Imperfect

      The world has got off to a bumpy start this year. As an inextricable component of this planet, so inevitably, have I.

      I would like to say that I have answers, but all I have are questions. They are what keep my heart beating. Its like my heart beat itself is a repetitive act of questioning.

     When we set off on the path to meditate we need first of all to cultivate calm. With wildfires raging, wars breaking out and thin veiled animosity between those closest at hand, calm is an art in itself, challenging to the extreme. 

      I would like to say that calm is the backbone of peace but I’m not sure that’s right. Having enough food in one’s stomach, a safe place to sleep, trust in those around us. These surely precede calm.

      Thereafter calm is not a luxury but a necessity. We serve no one and nothing without it. We cannot make sound judgments, only by fluke. We follow herds ill-advised

      I would like to say I have it all worked out, but I don’t. I come back to my practice every day and remain humble. I make reverence to the space I occupy.

      We judge each other by our actions and so we should, up to a point. Discrimination is a necessary process when choosing the peaceful path. I fly in fuel-chugging jets, buy food wrapped in plastic and indulge in the flesh of fish. None of these actions give me sound morals. The path of inquiry for me is not one of self-flagellation but of questioning. Would this planet truly be better off without me on it? Should I be aiming at offsetting myself?

      I would like to say I am perfect, but I wouldn’t really. How would that make you feel? I am imperfect, so are you.

      The New Year is a time for resolutions, to strengthen those habits that bolster our ego. What if our resolve were to dismantle the ego altogether? To return to nature? An imperfect feat, but perfection is an illusion. In these dizzy times of ecological demise, orienting towards nature is absolute priority.

      I would like to say that I know one thing for sure, but I believe: nature is the way.

      All these practices; yoga, meditation, chanting, therapy, religion… if they don’t serve to re-align us with nature, are a lie. To be weighed down by our past in this eternal present is of no use to anyone or anything.

      The moment is now. A song by Bob Marley goes: ‘it is brighter on the outside than it is really on the inside.’ I would say Go inside! It is the same as outside. (I agree with Marley by the way, I always agree with Marley).

Ahimsa & Yoga Off the Mat

      What is the real value of yoga? Its therapeutic effects are widely known. Its capacity to soothe away stress is not to be underestimated. But where is the stress coming from? Won’t it just rear its ugly head again?

      I’m not sure that yoga on its own is much use to be honest. In fact yoga on its own is rubbish. It needs us. The extraordinary growth of yoga, the studios, teachers, practitioners, would all indicate that we need yoga. No we don’t. Yoga needs us. It needs us to show up. And that’s the thing: wherever we are, as long as we don’t keep dodging our Self, there is yoga. How can yoga be confined to the mat?

      Following on from this line of reasoning Yoga Off the Mat seems to me just as much a non-sequituur as Yoga On the Mat. We show up and then we dodge ourselves. A waste of sweat indeed. Yoga, this exquisite practice that gains us access to the divine pulse within, is bastardized for the sake of supple muscles and glowing skin. Yoga that shows us the immortal nature of this divine pulse sacrificed to the project of these mortal crumbling altars we worship foolishly.

      What’s going on here? I believe there is a difference between self and Self. This body that houses the memory of our miraculous birth, that keeps the score of each action we have taken, that is sailing us one-pointedly towards the other shore. We treat it like an ornament for our mantelpiece.

      How easy it is for yoga to become part of this futile project. Yoga On the Mat can be great indeed. Our practice becomes a communion with the Self which dwells not just in this body, but in that body, in that tree, in that city street, in that bird in the sky, in that puddle of water, in the eyes of that street seller, in everything, every beating, pulsating, breathing, living thing. Yoga Off the Mat. When we remember and keep remembering that what seems to be that is actually this also.

      Where do we begin? By attending to what is. There is plenty to attend to in this life. As a busy human it is easy to forget to be still. Be still for what? And if we are still we’re not really still are we? Make this your starting point. Relax the physical brain, move away from that hyperactive centre of activity and into the heart space. The pulsation can be felt stronger there. The connection to Self can be felt as the connection to self loosens.

      The more we move towards the heart, the more tenderly we treat our pain. Then we can move out into the “external” world and attend to it also. We can attend to the pain of the world as our own, with tenderness.

      Watch out, with soft eyes.

Meditation in the body

The eight limbs of classical yoga provide the framework for a gradual ‘refining’ of conscious awareness until we reach its purest un-distilled ‘essence’. At this stage we need to let go into the stream of ever-changing reality.

