When I first began yoga, I worked at a University satellite studio on a military base, and each day I dealt with college students in the military. As a result, I worked within a manifold bureaucracy of both government and academic administration. Yoga was a breath of fresh air—and like any suffocating person would, I breathed yoga in because my life depended on it at the time. Yoga seemed the perfect antidote for endless miles of red tape and office politics. In time, I let go of that life and embraced a new one, naively believing that living a yogic lifestyle would ameliorate the suffering and discontentment.
Yoga has indeed done much of what it was intended to do. Teaching yoga has taught me compassion and practicing has given me vitality and taught me self-awareness. Yet, the shadows that followed me in my old life are still with me. In the past few years, I see that yoga teachers, just like everyone else, vie for position, and yoga students compete with one another for notoriety. So where lies the root of the problem? Shall we blame our institutions? Each other?

Too often, students come to me expressing disappointment with yoga teachers and yoga studios. One student said she felt to be more of a commodity than an individual. Another shy student came to me saying she’d heard a teacher bad mouthing students and other teachers loudly in a nearby café. She said it made her feel uncomfortable about practicing yoga, for fear that her vulnerabilities and shortcomings would soon be open for public debate. I am alarmed at the animosity that takes place within the yoga community, a place where compassion and responsibility should be guiding principles.

Being a teacher and a student means being both responsible for ourselves and responsible for others. I ask, what is the purpose of teaching yoga? Is it to push our agendas on to students? Or are we there to assist people in the process of cultivating consciousness? Are we able to let go of our own self importance in order to truly understand and empathize with our students? Can we feel what they feel, and respond accordingly? Or are we too caught up in our own ideas to see and understand what people really need?

Last month in satsang we reexamined the concepts of discipline and non-attachment, attempting to understand their pertinence to spiritual practice. We looked at what real discipline is, and what exactly it is that we are letting go of. Students, teachers and I have discovered that letting go of things like meat, alcohol, and sugar, while valuable to a certain degree always bring us closer to something less concrete. We start to approach letting go of ways of being—moving closer and closer to letting go of our ideas of who we are. We are attempting to empty ourselves of ourselves in an effort to sharpen our perceptions of the inner and out world, thus cultivating an awareness of purusha, or the Seer.

Yoga, health, and wellness are so popular that we’re all eager to try to the latest cleansing techniques and yoga fads, but few are willing to begin the process of dismantling the conditioned self. Few are willing because it’s hard and it requires more discipline than fasting, more vigilance than waking up at 3:30 AM, and more fortitude than a 3-hour asana practice. When engaging with the world, we discipline ourselves to remain resolute in the relinquishment our attachment to our own identities.

A jewel, when clear, takes on the form and image of whatever it against. This is an example of true empathy. However, when the jewel is tarnished, what is seen through it becomes tainted. This is much like how we see and interpret the world around us. Anais Nin’s famous words are, “we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” Instead of being empathic to the world around us, we often project our own ideas, opinions, and tendencies. A thief assumes the world is stealing from him. When students come to me, it shines a light back on my own integrity, since I have seen in myself many ills—violence, dishonesty, greed, and more. If I cannot see these things in myself, I am more likely to project these tendencies onto others. In seeing the illness that infects us, we can let go of judgment and over time develop compassion and begin to look toward understanding what it means to be like a clear jewel of consciousness.

Join me this Sunday at Purple Yoga for our monthly satsang at 5:30 PM. This month’s theme will elaborate on the topics of letting go and how to cultivate the right kind of effort. Attendance is by donation.

One would think that yoga, a practice built on tenets like self-awareness and liberation, would have helped me overcome some ofthe shadows of my self-loathing youth.  Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. In the early days of my sitting practice and Integral Yoga, I felt a genuine connection with my inner-self and developed the beginning of what might have become a true appreciation for my body. The yoga did what it was meant to do, which is bring me face to face with my shadow, and over time I found myself fully immersed in the same patterns I developed as a young girl. I was drawn to a more athletic and physically demanding form of asana, which reawakened my desire for attention and validation. I pushed my body to extremes. I quit eating and drinking most everything, fasted regularly, slept little, and lived life according to the strident yardstick of my own neurosis, convinced that this was clean living—that this was what a yogini would do. None of this was easy, yet it proved to be far less challenging than actually seeing myself as I really was.

In July of 2010 the National Eating Disorders Association published the statistic that nearly 10 million females and 1 million males suffer from some form of body dismorphia or disordered eating. According to one study, over half of teenage girls use unhealthy weight management practices like skipping meals, fasting, and purging. Another study cited that 42% of first through third grade girls want to be thinner and 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat. 91% of college women surveyed have tried some sort of diet.

