We started our blog a bit
out of order so I wanted to go back and give the background story for the
questions we’ve been reflecting on the past 2 weeks.
At this point in the
Mahabharata, the Pandava brothers find themselves in the woods hunting
deer. After an unsuccessful hunt, they
are tired and thirsty. Yudhishthira, the eldest brother, sends his brothers out
one by one to search for water and none of them return. He follows closely behind Bhima, the last
brother he sends out, and as he emerges into the clearing at the edge of the
forest he sees a beautiful crystal lake and all four of his brothers lying dead
on the shore. An “invisible voice”
speaks to him, explaining that the lake belongs to him and as each brother
approached thirsty he asked them to answer his questions before drinking. None of the brothers honored his request and
so he killed each of them in turn. The
voice asks if Yudhishthira will answer the questions before drinking or meet
the same fate. Yudhishthira agrees to
answer his questions, and these are the questions we have been discussing the
past couple of weeks. (Spoiler alert –
he successfully answers all the questions and the “invisible voice”, who we
learn is really the voice of his father Dharma, restores the slain brothers
back to life.) We’ll continue to look at
more of Dharma’s questions over the next few weeks, but let’s talk a little
more about this story first.
To me, this is a story about
patience. The “invisible voice” acted impatiently
and killed the brothers without recognizing that they were suffering a long day
of hunting and perhaps it would have been difficult for them even to talk
without having some water first. The
brothers acted impatiently by putting their need for water above the needs of
the owner of the lake. The root of the
word patience in Latin and Greek means suffering. In Hebrew the root of the word means to
endure. So being patient means that
it’s not going to be easy, that we have to set our needs aside for a while and
there is discomfort in doing that.
To be patient means to see
another perspective, whether it is our own or someone else’s. It is a practice of loving kindness. When we pause before honking our horn at the
car in front of us, or before banging our groceries down and muttering under our breath while the lady in front of us at the
supermarket slowly writes her check rather than swiping her card, or
before reading my 6 year old the word rather than letting him sound it out, we give a beautiful gift. We tell that
person I care about you and your feelings, and we reinforce to ourselves our
own capacity for open-mindedness. It
works the same towards ourselves – when we let challenging poses unfold slowly
and mindfully rather than forcing or pushing our bodies we send a powerful
message of acceptance and self-love.
Here are some other ways
patience can help us in our yoga practice, both on the mat and off:
Open to Grace: Open yourself to a bigger picture of the world, where
everyone’s needs are equally important.
Recognize that
you are part of something bigger, we are all interconnected so making time
and/or space for the other makes time and space for you too.
Muscular
Energy: Draw into your ability to endure challenges.
Embrace the
discomfort of having to wait.
Organic Energy: Extend
loving kindness to all beings.
