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.
दृग्दर्शनशक्त्योरेकात्मतेवास्मिता
dṛg-darśana-śaktyor ekātmatevāsmitā
Ego is mistaking the power of seeing for the instrument of seeing, as if they were one.
Yoga Sutras 2.6 · verse 57 of 196
Unfolding the thread
Asmitā, the ego, is a case of mistaken identity. There's awareness, the power that sees, and there's the mind and senses, the instruments it sees through. When we blur the two, we think we are our thoughts and perceptions, instead of the one who is aware of them. It's like a person who forgets they are looking through glasses and thinks the tint is the world.
Try today
When you think "I am tired" or "I am upset" today, add: "and I am the one who notices this."
The Echo
The same truth, heard in another tradition
“The soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light.”
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