Niralambaya Tejase
The Opening chant.
We sing it in every class. Sometimes once, sometimes thrice, over and over, year after year.
I wonder how many people know what it means.
I sometimes am leading it and am not present, already starting to worry about class.
Some days I sing it in a perfunctory manner.
I was having a conversation recently with a devoted yogi who's been doing Anusara for many years. He was feeling really depressed and sad, which happens to all of us, of course and I listened. After hearing him say something like "we are all alone," I asked him if he really thought so, and if he did then what did he think of the chant? Because in the chant we sing to this one energy that permeates the world and lives in all of us and is us. And he said to me that after all these years of doing Anusara he never really knew what the chant meant. So I went one line at a time and shared with him what him the translation and what it meant to me. He was like, "wow, that's cool."
I stared to think on how important it is every once in a while in class to remind people of what the chant means.
I cannot assume as a teacher that everyone knows everything. I have to have courage to repeat things even if I think they've all heard it before. Of of my deepest fears, a really old and ancient fear is that I am going to "bore" people and that they will leave.
So often I don't repeat things in class because I think they have heard it all before, and I make the mistake in thinking that I have to dazzle the students with something new, profound or a crazy sequence. When in fact most of us, myself included come to Anusara because we want to hear what we know again and again. A phrase from the Christian tradition says "the soul rejoices in hearing what it already knows."
I chose to focus on the last line of the chant: Niralambaya Tejase which is translated as "Independent in his existence, He is the vital essence of illumination." Out of the four stanzas of the chant, this was always the one that gave me the most trouble. It seemed remote to me and cold, like Nicole Kidman. I didn't get it. I didn't get it until I once heard John say that this one energy doesn't need any external support, because it is its own support. And it is radiant and luminous.
I thought about times in my life where I felt the most desolate. And yet, deep down, I still felt held and supported. Niralambaya inspires me to remember all the different sources of support in life: family, friends, beloved pets. The support that places in nature have given me. The support that poems have given me. Poems I love so much that I've memorized, so I can carry them with me and touch like a mala necklace.
So class was about finding support inside and outside. Honoring all the sources that support us, especially this bigger force we call grace.
Theme:
Niralambaya
Highlights:
*Focused on First Principle
*Warrior 3 (explained Kidney Loop and had them hold the pose "with an awareness of all that supports you in your life."
*Handstand: before kicking look at your navel, look inside yourself and tap into your source and then look forward, with fullness in the back body, kick up!
*Urdhvas: Before pressing up stop and feel how the middle of the back is held by the earth even as the lower back gently curves away from the ground.
Something cool that happened:
I always come with my journal, my sequence written down, cool and inspiring quotes to share. For this class on Niralambaya I forgot my journal and didn't have it with me; I had left it home. In the car right before going in to the studio I started to freak out a bit. And then I thought to myself what a great opportunity this was, to trust that I already have it in me. To reach inside to all that I've accrued through the years of devoted study and teaching and to remember that I am not alone.
That each time I teach, all my teachers are there with me.
Ok, con este me sacaste las lagrimas...
xo
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Beautiful as always, MariaCristina.
In one of the many TT's I took with Desiree Rumbaugh early in the last decade, she had each of us re-interprete this chant for ourselves. It's a wonderful exercise and reveals much more about us as individuals and where our essential work lies.
This process can also guide us to make our own Authentic Connection - a Yoga, using a personally relevant meaning, to this oft-repeated and much beloved chant, rather than what once seemed meaningful to someone else, no matter how brilliant that person may be.
That said, the translation of the Shiva Invocation you used is far too anthropomorphic and sexist for my taste. I've pretty much never accepted it as useful. My first re-interpretation, from close to a decade ago, got rid of both of these spiritually distracting elements. But I later went back to the Sanskrit words themselves -- there are only ten of them in this chant; far from an overwhelming number -- and my newest translation is posted on my website: www.shrishari.com under Mantras.
One last comment about your post... repetition is the process by which humans learn. The danger with losing our students' attention comes when we fall into the easy use of cliches. One of the most common in our community (though perhaps it has gone out of fashion by now) is "inner body bright," which has always seemed both hackneyed and meaningless to me, even when it was "new."
Great writers and teachers share a responsibility to find new ways to say the same old things. And you my dear, are both a truly heart-felt writer and teacher!
Trust your instincts -- they are *your* illuminated wisdom whispering unconditional, non-external support to you -- which just so happens to be a poetically accurate interpretation of "Niralambaya Tejase" (more literally: nir=without/not, salamba=with external support, tejas=light (of Consciousness).
Much love to you...
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