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    Atha Yoganusasanam (and “Opening to Grace”)

    ByElizabeth

    Earlier this week I was talking to a long-time friend of the family (my father has known him and his wife for over 60 years; they have known me since I was riding around in the womb).  My parents had sent me an email while I was on the meditation intensive with Paul Muller-Ortega last month, to tell me that our friend was in intensive care recovering from an operation.  I waited until I knew he was home to call because it can be so tricky to get the right time at the hospital.  When we spoke, I told him that my father had said that his intrepid cheerfulness was a complete inspiration.  “What choice do I have,” he asked, “what can you do when you wake up in intensive care on your 82nd birthday, but look for the gift it will have to bring?”

    In the past several weeks, a number of other friends and family members have been seriously ill or lost loved ones or home or work or more than one of these.  The outrageous suffering from a seemingly relentless series of natural disasters and war and the financial crisis is a staple in the news.  In trying to stay present for my friends and community, while still taking care of my own needs and emotions, I found myself led to practice bhavana on (deeply contemplate)  the first sutra in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras:  atha yoganusasanam–now begins the practice of yoga and how it relates to the Anusara first principle of “opening to grace.”

    Teachers and commenters say of the Yoga Sutras that it was not meant for beginners, but was meant for students who have already established a practice and reached a level of initiation (diksha) that  established they were ready to be given the teachings.  I have also often heard said that one is drawn to the practices because of other experiences in this or a previous life; in some sense, the first time we show up, we are not a beginner and are ready for the teachings.  Whatever knowledge and skill we bring to our studies and practice on any  given day, they start new.  They are starting “now.”

    Now begins the practice of yoga (yug)–of uniting ourselves with each other and with spirit and linking our mind and body one-pointedly to the fullness of the teachings.  The teachings are methods for knowing and experiencing this perfect union.  In that regard, I think that an essential element of the teaching conveyed by  the Anusara first principle of “opening to grace,” is this now, this beginning anew both to know what already is in our hearts and to learn how the practices can make it ever more accessible, whether we are beginners to what we understand to be yoga or meditation or have been practicing seriously for years.  We want this “now” in every moment.  As we get more skilled, and part of developing our skills is challenging ourselves deeply in the controlled environment of class and our own practice so that we will spontaneously open to grace in the moment when, as my friend said, there is no viable choice but to be cheerful (to “open to grace”).

    The “now” of Patanjali, the practice of “opening to grace” in Anusara yoga, is a way to teach those of us (like me) who do not otherwise learn or intuit from living itself that there is no viable choice other than cheerfulness in the face of the most difficult of challenges. The  “now”  conveys that it is now time to go deep, time to expand understanding and practice, time to discover truly how the practices can connect us to spirit and alleviate suffering.  Now is the time to be and to  learn better how to stay grounded in and connected to the flow of energies, not just so that you can face what you yourself might be experiencing, but also to have ever more space for love, compassion, support, and service for others who are in need.  Now is the time to open to grace.

    Photo from exhibit in San Francisco on the 10,000 year clock project.

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    “Who Goes On A Diet to Lose Three Pounds?” (and the Carbon Footprint of Orange Juice)

    ByElizabeth

    The other night after yoga class, a group of us went out to celebrate a friend’s 39th birthday.  During the ambling course of the conversation, I said that I was turning 50 later this year.  I added that I would grow my hair another couple of inches longer and lose three pounds, and 50 would be just fine (let’s leave aside for now all the societal conditioning that goes along with feeling that such an age marker wouldn’t feel too old as long as my hair was long and my body at a youthful weight).

    “Who goes on a diet to lose three pounds?” asked one of my friends.  I find that people sometimes look at me and are shocked that I pay attention to my weight.  They have an idea that someone who stays slim is just lucky rather than consistently mindful.  My grandmother who was 4’11” in her high-heeled slippers was the one who taught me to be mindful in this way.  Once or twice a year, she would moderate her diet to lose the two pounds that crept on after one too many desserts over the course of a few months without any other change in her modest, healthful for those days diet.

    Going on a diet to lose three pounds means never having to lose 10 or 20 pounds or more.  It means returning to mindfully eating a little extra less for a couple of weeks after a couple of months of having eaten a little more than what is perfectly sustaining rather than having to go through a major lifestyle change.  In my middle age, I pay attention to my diet not as much for how I look in my clothes and feel about my body, but more for whether what I am eating is healthy for me and the planet.  One of the best and easiest ways to be at an optimal weight, feel healthier, and have less impact on the planet is simply to eat less (though this is a new announcement by the government, any one with even an ounce of common sense knew that, no matter how much exotic, novel, or challenging diets seemed more appealing).

    Part of eating the right amount for your ideal fit with your body and its relationship to the planet and society is having food that is not necessary for a healthy body only on special occasions (which is different than rigidly forbidding it to yourself).  In reviewing what is sustaining for me and the planet while still enjoying a delicious diet, I periodically take a look at what I am eating and think about what is really fulfilling.  One of the things I enjoy, but have known really should be a treat is orange juice (which I stopped drinking on other than an occasional basis several months ago and truly have not missed).

    If you are eating multiple servings of vegetables and a piece or two of fruit a day, orange juice processed, packaged, and shipped outside of a grower state provides little more benefit to your diet than does a can of soda.  If you kept everything else in your diet consistent and aren’t already eating enough to be gaining weight, eliminating the unnecessary glass of juice would not only diminish your carbon footprint (and if it is not organic, your chemicals into the drinking water footprint as well as your carbon footprint), but you also would be eliminating the number of calories it takes to gain a pound over the course of a month.  And if you live in one of those states covered in snow and ice and are yearning to eat something from the land of sunshine, eat an orange or some other tropical fruit–organic if you can get it — and skip the processing, the cooking (pasteurizing), and some of the packaging that goes into it being shipped to your grocery store as juice.

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