incense

[Guest guest]

incense is also used to help concentrate the mind.

[Guest guest]

Incense plays upon the sense of smell, perhaps

the most nuanced of the senses. Witness the opening

page of Proust’s epic as our hero’s mind is sent on a

3000 page meditation, reeling from the smell of a

madeline cake dipped into his tea, contemplating . . .

well bleedin’ everything. Smell has the power to

unlock moments long misplaced. That unexpected whiff of

a certain something disturbing the conscious minds

lock on an ordered world, evoking forgotten memories,

pulling at buried thoughts as if seen in a dream (cold

English churches, freshly painted tar on a fence, the

reassuring aroma of the kitchen). Smell has a powerful and

primordial quality, stirring up the miasma of the

unconscious mind. <br><br>Surely the use of incense seeks to

create a powerful mnemonic for the meditating mind. Each

time we sink into our post ashtanga rest, our

continued use of incense serves to create a powerful bond

between how calm and focused we feel here and now and how

we have felt in similar circumstances in the past.

Each use serves to reinforce the past so that our

attention to our practice is all the greater. My first

period of yoga (89 – 92) was completely touched by

incense so that now, when I smell that particular incense

I feel a gentle and restful quality as if some

forgotten hand is touching my brow. I can’t remember much

else from then but the smell is there, haunting me in

street markets here and thereabouts.<br><br>Incense good

thing, but as observed, not when belting out the ujayi

breath