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Sowing the
seeds of love [David Swenson]
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.
Yoga is not gymnastics [BKS Iyengar]
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]
Practice & all is coming [K. Pattabhi
Jois]
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]
You are not your practice [Shankaracharya]
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!
Your practice
is a tool [Swami Satchidananda]
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.
So what? [Swami Venkatesananda]
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’.
Practice as an offering [Louise Ellis]
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 yogic scriptures.
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.
[Bhagavad Gita]
No effort is ever lost [Krishna]
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.
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.
Yoga &
Theory [David Williams]
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]
Have fun! [David
Swenson]
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.
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