We must question the message promoted by the yoga industry. Developing an authentic practice is ever more challenging in today’s yoga climate. The pages of magazines may provide us with a quick introduction to yoga, but without proper study of the entire teaching, we run the risk of taking things completely out of context. My own youthful self-loathing blended with and was fueled by mass media. Not knowing where to go for the real teachings of yoga, I went where most people do—the internet and the newsstands. In between the articles in Yoga Journal were ads of beautiful men and women in complex and stunning poses. Models and celebrities do yoga, and many people base their successes and failures against these measures.

For example, one yoga magazine promotes tapah, or austerity on one page, and on the next is the image of a barely clothed yogini striking an impressive pose. The message is that if you have enough discipline, you too can do this, or look like this. The tenet of austerity is stripped of any intrinsic value whatsoever, and we end up doing yoga just to do impressive postures, look great in shorts, and feel really good about who we think we are. This might translate to an inner dialogue of, “Don’t get injured, don’t gain weight, and by all means don’t get old and you’ll feel great for the rest of your life.”

The lesson of authentic self-awareness goes beyond the self, particularly for those of us who have taken on the responsibility of guiding others. With so many young women starting yoga, I feel a great responsibility for them and their development. I see many of them preoccupied with how they look, and many young girls write on their release forms that they are doing yoga in part to loose weight and look better. I often see women at the edge of disordered eating, if not past that edge. I’ve also sat after class with women who cry over not feeling good enough or thin enough. Each of these problems lives inside us. How can we not identify with the collective suffering that has been caused by the pervasive dimorphic body image promoted through consumerism? And how can we return yoga to its roots as a spiritual discipline?

Pattabhi Jois’s often quoted words are, “1% theory and 99% practice.” Yet contemporary yoga seems more aligned with the statement: “0% theory and 100% practice.” It’s important to come to a holistic understanding of yoga and its philosophies. The study of any real tradition requires commitment, not just to the physical practice, but to study and contemplation as well. A basic understanding of the purpose of yoga is essential if we expect to see and comprehend the inherent contradictions between what yoga really is and how it is portrayed in the media. This isn’t to say that one cannot or should not enjoy the physical side of practice—just as long as the physical does not dominate its psychological and spiritual benefits.

We cannot take a spiritual teaching in bits and pieces as we see fit, lest we misinterpret what is being said. For example, the Old Testament of The Bible contains the verse “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” which has supported generations of religious conflict. Yet, Jesus advises his followers in the New Testament to “turn the other cheek” in the face of adversity, which has provided ample fuel for the passive resistance movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Similarly, the Upanishads talk about ahmisa, or non-violence, but the Bhagavad-Gita emphasizes dharma, one’s life purpose, to such an extent that Krishna condones Arjuna’s war on his own family.

Before we can attempt to rectify or make sense of conflicting statements within a single philosophy, we must first become intimately familiar with a teaching—in both theory and practice. In yoga, we must take teachings in their entirety. Taking abhyasa, discipline, and separating it from vairagya, dispassion, changes their inherent meanings. When we make a vow to fast or to go without eating meat, is it because we loathe who we are? Because we are trying to cover up our inadequacies with a mask of spiritual dogma? Or do we do these things in honor of the true essence that lies within us and also beyond us?

Similarly, what kind of discipline is it to make a practice out of subjugation of the true self through abusive behavior? Ariel Glucklich’s book Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul looks at ascetic practices as being of two primary sorts, intransitive and transitive. He defines intransitive those that do not transform the practitioner. Rather what they do is serve as a form of punishment. The doer feels unclean or unworthy, and therefore must repent. Transitive practices, on the other hand, are very different in intention. They seek to transform the doer, and are performed as a sacrifice. In this vein, we give up ways of being to something higher than our ordinary ego-based selves. We let go of the lesser for the higher, and in doing so, we are transformed. This is the ultimate symbol of Jesus’ last supper before the crucifixion and the transubstantiation of Christ where he says, “This is my body which will be given up for you, take of this and eat of it. This is my blood, which will be given up for you, take of this and drink of it.” Jesus sacrifices his physical form for the spiritual lesson at the other end.

