Charleston Yogi

One of the classic texts of the Yoga tradition, along with the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Within these teachings, Patanjali lays down a quintessential definition of “yoga” that has become a bedrock of modern Yoga practice. In Verse 2, the Sutras read:

YOGAS CITTA VRTTI NIRODHAH

Which can translated in various ways:
“Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuation of consciousness”
“Yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff.”
“Yoga is the stopping of the turnings of the mind.”

Well, what on earth are the “fluctuations of consciousness,” “modifications of the mind-stuff,” or “turnings of the mind”? And why should we be concerned with them coming to an end?

The turnings of the mind are our habitual mental chatter, the interior monologue running through our brains almost every moment of every day. It is the voice that constantly proclaims its like, its dislikes, its judgments, and its comparisons. It is what carries on our inner autobiography; our feelings of being a good or a bad person, beautiful or ugly, a success or failure, worthy of love or deserving of contempt. It is what worries and obsesses about the future, as well as lives in pride or shame over the past.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with this mental chatter. But it tends to create a problem when we habitually identity ourselves with this stream of thought.

Ask yourself this question: where do you most strongly experience your sense of “I”? If you were to say “I exist”, where do you most feel that coming from? Your big toe? Your arteries? Or perhaps your spleen? No, most people (at least in our culture) would answer that “I” is most strongly located somewhere behind the eyes and between the ears. Located ourselves primarily in the head, we connect our identity with the stream of thoughts passing through the mind. This forms our most basic sense of who we are.

From the time of some of our earliest records of human history, human beings have sought through various contemplative practices to bring this mental stream to a stop. Meditation, yoga, tai chi, breathing exercises, ascetic practices, drumming, dancing, and singing can all become paths towards turning down the volume of our inner chatter so that something else, something deeper, might be heard. Why? Is it a form of intellectual suicide? Does it mean becoming a mindless bump on a log? No, not at all. By such an attempt, human beings have sought a way to peace, profound happiness, and liberation from suffering.

They realized that the reflective nature of our thoughts – our ability to think about our thinking, and even think about our thinking about our thinking – leaves us in perpetual anxiety about our lives and actually creates an illusory barrier between ourselves and the world around us.

When we give all our attention to this constantly critiquing voice in the head, we subtly disconnect ourselves from what is happening right in front of us. If you are in the midst of an experience and are busy the entire time judging and commenting to yourself on everything – the warmth or coldness of the room, the quality of the company around you, other things you could be doing at this moment – then you aren’t really living in that present moment. You are “stuck up in the head,” too self-conscious to fully be engaged with the experience you are having. It is a little like constantly checking your phone for missed calls or texts while on a first date – it shows you aren’t really interested.

There are days when, feeling a little blue or tired, I can walk through the entire day in a sort of “blah” feeling, wrapped up in whatever crummy feelings I’m going through. If someone were to ask me later how my day went or what I did or saw, I might draw a blank on the contents of the day. I was so wrapped up in my mental “stuff” that I didn’t really notice the beautiful park I drove by on my way to work, or the smell of the rain during the afternoon, or the way my cat stretched himself as I opened the door coming home. This mental chatter keeps us from, in the words of Ram Dass, “being here now.”

Awakening to life therefore involves turning down the volume on this inner noise and instead listening more deeply to what is really going on.

For instance, if you are in a conversation with someone and you’re the one doing all the talking, you aren’t really connecting at all with the other person. You aren’t really having a conversation; you are having a monologue in someone else’s presence. It also means that you probably won’t learn or grow much from that conversation, because you’re just repeating what you already know. But when you become silent and listen, allowing the other person to speak, you expose yourself to new perspective and points of view. You grow, you evolve, you expand.

Well, life is the same way. We could think of our every day lives as a conversation with the world. If we are the ones doing all the talking, by means of our constant internal judgments, comparison, and commentary, then we aren’t really listening to what life may be trying to tell us. Even in prayer, when we are supposed to be seeking answers from God, most people in our culture pray by talking the whole time. Thus it has been said that whereas prayer is talking to God, meditation is listening to God.

So, let us try a meditation of deep listening. You may want to read this first and then go and experiment.

Find a comfortable seat, whether in a chair or sitting in meditation on the floor. Close your eyes and place your hands comfortably in the lap or on the knees.

Bring all of your attention to your sense of hearing. Imagine that you are one giant ear and your only purpose is to hear. Listen to the sounds around you. Maybe you hear a bird chirping outside, or cars driving some distance away, or the sound of faint music in the background.

Whatever it is, just listen, with no judgment, commentary, or interpretation. As Alan Watts once said, “The sound of the rain needs no translation.”

