Self doubt

Today's practice was racked with self doubt. Just looked up "racked" to make sure I was spelling it right (wondered if it might be "wracked") and find that the word derives from the Swedish dialect for "wreck," and there's a definition of the original term: "a wind-driven mass of high, often broken clouds."

Yup, that was my mind this morning, a mass of broken clouds. Why? I have no idea. It started right in, though, as I began my practice. It was a rather forlorn experience, and made me feel alienated from the other folks practicing. A little test of my faith, I have come to decide. A little taste of my own ignorance.

Before I went to Volleyball Guy's, I read this in the Yoga Sutras: In the Upanishads, ignorance is compared to a veil of illusion that covers the truth and confuses the mind so that it cannot discriminate between reality and appearance.

So I had that bit of suffering today, where I felt all worried about my practice, and mostly about how it appears. I wondered if I should ask Volleyball Guy how I am doing, I wondered if my practice looks awful. I have no idea what got that whole thing going, but it was not very constructive.

And then again, it wasn't terribly destructive, either. I did my practice, I noticed my knee is feeling pretty darn good (thanks to castor oil and heat, I think), and I absorbed and wasn't too shaken by my self doubt. Ardha baddha padmottanasana is still out of the question, and the second side of Marichy D is sketchy, but for all intents and purposes, my injured knee is coming along beautifully.

The main lesson seems to be that I have to renew my faith in my practice every so often--that I will have my moments of doubt, of being caught in appearance, and all I can do is ride it out and try to remember that my practice is my own, that it works from inside me. And the appearance stuff, well, I guess it may never go away completely. But I can make a point of keeping it in perspective. Because being inside my practice is a hell of a lot more rewarding than watching it from the outside.