Charleston Yogi

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.

In the first sūtra in Sadhana Pādaḥ, Maharṣi Patañjali  gives us the 3-step method to realizing the goal of Kriya Yoga-the yoga of purification.

महर्षि पतञ्जलि योग सूत्र ।२।

Maharṣi Patañjali Yoga Sūtra |2|

तपः स्वाध्यायेश्वर प्रणिधानानि क्रिया योगः॥१॥

tapaḥ svādhyāyeśvara praṇidhānāni kriyā yogaḥ ||1||

“With intensity of spiritual practice, sacred study, and devotion; here lies the work to get back to a state of equilibrium, purity, and brightness.”  -Translation by śrī Sharon Gannon

Tapaḥ-This word is often translated as heat.

This sūtra is the first in the Pāda entitled Sadhana (conscious spiritual practice) and follows the first book entitled, Samādhi (where Master Patanjali expounds on the goal of yoga).  It therefore stands to reason that in this context he’s referring to the spiritual practices of Yoga.

He goes on to describe how they should be pursued with intensity.  Think of gold.  The more the gold is heated, the higher the temperature, the more impurities are burned out.  We can usually find the time to sleep a little later, or not twist deeper into ardha matsyendrāsana (seated spinal twist).  This is a mental exercise.  We generally chase after things which bring us pleasure while we shy away from those which may seem challenging.  By coming to class AND staying focused, giving our full attention to the work at hand, we purify the mind.  By accepting things which may cause us discomfort, we may actually be happy to receive this pain knowing the purification it will bring.  This cannot be practiced in the meditation rooms, only in our daily lives.  We should always look for ways to expand our ability to evolve.  We should be wary of becoming stuck in a routine which may lead us to moving on autopilot.  Our asana sequence, for example, may become rote execution, taking the “consciousness” aspect out of it.  We may seek classes which don’t challenge us because we don’t want to feel like we can’t “do” a posture.  We may resist giving a few dollars to someone less fortunate because we’re scared to make eye contact.  We may never try a delicious vegan Biscuits and Gravy (One of my recipes: www.bahamayogi.com/Recipes.html) recipe because we mistakenly think “I could never go Vegan”.

Intensity is relative.  For example, to someone who is proficient at salamba śīrṣāsana (supported headstand), going through the preparations of dolphining, half headstand, balancing with knees into chest, and with knees raised may be very intense, both mentally and physically.  My Teacher śrī David Life suggests that if we are a fiery personality, one who needs movement, then we should take a slow class and vice versa.

What could prevent us from this intensity?  Fear.  A friend of mine has a great definition for this:

F  alse  E  vidence  A  ppearing  R  eal

We think we’re not capable.  That somehow we may be less than Divine.  Maharṣi Patañjali says “I thought you might say that, here’s what you can do…..”

svādyāya – Study of  the Self/spiritual books

Anything that will elevate your mind and remind you of your true Self should be studied, absorbed, and then PRACTICED.  We cannot just become walking libraries.  Remember, we’re in the book called Sadhana-PRACTICE.  We can study Yoga Sūtra, Bhagavad Gītā, Bible, Koran, or any uplifting scripture.  We’ll find that these sources are essentially the same in their guiding words.  They never become old.  A true scriptural source lasts forever, it is timeless because the Self is timeless.  We must be wary of “New and Improved” Yoga, or of others who say “That doesn’t apply anymore.”  We must go to the source of the scripture.  In śrī Swami Satchidananda’s words “If I say every day you must tell 10 lies in the name of Yoga and you can find no scriptural source to back that up, it should be suspect.”

Furthermore, if it is a true scriptural source many other sources of the world must agree.  The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is a good example of this.  Also of how we can change it to suit us, “Thou shalt not kill HUMANS, animals okay, just not humans, except of course if they kill someone first, and then also maybe if they threaten to kill you, or someone you love, or if they have a country that has more oil than you, or maybe have weapons of mass destruction, and if they happen to be around an area we think is a hideout for bad guys…”  Scriptures and teachers may present information, but is up to us to decide how to practice and apply it.  We should then sit in meditation DAILY to observe the effects of these practices on our minds.  We may find the spiritual path is not an easy one, that the truth may be inconvenient yet we will find an easeful, peacefulness in it.

