Yasodhara Yoga Nanaimo teachers offer us reflections on “harvest”. Taking this time to be grateful for all that we receive and are able to offer through the wisdom and guidance of the teachings.
1. Intentions – Planting and Harvesting
a) Reflect on intentions or ‘seeds’ you have “planted” in your life (i.e., marriage, having a family, buying a house, traveling, etc.).
Chant and then write them down.
b) Reflect on intentions or ‘seeds’ you planted at the beginning of the year.
Chant and then write them down.
c) How have these intentions ‘fruited’?
How are they present in your life today?
What ‘harvest’, lessons, or insights have you gained from them so far?
Are they as relevant and important to you now?
What changes or adjustments would you like to make to refine them?
Are they everything you hoped for?
Place what you have planted or the harvest of lessons and insights in the Light as you practice the Divine Light Invocation and see what emerges.
2. Gratitude for all we have received.
If you bring gratitude to this work, it will be a great help…How you cultivate gratitude is again very individual. You can begin by being grateful for what you have, right now, right where you are. (Time to be Holy, Swami Radha, p 103-104)
What are you grateful for right now, right where you are?
How do you cultivate gratitude?
Do the Divine Light Invocation placing all you are grateful for in the Light then write about your feelings of gratitude.
3. Ploughing, Planting and Harvesting
Prepare with warm-ups then gently move into the Plough pose.
Ploughing the ground of the mind to make it open and receptive is preparation for seeds and future growth. What seeds do you want to plant in your mind? What harvest do you want to produce through your actions? (The Inner Life of Asanas, Swami Lalitananda, p 75)
Move in and out of the pose, letting thoughts, body awareness and insights arise. Write about your experience.
4. The Harvest…Continuous Learning
Learning takes time, and before we’ve learned one thing the next is already demanding our attention. How do we retain what we have already learned? (Yoga: a Path to Awareness, Swami Radha, p 38)
Practice the 4-4 breath for several minutes as you reflect on how you retain and nourish insights and learning.
Take time to write your reflections and understand this process in your life.
5. Due Preparation…Harvest
In ordinary life we often do not notice the succession of happenings that lead to a result, but yogis, by their sense of observation, see that nothing happens without due preparation. (Yoga: A Path to Awareness, Swami Radha, p 49).
Chant and bring to mind the due preparations for a particular event or situation in your life.
How does preparation contribute to the harvest?
What are your key practices?