Lemon Water, Free Will and The Yoga Sutras (Part 3)

April 7, 2024

Why drink lemon water first thing in the mornings?

Topic submitted by: Ethan's mother

There are numerous reasons to drink 16oz → 32oz of freshly-squeezed lemon water right when you wake up. Here are a few:

Because your liver does most of its cleaning while you sleep, it needs to be flushed right when you wake up, otherwise the toxins can settle back in. Lemons have a special ability to latch onto this debris and carry it out of your body.
You remember the science project where you plugged a lemon, copper and galvanized nail up to lightbulb to make it turn on? That works because lemons are one of the best electrolytes out there! Certainly better than any man-made powder you can find on the market.
Contrary to what people think, lemons are actually great for your teeth, because they have a huge amount of bio-available calcium (for bone health).
The filtering and cleaning method we use on our water also “kills” it in the process (meaning we strip away a lot of the healthy minerals and information it contains). Lemon juice brings your water back to life.
It’s a tasty and really easy habit to build into your morning routine.

Practice

Here’s the recipe: 1/2 freshly-squeezed lemon per 16oz (2 cups) of room(ish) temperature filtered water.

Note: Using pre-made lemon juice does not provide nearly the same amount of benefits as freshly-squeezed. You want foods that are as close to the source as possible. Also, hot water destroys a lot of the lemon’s life-giving properties.

Click here for more information.

Do humans have free will?

Topic submitted by: Trey M. from Austin, TX

If you believe yourself to be a body, then no — you have absolutely no free will.

Why? Well with this perspective you are just a number of complex billiard balls knocking into one another — a bunch of atoms operating under the static laws of physics and their initial conditions started at the Big Bang ~14 billion years ago.

If you believe yourself to be your mind, then you have will but no freedom.

That is, you do have the choice and ability to alter matter’s trajectory, but you don’t have the freedom necessary to choose what you choose.

The mere fact that you are limited to thinking in English (or a small number of other languages) is proof that your mind is restrained only to the information it’s been exposed to.

In other words, by identifying with your mind, you will always be bound by the mental conditioning put in place by your parents, education, culture and time period. How could this be true freedom?

If, however, you know yourself to be the Soul — Consciousness itself, pure Awareness, a Source fractal — then, and only then, do you have “free will”.

Note that free will does not mean you can act outside of the laws of physics (be they known or unknown laws). Instead, it simply recognizes that your fundamental essence is outside of all material constraints, and therefore has the freedom and will-power required to manifest any dream into existence.

“Tada drashtuh svarupevasthanam.” — The Yoga Sutras [1.3]

Quote submitted by: Josiah M. from Bali, Indonesia

(This is part 3 of 4 on a series about the Yoga Sutras.)

The Yoga Sutras — a masterpiece of practical life philosophy — starts with the admission that yoga is the process of taming the wild fluctuations of your delusional ego mind.

Once this has been dutifully accomplished, it is said that “tada drashtuh svarupevasthanam,” or “then the Seer (Self) rests in their True nature.”

A few key takeaways can be spun directly from this quote:

(1) Unless your mind is settled, you are not seeing yourself accurately. Instead, just like a rippling pond affects the reflection on its surface, thought forms create a distorted image of what You really look like.

(2) There will be no rest until the Truth of your nature is discovered. Maybe you are absolutely convinced that you Know who you are. The ultimate litmus test of your Knowing, though, is the degree of inner peace you feel.

(3) There is a singular moment in which Realization occurs — when the ripples in the pond stop and peace becomes all-encompassing. This happens only after the crashing waves of your ego mind have subsided.

Beautifully, this sutra does not even attempt to describe what it’s like to rest in your True nature, for it understands the impossibility of such a task. Instead, it subtly invites the Seeker to find out for themselves and leaves it there.

Stay tuned next week for part 4 of this series.