"We grow through the same obstacles that bring us down." Yoga proverb, handed down by Christopher Wallis
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"The experience of our reality ... is completely different for a liberated and awakened person than for someone who experiences it from the perspective of their conditioning." CW
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"Yoga does not just change the way we see things. It transforms the person who sees." B.K.S Iyengar
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When ethnologist Heike Behrend wanted to get to know the Tugen people in Kenya, she had to once again become a person according to her hosts' expectations. At first, Behrend took it upon herself to be seen as a non-person - a savage with the jungle views of an ape. She finally became a "thing".
"Tugen said that getting married meant going to war." Heike Behrend
"My perseverance ... was the first quality they attached to my ... incomplete person. My transformation from a thing to a person began with invitations to eat and drink. I returned the invitations ... Tugen said: The thing gives us food, it loves us."
Abhinavagupta describes the sovereign yogini as a person who "does not allow her viewpoints to be called into doubt by the mass of foolish teachings in this world". Her position is based on the "true nature of things". In a forecourt of enlightenment, she experienced grace for the first time. Christopher Wallis speaks of a "foretaste of the perspective of a radically liberated consciousness".
Grace awaits every person who can receive it. A prerequisite for the happiness of experiencing grace lies in dissolving the differences between the secular and the spiritual with every fiber of one's being. However, those who are unwavering in the pursuit of a selfish agenda, with the idea of knowing who they are, miss the path of grace.
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