By focusing first on our actions in the world, our actions toward ourselves (inner habits), our posture and ease of breath, we proceed to turn the senses inward and to abide in tranquility, undisturbed by mental fluctuations. By abiding in this state we allow the connection with divinity to come about.

Meditation is not a concept to be understood. Yoga as meditation in the body is just one form of cultivating intimacy with our lived present moment. When I say yoga I could more specifically refer to yoga asana. If we come to meditation with expectations and goals we limit ourselves. Our personal aims are necessarily conditioned by our past experiences. If however we are able to cultivate openness to what arises through the application of mindful awareness we are more likely to gain insight into the way of reality, untainted by our projections. The practice of sensory awareness is one way of doing this. Our sensations are lived in the present.

We learn tips to avoid common pitfalls such as the sense of being overwhelmed. We can break down the whole into smaller parts taking each moment as it comes. Mantra can be a useful tool for the brain to focus its attention on while the rest of the system can go about the good work of regenerating its natural rhythms and its connection to the web of life it is a part of.

We can go into greater detail regarding the quality of our experience, cultivating opposite states in order to expand the field of awareness.

Ultimately the technique itself can be relinquished and necessarily will be relinquished when the time is ripe. It’s important for any scaffolding that may’ve been constructed to scale the heights of meditation to then be dismantled, least we confuse our whereabout with how we got there.

The Greatest Battle

   All yoga practice involves an ego battle, to some extent. It could be a minor tiff or a full-blown battle, interspersed with periods of love-making, tender and at times passionate. Without wanting to wade too deeply into the intricacies of yoga's rich philosophical tapestry, after all 'who am I' to even attempt such a thing? I nevertheless dare to point out that this ego battle is a battle between one's self and one's Self.  

   The case for 'getting out of your own way' has never been more urgent. Confronting the ego on the mat can open up the space that's needed to fight the battles that really matter. However, when we become fixated with fighting ourselves (true 'Self') not our egos, the practice becomes self-serving (as in 'small self') and if all this talk of egos and selves is confusing, don't worry, these terms are part of the sophisticated act that props up the illusion that we are somehow in control. Practice allows one to drop away the effort required to sustain the illusion (maya), thereby glimpsing the true nature of reality.

    What do I mean by fighting ourselves? If you have ever found yourself holding your breath and gritting your teeth, hardening your eyes and muscling your way through the asanas, chances are you are not hearing that very quiet voice that coaxes you down a different path altogether. Chances are you believe this effort to be somehow necessary, be it because it's something you're used to, or because this level of interaction with the body is unfamiliar and therefore you know no other way to endure it. The principles of peace and love are replaced by struggle and pain. I am not here to say that this is wrong, it is what it is what it is. But there is something here to be learnt, something that differentiates yoga from a muscle binding enterprise that strengthens our resolve and endurance. Our practice on the mat is our rehearsal for how we practice our humanity off the mat. After all, does the planet need more self-serving iron men or peaceful warriors engaged in non-violent resistance?

’Can we let go of struggle in asana?’

    Many school of yoga place enormous emphasis on seva or self-service, the wisdom teachings hark lyrical about compassion. However, if we have not confronted our egos, if we are fighting ourselves, holding our breath and enduring the inevitable pain of existence, won't we be handing out rotting banana skins instead of nourishing fruits? Unless we quieten down and listen to that subterranean pulse, life-sustaining, tender and utterly beautiful, following what we really love, connecting with the intimacy of each breath that rises and falls outside of the net of our controlling grip, unless we get out of our own way, the world will keep bringing us back, face to face with our foes. Our small selves will keep yakking on, pretending to know what life is all about. Confusion will abound, and we will be of little use to anyone.

    If on the other hand we take that other path, the quiet one, we ally with spontaneity, we open our eyes, literally and metaphorically, to what is really needed. In the words of Jonathan Kozol we learn to 'pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.' Our victories over our egos may be the most important ones to win, they teach us a different way of fighting

The Power of How

  If only we could all agree that life is too short to churn over the past or put so much energy into the future; our projects, dreams and plans. But what else do we have? The jolting realization of presence is hard to come by; haphazard rather than earned.

   How are we treat our past and future in our present? Things that have already happened cannot come undone, but how we feel about them now is a different story. Things that are yet to pass hold no keys, only the present does. The future-in-the-making. Take the following quote from the Upanishads:

“ That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, and the remainder is perfect. May peace, and peace, and peace be everywhere.”

