Blossoms of Friendship

by Vimala Thakar

Blossoms of Friendship introduces the Yoga Wisdom Classics series from Rodmell Press. This book is a collection of talks given by Vimala Thakar, in 1973, in Mount Abu, India. In the style of Krishnamurti, she describes the subtle differences between the states of concentration, attention, awareness, and meditation, and discusses the roles of guide, teacher, master, and guru. In the Foreword, publisher Donald Moyer writes that Vimala Thakar's insights "provide a clear exegesis of the last three stages of the eightfold yogic path: dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. For students who wish to deepen their understanding of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, these talks will be especially welcome."

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 1986

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blossoms of Friendship by Vimala Thakar

Vimala Thakar is teaching about the mind, meditation, and fulfillment.

The process begins with seeing our relationship to The Facts of Life. It is the Facts that must be center rather than making the center our self, our conditioned, habitual way of seeing things. Too often we try to bend reality to suit our preferences rather than adjust our selves to reality.
The body and the mind function through built-in intelligence, and often there is no need for conscious effort on the part of the I, the self, the me, to do anything.
The person eats and drinks and does all that is required of him, but not from the center of I. Trusting that the body has an organic relationship with the universe, a relationship with the sunshine, with clouds, rain, water, and breeze. The body knows innately what to do or not do. Our intellect often interferes unnecessarily.
Our mind itself is an expression of the global human mind. It cannot be owned by any one of us, and it cannot be mistreated without adverse consequences.

The way to fulfillment, to joy, is to come face to face with what you are: the limitations, the conditionings, the tendencies, the weaknesses, the frontiers of mental and physical strength, and to relax in the state is is-ness. This is observing without analyzing, interpreting, judging. All comes up. We need only to stay and see, not run away.
“the only austerity that is required of an inquirer: the austerity of humility to see things as they are, to see my inner being as it is when it gets reflected in relationships, to observe it as it is, without defending it, without justifying it, without interpreting it, and without relegating the responsibility of those states to other people.”

“This is renunciation: not having a single image of oneself.”

[Marya]

Maybe I'm reading too many books at once? "Blossoms of Friendship" is a lucid breakdown of the differences between concentration, attention, and awareness (particularly useful to me as a bodyworker). Thakar is an original thinker, and she says unusual things: "Silence has not yet been measured. It has not been grasped by the mind and put into the framework of time and space."

[Shirish Pradhan]

good