In The Groove

Sat Nam! Thanks for stopping by.
I'm working on something special. I'd like to write about my reading from the past week of the Sutras and Gita and other information on yoga and the ego. When I was pregnant it seemed as though every other woman was pregnant. When I was dating a guy with a white Ford Ranger, it seemed every guy in town was driving a white Ford Ranger. Now that I'm studying yoga and the ego, um, everything I do and say seems to be coming from my ego.

Consciousness is made of these: mind, intellect, memory, and ego. Yoga is defined as stilling the thought-waves in the chitta, consciousness. Even a little of this stilling can shift you from the habit of relying on the ego to communicate and choosing another area of the consciousness. A breath, the yogi's magic pill, is all the time you need to create this shift. We all know that, but we don't always do it. Why? That question fascinates me. It has a lot to do with how our patterns of action create litle grooves in the brain. Every time we repeat that action, we carve a deeper groove. We like getting in a groove. It's familiar. All the attention to the breath in a yoga class is designed to form a new groove.

Basal ganglia are nuclei in the brain having to do with the execution of smooth movement patterns. They play a part in coordination, cognition, and emotion. A novice guitar player is a bit clumsy with the strings, but the more she practices, the smoother her playing becomes. Neurons are firing in her brain and working together to make the action smooth. Eventually, she won't need to follow the music sheet. If she gives up the guitar and picks it up again ten years later, clumsiness returns, but give her a few minutes to warm up and things start to come back to her. The groove remains after the action has stopped. It can get weaker, as those neurons have stopped connecting. But the groove is still there, waiting to be exercised.

Yoga would call those grooves samskaras. Samskaras are the seeds of karma. They lie in the consciousness like seeds in a packet. Give them soil and water and they grow. More on samskaras will come next week.

Meanwhile, back in my ego..
In yoga class, in meditation, often in private and some social situations, I am aware of being a soul here to experience being human. A flash of that wisdom informs the whole day. At family events, I am nothingness. I am dismissed. I can't be offered a scoop of cranberry sauce without hiding in a deep groove of telling myself I am insignificant and unworthy. It's just cranberry sauce, but it doesn't matter what is said or offered. My ego has responded the moment someone has looked at me for longer than five seconds. I've been seen, which is what I want. But being seen is being exposed, and I am nothingness, remember? Put a pack of cigarettes in front of someone who hasn't smoked for two weeks. Put a box of cookies in front of a dieter. Put me at the Thanksgiving table. Old habits die hard. I could change it with a deep breath, but will I?