Breaking it all down:Viyoga, the yoga of separation

Free MySpace Animations!Body and mind
Initially, when u start meditating and doing yoga in a meditative fashion, you realise that there is a big divide between two things which you thought were one -- the mind and the body. Often, the mind is still and watching the body and its antics. They are two separate things. If the mind decides, usually it seems the body will meekly follow even in situations where the body could, otherwise, fail. You sense this during sickness... this divide and this calm watching of the mind which has distanced itself from the pain.

Mind and consciousness

Then, amazingly you realise the mind is itself not a complete thing as you imagined. It is separate from the consciousness. This you realise when you meditate: as the mind rumbles and tumbles about, something behind watching is aware that it has wandered off and gently prods it back. When you catch a difficult note while singing,  you realise if the consciousness is allowed to do its own thing then the note comes on its own without effort. However, if the mind is allowed to interfere, it starts labelling and sometimes call a high note (if you are beginner and don't know, as you would also in the spiritual field) a low one and make you sing in a manner to accomodate its mistake. But when the mind steps back and allows consciousness, it catches the note perfectly, without having had the need to label it either high or low. This is an amazing insight. This you can shift to life, and interpret any event as you like. And follow the consciousness and be upbeat wherever you are placed. And have that sense of doing things with no effort whatsoever:)

Consciosuness too! !!
The third stage is when you realise that this consciousness iteslf is not the complete thing you thought  it was. It shuffles between several personalities it has acquired, from who you are and colours you. If you negate it, then the other -- the one who you have been chasing - will shine through.  The consciousness has three textures to it -- an active (I have to do this, I must achieve that -- that sort of impulse); then the one which manipulates without label (when you choose something over other without thinking and assume the choice is good) -- the subconscious consciousness; and the third, which seems to be dead and drags you down in no-thought but which is not the dynamic no-thought of a truly realised soul(most of us shuffle in this dark dungeon, but happily:). As you learn slowly to negate any or all three of these levels of consciousness you enter another space. This is the difficult bit: the consciousness is like the double helix -- that and not quite that, with a river of endless messages which keep  drawing you back to a sense of  theI, and which you must finally renounce. This is a sadhana too. And I believe the most exciting one:)

This is where something comes through.. and you realise that you cannot keep on nourishing something you wish to jettison.. an amazing sense of freedom comes with that. But it can be ephemeral and make no sense in the context of the world where we live. But luckily, if you read Indian philosophy you know this is where the excitement is, all the action -- in renouncing something so subtle and so beloved that it is the greatest challenge we can face:) Renouncing the sense of the I... mmm .. an exciting place, and the greatest and only yoga!