Something to Say

Seeking Sattva

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 13:15:18 -0500

Some thoughts on the Gunas, an under-appreciated topic in yoga:

The Efficient Cause: The Principles of Movement or Change — the Gunas or ‘Qualities of Nature’
Apart from the matter out of which a being is made, there is also a cause for its movement or activity — something that first puts it in motion. This principle of being is quite different from the principles of the elements out of which it is made. The principles of movement are the ‘Gunas,’ which are sometimes called the ‘qualities of Nature.’ These are three fundamental principles that describe the dynamics of all manifestation and transformation — from physical events to the dynamics of health and qualities of personality.
The full meaning and significance of the ‘gunas’ is elusive, and the word ‘guna’ is used in different ways according to the context. (As we’ll see, when describing the qualities of the doshas, the ‘gunas’ are descriptive words such as guru (heavy), laghu (light), ushna (hot), snigdha (oily), and so on). But the primary meaning and use of the word, which dates back to the Vedas, refers to three primordial Gunas which provide the moving force for the manifestation of the universe — and likewise are the prime or primordial causes of the qualities of movement for all beings.
The three fundamental gunas might best be described (in my opinion) as the qualities of all activity in Nature — the moving force behind action that precedes even any sort of ‘will.’ They are the ‘Motivators’ of change. Everything in existence owes its activity (or inactivity) to the influence of the gunas, as well as the subtle and specific qualities of its actions as moved by the gunas. They are at work in our own actions as much as they are when a tree falls in a forest.
The Idea of a ‘Mover’: The Gunas as preceding even the power of Will
We most often think that it is by our own power of will that we move ourselves into action — and in the same way we attribute the course of the universe to a similar divine ‘will’ as its guiding hand. This notion usually leads to all kinds of philosophical and theological problems, especially when it comes to explaining what the ultimate cause of evil is in the universe. Is evil the result of — or does it owe its existence to — Divine will? Would evil ‘exist’ if the Divine did not ‘will’ it to be? Moreover, how is it that we end up doing bad or wrong actions when we know better, and often when we don’t really want to do them? The age-old question of evil takes many forms; Arjuna framed it in one of its most difficult forms in the Bhagavad-Gita: ‘Why is it that we do evil even when we know it is evil, “as if against our own will?”’ What are the forces behind action that leads to evil? The question is not that distant from the question of the causes of health and disease — and the choices that lead to each.
The role of the gunas sheds a good deal of light on these questions. On a cosmological scale, all activity in the universe ‘began’ — and continues to begin — from the impulse of rajas, the guna or quality of Nature that is activity; likewise, Krishna answers Arjuna’s question, saying that it is the power of rajas that impels desire and action. Paradoxically, this does not absolve us of responsibility for evil (or disease), but rather makes our responsibility more clear.
The three gunas are:
Rajas – the state of activity, the principle of motion, or the impulse to act. It provides forward movement or momentum, or the force that changes the direction of movement.
Tamas –is the state of inertia or mass, the fundamental state of the object at rest, which is resistance to motion. It can be a state of resistance toward action (or interaction), or a state of rest or gestation, such as that of a fetus within the womb.
Sattva – is the state harmony and balance, the fundamental state of the subject, self or ‘Purusha’ (soul) itself — the pure stillness of awareness or subjectivity. This state is relative to the other two gunas, a state of equipoise or perspective upon the influences of both rajas and tamas.
In the early cosmology of the Vedas, the pure cosmic Self was first moved into the activity of manifesting the universe by the impulse of rajas that disturbed its state of unity. With that initial ‘upset’ of the original state of balance within the Self, all of the gunas came into play. Rajas initiated the manifestation of the universe, while the complimentary guna of tamas provided the stability and persistence of that manifestation as it unfolded.
Sattva has its meaning in relation to the other two gunas; it describes the state of clarity or ‘balance’ in the subject in the midst of this activity (which we ourselves experience perhaps as ‘moments of clarity’ or reflection) in which the subject is neither impelled by rajas or hampered by tamas, but rather is fully aware of the impulses of both in the present moment. It is the state of greatest freedom or choice that is the very nature of the self in its moments of greatest self-awareness, a state of ‘perspective’ upon all that exercises an influence over it.
Usually our own consciousness is caught up or enmeshed in its activities — beset by rajas — or relatively passive or unconscious in a state of tamas. The ‘witness’ state of meditation is the state of sattvic awareness, often described as ‘choiceless awareness,’ which is ‘above’ both rajas and tamas. The sattvic state of awareness transcends the other two gunas without being disconnected from the present: it is, in other words, the best ‘place’ from which to make an informed, mature decision or choice.
The two gunas of rajas and tamas don’t make much room for freedom: they act upon the subject or self, and strongly influence the outcome of the resulting action (or inaction). The gunas of rajas and tamas operate in the realm of cause and effect, and actions that result from their influence are at best reactions to these states, and carry the qualities of their influence.
The state of sattva, of balance, allows the possibility of a response rather than simply a reaction, and thus the possibility of freedom. Sattva in the conscious self is not so much a state of pure will, but is instead a state of pure awareness that is prior to the will: it is the state from which the self is free to allow the will to unfold — and also retains its veto power. A person whose will is dominated by rajas is nearly powerless to stop himself; a person who wills to act from a sattvic state can.
Thus sattva allows the possibility of genuine responsible choice: it grants the perspective of freedom from which the self can allow rajas (the impulse to act) to unfold and to consciously shape its course. The self can by the same token choose not to act on the impulse of rajas — but not from a tamasic state of inertia.
In this way the gunas provide some important answers. Rajas is most often described as ‘mixed:’ the consequences of acting upon rajas are quite often good. The rajasic ‘movers and shakers’ of the world are most often the ones responsible for getting things done and initiating change. But the consequences of rajas are also mixed. Along with the good consequences come the bad, most often unintended or unforeseen consequences; and the more rajasic the action, the greater the collateral damage. The ‘gain’ that comes from rajasic action is, by the very nature of rajas, accompanied by pain, or at least the discomfort of effort — so much so that the rajasic impulse is to ‘push through the pain,’ with increasing degrees of unconsciousness and resulting harm and injury.
While tamas is the principle of rest and stability, it is also described as ‘dark,’ since the very self-concern of tamas can foster cruelty through ignorance, insensitivity, greed and possessiveness. Sattva, on the other hand, is alone the principle of light — neither dark nor even ‘mixed.’ Its qualities reflect harmony, balance and inclusiveness: it is the root of compassion, responsibility, thoughtfulness, and love in the highest sense of desireless, even selfless love.
It’s abundantly clear that the state of sattva is something rare and fine. It appears fleetingly in nature, in moments of transition known as sandhi, such as at sunrise and sunset, as well as other moments of peacefulness, balance and clarity during the day and night. Other parts of the day are ruled by rajas and tamas, which exert their influence over us according to our constitution: we respond to the rajasic periods of the morning according to whether we are a ‘morning person’ or not, and so on. We recognize that rajas and tamas in particular are forces of nature we have to deal with, each in our own way, lest we be ruled by them entirely.
Krishna attributes the evils and difficulties of the world largely to rajas (without necessarily excluding the role of tamas); so much so that he goes so far as to say that the wise man recognizes that the gunas are the true ‘doers’ in the universe — the natural forces behind all action, desire and resulting consequences through the mechanisms of cause and effect. Does this ultimately absolve us of ultimate moral responsibility? He seems to say that evil begins not with human will, but with rajas as it gives rise to desire. We suffer the moral or karmic consequences of our actions so far as we identify our own desires with the impulses of rajas, failing to have any perspective upon their true origins, and thus we are ruled by the natural force of rajas. Is this really our fault? Or are we ultimately set up by the very nature of the universe to have our actions determined for us by these forces? Where is our responsibility? Is it simply to say ‘no’ and renounce or opt out of action entirely, as Arjuna first suggests?
Seeking Sattva
Sattva offers and answer. Moments of sattva do happen for us spontaneously: there are moments of clarity in which we ‘wake up’ to what we are doing, or which give us insights into our true motives or impulses that allow us to choose or change our course of action. But we can’t (or shouldn’t) go on in our lives, simply waiting for or relying upon those moments of sattva when the clouds spontaneously part for us. Sattva is a fine and delicate state of awareness that we have to cultivate through practice if we are to maintain health in every sense of the word.
Meditation, for instance, is much more than making a practice of the effort to still the mind. The struggle of meditation is not really a struggle with the mind or the thoughts or ‘vrittis’ of the mind, though that is certainly how it appears to us. It is instead a struggle with the impulses of rajas and tamas ‘behind’ the mind. What makes the mind so powerful and difficult to ‘still’ is its rajasic impulse to do — to think about what to do, and about what to do about what it is thinking, and so on. By the same token we are beset by the mind’s tamasic tendencies toward sleepiness, boredom, and obsessiveness with replaying old memories, stored emotions and so on.
The effort in meditation is to settle into a sattvic state of clarity and awareness in which not just the thoughts, but the impulses behind the thoughts rooted in the gunas, cease to determine the course of our awareness. This is a state of freedom and responsibility for our mind that is not only useful to bring into our daily lives, but even morally required of us. Our moral responsibility is to cultivate within ourselves the state of sattva in which responsibility becomes genuinely possible. In other words, to grow up. In the absence of that sense of moral responsibility and maturity, we have rules and punishments to temper our rajasic impulses, and hopefully to prevent bad behavior.
The same is true in the case of our responsibility for our physical health. It is surely unfair to say that we are responsible for the diseases from which we suffer (except in cases of ‘crimes against wisdom’ when we ‘should have known better’ than to do what we did). But we are responsible to cultivate in mind and body, to the best of our ability and circumstances, the state of sattva in which healing becomes possible. And this requires understanding the factors within our own unique constitution or ‘Prakrti’ as well as in our environment to which we must respond.
This is the essence of the requirement to ‘Know Thyself’ even in the midst of change — and awareness of the gunas is an essential part of that responsibility, as Krishna drove home to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita. And paradoxically, while the gunas are presented as natural forces beyond our control — and which, to a startling degree, control us — we are nevertheless responsible for their influence over us. Yoga practice — particularly meditation — is necessary thanks to the incessant influence of the gunas. The various achievements of the yogis, from supernatural powers and superhuman achievements to merely impressive physical accomplishments, actually make them the playthings, not just of the mind and ego, but of the gunas themselves (particularly rajas). An understanding of the gunas is vital if we are not to be deluded even by our own yoga practice.
D Keller

