First Light
How First Light worksTuesday 27 October·
- Sunrise
- 07:55
- Quiet hour
- 06:19–07:07
- Brahma Muhurta
- Moon
- Waning gibbous
- Next full moon: Tue 24 Nov
Autumn
The quiet hour (Brahma Muhurta) is the traditional time for practice, just before sunrise.
शब्दज्ञानानुपाती वस्तुशून्यो विकल्पः
śabda-jñānānupātī vastu-śūnyo vikalpaḥ
Imagination follows words and ideas, with nothing real behind them.
Yoga Sutras 1.9 · verse 9 of 196
Unfolding the thread
Vikalpa is the mind building with words alone: plans, fears, what-ifs, the argument you rehearse in the shower. It isn't always harmful, since it's also how we create. But much of what we worry about exists only as a sentence in our heads. The sutra invites you to notice when you're living in the sentence rather than the moment.
Try today
Notice one imagined conversation today. Let it finish mid-sentence, and come back to what's in front of you.
The Echo
The same truth, heard in another tradition
“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.”
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