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.
स्थूलस्वरूपसूक्ष्मान्वयार्थवत्त्वसंयमाद्भूतजयः
sthūla-svarūpa-sūkṣmānvayārthavattva-saṁyamād bhūta-jayaḥ
Through saṁyama on the gross, essential, subtle, relational and purposive aspects of the elements comes mastery over them.
Yoga Sutras 3.45 · verse 151 of 196
Unfolding the thread
Each element (earth, water, fire, air, space) has five aspects: its obvious form, its essential quality, its subtle cause, its relations, and its purpose. Understand them all, Patanjali says, and you master them. It's a description of complete understanding of nature.
Try today
Choose one element (water, perhaps) and spend a minute noticing all the ways it is part of your day.
The Echo
The same truth, heard in another tradition
“Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”
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