Hatha Yogis Are Eee--ccentric!

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:51:42 -0500

(The following is a rewrite of a portion of the Yoga Therapy book, volume 1, around page 107:)

The Problem of Posture — and Causes of Pain
The basic kinds of posture we’ve described present a problem because they lead to pain — thanks to the disharmonies
in muscle tone that they create. Having looked at the forms that posture can take, we can now look
at the fundamentals of the problem presented by posture. Then we can better map out a solution in terms of
the weave of ‘Soma Sutras’ that make up the fabric of energy in motion that we call posture.

Pain and Structure: Postural and Phasic Muscles
Any discussion of postural imbalances and muscular tension depends upon a basic distinction between types
of muscles.

Postural Muscles
Postural muscles — often called ‘tonic’ muscles — stabilize and support the body, rather than set it into
motion. We might think of them as our ‘anti-gravity’ muscles, which maintain a steady, light and easeful posture.
Postural muscle fibers are ‘slow oxidative’ muscles built for sustained contractions. As the name suggests,
they are fueled by oxygen, which enables them to support low-load activities requiring less strength, and they
are slow to fatigue. Moreover, they do their work without our having to think about them — they support us
while our mind is occupied by other things.

Phasic Muscles
Phasic muscles require conscious activation: we have to will them into action for the sake of movement. Phasic
muscle fibers provide relatively quick, temporary bursts of strength; they are ‘fast glycolytic’ muscles fueled by
blood sugar or glucose, which do the ‘heavy lifting’ for the body in high-load movements. Their contractions
are ‘concentric.: they contract or shorten to move our limbs, and while they are generally more powerful than
postural muscles, they also tire more quickly.

In Between: Special Training through Yoga
‘Postural’ and ‘Phasic’ muscles actually describe the two ends of a spectrum. The actual constitution of most
muscles lies somewhere in between: they are made up of combinations of these fiber types, and so the ‘type’
of any given muscle is actually determined by the predominance or greater percentage of one type of fiber or
the other.

Thus at the middle of this spectrum we find medium-phasic muscles which control mid-load activities. These
are fast-oxidative muscles which are quicker to fatigue, but are nevertheless more steadfast than the more purely
phasic muscles. They work in a rather unique way, which is best understood by comparison to the other two
types. To summarize, muscles are best described in terms of how they most often function, and in light of the
very constitution of their muscle fibers, which suits them to the task:

— Postural muscles essentially maintain a contraction in order to hold bones in place —
they work ‘isometrically,’ providing resistance that maintains posture, even while the rest
of the body is in movement.
— Phasic muscles contract or shorten in order to move bones; the biceps contract to pick
up a coffee cup, but releases and relaxes the moment we set it down. Weight-lifters develop
the phasic aspect of their muscles, training them to act ‘concentrically.’

Somewhere between isometric and concentric contractions, there is a third action that mid-range muscles
must perform. This is known as ‘eccentric’ work (pronounced ‘ee—centric’), in which the muscle maintains
its contraction or resistance while at the same time steadily releasing or lengthening with control. For instance,
when I pick up a cup of coffee, it is the ‘concentric’ action of the biceps that lifts it to my lips; but it is by an
‘eccentric’ action of the biceps that I set it down again.

All muscles from postural to phasic of course have this capacity, but this is also something they need to learn
to do — or learn to do better or more efficiently. This is learned especially in the course of doing yoga, and is
especially the reason why yoga is so much more than just ‘stretching’ or even getting a good ‘workout,’ aerobic
or otherwise. It is ‘strength and length’ training in a fairly unique sense: the whole process of going into and
out of asanas, as well as ‘holding’ them while going ‘deeper’ involves eccentric muscular work that the word
‘stretching’ really fails to capture.

