“How I Got Into Yoga”
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I enjoyed reading Amy Ippoliti’s blog entry on her first yoga class. My story is here (sorry, it takes two clicks), for those of you have not yet read it. What is your story? Does thinking about it help you reflect on how yoga has shifted your life?
Giant Grasshopper from Outer Space (and Maya)
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The camera may not lie, but it certainly, like our own perception of things relative to that of others, have a distorted or unique perspective. One of the essential principles of the yoga world view is that of maya or illusion. In classical yoga, everything in the world is illusion; the only thing that is real is Atman–ultimate consciousness or god. In the tantric world view, the role of maya is more complicated. It essentially boils down to the idea that we are under an illusion when we think of the world and divinity as separate, and that this illusion of separation leads to a suffering of the individual spirit. Whether one hold with either of these world views or not, it is always true that thinking our limited perception is the only truth will likely lead to discord, misunderstanding, and strife.
Another Storm Passes Without Any Rain Falling Inside the Beltway
Filed Under Art and Culture, Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Food for the Body, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Gardening | 1 Comment
What’s a gardener and concerned for the trees and the health of the planet citizen to do? I’ve got enough water in the rain barrel to water the vegetables and herbs once or twice, but what impact does that really have? At work, people were grumbling because it was cloudy. They seemed shocked when I advised them that we are an inch under normal rainfall for August and have a fairly significant deficit for the summer despite the July rains.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could move some of the flood waters that have fallen only a couple hundred miles away to irrigate our fields without disrupting our eco-system? Part of me just wants not to know about the consequences of global climate change, but it is hard not to notice that all the weather patterns I used to know and understand do not seem to apply quite the same way anymore. What do we do when the systems and practices we have in place for our ease, comfort, well-being, and understood day-to-day peace of mind are disrupted?
Yoga will not fix the big outer problems, but it can provide us with the steadiness and ease needed to stay present and be flexible in the face of crisis, upheaval, or disease. It can also provide insight into how we can live in better alignment. In the meantime, I am practicing gratitude. I know how blessed I am that, so far, the wild upheavals I read about in the news have not kept me from all the food and comfort that a person could possibly want. And I pay attention, because to be ignorant ultimately never serves ourselves or others.
What a Good Murder Mystery Can Teach Us About Sadhana
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Surely that’s what life was all about? Opening doors and peering through them–perhaps even finding the rose gardens there… (Colin Dexter, The Dead of Jericho)
The good murder mysteries — the ones that teach much about human nature and do not dwell graphically on gore and violence — can teach us much about the power of sadhana (yoga practice). The best mysteries are ones in which the protagonist teaches us by his or her investigation into the mystery that with careful, steady discipline, the application of well-developed technique and study, consistent effort, and an openness to trust intuition tempered by discrimination, we can reveal to ourselves the truth of the matter. The truth revealed is not just the identity, means, and motive of the murderer (mystery solved), but the knowledge of the extraordinariness of human being in all of its manifestations, both good and evil.
I Was Browsing Looking for a Poem
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I was browsing; I was looking for a poem to read to a friend because I was not ready to write one myself. I found several that were right for me to read, but not to share, and this one I wanted to share more widely because of the delight it is bringing me to read it:
Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4
1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet and sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.
Richard Brautigan, The Pill v. the Springhill Mine Disaster
I had a real fondness for Brautigan when I was a teenager. Every once and a while, I will pick up one of his books and remember why. If you enjoyed reading this poem, please go buy a book by Brautigan to thank him.
“Inspiration Cards”
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I adore having a library and will rarely say no to a philosophy text or a book about anatomy, therapeutics, or yoga methodology. I am less interested in “self help” types of books or gadgets. Every once and a while though, I come across something that truly supports my practice and my teaching. When I first went to Inner Harmony to study with John Friend in mid-2003, there was an altar in the corner of the practice room, just at the entrance. On the altar was a set of cards (a little smaller than 2″x2″). Each card had a word in English, the devanagari, and the sanskrit of the word transliterated into our alphabet. Following the lead of others who had been to Inner Harmony for previous retreats, at the beginning of the day, I would select a card and think about how the word on the card might inform my practice and intention.
At that time, I was first starting to use Anusara’s “heart-oriented posturing language,” using a theme for class that was designed to lead the students into a deeper place in their hearts through their asana practice, and I found that the cards were an excellent source of inspiration.