When thoughts begin to arise in the mind, treat them as just another thing to listen to. There is just a deep listening.

What you may begin to notice is that within the quietness of mind, the most ordinary sounds of every day life take on a staggering quality of beauty. The sound of the wind becomes a music just as beautiful as those played by orchestras. The flowing sounds of ocean waves become poems for the ear.

If you listen deeply enough, you may notice that in the midst of such beautiful sound, there is no sound of one listening. That is because there is no real separation between the knower and the known, the experience and the one having the experience. This lack of separation, which was only an illusion in the first place, is the experience of “yoga,” which literally means “yoke” or “union.”

Yoga is a practice of deep listening, turning down the volume of our mental noise, so that we may hear the wisdom of the Universe more clearly.

~ Matthew Foley

Did you know that one of the definitions of  haṭhayoga हठ is “tied to a post”?   It always makes me smile when I hear people talking about how much they love  their calm, peaceful music, gentle, sleepy yoga classes.  What about “Gentle Yoga”, that’s an oxymoron!

According to Wikipedia:

Haṭhayoga हठयोग is a system of Yoga introduced by Yogi Swatmarama, a sage of 15th century India, and compiler of the haṭhayogapradīpikā हठयोगप्रदीपिका.   In this treatise, Swatmarama introduces Haṭhayoga as preparatory stage of physical purification that the body practices for higher meditation. The āsanas and Prāṇāyāma in Rāja Yoga were what the Hindu Yogis used to physically train their body for long periods of meditation. This practice is called shatkarma.

The word Haṭhayoga is a compound of the words Ha and ṭha meaning sun and moon ( हकारः कीर्तितः सूर्यष्ठकारश्चंद्र उच्यते | सूर्यचंद्रमसोर्योगाद्धठयोग निगद्यते || ), referring to Prāṇa प्राण and Apāna अपान, and also to the principal nadis (energy channels) of the subtle body that must be fully operational to attain a state of dhyana or samādhi.  According to the Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary, the word “Haṭha” means forceful. It is a strong practice done for purification. In other respects Haṭhayoga follows the same principles as the Rāja Yoga of Maharṣi Patañjali महर्षि पतञ्जलि including moral restraint yama यम and spiritual observances niyama नियम.  Haṭhayoga is what most people in the Western world associate with the word “Yoga” most commonly practiced for mental and physical health.  The word “ha” refers to the solar nadi (pingala) in the subtle body and “ṭha” the lunar nadi (ida). However, when the two components of the word are placed together, “haṭha” means “forceful”, implying that powerful work must be done to purify the body. Yoga means to yoke, or to join two things together, hence hatha yoga is meant to join together sun (masculine, active) energy with the moon (feminine, receptive) energy, thus producing balance and greater power in an individual.  The signs of success in hatha yoga are slenderness of the body, cheerful face, hearing mystical sound, bright eyes, sense of well-being, control over the bindu, increase in gastric fire and purification of the nadis.

The  Bhagavad Gītā भगवद् गीता as well as Maharṣi Patañjali महर्षि पतञ्जलि tell us that the practicing of āsana, prāṇāyāma, and the other four limbs of Haṭhayoga are not necessarily the best way to go about seeking enlightenment.  See “With Intensity of Spiritual Practice” posted earlier.  Yet, if we have chosen this path it makes sense to understand what is expected of us.

Sadhana

This word is frequently translated as conscious spiritual practice.  It is made up of two words: sad from siddh which means to reach, and dānaṁ to give.  So the true meaning of the word is to give oneself over to reaching.

This can seem strange when we think of yoga as stress relief.  What constitutes stress, where does it come from?  If we follow Maharṣi Patañjali’s Yoga sūtra 2.3 we have the answer:

avidyāsmitā rāga dveṣābhiniveśāḥ kleśāḥ ||3|| अविद्यास्मिता राग द्वेषाभिनिवेशाः क्लेशाः ॥३॥

avidyā-ignorance of the true self, asmitā-ego, rāga-attachment to that which is pleasureable, dveṣa-aversion to that which is uncomfortable, ābhiniveśāḥ- fear of death, these are the obstacles to yoga- kleśāḥ

The order in Sanskrit is important, one leads into the other.  Try it.  If I am ignorant of my Divine nature, then I think I’m perhaps a white, male yoga teacher, therefore I like things which support this pleasurable story I’ve created for myself.  So, of course I must not like things which challenge this incorrect view.  Once I’ve spent years creating and re-enforcing this initial avidyā and it has grown to gigantic proportions and more or less things are acceptable in my world I fear losing it all.  This scenario may repeat itself by the second, hour, minute, day, month, or year.  This continuous attempt at controlling the outcome of events is stress.  Sound familiar?  It’s at this point we usually have exhausted a good many efforts to CONTROL this stress.  We may find ourselves in a yoga class (YAY!!  Hopefully a Jivamukti Yoga Class!) as a last resort.