How Muscles Work
To understand this, we might pause for a minute to take a closer look at how muscles actually work.
Muscles basically contract — or that’s how we think of what they do. But a muscle consists of a bundle of fibers,
and these fibers are the reality of what we otherwise think of as muscle ‘cells.’ These fibers consist of long
protein cords or filaments, which are organized in rows called ‘sarcomeres.’ This structure — filaments lying
next to each other in the sarcomere — allow the muscle to shorten without having to shorten themselves.24

How so? From the perspective of the proteins, a muscular ‘contraction’ is not so much a contraction, but a
gliding-into one another of these sliding proteins. Picture two old-style shaving brushes: when you put the two
together, end-to-end, sliding the bristles together, what you have is a good representation of a muscle. When you
push the two brushes together, the bristles don’t contract or shorten: they slide into or alongside one another,
merging the two. When you pull the two brushes apart, the fibers or ‘bristles’ slide apart: the muscle ‘lengthens.’
This image helps us to understand the nature of muscular strength. It’s been said that when you merge two
thick (800 page) phone books by interleaving the pages, it’s well-nigh impossible to pull them apart. When
this hypothesis was tested, it was found that the friction between the pages is cumulatively so great that it took
8,000 pounds of force to separate them.25 This gives you a sense of the combined power — at least by way of
analogy — of the controlled ‘friction’ between sliding protein filaments. An isometric contraction, for instance,
holds bones in place not so much by ‘contracting,’ but rather by simply not allowing the filaments to ‘slide’ —
much like the friction of the pages of the phone books holding them ‘tightly’ together.

The advantage of this image is that it allows us to see that even when muscles are tightly ‘contracted,’ they
don’t actually lose their flexibility — or at least their true potential for it. A muscle can certainly be ‘tight,’ but
by virtue of the fact that it has forgotten how to — or is not really being allowed to — let go and ‘slide’ in a
controlled way.

Our very language lends itself to this kind of holding: we speak of ‘contracting,’ ‘tightening’ or ‘tensing’ our
muscles, and even speak of overdeveloped people being ‘muscle-bound,’ when really it’s our very way of thinking
about muscular activity that contributes to such conflicting patterns of holding (by the subtle message sent
through the nervous system via our internal ‘language’ of action).

Try a simple thought-experiment: pick an object of manageable weight and do ten ‘biceps curls’ with the thought
that you are contracting or engaging the biceps to lift the weight. The emphasis here is on the thought
of contracting or shortening/tightening the muscle to achieve the lifting. Afterward notice the feeling of the
‘tone’ of the muscle — where increased ‘tone’ might be the feeling that some of the contraction remains ‘in’ the
muscle, leaving it feeling ‘stronger.’

Now — with the other arm — do ten ‘biceps curls,’ but with the thought that as you lift the weight, the
muscle fibers are ‘sliding together’ or sliding into one another, and as you lower it, the fibers are sliding apart.
Here the emphasis is on the whole action of ‘sliding’ — both in ‘contracting’ and ‘extending’ the muscle.
The seemingly different actions of contracting, lengthening (and even isometric ‘holding’) are really just
aspects of the same phenomenon of this smooth ‘sliding.’ Notice the quality or ‘tone’ of the biceps — and of
the whole arm — afterward. It may be that the biceps feel energized yet lighter and looser, and the arm as a
whole feels much the same way, and more integrated by this feeling, perhaps even feeling ‘longer.’ The other
arm is perhaps dealing with the feeling of a now-tighter biceps!

Muscular v. Organic
The style of yoga in which I trained and explored most intensively — the Anusara style — was perhaps the first
to try to address this internal language of muscular action. It distinguishes between

— ‘Muscular Energy’ (a ‘hugging’ of the muscles to the bones, as well as a ‘squeezing,’ hugging or adduction
of the limbs to the midline, and a ‘drawing’ of this ‘Muscular Energy’ in the limbs from insertion
to origin — toward designated ‘Focal Points’ [all of which suggest forms of contraction of the muscles,
whether isometric or concentric, though the initial principle of ‘opening to grace’ is meant to temper
all efforts so that they are “less hardening and contractive”26].
— ‘Organic Energy’ (an extension from the ‘inner body’ outward [after some refinements of alignment
described by the ‘Spirals’], which radiates and expands equally in the opposite direction: extending out
from the designated Focal Point through the core lines of the limbs, through the joints to the extremities;
concentrically expanding the muscles from the core lines out to the skin; and lateral expansion of
the limbs away from the midline.27

While the language proposed by the Anusara style attempts to express the fullness of action in yoga, it runs
the risk of presenting these ‘Energies’ as opposites to be reconciled in ‘Balanced Action.’

To quote from the various descriptions of these energies found in the Teacher Training Manual, “Excessive Muscular
Energy can be due to over-efforting...An excessive amount of Organic Energy can be due to over-relaxing,
hypermobility or hyperflexibility.”28 “For every action in one direction, there must be a balancing action in an
opposite direction.”29 The two ‘Energies,’ while they suggest qualities of intention (defined in the manual by extremes of
excess and deficiency), they are really simply functional aspects of the actions of muscles which do not involve any
opposition — unless perhaps we think in terms of muscles as simply ‘contracting.’

A description of the eccentric action of muscles — as a consciously controlled ‘sliding’ of muscle fibers — describes
the same essential actions, and without opposition or any suggestion of a need to balance energies moving in opposite
directions. While we can be thankful to the Anusara language for drawing forth the feeling-quality of action in asanas, a more
accurate description of the actions of the fibers will help us to draw some more specific distinctions based upon our
understanding of the actions of the muscles — postural, phasic and the many shades in between — that might better help us
work with the difficulties of postural stress.

Concentric Action in Athletic Training
Athletic or sports-oriented muscle training most often emphasizes the concentric action of phasic muscles to
maximize bursts of power (while of course also building endurance), and this is where we find joint problems
arising in direct connection to the training itself. This is because the ‘strengthening’ of the phasic muscles
involved in the sport often happens at the expense of the more intrinsic or postural muscles. The shortening
(through often exclusively concentric work) of the overused or overtrained phasic muscles can make it harder
for the deep intrinsic postural muscles to maintain the delicate balance needed to do their job, and the body
suffers in the long run, particularly in the joints. (This of course applies not just to athletes, but also to the kind
of tightness and problems that arise from all forms of repetitive action.)

The problem is not so much that we need to ‘stretch’ chronically ‘tight’ or contracted muscles such as the hamstrings,
but that these muscles need to learn (or re-learn) how to work eccentrically! We have reams of literature
dealing with knee, hip, low back and other chronic injuries arising from sports as simple as running — and
also a very mixed bag of studies and conclusions about the benefits of ‘stretching,’ from ‘absolutely necessary’
to ‘thoroughly useless.’

We do also have a good number of success stories in overcoming these injuries — as yet only anecdotal, perhaps
— from simply adding yoga (or ‘yoga-like’) practices to the overall training. More study is needed on the
specifics of muscular action taught through the practice of asana30 — separating it from the catch-all phrase of
‘stretching’ — as well as more clarity on the part of yoga teachers themselves on exactly and specifically what
it is we are teaching students to do in the asanas, if we are to reach more informed and verified conclusions.

