India, Science & Yoga
15/05/10 22:23
Last night, I went to a Nanaimo Metaphysical Network meeting, where they had Professor Deborah Hearn from the VIU Physics Department speak about Quantum Physics and Consciousness. It was a great talk, and it brought up some things for me I wanted to talk about here in an article while it’s fresh in my mind.
Fundamentally, my main issue with the way that this science is presented in general, I will go into specifics later, is the startling lack of grasp of what REAL scientists, philosophers and so on have always known: India is the mother of all science, religion, myth, mysticism and mathematics. Here are many many pages of quotes from the most esteemed of these:
Ignorance Explained
To start with, I’d like to restate an obvious point: the main problem in human life is ignorance. Ignorance is a result of the presence of tamas in the mind. Tamas is heavy, dark and results in one-half of the psychological phenomenon known as The Shadow. Keeping aside a more correct explanation of tamas than is provided by Wikipedia, I’d like to say that tamas, as a guna, creates as a side effect, ignorance. See the Artlcle on The Gunas.
A Different View of Intelligence
John Dosbon, the inspiration behind this post, said it like this:
“For any cosmological model in which the Universe is considered to be "actual", the problem of the origin of sentiency and intelligence is insoluble. But if the Universe is apparitional, sentiency is in it from the word "go". Even the atoms are "sentient". We have senses for the perception of gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism, because the individual protoplasmic cells can respond to these same five kinds of energy. And the cells can respond to them because the atoms respond to them. The atoms themselves respond to gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism. The plumb bob "knows" where the Earth is, and the electron "knows" where the proton is. Sentiency is in this from the word "go", because the underlying existence is "involved" in what we see and must show through. It is hopeless to expect that something like sentiency or intelligence, or anything, for that matter, could arise by "evolution" (as a rose evolves from a bud), unless it was first put in by "involution". The reason the oak tree can "evolve" from the acorn is because it was first put in the acorn through "involution" by the parent trees. But in the case of the tree and the acorn, the involution is by transformational causation, parinama. Whereas, in the case of the underlying existence and the Universe, the involution is by apparitional causation, or vivarta. What underlies the Universe is involved by apparition in us and what we see. And since what underlies all this is infinite, there is no knowing what may evolve. (1)
The expectation that sentiency and intelligence might arise from "inert matter" is contrary to all the experience of our race. But matter is not inert. It is "ert", (it moves by itself) because what underlies the apparition shows through. And the notion that what is more might evolve from what is less is beyond the domain of reason.”
The implication of this is that being ignorant goes against nature. I happen to agree. We live in a time and culture that raises ignorance in every form up to something which is somehow desireable!
Before The Greeks
It seems that ALL science books I read refer back to the Greek civilization as a beginning point, the seed of all modern knowledge, exclusive of ANY other cultural influences. There are many articles (and indeed whole books) which talk fairly explicitly about what cultures did what BEFORE the Greeks. This new trend of so-called “superstar” scientists on their own holy war regarding science-as-religion (Richard Dawkins and his proteges)- they are the worst offenders in a long line of eurocentric scientists who sound more like ego-centric, rather than euro-centric scientists in the end.
Eurocentrism Defined Is Deconstructionism
At some point, this focus on the Greeks forgot all about one of the most prominent of Greek philosophy: Plotinus. One may debate whether Plotinus was a non-dualist or a monist as this man does, but I am in line with Ken Wilber on this one- he was a non-dualist, or at the very least was taught and influenced by non-dual thought from the East, as many philosophers were during his time.
In general, however, an ego-centric view is seen to be had by many deconstructionist scientists and this Mr. Hines is the least offender- if you want to be really offended, try debating (or just listening to) so-called comedian (and Dawkins protege’) Bill Maher. Bill Maher is essentially a television bully (not a comedian)- interrupting, name calling and so on. Because Bill Maher agrees with gay marriage and holds some other humanistic opinions doesn’t give him a free pass to ignore all science and philosophy that came before the Greeks just because he believes in a (currently successful) materialistic/scientific philosophy. He’s a slave to his left brain as much as any other bully egotist.
Quoting from Mr. Hines, the author of the monist view of Plotinus in the last link above:
“...obviously I don't know what ultimate reality is like. Nobody does, Ken Wilber included. All we can do is look at evidence and come to the best conclusions we can. I've got a strong scientific bent. It seems to me that understanding the observable universe is the best first step (and maybe the last step) toward grasping unseen mysteries.”
So, the conclusion that ONLY science holds the answers seems to be arrived at by MANY scientists- and I’ll point out that Deborah Hearn was NOT saying these things in an intentional way like Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins, nor was she on some holy war like they are- but rather she was brought up and her perspective is largely informed by a culture devoted to (and enslaved by) the left brain.
The left brain has a tendency, along with how we’ve been taught (that is key) in a Cartesian method of thinking that essentially says everything is separate. The subsequent success of this divided approach is apparent in modern technology. Still, we’re slow, as a culture to catch up to the implications of Quantum Mechanics. Looking back, it takes between 50-100 years to begin to grasp the implications societally of what our highest minds are achieving in science and pre-eminent thought. We lack the cultural precedent that Indians have to learn from their vast heritage, and our is almost entirely borrowed.
