Yoga is practiced in part as a body management program. We reduce the needs of the body so we can know ourselves, our true selves; our best version. As the weather allows us out into the world again it is important to continue practicing acting from mindful awareness. It is easy to succumb to the lure of society, especially when emotions are heightened. Such as when we're excited to be free of cold darkness for a while. We must keep firmly within ourselves, and keep our tendency toward extremes in check, so that we don't move from habits. So we avoid reacting.
Over the next few weeks we'll be covering the concepts written in the Yoga Sutras known as the niyamas. Yama means discipline or self control and the niyamas are a group of 5 ideas of how to relate to yourself, so that you can actualize the best version.
Discipline is a dirty word in America, the land of the free. We resent restriction. But, if we are to grow, we must learn to restrain ourselves. The body demands things it doesn't need. We give in because it makes us feel good, or makes us feel alive. I am a staunch believer in moderation. I am a person, of the earth, and while I know there is a component of myself that is not, I like being material. I like to eat and drink and feel and run and smile and laugh and experience all the ways in which you can be alive in a body. But I can't be the best version of myself if I only do what feels good to my body. I would be an obese drunk with lung cancer. So I practice moderation and do the best I can, because sometimes I get emotionally overwhelmed and don't do as well as I'd like.
The Yoga Sutras are a collection of writings that can help us live in a way that uncovers the best version of ourselves. They are suspected of being written by several people, though authorship is given only to Patanjali. The Sutras are many things to many people, as it is with any work held dear by many. Interpretation holds the key to understanding, and we all interpret from our own perspective.
A very specific, yet widely known portion of the sutras deals with the aspects of yoga as we know it today. The eights limbs of yoga are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. This week we will focus on the niyama shaucha.
Shaucha is cleanliness, or purity. I thought that may be an approriate spring topic to consider. There are precedents in every major religion for purity and part of that approach is fasting. Lent, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan. In each, the adherent fasts in some way and reflects on the less than desirable choices they've made over the previous year.
Shaucha is not merely the cleanliness of the body. Our bodies require regular attention to keep from becoming mired in dirt, but so do our minds and even the spaces we occupy. Donna Farhi in her book Yoga Mind Body and Spirit suggests maintaining cleanliness in these areas will allow us to "experience ourselves at a higher resolution" (12).
So we will spring clean. By moving our bodies we will tone them and eliminate toxins from them and in doing so we will work out emotional baggage. Our pranayama practice will help to still the clutter in our minds and relaxation at the end of class will provide the opportunity to integrate the idea of cleanliness more completely.
Practice never stops. It is not limited to the mat. While yoga practice on the mat is beneficial, practicing these ideas everywhere else will allow you to make changes in your life. Pick a particularly beautiful day to clean out your car. Play music, sing and smile. Or let the process of cleaning be a practice in mindful attention. Let other issues out of your mind and find some satisfaction at the completion of your task. Give up one tasty but unhealthy thing from the majority of your life. Start small, start with something you know you can go without for a long time, then, when you've restrained yourself for a while, have a small amount. This can be a dangerous process if you're prone to excess, but if you can accomplish small victories, it's just a matter of time before you can accomplish large ones. Leave a prejudice or a stereotype behind you. Let yourself experience life from an open mind, a clean slate.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Vernal Equinox Celebration
AKA Spring!!
This week we will celebrate and honor nature's moment of balance.
For the rest of the year, with the exception of the autumnal equinox, we are either wishing for more light or complaining it's too hot. We are apt to extremes. We feel alive when we experience extremes. We know ourselves when we examine our reactions to those situations.
When we balance we will fall when we seek the edges; the extremes of our structure. Integration is the key to balance.
We've been working on integration rectently. As we notice and concentrate on our breath, we are uniting our mind to our energy. As we move on our breath, we integrate the body into that flow. As we are wholly connected to the breath we integrate ourselves into the moment.
This is the kind of concentration we'll need as we balance in dancer's pose (natarajasana). Hopefully, our integration will allow for enough freedom in this challenging pose to feel something of the spirit of the posture. With all the sunlight and the promise of warmth, could you maybe feel like dancing?
This week we will celebrate and honor nature's moment of balance.
For the rest of the year, with the exception of the autumnal equinox, we are either wishing for more light or complaining it's too hot. We are apt to extremes. We feel alive when we experience extremes. We know ourselves when we examine our reactions to those situations.
When we balance we will fall when we seek the edges; the extremes of our structure. Integration is the key to balance.
We've been working on integration rectently. As we notice and concentrate on our breath, we are uniting our mind to our energy. As we move on our breath, we integrate the body into that flow. As we are wholly connected to the breath we integrate ourselves into the moment.
This is the kind of concentration we'll need as we balance in dancer's pose (natarajasana). Hopefully, our integration will allow for enough freedom in this challenging pose to feel something of the spirit of the posture. With all the sunlight and the promise of warmth, could you maybe feel like dancing?
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Mind's Eye and Ear
Once I was asked how I kept focused during yoga class. I was maybe 2 years into my practice and had begun taking my first series of classes in a studio, with a non-video yoga teacher. I realized the answer to that question was: I don't. I was in a constant state of flux internally, regardless of how stoic my facade. It is true even today. While it is easier for me to achieve a quiet interior and to focus on something, there's still a lot of movement, particularly when practicing pratyahara, and especially at home.
Today's class is about dealing with that voice/eye. Our minds eye and voice is made up of our conscious mind. Our conscious mind is made up of our ego. We can't turn it off. The conditioning we go through on a daily basis either rewards parts of our ego, and they become more prevalent in our personalities, or punishes them, which results in a diminished presence in our personalities. Regardless, they are a part of who we are. Using different techniques we can quiet this part of the mind and discover what all this noise distracts us from.