Can we relate this to how our yoga practice is approached? New Ageism has long promoted this idea that we are capable of taking control of our own destinies. We read books like The Power of Positive Thinking and The Law of Attraction with the belief that we are capable of governing ourselves without first attempting to engage in any real self-work. Again, we must examine from where the desire to control our lives comes from. What do we really want? Are we molding our minds to attain wealth, status, and beauty? Upon closer examination we see that all spiritual traditions, including yoga, advise us against greed, covetousness, and vanity.  It’s interesting to see how yoga been usurped by the ego, thus loosing it’s real value and meaning.

Yoga is ultimately a transformative discipline – not designed to feed our egos, but rather to open us to a potential wholeness of mind, body, and spirit. The body is the vehicle; only that. We must learn to treat it with respect and with a measure of discipline, but it should never govern our lives, dictate our self-esteem, or make us feel worthy or unworthy. Our wisdom and character, in context with others and with the universe-at-large, are the ultimate measures of our humanity, not the mere shape of our body.

In the early morning hour,

just before dawn, lover and beloved awake

and take a drink of water.

 

She asks, Do you love me or yourself more?

Really, tell me the absolute truth.

He says, There is nothing left of me.

I am like a ruby held up to the sunrise.

Is it still a stone, or a world

made of redness? It has no resistance

to sunlight. The ruby and the sunrise are one.

Be courageous and discipline yourself.

 

Work. Keep digging your well.

Don’t think about getting off from work.

Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door.

 

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who’s there.

 

-Rumi

After last month’s satsang, someone said something that struck me—“my whole life I’ve been trying to be special and not just be a cog, and here I am trying to be a cog again.” It’s a brilliant revelation that after a lifetime of bolstering the ego and trying to become very important and respected, the real truth lies in simply being—letting go of self-importance and the need for egocentric recognition.

The 1000th Step at Chamundi Hill (India)

In another conversation with a student, the topic of asana (postures) came up. She told me she progressed from ashtanga’s primary series to the intermediate series. She told me she asked one of her teachers the honest and rarely asked question of “Why?” What is the purpose of advancement in asana? What is the purpose of arm balancing and putting one’s legs behind the head? Now, I don’t recall if she was given an answer, and if so what it was. However, when one comes to a practice with the original intention of cultivating a deeper union with the higher and truer self, asking why we do what we do is an essential part of the process. Additionally, understanding the reasons behind our methodology brings us to an investigation of how the prescribed methods work.

These two discussions provided me with ample food for thought. I personally prefer practicing in silence and relative solitude, apart from the small cluster of familiar faces I see daily and weekly. I find that my ego doesn’t speak up as much or as loudly and self-observation is more likely in an intimate setting. Now, some might say that one shouldn’t shy away from throngs of people showcasing their physical prowess and their super hip and trendy yoga attire, arguing that there’s no better environment in which to challenge oneself. I can only speak for myself—and I know enough to say that what little inner awareness I have isn’t yet steady enough to face crowds of people, leering students, loud music, and even louder personalities.

The fact remains that finding stillness is hard with or without external opposition. And often, once one embarks on the journey toward stillness, it becomes even harder. Self-observation means seeing things we once turned a blind eye to. It means noticing when the need to be the best and brightest has usurped our original intention of inner awareness and growth. It’s struggling against our own inner critic and continuing to do the work in spite of doubt, fear, and self-recrimination. This has become the grueling type of work I have become accustomed to. Doing this-asana or that-asana has provided me with a relatively stable environment in which to test the waters of my own fragile awareness, and therefore the asanas have not become an end unto themselves. Practicing persistently in this way has given me a certain perseverance over the years to keep going despite inner and outer changes. These days, I rarely step foot on my mat or approach sitting with the intention of feeling good about myself. Rather, the work I do is approached with a spirit of curiosity and a desire to understand what is seen.

Since keeping in contact with one’s initial intention of finding stillness is hard if not nearly impossible, another question arises: How? How in this world of hip-hop yoga, singles yoga, and new age avoidance and self-indulgence does the sincere yogin approach practice? The prescription is simple: abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah – The vritti (mental fluctuations) are stilled through dedication and dispassion (1.12).

These are important matters for all teachers and sincere students, because while the prescription of discipline and nonattachment may be simple in theory, the medicine itself is known to be bitter in taste. We ask during this month’s satsang: What does discipline mean? How does one understand what it means to make the right kind of effort? What is the aim of our efforts? What are we aiming to be free from as teachers and as students? And foremost, how can the seemly opposite poles of discipline and nonattachment nourish each other?

Sincere students and teachers are encouraged to attend this month’s satsang on discipline and non-attachment. We will be looking at yoga sutras 1.12 through 1.14. Relevant feedback and questions regarding the topic are welcome and encouraged. Satsang will be held on Sunday, April 1, at 5:30 PM at Purple Yoga. Attendance is by donation.