Let’s start with this, recognizing that it is a bit of a simplification: the asana practices of hatha yoga mediate the
functional relationship between ‘postural’ and ‘phasic’ muscles to create the greatest harmony and continuity
between stillness and movement. Hatha yoga does so especially by training the muscles in eccentric action —
which includes teaching the muscles how and when to let go, thus reducing overall stress and increasing the
body’s natural resilience and overall strength. The asanas combine steady, sustained firmness with flowing and
easeful movement that is integrated with the postural core as well as with the breath. The kind of work done
in yoga is essential to health especially because of the strength and supportive tone it brings to the postural or
‘oxidative’ muscles that form the layers of our core.

We can take a closer look at the relationship between Postural and Phasic muscles, and their responses to stress.

Imbalances Between Postural and Phasic
When there is an imbalance, whether due to bad habits or imbalanced training, the two general types of muscle
respond differently — leading to different (though related) problems of pain and dysfunction:
Postural muscles tend to shorten when they are stressed; phasic muscles tend to weaken in a way that
brings fatigue and spasm.31
The paradox is that both responses have weakness as a common denominator.

— Misalignment forces postural muscles to work harder than they are meant to, causing them to shorten
and ultimately weaken and tire.
— By the same token, short, tight postural muscles exert a constant pull upon their antagonists, which
are often phasic muscles that are not designed to bear that kind of steady, unremitting burden; thus
they weaken, ultimately going into spasm or suffer trigger-point pain.

Certainly some phasic muscles — especially those overtrained or overused because of postural imbalance —
are indeed strong: so strong that they pull the body into this severely compromised situation, thus causing
other muscles to weaken, whether from disuse or overuse. The joints surrounded by these muscles will in turn
become stressed, restricted and stiff (resulting in extremely fit bodies that are nevertheless in terrible shape).

-----------------------------------
Footnotes:
24 Eric Franklin, Pelvic Power p. 37
25 An episode of ‘Myth Busters’ on television, aired September 10, 2008: when two cars failed to pull the phone books apart,
they resorted to a Sheridan light tank and an armored personnel carrier, finally succeeding.
26 John Friend, Anusara Teacher Training Manual, fifth printing, p. 39
27 Ibid., p. 41 and 44
28 Ibid., p. 35
29 Ibid., p. 35
30 As well as related and evolving disciplines such as Pilates, taking into account similarities and differences in approach and
teaching.
31 Leon Chaitow, Fibromyalgia & Muscle Pain, p. 89

The Way Forward in Yoga Therapy

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:02:12 -0500

A number of pieces have been falling into place over the past couple of months illuminating the way forward with yoga therapy training, and I’ve been hanging back to see how they land. My workshops in yoga therapy have been well-received, with sold-out offerings in Ohio, London, and the upcoming workshops in Asheville North Carolina in December (already full) as well as Fort Lauderdale Florida (approaching capacity) early next year. The resounding request after each training is of course for more, and even for some form of certification.
This does have its challenges, since there’s really no accepted standard for a valid and recognized yoga therapy training, at least not one that carries much water with the medical or physical therapists’ communities. This is something I feel needs to be addressed, and one opening arose this fall. By invitation, I’m setting up a relationship with a program being initiated by Ken Randall (MPT, PHD University of Oklahoma Professor of Physical Therapy) and facilitated by Kim Rider, also of the University of Oklahoma. Their interest is in developing programs for continuing education in Yoga for Medical Professionals. The idea is to help the medical community become better informed of the therapeutic applications of yoga -- yoga is already being put to use by physical therapists, occupational therapists and so on (you’ll find me referring to ‘physical therapists’ in this post, but I’m quite aware that there are far more players in the field than ‘physical therapists’ alone — please assume that I’m referring to all interested parties), though there is a glaring lack of any training program in yoga that would meet their own standards of practice. Also needed is a training program for yoga teachers that would establish their credentials so that licensed therapists would feel comfortable in sending their clients to such certified yoga teachers.
I think this is an important first step toward establishing accepted standards for yoga teachers, by linking the training to the standards required of physical therapists. This would not ‘make’ the yoga teachers into physical therapists, but would go very far in setting forth certification standards for yoga teachers practicing yoga as therapy. The plan thus far is to proceed with trainings around the country, as well as offering instructional video clips pertaining to particular anatomical syndromes online, which can be used both for learning, and also provided for clients to follow in their program of therapy.
My own therapy book evolved out of my own recognition of the holes to be filled in the training of yoga teachers in therapy. There’s an interest in using my work for this training because I am speaking the same language and referring to the same research and work that physical therapists do — and also I’m doing my best to keep my offerings faithful to what ‘yoga’ in particular is, and to what yoga teachers generally do — and are legally permitted to do. We’re not massage therapists, nor even (in most cases) licensed physical therapists. But we can have an invaluable role to play.
Thus I’m looking forward to taking part in this program, and to developing trainings specifically for yoga teachers as well as participating in trainings and course material for physical therapists and medical professionals. This will help to shape my trainings in the future, moving into more ‘advanced’ — i.e. specifically defined, in terms of specifically defined therapeutic problems or syndromes, and targeted approaches. Our starting point will be to focus on the kinds of movement impairment syndromes laid forth in Shirley Sahrmann’s work (of the same name).

Telling Stories

Tue, 7 Oct 2008 10:58:32 -0400

I just got back from a very fulfilling weekend with Matt and Holly at their ‘Barefoot Studio’ in Little Rock Arkansas, where dinner conversation inevitably turns to things philosophical, particularly regarding the purposes of our philosoph(ies) — the problems we create for ourselves as well as the resolution we find in our search for meaning. A big question revolved around whether our need for meaning is the very thing that creates the problem in the first place. Is the rather cliche question, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ the very thing that keeps us from really living it? In drama or movies, we feel resolution when we know how the story ends. Do we transfer that over into our own lives? Are we looking for that in our spiritual philosophy? Does life itself make sense when we know from our philosophy or religion how the whole story ends, whether with the ‘achievement’ of samadhi, nirvana, or possibly ‘Judgement Day,’ the ‘End of Days,’ etc.? (Is meaning granted by assurances as to who goes to hell and who doesn’t?) How do we go about deciding whether life has meaning, and is the question the problem?

All of which brought me back to the sense that the best philosophies are the ones that are telling a story — not as literal truth, but with a purpose, a purpose that cannot be fulfilled by attempts to state in a theory what is literally true of the universe (spiritually, and not just empirically). When it comes to the Absolute and the individual, the One and the six billion (at current count), how possible is it to arrive at such a literal statement, and what would it mean to us if we did?

All of which of course leads back to Rumi, the story-teller and poet:

“A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself...
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that’s blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.”

Rumi
The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks p. 171-172

Perhaps this touches upon the essence of ‘Swadhyaya,’ the ‘study of the Self.’

Don’t Eat Sweets

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 10:59:26 -0400

There’s a story I often repeat that is, I think, a story that Gandhi was said to have used. A mother in a small village in India was concerned that her son was eating too many sweets. (Anyone who has sampled Indian sweets knows that they can be so intensely sugar-laden that they make your teeth hurt) She took him to the local guru, who was widely respected, in hopes that he would talk the boy out of eating so much sugar.

