practice

David Swenson: Sowing the seeds of love

   David is fond of saying that yoga is a fertile soil, and whatever you sow in it,
will grow vigorously. If you sow pride, competitiveness, and selfishness, they will
all grow to make the ego an even more formidable opponent. If you sow love,
compassion, and humility, they too will flourish.

   Thus at every step along your journey, you may want to pause and examine
your yoga garden.   What are you growing? Sometimes we start with the best of
intentions, but somehow take a wrong turn, and find that we have gone astray.
That our garden is full of weeds, or the soil parched, or that it is infested with
pests. The good thing is that you’re never more than a thought or two away from
the Path.

   It is perhaps easier in Ashtanga than in other yoga methods to fall prey to the
lure of the ego. The challenging postures and the rigor of the practice may be
perceived as a competitive sport. It’s easy to fall in the trap of comparing yourself
to other practitioners or to the images you see in magazines. The healthful and
fit body that results from a regular practice may induce narcissism rather than
contemplation. The strictness of the discipline may promote elitism or narrow
mindedness rather than compassion. But this is just the nature of things.
Rather than fear these obstacles, be mindful of them.

BKS Iyengar: Yoga is not gymnastics

   B.K.S. Iyengar in his book, Light on Yoga, states that asana practice absent of
the Yamas and Niyamas is just gymnastics. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but
not a great one. Indeed, this relates to David’s point above about proper
intention. The Yamas and Niyamas set the tone, hue, and texture for proper
actions. Without such intentions, asana practice may lead to pride and vanity,
or just to nothing. Without proper intention, the asana practice may be void of
meaning, and therefore lose its lure after a short time.

   Asana is the third of the eight limbs of Integral Yoga following Yama and
Niyama. While the order of the limbs alludes to a hierarchy, you need not have
mastered the first two limbs before you begin asana practice. The Yamas and
Niyamas, just like the ten commandments of the Old Testament, are ideals.
Ideals can be embraced and practiced but not mastered. At least not by most of
us. It’s all work in progress. Pattabhi Jois has explained, that in Ashtanga, all
limbs are accessed through the asana practice.

To the follower of the yoga of action,
The body and the mind,
The sense organs and the intellect
Are instruments only:
He knows himself other than the instrument
And thus his heart grows pure.
[Bhagavad Gita]

K. Pattabhi Jois: Practice and all is coming
    This is one of the most famous quotes attributed to Pattabhi Jois. He probably
doesn’t mean that Ashtanga practice will make all your wishes come true, or that
you are guaranteed to master 4th series in this lifetime. What he probably means
is that practice should be performed without expectations, plans, or goals. Sri
Swami Satchidananda said, “If you don’t want disappointments don’t make
appointments”. But even more so, if we set out to discover new frontiers, but start
the journey with set expectations, we are likely to miss out on the real learning
experience. True learning can only happen when there are no expectations.
Otherwise, we are simply building on known & accepted ideas.

He who does the task
Dictated by duty,
Caring nothing
For fruit of the action,
He is a yogi,
A true sannyasin.
[Bhagavad Gita]

Shankaracharya: You are not your practice
    The philosopher Sri Shankaracharya, in the peom Nirvanashatkam, lists many
things that we are not. We are not the mind, not our intelligence, not our body,
not our accomplishments or possessions, and not our practice. “I am Shiva, I am
Shiva, pure awareness and joy.” He reminds you not to become attached to the
practice, not to reduce yourself to the practice. You are so much more!

Swami Satchidananda: Your practice is a tool
    This is one of the most important principles for any healthy spiritual practice.
The purpose of the practice is to create a state of preparedness in the body and
mind for a spiritual experience. This is its sole purpose, nothing more. The trap
is becoming attached to the practice and its rituals, and missing the whole
point.   This is why people hate and kill in the name of God.

    As Richard Freeman says in the Yoga Matrix, “The purpose of yoga is to bring
you to the feet of God.” Swami Satchidananda uses the metaphor of soap. We
combine soap with the dirty clothes. We then wash the dirt away, but the soap
goes too. The dirt is the obstacles and fixations that keep us away from God. The
practice is the soap, which washes away the obstacles, but in the end, is itself
discarded.

    If we remain vigilant throughout our practice in our recognition that the
practice is merely a tool, the likelihood of attachment is greatly reduced, and the
likelihood of having a meaningful experience is similarly increased.

