YOGA STATE OF MIND
A state of Yoga can be describe as a state of heightened awareness and mental clarity.
In order to reach this state, we practice ‘Sun Salutations’ an allegory for turning to the light.
In this excerpt from Les Misérables I like Victor Hugo’s description of the sky as an allegory for Jean Valjean’s tormented mind.
A MIND FLUCTUATING BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS
‘He was at one of those moments when the thoughts in his mind were unclear. There was a kind of indistinct welter in his brain. His old memories and his very recent memories swirled in a jumble and overlapped chaotically, losing their formal identity, becoming disproportionately magnified, then suddenly disappearing altogether, as in disturbed and muddy waters. Many thoughts occurred to him…’
‘…Throughout these dreadful ruminations the thoughts we referred to above were in constant ferment in his brain, coming and going and returning again, and in a way oppressing him….’
‘…There was a full moon with large clouds driven by the wind coursing across it. This created alternating darkness and light outside, eclipses then brightnesses, and inside a kind of half-light.’