Though the guru welcomed them both warmly, he refused to do any such thing. The mother was shocked that such a small request for the good of her son would be rejected by someone so wise, and she left wounded and disillusioned.

A couple of weeks later the guru happened to walk by her house while her son was playing in the yard. He casually wandered up to the boy and said, “Don’t eat sugar.” And he turned and walked away. From that day forward the boy lost all craving for sweets.

Again the mother was stunned by this turn of events, and went to visit the guru to ask him why he had done this after having refused her so abruptly just weeks before.

He said, “Back then I was eating sweets too. I had to give up the sweets myself, otherwise how would my words have any power?”

Last night was the vice presidential debate, and the received wisdom is that, while it was exciting and entertaining, maybe even a little cathartic for both sides (for different reasons), it will largely be forgotten by next week. No game-changers here.

But there was a moment that will stay with me for a long time. Joe Biden brought up an incident in which he was quite upset with Jesse Helms for the way he was voting on a bill. A colleague asked Senator Biden how he would feel if he knew Helms had adopted a boy who was confined to braces, and Biden said he would feel like a jerk. His colleague put the lesson in a nutshell: while you can and should question and even criticize another’s judgement, you should not question their motives. (Biden of course had a point in bringing up this story, since questioning people’s motives, sincerity and even patriotism has been a principle —and effective — form of politics by other means for a very long time now.)

The ‘teaching’ that Senator Biden received from his colleague is not a new idea — not even back then. But hearing it from him, it had power for me, almost as if I had heard it for the first time. This was coming from a man who has, since the time I was just entering High School, has been in a profession in which most careers are made by demonizing one’s opponents, disdaining and disparaging their motives and sincerity while celebrating and promoting one’s own. (We heard a lot of that from the other side of the stage.)

Yet Senator Biden stuck resolutely to this one teaching throughout the debate, and fully embodied it. He took plenty of opportunities to point out the wrongness of the judgements that have been made by his opponents, and also included key moments in his own learning process when asked to do so. Nevertheless he passed up many opportunities to call into question the character or motives of those with whom he has strenuously disagreed, bending over backwards to remind us that John McCain is a “good man” even while stating his disagreement with Senator McCain in no uncertain terms.

The compatibility of his conduct of his side of the debate with his own statement of his guiding principle really moved me. We generally expect to come away from a political debate with perhaps some new twists on old spins; it’s an event usually described in terms appropriate to a Coliseum event. But I do have to say that I didn’t expect to go away having been taught by example how to become a better human being. The lesson was driven home by the example of a man who both ‘got’ the lesson and owned it, even in the midst of incredible pressure and not a little taunting. His words had power because they were embodied, however fallibly, by someone who has denied himself the ‘sugar’ that is the opiate of so many in politics. The same is true of his running mate, the guy at the head of his ticket, even though he is taking hits for it.

Thanks, Joe. It is stunning that, unlike the one who was claiming the mantle of down-home ‘reality’ last night, you came off as far more genuine. Experience counts most when you own the lesson and walk the walk.

The Meaning of ‘Advanced’

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:57:11 -0400

As I continue to receive encouragement/pressure to put out therapy trainings, especially of the ‘advanced’ kind, I am really led to wonder aloud — and seek some input — on exactly what is meant by ‘advanced’ when it comes to the field of yoga therapy. The word, as always, suggests a host of expectations, often not very distinctly formed, and thus the high probability that whatever you do will be disappointing to some, especially because those who are disappointed may not themselves be clear about what they were looking for in the first place, or did not articulate their own understanding of the matter, or questions. Overall the training I just gave in Ohio was a great success, with teachers already reporting that they have been able to apply what they have learned with their students and clients — and there were desires expressed that the next trainings be even more ‘advanced.’ And so I put it to those of you who are interested in such things: how would you envision a therapy training that is ‘advanced?’

There are some complications built into the question. First, we have yet to arrive at even a generally acceptable definition of what ‘yoga therapy’ is, aside from making the definition so expansive as to include pretty much everything — including methods that are really not very verifiable, such as opening chakras and adjusting auras (even that comment is likely to provoke both chuckles and an indignant backlash, pretty much proving my point). Advanced training would be training in what?

Moreover, keep in mind that one thing that I think is distinctive of ‘yoga therapy’ is that the client/patient has to participate in the therapy (rather than simply be ‘worked on’), and it has to involve physical practices that at least marginally resemble yoga asanas, in addition to any breathing and focusing techniques used. So the ‘therapy’ is largely limited to what the student can do — though there is the option exercised by the Iyengar tradition, which is to use props to tie up the student into the pose that he or she could not otherwise hold. This does indeed work, and required a good deal of training in prop management, but it is of limited appeal and practical effectiveness. Apart from elegance in prop use, in what sense can work in yoga therapy be ‘advanced’ when the most effective tools lie in the basics, and the student has to in some measure be able to do the practices? When it comes to severe conditions, this is a really important consideration.

The question of yoga therapy v. bodywork is an important line to draw, since otherwise we get into areas of bodywork in which there are very clear education and licensing standards, whereas in yoga we have generally failed as yet to establish even a minimal standard of competence for yoga teachers (Yoga Alliance and other certification programs still measure in terms of hours of training rather than competence at demonstrating knowledge of agreed-upon content). It’s especially scary that anyone can take a day or two of ‘therapy training’ and then hang a shingle as a ‘yoga therapist;’ by the same token, anyone can put on an expensive and extended ‘advanced training’ in therapy without necessarily having to justify the content, beyond pointing to the number of people who show up and pay. We do have a responsibility to be responsible, at least in offering trainings (since there is little way of exercising control over what people do with them). Responsibility includes a clear sense of boundaries — a clear sense of what it is not appropriate to teach, at least in light of the relative ability of trainees to both learn and legally and responsibly practice what they have learned. Again, what are the limits of ‘advanced’ yoga therapy — at what point is ‘advanced therapy’ beyond the realm of yoga, at least as generally taught from teacher to student? And what body of knowledge are we treating as being within the realm of the ‘advanced?’

I’m putting this out there — and risking some vulnerability — in order to get the conversation going, and also plot my own course in moving forward responsibly in teaching ‘yoga therapy,’ a field far too vast to be covered by any one person. I think the starting point for anyone is an honest acknowledgement of the Popeye principle, which is “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam” and move forward from there, sharing what is given to us to share. Until the comments section of the blog starts working again, you can email me if you wish at doyoga@mac.com — though given the volume of emails I already handle, I can’t promise a response. I’ll find some way to share the results.

Himalayan Days

Mon, 4 Aug 2008 15:58:17 -0400

Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to offer a workshop at the Himalayan Institute as seva, an offering of my time to the work they do there, and to spend some time with Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, the head of the institute. As he has done before, he was very generous in sharing his time with me as well as with sharing with me his insights, experiences and the philosophy behind the charitable works the Institute is doing, particularly in Africa.