   And what has all of this to do with yoga? Well, as long as we feel that there is a great body of yoga wisdom crafted by the ancients somewhere, and waiting for us to unlock its secrets at some future point, we are laboring under an illusion.

   One cannot do anything in the future, only now. We can think of doing in the future, achieving a certain pose, attaining a certain calm, but this is a distraction from the only secret ever worth knowing, the most precious secret of all. We are enough because we can only ever be enough.

   That graceful, perfect asana, that blissful, sage meditation, its never going to happen, it will last for a blink of a memory of what was. How about that for enlightenment.  

   We’re all in this together, right here, right now.

'Un-rushing'

In the sessions I lead I often talk about ‘unrushing’, or undoing the effects of rushing. The fact is that rushing has become the default mode of our age. We are not even aware we are doing it. But our bodies keep the score.

The problem seems to be that it is hard to recognize one’s own tendencies. Of course it is, otherwise we wouldn’t do it right? We wouldn’t rush around like headless chickens if we could see what we looked like. But our brains are blind and quick like quicksilver. We place all the demands of the racehorse onto a body that itself has a complex collection of different rhythms to regulate and expect things to be dandy.

So how can we set about noticing when we are doing it? When we are rushing? These are some of the cues I mention in asana practice also:

-      Is your breath compromised?

-      Are you walking into rooms forgetting why you came into them? Just because we all do it doesn’t make it normal!

-      Do you struggle to keep your attention focused on what you are doing?

-      Do you rely on an excessive use of stimulants?

-      Are you rushing through the important things? Reading your children a bedtime story, watching the sun rise or set, listening to a song…

When I put out my lower back for the first time I wondered how could this have happened? I practice yoga daily for an hour at least, most of which is slow, conscious movement and breath. I meditate daily, observing my thoughts and regulating my emotions. How did I get into such a state of agony? Could it be that I was stressed? I didn’t think I was. But that is just it. Our thoughts don’t register the half of it. When relating the ream of lists I was juggling at the time it was scarcely surprising to the outsider that perhaps, possibly I was biting off a bit more than I had time to chew.

      We are living at a time when multitasking is seen as a desirable super power rather than as the non-sequituur it is. It is not possible to multitask, there is simply no such thing. We may be doing many things at once but our attention can only possibly be on one. Does this mean that we have to give up on our lives and their busy schedules? Not necessarily, but can we bring in that all enhancing quality of slowness that is so desperately needed? I won’t call it mindfulness, consciousness or awareness. These buzzwords are buzzing with a clutter of expectations. Call it what you will, I call it ‘unrushing’.

Read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D

come to my upcoming workshop at Yoga Akasha on the gunas and their role in our yoga practice

The Real from the Unreal

  We are an irreligious lot.

   Rudderless, it is hard not to end up exhausted by the frantic, self-serving confusion of activity. When we lose direction, action is imperative. Orienting to our centre, we embrace the practices of yoga; yoking our attention to the breath, studying the wisdom of scripture, being truthful about what is real and what is not.

  In this world of ticker tape gurus, we need to beware of who we follow. When the heart is dimmed or contracted, we need to listen. This is not the way of truth. Truth is blissful, clear and enormous. We are embraced by truth in a giant embrace that holds us all. There is no one left behind, not a single being, not a single soul. If your practice leaves anyone out, beware.

Always practicing balance, cultivating discernment and looking for the taste of one-ness in everything, the yogi abides. Not sallowed by gloom, not excited by hype nor swayed by the judgement of the masses, the yogi sees through to the core of life. Unscathed by one million breathless arguments, small, pulsating, yet immensely strong, is the song of eternal bliss.

   Blink, and you’ll miss it. Smile and you’ll come face to face.

Ecstasy or Cessation?

Yogis have followed one of two paths; the ecstatic or that of cessation. Are they necessarily distinct? Does it mean that in our practice we are guided either by that which uplifts us, pursuing our bliss or by creating rules that ensure we don’t go down the rabbit hole of desire?

 What then is the role of desire for the yogi? Kāma is a choice in itself. Have faith in your desire and cessation itself will be desirable.