īśvara praṇidhānāni-offer with devotion to God

Maharṣi Patañjali reminds us, as he has throughout the first book, Devote everything to God.  He uses the term īśvara.  This translates as Supreme Being, God in personal form.  He doesn’t say Jesus, Mohammed, śiva, or Kṛṣṇa.  Yoga has been around for thousands of years.  There are no doctrines in Yoga which conflict with the beliefs of others.  So Maharṣi Patañjali tells us to offer the intensity of our practice towards realizing the Divine within ourselves.  He says offer all your efforts to God, whoever you believe Him/Her to be.  This is necessary because he knows our tendencies to become attached to our actions.  As my Teacher and Co-Founder of the Jivamukti Yoga method David Life says in Jivamukti Yoga Practices for Liberating Body and Soul :We recommend this dedication because asana practice is very powerful.  It can stir up a lot of energy, and the student may wonder, “What do I do with this energy I feel pulsing through my body?”  A teacher who is teaching Yoga only as an exercise- not as a spiritual, psychological, and physical system of purification- responds “I don’t know , do what you want with it,” might as well take the student to the edge of an abyss and say “Go ahead, jump.”

Students who are not taught to dedicate the energy released by an asana practice to God tend to do one of two things.  They may let all that power manifest in their bodies and personalities and become highly charged and very charismatic.  If you look at their faces, however, you may see rage, as well as anger, jealousy , and selfishness.  These are emotions that were stirred up by the practice but were never turned over to God.  Or, the students may fall to pieces, destroyed emotionally and physically by the practice.  These students will probably lose interest in Yoga.  Neither of these outcomes will occur if you apply Maharṣi Patañjali’s sound advice: Give it to God.  Devote all effort to God Realization.

Maharṣi Patañjali’s eight-limbed system is predominantly an effortful path, but the last two limbs-Dhyāna (meditation) and Samādhi (enlightenment)-cannot be attained through effort.  They are the result of Grace.  Yet it is only through intense effort that we can prepare ourselves to receive such grace.

I humbly bow at the lotus feet of my great teachers.

om śānti śānti śāntiḥ

Namaste Yogis and Yoginis! It is an honor to be a part of a community that embraces all styles of yoga and support for one another. Regardless of what style we choose, yoga is about yoking and creating union, so wherever we are creating unity within and out, we are experiencing the fullness of yoga. The style of yoga that has moved me into deeper spaces of my personal faith is Holy Yoga. Understanding that yoga is NOT a religion; it is a health science. Yoga has the capacity to and will often times inevitably enhance your personal beliefs and faith. Holy Yoga is a practice that encourages patience while cultivating an awareness of what God can manifest in our physical and emotional bodies. When we intentionally withdraw ourselves from the craziness of our daily living, we find the peace that is God Himself as the center of our existence. Consecrated by God’s Word and prayer, Holy Yoga invites us to worship with the entirety of our being; heart, soul, mind and strength. When we live and move and have our being in Him, we find ourselves in the flow of His magnificence and in the midst of His grace.

Last week during class we breathed in the scripture Matthew 6, we are encouraged by Jesus not “TO WORRY!” We waste a lot of time worrying, have you heard of the saying, “worry looks around, regret looks back, and faith looks up?” In the message translation of the Bible, the Word speaks simply, “Has anyone fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?” Paraphrasing here, if God takes care of the birds of the air and flowers of fields, how much more will He take of us. “Don’t you think he’ll attend you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I am trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. Steep your life in God reality, God initiative, God provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” It definitely takes effort to surrender and trust that all things will work for the good when it may appear at the present it is not what we desire or hope for. So not only is God holy, pure, love, peace, kind, and gentle, He is also funny! For we are created in His image, so therefore, humor surrounds us.

The GOD humor…Holy Yogini Penny shared with me that as she was driving her daily route she noticed something that she had never seen before. There was plant life growing out of the roof. She asked her friend,” Why are plants growing out of the roof, so strange?” He responded, “well, when birds eat seeds and dispose the seeds in their stool, (YES POOP) life sprouts out.” I thought, how like our God, that even through poop, He will make life spring forth. So in the crappy situations of life, know that life will be sprouted. We just need to take the time to notice where it is, maybe we need to look up at the roof instead of looking around at everyone else. Thank for you opening your hearts to Holy Yoga.

Be Free

Peace and Health,

Rachel Glowacki, RYT, CYT
Sunrae Yoga, LLC
Holy Yoga and Yoga instructor
http://www.sunraeyoga.com
Radiating Light and Truth