What especially impressed me was the clarity of guidance he had received from Swami Rama, the founder of the Institute. While he allowed that the last decade has been a learning process in making their work sustainable and beneficial, it was clear that the Institute throughout has remained true to the guiding principle of bringing people to self-sufficiency while spreading the teachings of yoga — without making one mission dependent upon the other. Each action has its own integrity and demands. Particularly when it came to the teaching of yoga, it was clear that when yoga is taught through the Institute, it is to be taught as yoga, not as a particular ‘brand’ tied to the Institute or to any particular personality. Yoga is yoga, and the mission of the Institute is to teach it fully, respecting the integrity of the whole of yoga, rather than attempt to ‘own’ it or any part of it. For that reason, I think, their work is flourishing and will continue to flourish, for such is the nature of yoga, which most blesses those who respect and share the teachings selflesssly.

Over the years I have watched a number of teachers rise to the heights of celebrity, and recently crossed paths with some (not referring to JF here) I was sad to see a change in them, a distance I had not experienced before, though every kind of success had been achieved through smart and aggressive marketing of their brand. Significant relationships had dissolved, often painfully so, and were replaced by a gaggle of admirers as well as other relationships meant to fill a void. This is of course in large part due to our own culture of celebrity, but it’s also of the nature of the risks involved in teaching yoga and spiritual teaching in general. Muktananda used to warn teachers of becoming like a ‘dessert spoon’ — telling others, ‘taste this! taste this!’ while ladling out the teachings, all the while becoming wooden, tasting the teachings less and less for oneself. As I’ve met these teachers, I’ve felt the presence of lost souls, made hungry by the very importance they attribute to their own mission and teaching.

To define means to limit, to make finite: when you ‘define’ your yoga, especially in such a way as to put your name or title in front of it, you set yourself apart from the infinite, the very opposite of the purpose of yoga. The Sanskrit word for ego is ‘ahamkara,’ the ‘I-maker’ — that aspect of our own consciousness that defines itself and sets itself in relation to all other things, making the value of all things refer to or depend upon that well-defined and groomed sense of ‘I.’ You can certainly give a name to what you do as a teacher in order to highlight what you want to express as being the heart of the teachings of yoga; but when you put your own name before the yoga, or take pains to remind people who came up with the idea or style in the first place, the priorities being expressed by that name immediately become clear.

Yoga demands two things of a teacher: 1) be yourself (someone else’s words or script won’t ultimately work) and 2) remember that it’s not about you. While I was at the Himalayan Institute, I was able to participate in a havan, or fire ceremony led by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, in which all of us present were able to offer pinches of grain and incense to the fire as Panditji chanted mantras from the Vedas. (As is traditional, we were reminded to keep our index finger — representative of the ego — out of it, picking up the offering from the bowl with the thumb, second and third fingers) Each time he sang ‘Swaha’ we cast our offering into the fire. A fellow participant asked me afterward to say more about what ‘Swaha’ meant. I did my best to explain how it is an offering of the fruits of our work back to the universe — it most literally means, “I offer this oblation to You.”

This is really an offering of our full of the awareness of the Truth, of the true relationship of our own self to the Divine Self — the Yajurveda describes it as ‘an action impregnated with truth.’ As such, it is an affirmation of letting go — offering our work and effort with no strings attached, no self-seeking, no self-importance. It is a pure action in which we can let go of a false sense of self and reestablish a right relationship. Every action, really, whether our ordinary work, our teaching or practice of yoga in any form, needs a ‘swaha’ — a letting go, an offering to the Self in which it’s no longer about ‘me.’ As I looked into the fire and the heat touched my face, I was quite aware that the final thing I would offer to it in this life — like it or not — would be me, and only the fire would remain, for I am not different from that fire. That is not just resignation; it is love. Yoga is a practice of ‘swaha,’ of keeping these priorities straight in order to live with that kind of love, and lead a full and blessed life, now and always.

Sciatic Scenarios

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 11:19:27 -0400

While researching for my next article for Yoga+ on sciatica I’ve been revisiting some interesting nuggets of information that don’t easily fit into a 2500 word article for the average reader — what better place than to share them here?

The article is mainly about piriformis syndrome, and it’s surprising how this is not as yet seriously accepted among many in the medical community as a leading cause of sciatica. As recently as 2003 the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke classified the piriformis syndrome as “a rare neuromuscular disorder,” and the National Institute of Health has excluded this syndrome from its definition of sciatica, declaring that sciatica is “an injury to the sciatic nerve fibers in the lumbar spine.” Yet a study done in 2005 showed that of 1.2 million back pain patients, less than 20 percent had a herniated disk. And in the specific case of sciatica, it’s been shown that nearly 70% of cases of sciatica not caused by disk herniation are instead caused by the piriformis! (Sciatica Solutions by Loren Fishman and Carol Ardman, p. 71)

Those of us who do accept that a tight piriformis is quite often the cause of sciatic pain are likely to think of the problem as being a tight or short piriformis (I did). But that’s not necessarily always the case. I’ve had a number of women — teachers included — contact me to share about their chronic hip pain; quite a few found that, after a long period (sometimes years) of trying to correct it with ‘more Inner Spiral’ (an Anusara principle) only to have it get worse, the cure came with practicing the opposite, particularly with a focus on working the gluteals in conjunction with an ‘Outer Spiral’ — all of which simply goes to show that ‘Universal Principles’ don’t always have universal a priori applications, depending upon the particulars of the problem. The principles are not ‘wrong’ or faulty — you just have to take a look at what is going on and adjust accordingly. Though not all of these cases necessarily involved the piriformis, here is what possibly may have been going on, particularly given the geometry of women’s pelvic girdle:

“The piriformis muscle rotates laterally, extends, and abducts the hip when the hip is in flexion. The length of this muscle needs to be considered carefully in the piriformis syndrome. Although the piriformis is commonly considered to be short when this syndrome is present, Kendall reports that symptoms of this syndrome can also be found in the patient who has a lengthened piriformis muscle. In the clinical experience of the author of this text [Shirley Sahrmann], this syndrome is found more frequently in the patient with a lengthened piriformis than in the patient with the shortened piriformis. (p. 136)

“If the patient’s alignment while standing is hip medial rotation, adduction, and anterior pelvic tilt, the piriformis must be in a lengthened position. In this condition the patient may have sciatica from an entrapment of the nerve by the piriformis muscle. Hip adduction syndrome with medial rotation is also associated with ITB fascitis.” (Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes, Shirley Sahrmann, Mosby Press p. 154)

The description here of the salient points of alignment — medial hip rotation, adduction, and anterior pelvic tilt — fits key characteristics associated with ‘Inner Spiral,’ suggesting that in a good number of cases (particularly women), there is already too much ‘Inner Spiral’ structurally built into the hips. This quite possibly leads to a lengthened and entrapped piriformis, among other things, as the cause of their hip pain; moreover, standard piriformis stretches to overcome sciatic pain may not be cure for their hip pain — and ‘Inner Spiral’ can sometimes be the cause of hip pain, rather than the cure. Balanced action depends upon where you start from.

It’s an eye-opener not only that piriformis syndrome is not yet fully appreciated (by the medical community) as a cause of sciatic pain, but that there can be more than one kind of problem with the piriformis, depending upon one’s own individual structure. In any case, observation should always trump principles. It’s said that Aristotle was so sure of his a priori principles of reason that he deduced that women have more teeth then men without ever looking into his wife’s mouth. It’s a story too good to pass up, and a good reminder: principles are measured against reality, rather than the other way ‘round.

