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Japa Thoughts: Yogic Chanting II

October 27th, 2007

October 27, 2007

Yogic Chanting II

What one reads in sastra influences ones practices. I’m studying Vyasa’s commentary on the yogi sutra’s, so naturally I let the truths that I gleaned there enter my practice to help steady the mind. I’m fascinated by the notion of ahankara, the false conception of the self that limits ones consciousness to a certain material sphere. The consciousness of an ant, for example, is filtered by ahankara to assume the self- impression of a tiny busy body searching for food. Although it cannot see or appreciate the world beyond its small insect ideas, nonetheless, like any conditioned soul, it has a sense of self-centeredness and inflated importance. My meditation today was thus on pride. I want to chant without it. What am I proud of, however? It’s only the limited shape my consciousness takes in this life, which isn’t even me. Today I, the soul, chant round after round, looking at my false-identity, the one I’m proud of, which is not even the person chanting, and laugh at my illusion. It’s a fact – I’m just not anything that was making me proud. I thus do my mala as a soul, realizing that I am a spark of God, like everyone else.

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