morning yoga and defective engines.

This morning I went to yoga at 6:30am.  Quite a difference from my regular routine... early morning yoga feels like practicing in a different body - much stiffer and more fragile feeling.  Being tired and stiff can help the mind to calm and focus, though. My way of taking morning class is to have no expections. Just be curious and see what happens.

It was a really nice class. I didn't think I'd get a practice in today - I'm heading out of town soon for a camping trip so I'll miss my usual 6pm class.  But it was "friends for free Friday" & my friend was game for an early morning class... so it worked out beautifully!

Checking in with my body feeling so different in morning practice got me thinking about Liber CC and the practice of keeping a magical diary. DRJ recommends using Resh as the framework for your days - recording the weather, the place, who you are with, and your physical, mental, and emotional conditions each time. Sometimes it is really mundane, but it's still important work and yeilds valuable information.  These little check-ins foster the kind of self-awareness that can guide one to make subtle adjustments to daily life and magical pratices to better facilitate one's Work.

The Resh points and the yoga class both give me oppotunities to notice what is working and what isn't working.  What could become a Jugorum tool?  What habits need to be changed? This fuels the Thelemic notion of Yamas & Niyamas - what control is needed and which practices are required to create the right conditions to accomplish the Work.

We may then dismiss Yama and Niyama with this advice: let the student decide for himself what form of life, what moral code, will least tend to excite his mind; but once he has formulated it, let him stick to it, avoiding opportunism; and let him be very careful to take no credit for what he does or refrains from doing -- it is a purely practical code, of no value in itself.
-Aleister Crowley, Book 4 part 1, chapter 3

Crowley says in Book 4 part 1 that "for the purpose of this treatise the whole object of Yama and Niyama is to live so that no emotion or passion disturbs the mind." Watching the body, the mind, and the heart and noticing what creates emotions and passions of various sorts is efficacious for creating our own codes to live by... and this process is an ever-changing one.

....there is no perfection of materials; there will always be errors and weaknesses, and the man who wins through is the man who manages to carry on with a defective engine. The actual strain of the work develops the defects; and it is a matter of great nicety of judgment to be able to deal with the changing conditions of life. It will be seen that the formula-'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law' has nothing to do with 'Do as you please.'

It is much more difficult to comply with the Law of Thelema than to follow out slavishly a set of dead regulations.
-Aleister Crowley, Eight Lectures on Yoga - part 1, lecture 2.

Showing up to class and taking the time to notice my physical, mental, and emotional states at Resh are ways to gather information to refine practical codes and carry on.  We all have defective engines... but who among us will finish?