Swami Venkatesananda: So what?
    As he explains the yoga sutras, Swami Venkatesananda describes a yogi sage
he once knew. The sage was so advanced in his practice that one day while
meditating he levitated, rising up so high that his head hit the ceiling and some
plaster was dislodged. So what? This may remind us of the adoration and
admiration we feel towards those practitioners who have mastered challenging
postures. So what? There is no intrinsic meaning in these accomplishments.
While we spend many hours striving to perfect our asana and advance to the next
series, we must always keep in the back of our mind the ‘so what’.

Louise Ellis: Practice as an offering
    Yet another way to refrain from becoming attached to our practice is to give it
away. You can offer it to God, to someone you love, or perhaps to someone for
whom you harbor resentment. All that we have is what we give. All that we are
remembered by is what we have given.

This sentiment is well grounded in the Bhagavad Gita:
Whatever your action,
Food or worship;
Whatever the gift
That you give to another;
Whatever you vow
To the work of the spirit;
O son of Kunti,
Lay these also
As an offering to me.

Lord Krishna: No effort is ever lost
    Lord Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, informs us that no effort on the path of
yoga is ever lost:
“Even the abortive attempt is not wasted. Even a little practice of this yoga will
save you from the terrible wheel of rebirth and death.”

    This is very comforting to those of us who proceed earnestly and diligently on
the path of yoga, but are concerned by the great divide between our expectations
of what we think it means to be a yogi and our current state of affairs. We run a
great risk of becoming disillusioned by our false expectations. Why are they
false? Because they are expectations, fabrications of the egoic mind. Let go your
image of what enlightenment might be, thus allowing it to manifest in its true
form.

Anonymous: Patience is a tree
    There is an old saying, “Patience is a tree whose roots are bitter, but the fruit
is very sweet.”   This is quite true for Ashtanga practice. Many would consider
the early years of practice to be the bitter roots due to the shear physical and
mental challenge. But the fruit is undeniably sweet. Persistent yoga practice
will change your life in significant ways. Even the simple mastery of the postures
requires endless mindful repetition. You may have to do a posture thousands of
times before the body and mind know it. This is why it is important to suspend
expectations and focus on the present – one posture at a time, one breath at a
time.

From the Shodoka (The Path to Enlightenment):
Many births, many deaths;
I am serene in this cycle, - there is no end to it.

David Williams: Practice & Theory

    Yogic philosophy sets the practice of yoga in cultural, intellectual, and
historic context, but ultimately the practice is an experiential endeavor. David
Williams, the first westerner to study with Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, says, “Before
you’ve practiced, the theory is useless. After you’ve practiced, the theory is
obvious.” This statement has several interesting implications.

    First, yogic philosophy may seem abstract, the large cast of characters
overwhelming, the Hindu roots foreign, and the Sanskrit terminology a barrier.
However, these are all secondary to the practice itself. None of this should deter
from the experience of practicing yoga.

    Second, there is no substitute for the actual practice of yoga.   The benefits of
yoga simply cannot be obtained by reading texts or studying philosophy. If you
had never tasted honey, and I described it to you verbally, however eloquent and
precise my description may be, it would be but a poor imitation to the taste of a
couple of drops of honey on your tongue. But there is more than simply the
limitation of words. The yoga practice is designed to affect both the body and
mind, and ultimately create an awareness of the inner self. Reading and study
are intellectual activities that remain in the plane of the egoic mind, and
therefore are limited in their transformational power.

    This idea is deeply rooted in yoga and related spiritual practices. From the
Hatha Yoga Pradipika:
“ Success comes to him who is engaged in the practice. How can one get success
without practice; for by merely reading books on Yoga, one can never get
success”. [Verse 67]

    “Success cannot be attained by adopting a particular dress (Vesa). It cannot
be gained by telling tales. PRACTICE ALONE IS THE MEANS TO SUCCESS. This
is true, there is no doubt”. [Verse 68]

David Swenson: Have fun!
    When we really care about something, as many of us care about our yoga
practice, we tend to take it too seriously. When we take it too seriously, it loses
its lightness, the sense of exploration, the joy. So rather than turning the
practice into a life sentence, keep it fun. The Ashtanga police will not come
knocking on your door at midnight because you missed a day of practice. You
want to cultivate a sense of balance between discipline and openness. You want
to listen to your body; not push through injury or excessive fatigue.   Seek
camaraderie rather than competition in group practice.

For me there is only traveling on paths that have heart... and there I
travel, looking, looking, breathlessly." Carlos Castaneda

Guidelines for Cultivating a Rewarding Practice

Practice Tips