And what shoulder, & what art, could twist the sinews of thy heart?

Here it comes again- I am perhaps five, ten minutes into Andrew's vinyasa class this morning, standing in samasthithi and he says the dreaded words: "take this time to set an intention for the practice." Without fail my mind goes blank. I am filled with grossly encompassing trepidation and panic- I can feel the blankness rise up from the ground, like The Second Coming.* I have zero idea of how and what defines a good yoga intention. I can define a 'good intention' in my life off the mat; however, on the mat- should I focus on breathing, being content with my own limits, recognizing that I have limits, focus on listening, being- not doing- being, pushing the limit, hell any number of actions or thoughts meet the parameters of an 'intention' for a class. Perhaps that's the problem: I know what an intention is- but, I want too much from my practice. Is not setting an intention wrong? Does not practicing with intention make me a bad yogini? Is it possible to practice without a set intention?


The Oxford American Dictionary defines INTENTION:

n. 1 a thing intended; an aim or plan. the action or fact of intending
Origin: late Middle English, from Old French, from Latin 'stretching, purpose' see INTEND

INTEND: v. [trans.] 1 have (a course of action) as one's purpose or objective; plan. plan that
(something) function in a particular way. 2 design or destine (someone or something) for a
particular purpose or end
Origin: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin 'toward + stretch, tend'


Thanks OAD, that really clarified things for me, perhaps I should have consulted your more esteemed older brother OED instead.

Moreover; why do I care? Why must I define and place order in every facet of my life? And why do I keep asking 'why?' Many of the great scientific thinkers would argue that it is human nature to give things meaning and order, it is what human beings do. Many teachers (of yoga) can often be heard saying in class be a 'human being not a human doing,' as if the two were mutually exclusive. I will admit that the first time I heard this I found it to be rather insightful and thought provoking as well as a clever play on words- looking at the words now I am unsure if not doing is being human. I also believe that my need for knowing and ordering comes from my academic background- I concentrated in Geosciences, where we got off on ordering and labeling things, hell we even had labels for the labels- and maybe my perpetual obsession with over achieving and controlling.

My rational mind goes into overdrive when I set out to practice something seemingly so irrational such as yoga. And when faced with the concrete objective of setting an intention, my mind immediately yearns to be the best and most correct intention setter- ever. Which in itself is rather un-yogic in principle, thus resulting in me trying to not be rational and be present and to listen to the silent whispers of my muscles, joints, bones, tendons and ligaments (which I am acutely aware of the fact that muscles, joints, bones, tendons and ligaments are inanimate objects; ergo, they do not whisper.) The waters of contradiction flow within me, constantly ebbing and tiding, as I am.


*The Second Coming
William Butler Yeats
http://www.online-literature.com/donne/780/

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?



Note:
title is a line from William Blake's 'The Tyger' and the previous post's title is a line from Franz Kafka's The Trial