October 2025 Week 4

How are you doing with your purple crayon and handing it to the God of your understanding? Someone reminded me of my writing this morning about Harold and the Purple Crayon, love it! We are getting to the end of the month quickly. Has pray, trust, wait served you in anyway?

Our sutra 1:25 - Therein (in Ishvara) lies the seed of unsurpassed omniscience - can help us with this intention. As always, I fear I over simplify these sacred sutras but I like to make it useful to our lives to reiterate how yoga can be a way of life if we choose. Ishvara is our own personal concept of GOD and this sutra explains that the GOD of our understanding is completely untouched by the fivefold affliction - ignorance, distorted self-identity, attachment, aversion and fear. On the other hand, we live and act under the influence of these 5 afflictions. Further, the sutra states that our GOD is omniscience (all knowing). This beings up a huge red flag for my mental well being……the fact that I often get into trouble or live uncomfortably when I am touched by one of the 5 afflictions and or when I think I know - and I often think I know! The problem is my memory and how I process life is often damaged by my memory and stored samskaras (deep grooved patterns). Well that is all a problem!
Our intention - pray, trust, wait - is built on the foundation of having something higher than me to pray to, so I can build my trust and then wait and wait without anxiety. This sutra reminds us that the God of our understanding sees more clearly than us and knows! It seems very logical and simple however our mind is much more complicated and needs constant attention. Lets continue to work together to create new grooved patterns in our brains and hearts.