Abhyasa

Over the past few months I have been trying to memorize the Yoga Sutras in Sanskrit. It has been coming along VERY slowly.

I started working on memorizing
Sutra 1.14 - the longest one so far. I was working hard on it and then almost gave up. It was then that I realized the irony of the situation - I was about to give up on the sutra that translates as:

"Practice becomes firmly established when it has been cultivated uninterruptedly and with devotion over a prolonged period of time."

This sutra really hits home for me. It speaks to the importance of patience with out practice - whether that practice be our asana practice, meditation, or learning to chant the Yoga Sutras. Your practice cannot be perfected in a night, a few weeks, or even years. Commentators actually agree that it can take multiple lifetimes of perfection to reach the goal of yoga.

A practice needs to be cultivated - not found or experimented with. It takes time and devotion.