In yoga class, as in life, we have an experience.  As soon as we name the experience, something happens.  Naming or labeling the experience is like opening a file of our past experiences under that name. Our past judgments rush in and color in the experience, dulling presence.

When this happens, we no longer see reality. All we see is our own past judgments pasted on what we see and even feel. We become disconnected with reality. In a very real sense, we are alone in all the universe. This state, (and one of anxiety*), is what we experience most of the time. 

Sometimes we come across an experience that has no past reference in the mind.  The mind is suddenly stilled.  There is no memory to dull the experience.  This surprising break in the dullness frees us to experience what we are: love's presence.  Usually it feels like awe, like when we cross above treeline on a new mountain peak the first time. 

In this class we practice not naming what we feel.  We simple let the experience be shown to us as it is now.  We practice looking intensely at the reality, the sensation and the breath, instead of the dull experience of yesterday's sensation.

As always, the aim of the class is to expand our awareness of the rush that we are and learn how to regain it when the dullness tries to work its way back.  Once we learn at will how to feel the rush of what we are, the dullness is intolerable.   (*It's not just the dullness, but also the anxiety and the drama, but that's for another class.)

philip