I would like to share a selected passage from the Kumārasambhava that describes Śiva in meditation. It is taken from James Mallinson’s book ‘The Roots of Yoga’

“Kāma, the god of love, his body about to fall,

Saw Three-Eyed Śiva in meditation,

Seated on a cedarwood dais covered by a tiger skin;

His upper body held steady by his yogic posture,

Straight and erect, his shoulders rounded,

Seeming, from the placing of his upturned hands,

To have an open lotus in his lap;

His crown of dreadlocks bound up by a snake,

A double-stringed rudrāksa rosary hanging from his hand,

He was wearing a knotted deerskin made a bluer black

By the glow cast from his neck;

With his eyes gazing downwards,

Their fierce pupils dimmed and stilled,

Holding the brows steady, lashes unflickering,

He was focusing on his nose;

As a result of restraining his inner winds

He was like a cloud without the rage of rain,

Like a pot of water without a ripple,

Like an unflickering lamp in a place without wind;

With the beams of light from his head,

Which had found a way out of the eyes

Of the skull in his crest,

He was dulling the splendor,

More delicate than a lotus thread,

Of the young moon;

Controlling his mind in a samādhi,

Checking its motion through the nine doors

And fixing it in his heart,

He was gazing on the self in the self,

Which the sages know to be imperishable.”

So much to love

how far is too far?

A question arose during the Asana focus workshop I taught last weekend that encapsulated a key consideration for those of us who practice yoga. A student asked: ‘for how long should I hold in virabhadrāsana II?’ simple enough, yet the implications go deep. As an instructor, I like to give clear guidance and so, taking a leaf from B.K.S Iyengar’s book, I answered: 30 seconds to a minute.

I was very happy when another student took the line of questioning further: ‘I’m curious,” she said ‘about when a long hold, which we may feel compelled to practice, gets in the way of the ever-important value of ahimsa or non-violence.’ What I believe is that it is this curiosity that keeps the yogi present. This very process of inquiry into whether we are pushing too hard or breaking down restrictive barriers; embodying self-compassion by coming out of a posture sooner or retracting from a necessary process of purification through intensity.

When we practice discernment in our asana we are working out from whence comes the motivation to withdraw or remain. Discernment is discriminating wisdom, separating truth from non-truth, that which is conducive toward our liberation from that which is not. Are we being driven by the ego with its pursuit of measurable goals or by our higher self that so relishes the present moment? This sensation, is it pain or intensity?

Highly evolved yogis have endured excruciating intensity to overcome their identification with the physical body, the mere mortal shell that transports us on this finite journey. From the other side of their mortifications they report on what is really true, really real. The true self, they say, discriminates not. The true self, they say, is beyond good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. So, while we measure the seconds in our warrior II pose, please let’s remember that none of this is real, just the remembering is. And in our remembering we travel closer.

don't diss the asana

It peeves me, it does, the dismissive tone that can be adopted by people when referring to the physical emphasis of yoga practice.

Those lofty intellectuals view the yoga world as full of strutting Amazonians, balancing on one finger tip, mainlining green smoothies and taking nothing but their smooth rippled musculature as sacred.

Now, of course, I exaggerate, but there is something in this tendency to view things as good or bad, right or wrong, black or white that I find deeply unsettling. In part it is due to this polarizing human habit that I find the physical aspect of yoga so relevant. If there’s something that we all share, it is our physicality. Beyond our views and our percentage of “spirituality” vs. “rationality”, our body is, in a sense, where we meet.

Recently I have been re-discovering the work of Peter Levine. His insight into how humans cope with trauma presents a very interesting take on our seeming intelligence. The way our physical bodies store the imprint of stressful situations seems so outdated. Our frontal brains, driven by speed and constantly chasing after things, do little to consider the body’s own rhythm. Through the prism of the gunas this is clearly an imbalance of rajas. We see for example incredibly articulate, clever and sophisticated individuals paying scarce attention to their physical health. Our entire culture seems built on this precedent. It is only when we slow down that we begin to notice the body’s own intelligence as something quite otherworldly.

Sensation has a lot to say.

Āsana, the physical branch of yoga practice, the most widely practiced, the great storehouse of postures, is deeply beneficial. Āsana goes beyond words, it begins to introduce the medicine of meditation. In āsana the subtle shifts of attitude and mood transform one’s very consciousness. Beyond the gymnastic façade of certain āsanas is a very real encounter with our deepest attachments and fears. The tension we visit and steep in throughout our physical practice allows us to uncover that version of ourselves that is unfettered, that is beyond body. We go through body to go beyond body.

Don’t diss the āsanas, but do please slow down. 

Asana focus: virabhadrāsana II workshop, at Yoga Akasha, 29th September, 12-2. Book through shop.