Training the Muscle of Surrender: Shiva Sutra 3.31
This Sutra teaches us how to recognize the many phases our ‘surrender muscles’ undergo during its inner work, just like a real muscle in our body. We can better tone this muscle of surrender by not just working with it at the onset of our practice, or when a tension arises, but also during the middle of our practice time, and even at the end of our practice, as we return to our regularly scheduled life. As you are able to recognize the 3 different phases of surrender, you can begin to work with more awareness during all of them. The result is a strong inner muscle that is capable of carrying you to new heights in your practice. (Full Text below)
3.31: “śvaśaktipracayo’sya viśvam // For him, this universe is the embodiment of his collective energies”
This whole universe is seen as Shiva, and you are Shiva, so this whole universe is an embodiment of your ‘collective’, meaning the totality of, your energies. So we are Shiva and the Universe is Shiva, but how can we realize that through our practice and experience?
Sutra 3.30 teaches that we must learn to use our practice as we encounter the objects of our daily life. We can’t reject the objects of our life in order to find God, and we can’t quite directly pursue God without the objects of our life— even an enlightened practitioner has a personality, as Babaji has said of our own lineage teachers. So the path to realizing our own Shiva nature, and the Shiva nature of our universe, is to engage our practice as we engage with our life. This is how we walk from object awareness to God awareness.
As we see in this quote:
“If you think that in practicing yoga, God consciousness is to be possessed and that which is other than God consciousness is to be discarded, that is not the proper understanding. The correct understanding is that you must unite these two together. God consciousness must be united with objective consciousness and objective consciousness must be united with God consciousness…When you simultaneously possess this kind of knowledge, then knowledge and the known will be not separated.”
When we stop accepting and rejecting our reality, and ourselves, and start engaging our practice as we engage in our life, we slowly but surely walk our awareness from object to Shiva. This isn’t a metaphor, but a very real part of our practice that any of us can do anytime we are willing to apply ourselves. This is the path we walk from mantra at the level of the mouth, to mantra at the level of the throat, to mantra at the level of the heart. Or the path we walk from pranayama to a natural breath meditation. And of course, this is the same work we do off our cushion as we engage our practice within the context of our lives.
I received a question via email from a student after last week’s class that said “I can feel and connect with Shakti/awareness in meditation and often as I walk and look at things such as nature like the trees, sky, birds. However, the other day someone with a really loud souped up engine in a pickup truck drove by and they revved up their engine as they passed me and blew alot of exhaust into the air around me. I was wondering how one should ideally deal with staying connected with God consciousness and awareness when things are not so ideal and peaceful - and often in day to day life they are not as we well know (or have to deal with rudeness or disrespect) . Mostly I seem easily pulled back into judgement and reaction from the unpleasantness by people who are immersed into ego identity.”
The practice is no different in this situation than it is on our cushion, we will walk the same path, but because of the variables in this situation we must walk the path of our practice slower and with more awareness. For example, magine this like walking on a nice clear path in the woods, and then suddenly, the path becomes overgrown and you can’t quite tell which way to go. You would naturally walk a little slower in this situation, or stop altogether, and you would pay more attention to your surroundings. In this case, we would react slower, breathe smoother, and try to make sure that each step we took was still towards a higher state of awareness, instead of just ‘downhill’ into our all too comfortable patterns of behavior.
None of us are free from these challenges, although they look different in all of our lives. The path through them, though, is the same for all of us, and is the heart of this Sutra. How can we hold our practice and our life simultaneously? Maybe we have to slow down, or take very small steps— all of that should be expected. We might not reach the destination in one breath or ten, but we know afterwards, and sometime during, if we were pointing ourselves in the right direction.
3.31: sthitilayau // This universe is the expansion of his energy in objective impressions and in the dissolution of those impressions.
This sutra can seem a little confusing at first, but when compiled with the previous sutra we see that it is merely an extension of the same teachings.
Srishti, Sthiti and Laya are words denoting the phases of awareness we call Creation, Maintanence and Dissolution. This Sutra teaches us that there are different modes of our practice, different ways the psychic muscles engage within us, and that all 3 ways are important for the aspirant to not only recognize but engage with on and off the cushion.
“When this objective world is shining vividly in your sphere of organs, that is the state of creation (sṛiṣṭi daśā). But it is not only in the state of creation that this universe is one with his real energies of God consciousness. This universe is also one with his energies when only impressions of this objective world remain (sthitidaśā) or when these impressions melt in voidness (layadaśā) at the time of death or deep sleep, or when one is rendered unconscious. ”
Swami Rudrananda often spoke of our meditation practice as developing “psychic muscles”. This was not a metaphor for him, but a very real aspect of our practice— we really do get energetically stronger as we practice. We strengthen our ability to discern between that which supports our growth and that which distracts, and we get stronger in our ability to make that choice in the face of our strongest patterns.
This Sutra teaches us how to recognize the many phases our ‘surrender muscles’ undergo during its inner work, just like a real muscle in our body. We can better tone this muscle of surrender by not just working with it at the onset of our practice, or when a tension arises, but also during the middle of our practice time, and even at the end of our practice, as we return to our regularly scheduled life. As you are able to recognize the 3 different phases of surrender, you can begin to work with more awareness during all of them. The result is a strong inner muscle that is capable of carrying you to new heights in your practice.
In the world of Anatomy we see that our muscles themselves have three modes of operation: Concentric contraction, when the muscle shortens while it contracts. Isometric contraction, when the muscles stays the same length while it contracts. And eccentric contraction, when the muscle lengthens while it contracts. All three phases are essential for building real strength as all three are essential parts of any natural movement or action. For example, you might have to reach down and pick up a child in your arms with concentric contraction (Srishti, the creation phase of the work), and you would hold the baby there with isometric contraction (Sthiti, the maintenance phases of the work), and then you sit the baby back down with eccentric contraction (Laya, the dissolution phase of the work). So any real movement in life requires all three-- just like any real work of surrender in our practice takes us through all three phases as well.
We all have a certain phase of this process that we are better at, and other spots that we are unaware of. As you begin to notice these different phases you can bring your awareness to them on your yoga mat at the physical level, and then to the cushion for a more subtle experience. As this awareness broadens within you, you will naturally cultivate a more capable capacity to surrender in your life.
We can practice with this right now by simply observing our breath. The initial moment of our inhale is the moment of creation, Srishti, and of course the breath eventually dissolves after the exhale in a moment of stillness, Laya. The space in between these two moments is the grey area of Sthiti, the maintenance phase of the breath. This phase is harder to feel, but very real— after the initial moment of inhaling, you will easily notice a ‘plateauing’ of the effort all the way till you are finishing your exhale and enter the Laya phase.
So play with this in your body, your breath, and in your practice throughout your week and we’ll check back in during class to see how it evolves for you.