For those of you who were unable to attend, please visit the follow-up blog. The blog is password protected and held privately for those in the group. If you are a satsang member, but do not have the password, please contact me.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
~Confucius

The postmodern yoga world is rife with controversy and conflict. At this point in time it’s common knowledge that there is discord between styles of yoga, and that even within a single tradition people harbor resentments towards other people. Bikram Choudhury is known for openly disregarding other styles of yoga as being inferior to his brand of hot yoga. Within the ashtanga tradition, many teachers find themselves caught in conflict over which certifications deem one more or less capable of transmitting the correct knowledge to students. Recently, John Friend, the founder of Anusara™ yoga has been taken out to pasture for his sexual and financial indiscretions. Lululemon Athletica, purveyor of high end yoga apparel, has been deemed unethical for human rights violations within their China-based factories and for their founder’s racism toward the Japanese.

On a lower level these are important issues to look at, especially for students trying to find their way in the mess of what we refer to as yoga in the postmodern world. Yet, on another level, we see that most yoga controversies have arisen out of the kind of thinking yoga itself admonishes as being detrimental to authentic practice. Somewhere between the dawning of yoga and the present time, we have managed to get lost in our ideas and opinions about what yoga is and what it isn’t. We’ve mistaken yoga for fitness, designer apparel, and proficiency in different combinations of asanas.

Hotei Buddha pointing to the moon

Yet, the philosophy asserts is that yoga is quite simply the ability to be completely aware in the present moment. I would like to think that most of us, aside from our personal preferences, opinions, and conflicts with others, engage in contemplative practices (like yoga) with the sincere intention to be more present. In such a climate of shifting ideas and emotions, how do we nurture authentic awareness?

Yoga philosophy presents us with a guide for awakening our perception, stating that yoga is essentially the stilling of the mind. The stilling of the mind opens us up to an awareness that is choiceless and wordless. A choiceless and wordless awareness is one that is not structured on opposing viewpoints of right and wrong, or good and bad. Nor is it one that is attached to concepts like enlightenment or heaven and hell.  Patanjali identifies five types of turning thought, called vrittis. These changing states are either painful or not painful. Make no mistake, however, that Patanjali defines all five modes of thought (vritti) as distractions from the moment. He notes that the vrittis, whether detrimental or non-detrimental to yoga, are all separate and a distraction from real seeing. (Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra I.5-I.10)

i.     Right knowledge

ii.     False knowledge

iii.     Imagination

iv.     Memory

v.     Sleep

For this month’s satsang at Purple Yoga, we will focus on right and false knowledge in order to understand how to use a teaching as a guide towards awareness, rather that letting the teaching lead us into conceptualization of yoga and yoga practice. How do we cultivate awareness beyond our own mechanistic thinking and biased opinions? How do we use the teachings of yoga appropriately?

It’s important to see that the practical application of yoga in the postmodern world is not something idealistic or New Age. The idea isn’t to adopt some sort of pretend compassion towards those we dislike. We attempt to see that a real practice depends on our ability to rise above our likes and dislikes and our ideas of right and wrong with the understanding that this lower level of functioning is in essence an impediment to the real practice of seeing and yoga.

Please join me this Sunday at Purple Yoga at 5:30 pm for this month’s satsang on knowing.

Recently, we collaborated on a series of classes in creativity and yoga. “Why?” — is the question we are asked frequently. Why creativity and yoga? Why would a yoga teacher and practitioner (Laura) collaborate in a series of classes with an artist and author (David) on creativity and perception? What is the connecting thread? The answer lies embedded in the larger dimensions of both yoga and creativity: both ask for an authentic search into the core of one’s being, to seek and cultivate a broader awareness, and to directly meet the many resistances within oneself.

Cultivating seeing becomes the bridge between yoga and creativity. We are asked to learn to see what is. In the art studio and on the yoga mat, we noticed that the initial steps for most people involve both the excitement of making new discoveries about oneself and a poignant sense of something missing, a kind of remorse over the absence of a durable connection to the sources of creativity and inner attention that are the aims of both art and yoga. We begin with the recognition that something is possible but presently eludes us— awareness, wholeness, and compassion.

When we begin to encounter ourselves, what do we notice? Individuals in the classes observed and admitted a fragmentation of mind and body that brought to the forefront many rapidly changing inner conditions that hindered a creative response.

