Yoga and the Questfor the True Self
Author; Stephen Cope
Publisher Bantam Books
This is one of those can’t put down books. Stephen Cope’s observations and experiences as a psychotherapist and Yoga teacher during his stay at Kripalu Yoga and Health Centre in Massachusetts are intensely personal, and spiritually awakening. A brilliant and often moving perspective on the transformational aspects of Yoga practices.
Some of the quotes and extracts we enjoyed are.
Search for the quiet in which the small inner voice can be heard
Without the still point there would be no dance T.S Elliott
When we stand back we can see the intensity of the craving for solidarity and the security that drives it.
Sometimes the greatest sources of suffering are the lies we tell to our selves
Dreams are letters from the unconscious Carl Jung
We all need to have a healing experience of being held securely.
If we dedicate ourselves to yoga practice it is only a matter of time until the mat becomes the Altar.
The Buried Life
By Matthew Arnold
Only but this is rare
When a beloved hand is laid in ours
When jaded with the rush and glare
of the interminable hours,
our eyes in another eyes read clear,
When our world- deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feelings stirs again.
The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would we know
Comments
with. The many layers of Yoga interwoven with the stories of transformation and unfolding personalities and pointers of how to be (real) in the world… has enkindled a call that a story of the influence of Yoga on my own life be put down… sometime soon. Inspiring
passages from both the author and others. My pick… being the passage from Rainer Maria Rilke at the beginning of Chapter 1… You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything The darkness that comes with every infinite fall and the shivering blaze of every step
up. So many live on and want nothing and are raised to the rank of prince by the slippery ease of their light judgement But what you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst. You love most of all those who need you as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and its not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secrets. And I like what Stephen Cope had to say about ‘the witness’, a position I have often found paradoxical… “…For the witness, everything
is workable. Nothing needs to be pushed away, to the contrary: our seemingly most intractable neuroses become the doorway to a full life”.