the sanskrit word for that would be? Google result: A slacker way of saying...

“Nah, I'm gonna stay” = Namaste  Very funny.

Every morning we would read from Light on the Yoga Sutras. A translation of course, but peppered with sanskrit, and then BKS' elaboration on the meaning of Patanjali's sutras. My mind would often drift in easy distraction.

The original recorded text is composed of 196 aphorisms that have been translated and interpreted exponentially. Potent stuff.

Sometimes I think it would be easier, alone in a cave, or cloistered away, to reach a state of enlightenment. No one to test your patience and no need to chase a dollar. From my solitary 40 minutes in the morning, I understand of course, that's not true, you just enter the realms of 'man against himself' or 'man against nature'. 

Samsara  = the finite world of change, as opposed to the ultimate Reality (brahman or nirvana)

From a glossary of sanskrit words

Akasha  = "ether/space", the first of the five material elements of which the physical universe is composed; also used to designate "inner" space, that is, the space of consciousness 
Maya = sanskrit for 'the great illusion'
Neti-neti = ("not thus, not thus"), an Upanishadic expression meant to convey that the ultimate Reality is neither this nor that, that is, is beyond all description

It seems most sanskrit words end in soft and open vowels, sing-song in cadence, the sounds we make in wonderment, pain, confusion "ahh" "oh" "ee"  "au"

.... coupled with the sound of pleasure, satiety, ponderment... "mmmmmm"

OM