Even though I first bought the cards in 2003 to serve as a basic class preparation aid, I have continued to use them regularly for my own practice and contemplation. Often, the word that appears resonates with something that is of immediate concern. The day after Becky (my beloved cat who lived to be 21) left her body last year, I went to the set of cards, which I’d not used in a couple of months. The card that I selected at random (like picking a card from a deck when someone is showing you card tricks) was moksha — liberation, and in classic yoga, literally liberation from the body. I was moved to tears.
This summer, with myself and my students, we have been working on manifesting intention. As I’ve blogged about previously, I invited us to think about an intention. Whether an intention is something basic with the body or mind or something more universal, whenever we seek to manifest an intention, ultimately it is because we want to be more blissful, more open, and more at peace with ourselves and others. The question becomes how do we use our practice both to discover an intention and to seek to make it manifest. To help me with the contemplation of this question, I have gone again to the cards as a source of inspiration. This week, the card that turned itself up was racanatmakata — creativity. “Perfect,” I thought, when I saw the word. Creativity is a human reflection of the wild, pulsing, diverse and ever-extraordinary dance of all being. When we open to our creative impulse to allow things to unfold, we can witness the fullest range of possibilities and the variety of paths to manifestation.
What Does It Mean to Be Yogic? (and “The New York Times Article”)
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This weekend, a friend whose marriage of decades is precipitating towards dissolution, said to me, “I am having trouble reconciling being yogic and still needing to do what I need to do in connection with divorce. How do I deal with that?” I told her about a yoga principle I learned at the first Inner Harmony Retreat I attended with John Friend in the summer of 2003. He had asked a student a question that yielded as the answer the four yoga principles of ardha (physical and material well-being), kama (relationship, including intimate and love relationships), dharma (life path or work), and moksha (liberation or freedom). The fellow student answering the question, who was also my teacher, gave the classic yoga explanation that we try to do the first three elements in alignment so that we can then transcend and go beyond them to become free (enlightened). John replied that was the traditionally correct answer in dualist, classical yoga, but that from the tantric perspective of a person living in the world as a yogi, we look apply the principles differently. By living in a way that we have taken care of our physical and material well-being, have happy and loving relationships, and work with delight and passion that we will be embodying a life of the spirit; we will then be living and embodying freedom (jivanmukti). That encapsulation of tantric yoga resonated deeply and is a significant part of why I have chosen a path of tantric yoga rather than one that preaches renouncing the body and mind (which I think is impossible for one staying in the world).
My friend’s question seemed especially significant to me in light of the dialogue that has ensued following the publication of the New York Times article on John Friend, John’s blog in response, and the Elephant Journal interview. The essence of the article and the reactions, to me, seem to be about the intersection of our “outer” notions of societal success–fame and fortune–and yoga and whether the two can be reconciled. The New York Times article is obviously intended to be sensational and to create controversy; that is what makes a journalist who gets fame and fortune. But the alleged tension highlighted in the article is indicative of a bigger societal confusion of how and whether we can be spiritual or religious beings and also have human needs and wants. Ours is a society that hungers for panaceas and palliatives. In “discovering” yoga and its benefits in the late 20th century, far too many have put onto it expectations that have no basis in what is yoga and how it is supposed to aid us.
There is no word in yoga philosophy or in India for “yogic.” The word “yogic” is a western creation of relatively recent vintage. Webster’s dictionary does not have it as a separate word, but just has it at the end of the definition of “yoga” as “adj, often capitalized.” What do we mean by being “yogic?” It seems that we have gotten this notion that if we practice yoga seriously or teach it, that means we must be perfectly pure and good. We will need only light and air to nourish our bodies (and maybe a little local raw food in season); we will have neither needs nor desires; we will be so suffused with peace, compassion, and equanimity, that we never feel or show anger or grief, even in the face of injustice, violence, pain, or outrageous behavior. We expect that somehow we will be a perfect monk while still living with family and going to work.
We expect this not only of ourselves, but even more so of our teachers. In essence, we somehow expect yoga to release us from the realities of being human. To have such expectations inevitably will lead to disappointment in ourselves and our teachers (for being unable to reach this impossible ideal) or in the practice (both for not yielding this ideal and for, in our delusion, creating this expectation in the first place). My meditation and philosophy teacher Paul Muller-Ortega would say that to have such expectations is “adolescent” spirituality. When we practice “adult” spirituality, we take responsibility for ourselves and our own practice. We expect our teachers to offer us the teachings, but we honor and recognize them as human beings.