I have to say I admire those people who unequivocally believe we are divine. What joy their lives must be filled with. To know you are, at your essence, beneath all the physicality, a being of light is a beautiful, freeing knowledge. You don't have to be what the physical world, which includes ego, demands you be.
I don't mean to imply that I don't believe this to be true. I do. But, I don't feel comfortable shouting it from the rooftops and that's the kind of feeling I would like to try on. As a scientist I cannot give myself over to the idea with abandon because there isn't enough evidence. I can say with confidence that we are beings of energy and matter. Which are both of the physical plane. What I believe we are, and believe science will eventually provide a way to detect, is that physical energy and matter, as well as an animating energy that is not of the physical plane.
I get caught up in the semantics. Do we call it a soul? Chi? The yoga/sanskrit word for it is prana.. I have only recently been able to feel it. And that's ultimately what keeps me doing yoga. All of the anecdotal evidence I've experienced that it works. That, and a Roman Catholic background that pre-disposes my mind to accept wildly unprovable (read untestable) phenomenon.
Excitingly for those of us with the need for proof, there have been tremendous strides made in the scientific discipline of quantum physics about the nature of our universe. I love science and the feeling of concreteness if affords me. The language of mathematics, while I do not speak it well, has a sensation of satisfaction upon the completion of a problem. There have been many exciting developments in the world of quantum physics. I take it to mean that our level of understanding of the universe is incomplete. Which is true. And that were discovering all the time how wrong we can be. Which gives me hope that some of these things we have faith in will eventually be testable.
On a more "down to earth" level of science, I have begun to see articles almost daily that expound yoga as being able to bring about positive health changes in people. It is an exciting time for those who have known this for a while now.
http://www.drmccall.com/
http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/the-health-benefits-of-yoga
We will continue the pratyahara practice this week. As the influence of the outside world is reduced, the even bigger challenge becomes to turn down the influence of your own mind. We want so badly to do things the "right" way that it becomes a stressful struggle when things to don't turn out the way we think is right. To have thoughts encroach when we're trying not to think is incredibly frustrating.
We can practice occupying the mind's ear/eye with tasks relevant to the moment until we can quiet the chatter. Maybe the repetition of an uplifting phrase helps you to keep your mind in the present. Maybe the flow of your breath anchors you to the here and now. Perhaps the feeling of your body moving through space works.
Instead of trying to push thoughts away or make your mind a fortress to keep thoughts out, try to let them go. There they are, they exist, now they can go. Move yourself back to the space you've created. Don't follow them. Don't tighten around the fact they exist. If letting go is a challenge, then use whatever technique works to bring you back from the wanderings of your mind.
Today's class is about dealing with that voice/eye. Our minds eye and voice is made up of our conscious mind. Our conscious mind is made up of our ego. We can't turn it off. The conditioning we go through on a daily basis either rewards parts of our ego, and they become more prevalent in our personalities, or punishes them, which results in a diminished presence in our personalities. Regardless, they are a part of who we are. Using different techniques we can quiet this part of the mind and discover what all this noise distracts us from.
I have to say I admire those people who unequivocally believe we are divine. What joy their lives must be filled with. To know you are, at your essence, beneath all the physicality, a being of light is a beautiful, freeing knowledge. You don't have to be what the physical world, which includes ego, demands you be.
I don't mean to imply that I don't believe this to be true. I do. But, I don't feel comfortable shouting it from the rooftops and that's the kind of feeling I would like to try on. As a scientist I cannot give myself over to the idea with abandon because there isn't enough evidence. I can say with confidence that we are beings of energy and matter. Which are both of the physical plane. What I believe we are, and believe science will eventually provide a way to detect, is that physical energy and matter, as well as an animating energy that is not of the physical plane.
I get caught up in the semantics. Do we call it a soul? Chi? The yoga/sanskrit word for it is prana.. I have only recently been able to feel it. And that's ultimately what keeps me doing yoga. All of the anecdotal evidence I've experienced that it works. That, and a Roman Catholic background that pre-disposes my mind to accept wildly unprovable (read untestable) phenomenon.
Excitingly for those of us with the need for proof, there have been tremendous strides made in the scientific discipline of quantum physics about the nature of our universe. I love science and the feeling of concreteness if affords me. The language of mathematics, while I do not speak it well, has a sensation of satisfaction upon the completion of a problem. There have been many exciting developments in the world of quantum physics. I take it to mean that our level of understanding of the universe is incomplete. Which is true. And that were discovering all the time how wrong we can be. Which gives me hope that some of these things we have faith in will eventually be testable.
On a more "down to earth" level of science, I have begun to see articles almost daily that expound yoga as being able to bring about positive health changes in people. It is an exciting time for those who have known this for a while now.
http://www.drmccall.com/
http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/the-health-benefits-of-yoga
We will continue the pratyahara practice this week. As the influence of the outside world is reduced, the even bigger challenge becomes to turn down the influence of your own mind. We want so badly to do things the "right" way that it becomes a stressful struggle when things to don't turn out the way we think is right. To have thoughts encroach when we're trying not to think is incredibly frustrating.
We can practice occupying the mind's ear/eye with tasks relevant to the moment until we can quiet the chatter. Maybe the repetition of an uplifting phrase helps you to keep your mind in the present. Maybe the flow of your breath anchors you to the here and now. Perhaps the feeling of your body moving through space works.
Instead of trying to push thoughts away or make your mind a fortress to keep thoughts out, try to let them go. There they are, they exist, now they can go. Move yourself back to the space you've created. Don't follow them. Don't tighten around the fact they exist. If letting go is a challenge, then use whatever technique works to bring you back from the wanderings of your mind.
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