My Teacher śrī David Life said at a workshop I attended said “If you’ve made it to a yoga class, something in your life isn’t going the way you would like.”  This is important.  Many people think that their lives are perfectly under their control.  They will inevitably become angry at God if they don’t receive something they have pleaded for.  Even worse, they may become violent towards others who they mistakenly believe deprive them of something they feel deserving of.

Many people use alcohol and drugs, shopping and sex, food and exercise to TEMPORARILY relieve this stress.  It transports us away from the uncomfortable place.  Yet, as any addiction specialist will tell you (or any alcoholic for that matter!) when the distracting substance is used up, the feelings which drove the person towards them will return, sometimes hundredfold.  The person may even form a resistance to the substance, requiring even more to escape.

If we go to a yoga class to blow incense, wave candles and only engage in postures which stroke our ego, or that we have lulled ourselves into thinking they’re all we’re worthy of, we are missing out on a great benefit of yoga; the ability to change our perception of the world and our relationship to it.   However, it may be take a little effort.  Everything is initially uncomfortable, challenging maybe.  Your High school degree was challenging, your climb up the corporate ladder, your desire to become a Vegan may have been especially challenging (congratulations!).

This is why Maharṣi Patañjali tells us:

1.12

अभ्यास वैराग्याभ्यां तन्निरोधः

abhyāsa vairāgyābhyāṁ tannirodhaḥ

Mental modifications are restrained by practice and non-attachment

Remember the order of YS 2.3?  If you cut the root of a plant all the growth above the cut dies.  If we practice this sūtra we cut very close to the root-ego, and this in turn will help us realize our divine nature.

1.14

स तु दीर्घ काल नैरन्तर्य सत्कारासेवितो दृढभूमिः

sa tu dīrgha kāla nairantarya satkārāsevito dṛḍhabhūmiḥ

Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and in all earnestness

To do be able to attend to the practice for a long period of time (at least 12 years) we have to remember to offer the practice each time.  Almost always the students who come religiously for a while and then give up have been expecting some sort of gain from yoga.  My Teacher śrī Jeffrey Cohen says “What can you do for Yoga, not what can Yoga do for you.”  Try this, next time you practice, take a variation (if the breath allows you to) but before you do, think of a being who may be experiencing a difficult time in their life.  Then, as you move through the posture notice how they are very similar to you in that you too are trying to overcome a challenge, that as soon as this one is over, another will come, and above all how YOU created this challenge.

We don’t have to do funky postures.  Sometimes just being present for each breath and offering every posture to the Divine is enough to make it a very demanding class.  Whether it’s Primary Series, Open Level Class, or Candlelight Waffle Yoga, you can turn each class into an opportunity to grow.  You can lean against your post , or beat yourself up with it.  Or untie yourself from it.

I humbly bow at the lotus feet of my great Teachers

ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः

om śānti śānti śāntiḥ

SNORES

HA! Just the words snores and farts bring a chuckle to the body and smile to the face. The normal bodily functions somehow bring out laughter and embarrassing moments.  I recently taught a class when a student started to snore heavily during final relaxation (corpse pose/ savasana). The room was already silent, there was a peaceful presence in the room, the lights were dimmed, and the music played softly and then we hear a big fat grandpa-like snore, the one from the back of throat. I chose not to say anything  when I noticed two of my friends cracking up uncontrollably, bodies shaking, hands over mouth. I went over to her and rubbed her neck and she stopped, but as soon as I walked away, the snoring began, even louder this time.

The room was filled with thirty people, and all I could think of was; this is really disturbing to others. So, I walked back over, lifted her legs and gave her a gentle tap on the feet. And then what do you know? Yep… she started snoring with a great big roar again. At this point the whole front row was busting out in laughter and I couldn’t even talk without my voice cracking, holding back my laughter…oh that calm soft voice we teachers get at the end of class to awaken the mind back to the body. “Bring awareness to your breath”…blah blah blah….hehehehe.  And we all let it go…it just turned into a laughing yoga session and a beautiful teaching opportunity of what it means to enter final savasana. Two important lessons were learned that day for me as a teacher and for my students.