To practice yoga sincerely while still living in the world should make us more humane to ourselves and to all around us, not beyond being human. This is the true essence of Anusara yoga. To be richly and freely and wonderfully human and feel great love and compassion for that, even as we balance the realities of life with attempts to live in greater alignment. I am incredibly grateful for the teachings and the community that John Friend has created and the offering to study and get as deeply into the yoga as makes sense for me. Whether there are things I might do differently in the realm of ardha, kama, or dharma if I were “the yoga mogul” is of little moment because to find moksha we all strive to do our best in our own way (and one thing I know of John is that he always strives to do his best).
Shiva Nataraja
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This murti of Nataraja has been in the window of a store near where I work for at least 20 years. I often walk past is and just as often stop to admire it. I have never really considered taking it home, lovely as it is. The murti is simply too large for any of my rooms. I have mentioned its needing a home to a couple of different friends, who were looking for large murtis of Nataraja, over the past few months, but none have followed through.
Today, when I was walking past it on a lunchtime walk to the bank, I noticed a “commercial property for rent” sign in the window. I will miss having this resplendent image in my work neighborhood, but not enough to buy it and bring it home. I decided, though, to take a photograph. I know the owner only very casually, but well enough to know he is retiring, rather than being driven out by rising rental costs or the recession. The neighborhood has gotten trendier since Nataraja first appeared in the window. Nataraja might be replaced with a delicious restaurant or a fabulous store purveying things that entice me. Or the space could stay vacant or be used for something that holds no interest for me whatsoever.
Nataraja–lord of the dance of concealment and revelation, of dissolution and manifestation–is dancing here. The murti will be sold or transported away when the shop closes and will physically be gone.
I will have my memories of the image, a photograph I took with my BlackBerry, and will have had a sweet opportunity to observe the lord of the dance dancing away his own image.
Outrageous Light (and Sadhana)
Filed Under Art and Culture, Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Meditation, Photos | 2 Comments
I just spent a week looking at the celestial realms — inner and outer. Fifty of us spent a week meditating and studying with Paul Muller-Ortega at a retreat center in Sedona. It might seem from these pictures that there was not a moment when we weren’t exclaiming in awe over magnificent visions. The truth is that many times of the day, the sky was not spectacular, but I was always looking and always had my camera in my pocket, whether the sky was dull or flat when I left my room or whether it was engaged in some outrageous display of light. The photographs below are in chronological order to show the pulsation of night and day, the progression of the moon from almost full to full, the shift in mood from day to day. But, the images show a completely edited view. There were the views for which I did not take out my camera at all. Those were the majority, but I was still looking. There were the views I photographed, but deleted from the camera memory, choosing not even to save them. There are the photographs that I downloaded onto my computer, but did not even enlarge to get a better view. There are photographs I enlarged, but decided not to edit. Then there were the photographs I chose to edit by making decisions about cropping, brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation. The photos below are a subset of the last group.
If I were doing a show where I printed and framed the work, I would have worked from at least ten times as many images and would have done multiple prints of each image before choosing what to display. In this persistency and discrimination, photography teaches much about meditation practice. To show what is seen in a way that shifts the soul of the viewer, the photographer has to look over and over again. For example, Robert Frank took over 20,000 images for “The Americans.”
Anyone (especially these days with the technology available) can take an extraordinary picture or two if in the right place at the right time with the camera. But to have a body of work takes consistent devotion, work, and presence. So too, with our meditation practice. Some days exquisite visions arise. Sometimes we are pulsing with extraordinary energy that fills us with a sense of the very fullness of being. Other times, old issues or the to do list or even feeling trapped by sitting still is what comes. If we sit consistently over a long period of time, though, we will witness — just as the camera did — the extraordinary. We will know from being consistent that it is our very consistency that reveals bliss.
Rain in the Night (and the four states of consciousness)
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This morning when I woke, my first thought was that I thought it had rained in the night. My second thought was that I felt well-rested for having slept through the night — not having had my sleep disrupted by thunder or the earthquake, as was the case for recent nights — perhaps I had just dreamed about the sound of rain..
The yoga teachings say that there are four states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, deep (dreamless) sleep, and the fourth or turya state. The fourth state is both beyond the other states and also encompasses the others. It is where we find in meditation the merger of the individual consciousness with universal consciousness. The better we are able to access the fourth state, the more the other three states, and how we think and act in them, are illuminated by the very light of being.
The more I meditate, the more aware I am of what is going on around me while I am in a non-waking state. I am also finding that waking and dreaming are more luminous.
My awareness of the rain without knowing whether the awareness came while I was awake or asleep show both that I am finding more awareness in the different states and that I have a long way to go and much to discover.
keep looking »