Preludes to Yoga — Will to Begin

---

Preludes to Yoga — Will to Begin

One often wonders what set us on this path. What recklessness, what impulse to adventure unmoored us from familiar shores? How does one become curious about the unknowable? What urge would force mortality to seek the Immortal?

We are curious. We remember the moment it began. That clutch in the heart, the impossibility confronted in the mind. Is it true? Could it be true?

While the whole of one’s existence and circumstance is comfortable running in familiar circles, runs on oft trodden grooves, here is a vagrant impulse that we do not understand.

An ancient impulse, an old friend has awakened within to urge us forward once more.

One moment we were cocky and self-sure. And now there is a hunger that will not be appeased by the world and its wares. An ancient impulse, an old friend has awakened within to urge us forward once more.

We stand as Nachiketa before the doorsteps of Yama. Only we stand not for 3 days but what seems a lifetime. Or like the climber at the base of Kailash, in awe at the immensity of it, every strength sapped away, could we do this?

Our memory jumps in. Old stories. Perhaps myths, perhaps not. Old names. Prahlada, a lad…son of an Asura no less. Meera, princess and child. Vishwamitra, a king of volatile temper.

And we remember too Him. A single name. The favorite of Gopis. Wooer of mortals. Friend of Arjuna.

And we wonder. How would it be? Would He accept? Would He know? We would not know then, at the start. We would know nothing for a while yet.

But unknowingly through our vague wanderings we are at the cusp of an inner dawn, a borderland of dwindling Night and the heralding Sun.

And at that auspicious hour the little ‘I’ consents. We consent to the Call. Agni, the Priest, is seated within. And the Yagna has begun.

(Picture courtesy Priti Ghosh)

---

(Author’s note: Yoga is a program of self-exceeding without peer amongst all endeavours of human existence. This adventure begins with a central opening in the aspiring individual to the Divine. Prior to this opening there are a series of preludes that prepare our being. The humanly perfected faculties provide a foundation upon which the mortal can be raised into the Immortal.

This series will throw light on few such opportunities for self-preparation. So far we have Will to Begin, To See.)