Sweet Swiss

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:05:47 -0400

There’s nothing like the effort to bridge the language gap for learning new things. During my talk on Patanjali during the AirYoga teacher training in Zurich, students were coming up with inventive ways for remembering the Sanskrit — the best of which was that ‘Vairagya’ (dispassion) is the very opposite of ‘Viagra.’ That single insight covered more ground than anything I could have come up with, and I’m sure yoga students challenged by Sanskrit will be grateful too for the memory tool.

While explaining the evolution of tantric philosophy, it became all the more clear to me how profound and fundamental a shift it was. In a nutshell, tantric thought distinguished itself by its respect for the creative power of consciousness, which the tradition quite significantly characterized as the feminine.

This was quite a big change from the kind of thinking that preceded it. In the classical era of philosophy prior to tantra, Patanjali referred to consciousness as ‘chitta.’ His version of consciousness had a decidedly ‘masculine’ flavor (reflected in the very gender of the word). The challenge we face in yoga (as an effort to ‘still’ the mind) according to him, is that consciousness has been rendered impure and problematic by the influence of the feminine force of Nature — ‘Prakrti.’

Consciousness — the principle of the soul or ‘Purusha’ — is the good guy, who innately rests in a state of pure (‘sattvic’) state of balance and equanimity. Nature or ‘Prakriti’ — i.e. all that is subject to change, including the ‘mind’ itself — is entirely other than Purusha. She is everything that the soul is not. Through Her influence, which includes the principles of activity and physicality called the ‘gunas’ — Rajas and Tamas (where Rajas is the impulse toward activity and motion, and tamas is the ‘inertness’ of the physical body itself) — the otherwise ‘pure’ or ‘sattvic’ self of Purusha experiences fluctuation or ‘chitta-vritti,’ the vibrations or fluctuations of the mind. These fluctuations are the root of our suffering, and they are the problem to be solved through yoga. Yoga returns the Purusha to his original state of equipoise, where ‘the self rests in its own self.’

From this perspective, Nature, the feminine, is so utterly ‘other’ than the consciousness of Purusha, the soul, that she can’t help but oppress and make the masculine nature of consciousness ‘small’ by her presence. At the root of Patanjali’s reading of the human situation, the dualism he assumes between stillness as perfection and activity as the root of suffering make this unhappy relationship between Purusha and Prakriti inevitable. Consciousness is polluted by involvement in activity, though through ignorance the soul mistakes this misery for happiness.

It is such a different world in tantra! After centuries of contemplation on the shortcomings of this way of thinking, including the various forms of repression that come with it, there was a slow revolution in the understanding of the very nature of consciousness.

Consciousness emerged as ‘chitti,’ who is now feminine (the very word ‘chitti’ is feminine, where ‘chitta’ was masculine). There is no longer the same dualism: consciousness as ‘chitti’ is no longer set in opposition to the quiescent aspect of consciousness. Rather, ‘she’ is the active expression of what lies within pure consciousness.

The creative potential for all forms of being lies in the stillness of consciousness (‘Shiva’ — not the deity, but the principle of consciousness that is ‘Shaktiman,’ the ‘holder’ of ‘Shak,’ which means ‘to be able’). The masculine is full and perfect, but unrealized potential. The active realization of that potential is ‘Shakti,’ the full flowering of creative consciousness. They are as equal as a flame and its light.

In this tantric view, there is nothing that limits consciousness from the ‘outside.’ Nor is the ‘activity’ of Shakti inherently impure. Rather Shakti Herself is consciousness freely choosing to take form by contracting its own fullness as the ‘One’ to become ‘Many’ — in the same way that in choosing to think about something, we freely contract our own consciousness into the forms of the objects about which we are thinking. Thinking is not so much an imposition upon consciousness, but rather an exercise of the power of consciousness. Thus Consciousness is recognized as Shakti, the power to create out of Her own being. That energy is chitti, which we experience as the power of the mind and individual consciousness. It is that, and so much more.

We can best appreciate the great significance of this revolution in philosophical thought if we use the analogy of art. The ‘artist’ as Shakti creatively reveals Herself in Her ‘art’ (the world She creates), fashioned out of Her own energy on her own ‘screen’ or canvas — thus Consciousness is both ‘Knower’ and ‘Known.’ But the analogy of art helps us to recognize that there is also a third participant in the full process of the unfolding of this creation: in addition to the artist and the art that she creates, art includes the participation of those who come to see it. On the cosmic scale, that means us, and we have a positive role to play in this unfolding of cosmic creativity.

Art as simply created by the artist is unfinished. Its meaning and message unfolds in the process of its being seen, interpreted and appreciated — thus over time the artwork becomes even more than the original artist perhaps anticipated or intended. Thus between the Knower and the Known, there is also a ‘Process of Knowing’ that is fulfilled in and through each one of us. Thus the tantric perspective gives new dignity and value to the individual as well as the community in the cosmic scheme of creation.

That is to say, in addition to the cosmic ‘Chitti,’ there is also a very distinct and special role for the creative consciousness of the individual as ‘citti,’ who finds and even creates meaning when gazing upon this work of art we call the universe (nb. the word ‘uni-verse’ suggests all things turning back toward the One — and in this case, creatively so, enriching the universe by their contribution).

It follows also that the universe does not — and really speaking, cannot — simply ‘tell’ us its Creator’s meaning, intention or ‘plan.’ When it comes to art, the kind of art which dictates its own meaning in such a way is merely propaganda — that’s what makes propaganda ‘bad’ art (IMHO of course). The universe as the ‘artwork’ of the Shakti does speak to us, but not with the kind of message that baldly tells us what we are to think about it.

Rather, since our own nature as consciousness is of the same ‘chitti,’ it is up to us through our own individual creative consciousness not just to ‘discern’ meaning in creation, but to ourselves create it. This is not purely subjective, since there is the objective universe there before us. Nor is it the desperate act of the existentialist, who creates meaning because the universe is absurd and has no meaning. Rather, the universe invites us to find creative answers to the questions it poses, while the universe itself is not forthcoming in giving us its own answers, any more than art ‘gives’ answers. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t any — they just don’t manifest apart from our participation.

One of the students in the training told of an artist whose work is so minimalist yet finely crafted that it invites its viewers into an emotional experience of the work. Their experiences were quite strong — of both the art and of what they saw in it at once. Great art leaves room for individuals and even communities to have their own experience of its meaning. That, I think, is the nature of the universe too.

Thus the tantric philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism in particular tells us that that most essential attribute of Consciousness is Swatantrya — freedom, which I interpret as this kind of creative freedom. This is more than the notion of freedom that is often invoked as an explanation for evil, or the possibility of evil in a divinely created universe. The freedom of individual consciousness is far more than just the freedom or ability to sin or rebel — as if the basic options open to religious consciousness are either to obey or disobey, believe or disbelieve, conform or reject. The nature of the freedom of consciousness makes the possibilities for spiritual experience far more beautiful — and challenging — once the world is not rejected as an imposition upon the purity of consciousness, and the ‘rules’ for participation are understood to be far more open-ended.