1. Honor thy body, if you fall asleep, that is yoking to what your body needs that day.
2. There will be times that savasna will transcend us into higher states of consciousness. A time in which the physical body enjoys being absorbed with the soul, to connect with a deeper part of ourselves or hopefully communing with The Divine essence of LIFE. That the time is so sweet and peaceful that we don’t want to fall to asleep because we will miss that depth and nourishment, which fills our spirits.

FARTS

So what about farts? They are normal too! It makes complete sense that gas is expelled by the detoxifying postures such as twisting poses that aid in digestion and allow the body to release.  I remember taking both my boys to infant massage classes at 8 weeks old to bond and to help alleviate gas. They were so constipated, the poor little guys. And the exercises suggested were knees to chest (apanasana), and even rubbing the belly in a clock wise motion, the same flow as the large intestines to help push it all along.  There are ways to prevent and aid your personal digestion, and this is what happens to you in yoga class. Try to eliminate before class and keep a food diary to see if there are any foods that trigger flatulence, like acidic foods; beans, dairy, yeast. And perhaps add spices such as cumin, coriander, or caraway that help counteract the gas.  It is better to let it out then keep it in! LETTING IT ALL GO!  Remind yourself we all fart! Laugh it off!

LAUGHTER

I will never forget attending a New Year’s Day class at Holy Cow Yoga with Amy Quesenbery and being guided into a laughing meditation. At first I was like, “What? This is silly!” And that’s exactly what it was; silly, fun, contagious, and therapeutic.  The challenge was to stop laughing when the instructor said, “stop laughing.” Infusing the discipline of the mind that yoga offers. Laughter is so good for you and is way more contagious then any cold or a yawn. I was laughing so hard at others laughing that I totally let go of my desire to be in control. It was a true mark of a change in my practice (thank you Amy!) that I now teach a laughing meditation regularly.  Laughing relieves stress, boosts the immune system and strengthens relationships. I felt like I did about 1,000 crunches! No need for an ab workout with a laughing meditation.  Laughing relaxes the whole body and eases tension in the muscles up to 45 minutes after. Laughter also releases endorphins, the happy chemicals that are released in the body.  The Proverb “A happy heart is good medicine,” is utmost merit for laughing increases blood flow and may help in preventing heart disease.  Laughter creates lightness and joy in heart, mind, and soul.  Just say, “hee, hee, ha, ha, ho, ho! “Are you laughing?

TEARS

My mat has become my sacred place to let it all go, a place to bow to the Lord in worship, adoration, and reverence. A place to come to my knees in repentance; stretched out palms in receiving His grace, and a place to stand on Holy ground. A prayerful expression of love and gratitude to the God of the Universe and Savior of the World, Yeshu Nam.  Not only am I moved in laughter but also to tears. If you ever experienced a tear flow during the flow of a class you are not alone.  Tears, like laughter, relieve stress and cleanse the body from emotional grief, but also a release of joy too.  Tears have enzymes that act like antibacterial agent called lysozyme and without it, eye infections could lead to possible blindness. Emotional tears are scientific phenomena, for human beings are the only creatures that shed tears beyond just lubricating the eyes and preventing dehydration. Tears have similar healing benefits like laughing, to releasing endorphins, cleansing the body by eliminating toxins and feeling lighter in heart. Biochemist William Frey spent 15 years of research studying the miracles of tears and found that  “suppressing tears increases stress levels, and contributes to diseases aggravated by stress, such as high blood pressure, heart problems and peptic ulcers.”  When we step on our mat, we step into the world of our inner self and discover the things that are pent up inside.   So like the sweat that falls from our brow in head stand, the tears that flow from our eyes will fall at His feet to cleanse the deepest parts of ourselves.

LET GO…LET GOD

Recently, I received a complaint from a student about the music choice I had chosen for savasana. I had never received a complaint before about my playlists, but this one had said it was not yogic. The song, granted, could be seen as offensive (which I warned the class prior to playing it) but the message was positive and needed, in my opinion, to be shared with the class. The songs I play in my classes are not the soft music with Tibetan bowls or anything played by Krishna Das. My music is typically music I like and associate with. Currently this is a lot of indie rock and a lot of these songs are loud and fast. Occasionally I will throw in some hip hop or a playlist dedicated to 90′s alternative music. But the idea that a song is not yogic to me is ludicrous. Its not the music, the beat or the meaning that is important. Its the focus one has toward the music.

This brought up an interesting topic that is usually overlooked in our practice. That is music’s place in yoga classes. Traditionalists could say that there shouldn’t be any music. Contemporaries could say use it as it adds to the flow of the class. When I started out teaching, I believed in the former and that music deserved no place. Yoga needed a place to be sacred and nature is the most sacred sound. Today though, I see it completely different. Music should be used as it enhances our practice and actually challenges us further.

