What is “really” yoga?
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Gopi Krishna, in this book The Awakening of Kundalini, writes: “Yoga exercises can also be directed toward worldly objectives. There are exercises that are conducive to the health and efficiency of the mind, others that lead to psychic gifts, and still others that strengthen the will and improve the ability to deal with problems. However, no single achievement of this kind — or even several of them taken together — is Yoga.” He continues to state that “Yoga is a transhuman state of mind attained by means of the cumulative effect of all practices combined, carried on for years, and supplemented by grace.” Other texts say enlightenment comes to some just by “grace” with no need for the yoga practices. Others need various amounts and types of practices.
Me, I have no idea what is a “transhuman state of mind” but I want for myself and those around me being healthier and stronger, with an improved ability to deal with problems. (Imagine, for example, those gifts applied in the context of providing universal health care, while simultaneously educated and shifting our society to a healthier way of living). I don’t think anyone can judge or determine whether one’s self or someone else is truly enlightened or can lead others to enlightenment (whatever that means). But I am certain from my own experience that yoga helps me to be more grounded, more centered, more intentional, stronger, and healthier. Thus served by steady practice, I am more content and find it easier to be kind. I’ll take that for now.
Setting an Intention for the Day
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Spicy Delight
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Pratyabijna Hrdayam Sutra 17 (and organic energy)
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The 17th sutra is “madhya vikasha cittananda labhah,” which is translated by Swami Shantananda as “the bliss of Consciousness is attained through expansion of the center.”
Madyama, in our physical embodiment is the central channel, the sushumna nadi that runs vertically in the space of the spine. One of the key actions of Anusara’s organic energy is expansion from the midline. It is, in its essence, using the body to physically explore the bliss that comes from the expansion from the center.
If we can get bliss just from expanding, then why would we first draw in? In applying the Anusara principles, we use muscular energy first. We hug into our core before reaching out. This parallels the yoga texts. If, for example, one already embodies the perfect bliss of consciousness, one doesn’t need to study the sutras or to practice yoga, one would just live from that place of perfect bliss.
The way I think about it in terms of the Anusara principles, if one were perfectly open to grace and lived being fully open to and expressive of grace, there would be no need to explore, learn, or study any of the other principles. That’s a rare being though. Most of us, and definitely me, need practice to discover and embody even a glimpse of perfect bliss and grace. So the expansion from the center comes after consciously softening and opening, after intentionally drawing in to strengthen and embrace, after making with discrimination further expansion, and after drawing in to contentrate mind and body with honed intensity. With ever more refinement and practice, we then can experience and make offering a deeper bliss when we expand from our center.
Organic Energy (the difference between “navel gazing” and making a difference)
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There is a specific sequence to the major Anusara alignment principles even though ultimately we are doing all of the alignment principles simultaneously. “Organic energy,” the action of reaching out and making offering is the fifth of the physical principles. We do not reach out until we have softened and listened (opened to grace), intentionally drawn in with nurturing, focused embrace (muscular energy), expanded with discrimination (inner or expanding spiral), and drawn in again with discrimination and awareness to concentrate the energy (contracting or outer spiral). We do, in fact, need to be aware and open, to be nurtured, and to study and expand with refinement, to enhance our ability to make offering and to serve in the most optimal way. So we take care of ourselves and draw inward as much as we reach out to keep ourselves in balance.
Once we have taken care of ourselves, though, it has been my experience that without reaching out, there is no true strength or meaning in either a yoga pose or in life. Organic energy as a physical principle is expanding from bone to muscle to skin, expanding outward from the midline, and reaching from the core to the periphery. How I experience organic energy at its most supporting is a true reaching out, an offering of the energy created and refined by the other practices.
What is the point of a self-embrace or personal enlightenment if it is not used to serve, to offer the love and wisdom cultivated by the practice? Organic energy is what changes yoga (on and off the mat) from being enjoyable “navel gazing” and being a source of power that helps us brighten and shift not only ourselves, but our relationships and all around us.
