In which I share with you some of my prized possessions.
Part Two: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali
This is a pocket-sized copy of Patanjali’s sutras:
I bought it at Powell’s Books a long, long time ago.
Sutra means suture or stitch.
I’ve kept this book while letting go of hundreds of others because it represented a fork in the road. I bought it because I wanted to be the kind of person who would read such dense philosophy – read and grok such dense philosophy – but I wasn’t. I just knew that I wanted to be. I carried it around with me long before I was ready to read it, because I thought it made me look deep.
To identify consciousness in that which merely reflects consciousness – this is egoism. – 2:6
Since the desire to exist has always been present, our tendencies cannot have had any beginning. – 4:10
The mind is not self-luminous, since it is an object of perception. – 4:19
Now it’s twenty years later. I can now say I’ve read these sutras many times. (And the Gita, and the mind-blowing Concise Yoga Vashishta, and maybe a quarter of the Mahabarat. And several of the Upanishads. And most of Mother’s teachings. And the New Testament. And a bunch of other stuff.) But I still haven’t read the commentary in this particular edition, because I’m not there yet.
I even got the sidhis, when I lived in Iowa. (The TM Sidhis Program, that is. Here’s a the Wikipedia article on the subject, obviously written by some Movement PR lackey.) It turned out that they – the sidhis – were simply the mental repetition, after meditation, of a series of the aphorisms in this book! (I still can’t believe what I paid for that.)
I did my TM sidhis regularly for… well, I never did them regularly. I quit doing them pretty much immediately after getting off my flying block, because it seemed useless and time consuming. Actually, after having gotten them, I thought the sidhis were a bunch of crap sold to Westerners to make them feel deep when in fact they were just rich children from a culture devoid of significant history or depth.
I never thought the TM sidhis were bad for anyone; they seemed to be beneficial for those who loved them. I just thought we’d all paid too much for information that is available for free, and I never was happy with where the money went. But that’s a Movement rant, and not the point of this post! The point of this post is that I’ve had this little book ? For a really long time.
(Read terse and commentary-free sutras here!)
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In the early 90’s, I deserted my life in Oregon and went to Iowa “for a year.” I left the vast majority of my stuff with my roommate, including but not limited to an antique dining room set and all of my vinyl. But because I stayed in Iowa for five years, I never got any of that stuff back: I went from having a home full of stuff to pretty much being able to carry all my worldly possessions.
In the late 90’s I moved again. I ended up trapped in Albuquerque with no way to transport what little stuff I had, so I threw most of it into a dorm incinerator. When I was done, everything I owned in the entire world amounted to about six boxes of stuff. (I’d left the rest of my stuff back in Fairfield, had given most of it away.)
Two and a half years later, I drove I-80 from San Francisco back to Fairfield. Everything I owned fit in my little Toyota pickup. I’d gotten rid of yet another sofa, set of kitchen implements, and bevy of houseplants, and owned only clothes, a few small items of furniture (a futon and a wooden asana), and other random knickknacks like books, my cat, my computer, my altar, and heirloom items like photographs.
When I arrived back in Iowa, I got an apartment within the month and was immediately given a household full of furniture. Eventually I got married and bought a farm house and ended up with 3,000 square feet worth of stuff. Sewing machine, desk, shelves. Books. Sheets, blankets, towels. Laundry baskets, Windex, bread machine, candles. Dog bowls, recliners, end tables, chrome citrus juicers. Blender, futon, Christmas decorations. Bowling ball, framed prints, entertainment center, flatware.
In 2007, I drove from Fairfield out to Washington state. Everything I owned fit in my jeep. I’d abandoned all my stuff once again.
There are a few items I’ve kept through several downsizing phases, and I’ve decided, since I’m unemployed and have the time, to share them with you.
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