Yoga has the ability to allow our minds to focus. This actually is a much harder task than even the hardest of poses or sequences. Think of your mind as a muscle and focusing on one object for a certain time requires constant practice. This exercise is often in combat with our monkey mind and any thoughts that pop up to interrupt our practice. An hour yoga class becomes rather difficult to focus the entire time but constant effort and practice allow this focus to sharpen itself.

There are two ways to focus during a class. The first is to focus on one thing. This could be an intention, your breath or your movement in your poses. The idea is to never leave your mat and allow all other distractions to not even be a concern. The second way to focus is to accept and welcome the entire environment around you and allow yourself to move freely through it. It may seem like a farce to say to focus on your environment, but allowing yourself to use all five senses to equally take in everything and be amazed by your surroundings is a way to shift your attention to the present. All distractions than are natural and cease to become distractions. Focus itself than is either attention on one thing or all things.

Music itself than becomes a way to hone your focus. Whichever focus is chosen, music can play a part. If the chosen focus is to concentrate on one point, music is a challenge to not focus on it. Think of meditating. Meditating is great when it is completely silent but a struggle when there are tons of outside noises that can distract. Is life silent? Does the world stop making noises when you want to sit? The answers are no. Meditation and focus require a challenge of sorts to keep us strong in what we want to focus on. Music than becomes a challenge to maintain we keep our focus, so that it may make us stronger in our practice. On the other hand if the focus is drawn to the equality of five senses and the present, music becomes part of our environment. When this occurs, the beat gets into our head and the music takes us. We become a part of the song and it lifts us to whatever feeling it is giving us, whether it is slow or fast.

Usually, I offer a choice of songs for savasana. I ask the class “Happy or beautiful?” These refer to two songs I absolutely love and fit perfectly for final relaxation. They are Sigur Ros’ Festival and Ara Batur. These songs emit the wonderful feelings for finishing a great class. It was these two songs that made me want to use music the way I do and without apology. Songs can lift us, move us and put us in places we are uncomfortable with. It seems like yoga and music are similar in that fashion. Why wouldn’t they be shared together?

Harry Dinwiddie will be exploring mixing music, yoga and art as he will be teaching a new class at Eye Level Art at 103 Spring St. Tuesday nights at 6:30 starting Feb 16.

The alarm rings and I barely stir.  My muscles are sore, still tired and though the sun is starting to come out all I want to do is bury my head in the covers.  I am instantly faced with a choice and this decision will determine the course of everything. 
I have come to realize that choosing ‘comfort’ rarely leads to it, but only makes me more uncomfortable.  As I unroll my mat I start to wonder what the next hour and ½ will bring.  Will I be able to do it?  Will they ask me to do something difficult, or worse yet something that I don’t want to do?  And then I smile, knowing that choosing authentic development is a harsh mistress, indeed.  The things I fear will always be hurled right in my path and I know the answer is ‘yes’ to all of the above.  I will again be faced with a choice and this decision will determine the course of everything.  
We have been in warrior II for at least a minute.  My legs are starting to shake, I want to give up, and then he says ‘are you breathing?’….oh, right I forgot about that part.  The minute I inhale that sweet dose of oxygen, I feel everything release and I move into a place of ease.  He walks up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders, moving them down a few inches.  My neck and shoulder blades begin to release and I wonder how I didn’t even realize how hard they were working?  Why is it that trying so hard is, well…so hard?  It was only four years ago in this very class that I began to discover that resistance is so much more difficult than surrender.  That trying to be perfect at every asana was so much more difficult than allowing myself to melt into it with ease.  Many of us consistently move through our day with absolute confidence that we are actually in charge.  We fool ourselves into thinking that we consciously know what ‘perfection’ is and that we can attain it whenever we want. 
This practice is based on the premise of cultivating awareness of where we are in relation to time, space, and the continuum of development.  I am always grateful to reach that perfect balance in class when I am pushed far enough to be uncomfortable, while simultaneously given enough time to be present inside of my head, alone with my thoughts even for just a few seconds.  In the middle of this struggle I am challenged to be still in the face of the internal chaos.  As I am confronted with the limits of my abilities, I am also given the opportunity to witness how interested I truly am in development.  When I focus on where I am and where I want to be, I know I have to ‘mind the gap’ between what I know and how I am living.  The practice isn’t over when I roll up my mat and walk out of the studio.  It is only just beginning.  I know that I will be given hundreds of opportunities to close the gap between what I know and how I am walking my talk, and the choice that I make in that moment will determine everything.

 
Amy Jo Gengler, LAc
Re-Soul Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine

843.566.2855

www.re-soul.com