New Computer (and the benefits of practice)
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My friend D the other week had been talking about how much longer every thing takes to get done in a new city and home (he just moved across country). I was thinking about that as I work to get up to speed on the replacement computer that came into my house yesterday afternoon. I can tell there is lots of extra functionality, but at first, I am slower than I was with my old computer (at least five generations old) because I need to learn some new commands and navigation tools, as well as recreate my old bookmarks and remembered passwords, etc.
To be able to cope with life, we need to be willing to go out and explore, try new things, to be willing to have the time and struggle to learn enough to feel comfortable with a new place or technique. To mature gracefully, we need to sometimes stay with the old (whatever choices led us there) and continue to refine so that we can go deeper and deeper into knowledge of what we have chosen.
Sometimes we have a real choice, sometimes we have no choice, sometimes we have an apparent choice, but only one sensible one. One of the beauties of steady yoga practice is that it prepares us both for the new and for repetition. It truly shows us the beauty and delight of revisiting, reexploring, and ever deepening our understanding of the complexities of what appears simple. It also cultivates the fortitude and openness to start anew when necessary.
Serenity Saturday this Weekend at CHY
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When it gets cold and rainy, there is little I enjoy more than a good, warm restorative yoga practice. If you live in town, come join me this Saturday at Capitol Hill Yoga for this month’s Serenity Saturday workshop. I’ll be bringing out all of the blankets.
Alas and Alack (still without my computer)
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Last week my computer crashed. I have purchased a new one, but it needs to be configured and brought to the house. With luck, it will be possible to recover all the the data since my last system back-up. I have everything since May (that’s five years worth) and all my photos since the end of August (that’s most everything), and some more that is stored on email or this server or facebook.
It is a good opportunity to reflect on attachment. It is an even better opportunity to think about the difference between necessities and wants and how our current way of living and communicating blurs the two.
Of course, being human and a product of this society, I am not happy about it. I’m just trying really hard to approach this in a positive way. I know I will fully enjoy having an up-to-date system.
I will be mostly not blogging until I have my own computer, but hope to be back fully soon.
Revolution?
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A Graywater Inspiration from Friends (and opening to grace/muscular energy)
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When we are on our mats, being open to grace — the first Anusara alignment principle — includes being open to the teachings so that we can receive and act on them in a healing and loving way. Adding to that muscular energy by lovingly embracing skin to muscle to bone in a conscious embrace, drawing into our center to recognize our inner spirit, and drawing from periphery to the focal point brings us into optimal balance. This pulsation serves as a way off the mat to open, inspire, and engage us in progressively more intentional and uplifting ways of living.
Being open to inspiration from friends and about town, open to learning new ways to be kind to the earth and to ourselves, is a way of bring the principle of “opening to grace” off the mat. Actually keeping the intention and acting on it has the attentive embrace of muscular energy, which draws us onto our inner light in a loving embrace so that we can better serve.
I was thinking about Anusara principles off the mat, yesterday when I went visit a friend in NW one of whose roommates fosters cats. There is a community garden in the back and the house is warm and friendly. In the bathtub were two buckets filled with water leftover from showers. Instead of using fresh, potable water to flush the toilet, when it is time to flush (honoring the drought axiom about yellow mellowing, etc), the house residents fill the tank with the gray water from the shower.
Find it too complicated an idea to shower with a bucket in the bathtub with you? You can still save water by filling your watering can or bucket when you run the water to warm up enough to get into the shower. That will save a few gallons. Not up to using the water to flush the toilet? Use it to water houseplants or for cleaning floors, etc. Or take it outside to water potted plants.
First step is opening and witnessing the possibilities and understanding where you are ready to expand. The second step is to try to more consistently live your inspiration. I know when I see people living with such intention I take better care to move in that direction, even if I am not ready to go as far.
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