When yoga is accomplished, you will have insight of our true nature.

I am re-reading The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and taking notes on the things that stand out in the notebook my mother gave me for my birthday. It is a lovely notebook, with fake leather cover and a spiral binding. The cover has three decorative hand drawn cactuses at the top and under them it reads “you’re looking sharp today.” I am not sure if this is meant to inspire me to write or dress better, but the lines are a perfect spacing. Because of this, I have been hesitant to put words on the paper. I have a hard time with these kinds of things. I could stare at a new box of crayons for years before pulling one free from the box to use. The Cabbage had a tupperware box full of crayons and they were all broken or missing the paper wrapper around the outside. I would grimace as I held one of those grimy waxy broken crayons between my fingers to color something, but I would rather put up with the discomfort of the broken crayon than wreck a brand new crayon. So this notebook has been sitting on my desk since January.

The version of the sutras that I am reading is an app I downloaded to my iPad. The format makes it more intuitive for study in the way it breaks down the sanskrit and the definition of the sanskrit, but then there is a separate section of discussion. I thought I could just use my Apple pencil to highlight things that jumped out at me, but the Apple pencil does not work in this app. I was two days into my readings before I gave in and grabbed that new notebook. Research has found that handwriting notes versus typing them allows for more efficient learning and retention. I have come across certain phrases in the discussions of the sutras that I want my brain to hold onto for longer than a minute. It turns out that I don’t want to read the Yoga Sutras so much as I want to study them. I want to dig in deep and take my time with them. I read them way back when I did my teacher training because it was required reading, but I didn’t really study the book the way I did my science and anatomy books. I didn’t treat my yoga teacher training as schooling. I treated it as a training and taking it in with that mentality taught me the foundation of the poses and the benefits and disadvantages of each pose. I ignored the spiritual benefits to the practice. This is fine because I don’t want to teach the spiritual side of yoga. As I get deeper and deeper into my own personal practice though, I find that I am becoming curious about that side of things.

Stay curious.

Being a curious child is what lead me to my scientific career. I take my curiosity for granted, not really noticing it as being curious as much as I am just doing my job. I am solving puzzles every day and seeing what happens if I do this or that. It has become so routine that I forget that I am actually curious to know what the answers are going to be at the end of it all. I do really want to know the answers! Staying curious keeps me moving forward and digging deeper to find answers to gather all of knowledge my brain will allow. I forget to acknowledge my curiosity and the impact it has on my daily life or how my curiosity is part of what makes me who I am. Usually I am encouraging my students to take their practice off their mats and out into their everyday life. Today, I am reminded that sometimes I need to take my daily life into my yoga practice.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction (or learning the answer) brought him back. Curiosity might just be part of my true nature.