Every phenomenon arises from a field of energies: every thought, every feeling, every movement of the body is the manifestation of a specific energy, and in the lopsided human being one energy is constantly swelling up to swamp the other. This endless pitching and tossing between mind, feeling, and body produces a fluctuating series of impulses, each of which deceptively asserts itself as ‘me’: as one desire replaces another, there can be no continuity of intention, no true wish, only the chaotic pattern of contradiction in which we all live, in which the ego has the illusion of will power and independence. 

—Peter Brook, Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and his Teaching, Needleman and Baker.

… READ MORE on Parabola.org or pick up a copy at Barnes & Noble or your local newsstand. You can also keep up with David and Laura’s blog at www.theslenderthread.org.

“Meditation does not involve discontinuing one’s relationship with oneself and looking for a better person or searching for possibilities of reforming oneself and becoming a better person. The practice of meditation is a way of continuing one’s confusion, chaos, aggression, and passion—but working with it, seeing it from the enlightened point of view. That is the basic purpose of meditation practice as far as this approach is concerned.”

-Chögyam Trungpa

Never before has something so subversive and antiestablishment as yoga become so mainstream.  It’s ironic that a practice intended to bring us into deep communion with our authentic nature is being represented with images in magazines, clothing brands, and fad foods and diets. Unfortunately, when we do this, the intrinsic value of yoga is stripped away. Much of what draws people to yoga today is based on what-it-looks-like. Now, that’s one of the reasons why teachers like Neem Karoli Baba never hit the mainstream. He’s not very marketable with his large frame and unmanicured feet. Equinox yoga’s new commercial with an attractive woman displaying her acrobatic excellence calls us to do yoga now. We can be beautiful, peaceful, and even rich (implied by her pricey Upper West Side apartment). Or from a marketing perspective, we can infer that the message is that if you are beautiful, peaceful, and rich, then you too should do yoga.

Admittedly, when I first started practicing yoga over a decade ago, these things enticed me. I knew that I wasn’t peaceful. Images of beautiful, flexible men and women in pristine yoga clothing evoked in me a desire to become more than I thought I was. I lacked therefore I wanted more. I began a moderate bi-weekly practice, which then led to a more elaborate daily practice. I bought mala beads, wore the sparkly clothes, and lived on sprouted grains and green juice for a while. When that didn’t work, I transferred my spiritual materialism, as Chögyam Trungpa coined it, towards being more austere. I refused to eat anything 12 hours before my next practice. Practice must be done everyday at 6 am or enlightenment was just a pipe dream. I judged myself, and I judged others, for not stridently following the rules of spiritual attainment.

©Kanani Daley

Every once in a great while, however, I am struck with an experience that undercuts all of the outward actions. Moments arise in practice where there is no agent, no doer, there is only the experience of the breath, the body, and of something greater. I try to pinpoint where this experience arises from. Was it the 12 hour fast? Was it the 28^th repetition of the Gayatri Mantra? Was it the perfect execution of supta kurmasana (the supine tortoise)? Was it everything rolled into one?

To assume that any of our doing brings about deep inner experience is what is referred to as spiritual materialism. Contemporary culture, by reducing yoga down to its most external aspects, ignores a fundamental element – the presence of the eternal. When moments of openness and presence come through us, they are but windows to something higher than our normal state of consciousness.

The question arises: why engage in a spiritual practice? Any ritual practice can be performed with the intent of somehow procuring enlightenment—the thought is that yoga, meditation, and prayer can be done to achieve a certain state of being. However, if we wish to cultivate the realization of who we are and a real connection to the divine, we see that these rituals are the fertilizer for the seeds of our awakening. Anyone can perform an asana, or sit for several hours, or say a million mantras, but if the seeds of consciousness are not cultivated, then nothing will grow.

“Although Logos [divine reason] is common to all, most people live as if they had a wisdom all their own.”

-Heraclitus

Yet, how is it possible to cultivate awareness of something so alien to our normal, unrefined selves? We can only start the process through the fragmented lenses of our egos. With disciplined practice, we may begin to develop compassion rather than criticism of who and where we are. We make the best efforts to unite our disciplined efforts with our sincere intentions towards wholeness. Weeks, months, and maybe years later this combination of effort and compassionate seeing may open us to moments of insight and to a deeper awareness that is not influenced by our ego’s self involvement. Ego and conscious initiative begin to find their place as servants of a greater whole.

Please join me at 5:30 PM on Sunday, February 5 at Purple Yoga for our monthly satsang. Satsang is free. Donations are greatly appreciated.

(Note to attendees: We will be revisiting sutras I.1-I.5 of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. You are welcome and encouraged to bring your questions and thoughts regarding the readings.)