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    Found Mandala (Outside the Train Depot)

    ByElizabeth

    I am aware that jet fuel and car gasoline from my travels is something I should consider every time I go. I try to travel by train when I can, or by bus, but I also consider my need to get out of my current environment, to connect with people and places and language that are not that to which I’m habituated, especially in these divisive times.

    I hired a shared car to take me from the airport to Taos and then from Taos to Santa Fe–having no other choice than but renting a car for myself to get to the location of the retreat, but took the train from Santa Fe to Albuquerque on my way back home. It was convenient and a pleasant ride.

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    on the train

    ByElizabeth

    I am on Amtrak heading to the Anusara teachers’ gathering in
    Morrisville, NC. The train is surprisingly crowded and not surprisingly a whole different vibe than the train to NY.

    By day we will be practing and gathering in a hall at a Hindu temple. The grounds are reported to be beautiful and welcoming. By night, those of us who don’t have local friends will be staying at hotels off the highway with cable TV that usually serve the visitors to the big university ball games and events. We’ll then all be driving back and forth to the venue and out to eat.

    I find it of mild interest that I spend more time in cars and more time in a place with TV when I travel to study yoga than at any other time during the year.

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    What I Wrote Last Week

    ByElizabeth

    By now, the news of scandal has become widespread on the internet.  The Huffington Post has put in its two cents in the way that modern journalism does–highlight the bad, forecast turmoil, and invite continued readership.  Put John Friend or Anusara scandal into your favorite search engine and you will get a couple of dozen blog entries about broken-hearted yoga teachers feeling they need to resign from the organization (though many say they will be teaching the method, just not articulating it as the brand, which confuses me somewhat).

    Last week, I chose to post only a guest blog on the District Kula website (since that posting, District Kula is no longer affiliated with Anusara).  Though I have much more information now than I did last week, I am still waiting to see.  I will be gradually revealing more of my thoughts here as things develop now that I believe that those far beyond the immediate (though large) community of practitioners are discussing the allegations and potential repercussions with intelligence and kindness or gleeful malice or somewhere in between.

    One thing I can say, is that I have always consistently separated the man from the message, and  I continue to believe in the soundness of the Anusara principles.  I also believe that the situation is emblematic of the uneasy, but inseparable relationship between spiritual practice and commercial enterprise in our current market-driven world.  While it is unfortunate and sad that it is in my chosen community, I am no stranger to upheaval and controversy in either workplaces or communities and there may have been no better time to have this discussion both within the community and as a broader societal matter.

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    Yoga Ideas Best Put Aside

    ByElizabeth

    I just received a yoga email advertising classes and workshops that quoted a well-respected teacher as saying not to  listen to your mind and to listen only to your heart.  I respectfully disagree.

    I do believe that if we listen (listening in the deepest and broadest sense)  only to our mind, we lose connection with body and emotion, which can lead to ill health and unhappiness.   I also believe that individual consciousness is more than mind and includes bodily and emotional awareness as well as brain function and that one of the salutary aspects of yoga practices is to expand our capacity to be aware beyond thought and mere processing of sense perception.

    But to listen only to our heart is to be empty-headed, to be without discrimination (viveka), and also presumes that we can process and act on what is in our heart of hearts without using our minds.  To dismiss our mind as somehow not being a source for deep listening also defies the tantric yoga notion that all is an essential part of being, of consciousness, of the source of inner bliss (Satcitananda–being, consciousness, bliss).  Why would we have minds if we weren’t meant to use them?

    Want to be a fully engaged yogi who lives in the world?  Go ahead:  cultivate, educate, enlighten, and use your mind.  Just do it with an open heart and ever expanding sensitivity and awareness of all your being and all that is around you!

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