So I'm thinking about what we get attached to, and what we need to let go of, and what we need to acknowledge (the impact on yoga of colonialism for example). So, this week we'll focus our practice on one of Ramana Maharshi's teachings: "let come what comes, let go what goes, [and] see what remains"
And then we'll close class with something a little different. My teacher Richard Miller studied with Sri TKV Desikachar, and also with Jean Klein and other teachers of nondual Kashmir Shaivism, the yogic lineage that has had the most impact on my practice and teaching. This week's closing reading is the final verse from the seminal text in that lineage, the Siva Sutra (I have transliterated as closely as I am able what I understand of the Sanskrit sounds):
Bh-uu-yahh syaat pratimii-lanam
"In the case of this yogi there is over and over again
the awareness of the Divine both inwardly and outwardly"
(Siva Sutra verse 45, translation Jaideva Singh)
So, perhaps this is closer to what we have been meaning to say to one another at the end of our practice? After being absorbed in our practice - hopefully absorbed not simply in the physicality, but in our connection to Divine Consciousness/Lifeforce/Eternal Timeless - we turn back out to the world, and sense there the self-same Divine Consciousness. We sense the unchanging behind the world of impermanence and change, and when we bow to one another, we avow that we know this as the nature of Reality.