(Another student in the training helpfully pointed out that the mind (particularly the subconscious) just doesn’t understand or do very well with the idea of ‘no.’ For example, a very unhelpful set of meditation instructions would be ‘don’t think of elephants.’ Even if we were to say, ‘meditate on swans, but don’t think of elephants,’ it’s kind of easy to predict what the course of your meditation would be. A spirituality that begins with do’s and don’t’s is ultimately self-defeating, since it subverts our understanding of our own true freedom in relationship with its source)

All of this of course comes across as highly abstract. How does it relate to daily life?

There’s a story of a woman in a Zen monastery, who every night would go to the well to fill a bucket for her morning chores. She enjoyed watching the moonlight reflected in the water of the bucket as she walked back, and made that her meditation. One night the bucket handle broke and the bucket shattered on the cobblestones. The reflection of the moon upon which she was gazing disappeared in an instant, and she was left in the pure, full moonlight — and in that moment she was ‘enlightened.’

In every moment of our daily experience, our experience is in one sense a ‘reflection’ of and upon the world. There are moments when the sense of mental reflection vanish — moments of real meditation within our meditation, or even moments of surprise, wonder, love and even fear in our ‘ordinary’ life — and we experience, however briefly, that our nature is not just thought and reflection, but the pure moonlight itself, which illumines all things including the mind. Or as St. Francis put it, you experience that ‘the One you are looking for (or at) is the one who is looking.’

Yoga as a practice — like the Zen woman’s own practice — helps us to recognize, deeply experience and appreciate those moments, and to build a life upon that awareness. While we may work to calm the sloshing of the water in the bucket to steady the reflection of the moon, our true awareness is of the pure moon shining steadfastly upon us.

It took a significant shift in our understanding of our own consciousness to ‘get’ that. And we ‘get’ it by creatively participating in our own life, understanding that it is divine consciousness as Chitti living through us, as us, and present for us within our own inspiration — a delicate but vital awareness that became the new meaning for ‘yoga’ beyond ‘stilling the mind.’

The Path of Progress

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:57:49 -0400

Right now I’m on the road in Zurich — assignment: to cover the history of yoga philosophy in five days with some very dedicated and enthusiastic students in the teacher training at the AirYoga studio.
This presents a fresh opportunity to consider the relevance of that history to contemporary yogis, and to make the case that it is worth the effort. If history teaches us anything, it is that we as human beings are always coming to a better understanding of what we are doing, thanks to those who came before us.
But the path of ‘progress’ in philosophy is rather less linear than in other realms. Technology has advanced by accelerating leaps and bounds, but owing perhaps to human stubbornness when it comes to belief, the development of our philosophical/spiritual thought may often seem to be more like three-steps-forward-two-steps-back.
There are indeed moments in the history of spiritual thought when new insights shone with a special luminosity. But when we look at the timeline for how and when these insights came about (and what else had been going down) it does seem that we also have to go through extended periods when the essence of spiritual insights gets lost, and the expression of them — especially when formalized as doctrine — begins to curdle and sour. We reach dead ends, retrace our steps, and then find new openings that take us further along the path of inquiry.
It’s a process that can be confusing and perhaps frustrating to many, but it’s more than a history lesson. We go back to the origins of ideas not just to be instructed by them as the ideas were taught ‘then.’ We’re seeking a renewed vision that illumines our path from where we stand now — not just from where ‘they’ stood then.
What we find is that the experience of yoga at various times in history took on some relatively unique meanings as ways of experiencing the Self. The specific ‘ways’ or practices are each a kind of ‘yoga,’ and thus the meaning of ‘yoga’ evolved over time with our understanding of consciousness. As the experience of consciousness became more robust and inclusive, the meaning of ‘yoga’ also became more robust and inclusive.
There are Sanskrit terms that evolved to express these insights into consciousness as they became clear, and in setting them forth here I’m taking some liberties to make them more accessible and relevant to the reader. But they help us to identify some key steps forward in our understanding of the nature of consciousness — and thus of ourselves as well as the path of yoga.

The experience of the Self as ‘Smarra’ expresses its first sense as ‘mindfulness’ — of the sort that accompanied tapas or austerity, which brought great merit. We might think of it as originally linked to sacrifice or offering, in which the power of the offering came not just from the act itself, but from the mindfulness or steadiness of mind with which it was done.
This had its own sense in the ancient times of Vedic sacrifice and austerity, and in our own time we here it expressed more through practitioners who speak of their hatha yoga practice as ‘meditation in motion.’ Its essence is very much like the peak experiences of atheletes in which they move ‘into the zone’ in the heat and single-mindedness of their efforts. As ‘yoga,’ this involves the ‘burning up’ of impurities through the steadiness of mind in the heat of effort.
Nirodha was the next expression of the experience — the classic expression of yoga as the ‘stilling’ of the thoughtwaves of the mind. The translation and sense of ‘nirodha’ has been expressed in many ways and with many shades of meaning, but essentially this expresses the inner silence of the ascetic who set aside any hankering for merit or attainment through goal-driven acts of austerity. Thus it’s considered a step beyond the first experience of Self as ‘Smarra.’ Nirodha expresses the cool dispassion of the experience of the Self in samadhi.
While Patanjali did acknowledge ‘tapas’ or austerity as one of the Niyamas, this experience of ‘Nirodha’ was beyond the actions governed by the ethical principles of the yamas and niyamas, as well as the other practices of the eight limbs that resemble austerities in pursuit of ‘Smarra.’
Anubhava was an elaboration on the experience of stillness that went beyond the relatively narrow understanding of Nirodha. It meant to be fully present, bringing the stillness of Nirodha back into conscious activity. This was more than the quality of mindfulness in the midst of austere practice, and more than the stillness to be found in meditation divorced from all activity. Anubhava is the state of one who has returned from the mountaintop of meditation to walk in the marketplace.
But the qualities of consciousness in this is a state have to be explored further if we’re to be able to relate to it and find it in our own experience — as yet it sounds more like the qualities of detached intellect and attenuated ego, but hasn’t yet done full justice to the full experience of consciousness.
Rasayana refers to the role of the ‘rasas’ — what we might call ‘emotions.’ Once these are understood and appreciated, it becomes clear that so speak of any state of awareness apart from the ‘flavors’ of experience we describe as the ‘rasas’ is an abstraction and not really true to the experience of consciousness.
With this understanding — something I’ve been exploring as the ‘yoga of the emotions’ — spiritual experience and practice becomes far more individual, and is fulfilled according to our own individual constitution or Prakrti (as understood through Ayurveda). It begins to become more clear how individuality is experienced and expressed through spiritual practice, and that this individual expression is part of the very nature of Consciousness as it is manifests in creation.
Sahitya adds the dimension of imagination — of the kind that I think is specifically the creative freedom of consciousness honored in tantra as ‘Swatantrya’ (‘freedom’) Meditation becomes a much more a creative act, in which imagination, visualization (of the kind employed in meditations on the chakras and so on) are not simply fluctuations of the mind, but keys to insight into truth.
We’ll see how well this characterization of the progress of thought in yoga holds up as we explore its history together. More postings will come in the days ahead as we hash out the ideas that arise in each period!