Check Your Assumptions
The conclusion is the NO ONE CAN KNOW these mysteries, and concurrent with that, another thought also is there almost automatically: NO ONE EVER HAS KNOWN.
The left brain is a seductive and logical taskmaster, especially when one’s perspective becomes too reliant upon it. Lacking a schooling system and a culture of thought that informs the individual about the right brain’s function, I can see how this ignorance arises, especially in science.
Everyone I’ve talked about here MAKES ENORMOUS ASSUMPTIONS regarding all this, and we (the public) buy it hook line and sinker, every time, as we’re surrounded by it constantly. It’s not any LESS ignorant than the idea that there is a vengeful God awaiting us after death, and maybe we’ll go to Hell.
Now, I do believe a great deal of science is good. It’s brought a tremendous amount of both good and bad things to the human race, according to the level of ignorance had by it’s users (see sign above). However, assuming that ONLY science can help us is a fallacy. A facile thought.
Why? Because eventually things taken apart begin to reveal their interconnectedness at very small levels and this is EXACTLY what was found by the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
If you read Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber, you’ll see that EVERY ONE of these major scientists in the field of quantum mechanics was ALSO writing and had deeply held beliefs similar to Eastern mysticism, then you start to realize the impact of working at this level of understanding even in science. In other words, consciousness catches up to you.
An example: Two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are obviously absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth. -Neils Bohr
What you also see is that most of these scientists has little understanding of how to relate directly through experience what they were running into. I believe that this is because they has little training that would assist them in understanding it.
Why Does The Particle Have To Be There?
Another amazing ego-centric assumption I was reminded of last night was brought home by a famous double-slit experiment in quantum physics that has (in the minds of scientists anyway) an amazing conclusion about their lack of control in experimentation and measurement.
Why I was so amazed at the level of assumption here was that in yoga and Vedanta philosophy, the main aim is to remember at every moment that you are not separate from anyone or anything. All yoga practice is, in some way or another, supporting this experience. It can be logically argued for, as the great Vedantic teachers have shown, or experienced directly through meditation or devotional practices. There are MANY MANY examples in Indian culture that support this, and the largest scriptural bodies of work (which are a tiny fraction of the actual teachings of these great Masters) on earth support this conclusion also.
East Meet West
Hello. We’re yogis and we’ve been resolving paradoxes for thousands of years. Nice to meet you.
I am just astounded at how cultural assumptions forgot over time how Greek myth and methods were derived. Yes, the Egyptians were there, but ultimately it’s all come from India. As you learn just a little Sanskrit, it’s amazing how the etymology of words in English come from Sanskrit. In Greek myth, Dionysus is remarkably similar to Lord Shiva in the Indian tradition and so on. Scientists who reference Greek thought as the end-all-be-all should look to the root of Greek myth and logic. In the end, knowledge has come from the Vedas. Yes, it’s been expanded, but let’s not forget who your mother is. The Mother of Modern Civilization was NOT Greece, it was India. Indian astrologers understood that the Earth went around the sun 5000 years ago. We forget this because people in Europe had a flat-land mentality at some point.
In the above picture, there appears to be only one direction to head in. Only ONE POSSIBLE CONCLUSION. Welcome To Flatland
Ken Wilber uses this term to describe a theory which lacks the cohesive and cross-discipline connections Art, Morals and Science had before they were split up into their pieces by Modernists:
“Modernity, on the other hand, did manage to differentiate the Big Three of art, morals and science, on a large scale, so that each began to make phenomenal discoveries. But as the Big Three dissociated, and scientific colonialism began its aggressive career, all ‘Is’ and all ‘we’s’ were reduced to patterns of objective ‘its’, and thus all the interior stages of consciousness – reaching from body to mind to soul to spirit – were summarily dismissed as so much superstitious nonsense. The Great Nest collapsed into scientific materialism – into what we will be calling “flatland” – and there the modern world, by and large, still remains.
Our job, it thus appears, is to take the strengths of both premodernity and modernity, and jettison their weaknesses.” Integral Psychology Pp 64-65
We’re SO Shocked
What I wondered was: Why do we assume that the particle CANNOT be influencing another particle across great distances? Why do we assume that the particle must be acting like a particle and not a wave- like in the above experiment? Why do we make all these assumptions about what a particle does or does not do? Ignorance. The particle itself knows it’s own self more than we do, it seems! Why is it that it’s on the particle to demonstrate consistent behavior?
Why do we assume separation between each of us as people or us from animals or us from the environment (and everything else, while we’re at it)? Why would science? Why do scientists? This is why I started off this article talking about ignorance.
Most startling (to scientists) was the assertion that the two slit experiment shocked so many people. She even put up a famous quote from Niels Bohr, of which there are many, that said:
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” - Niels Bohr
What is so shocking? What makes anything so shocking? Well, any fact that contradicts your cultural conditioning. Think about it. Truth has a way of doing that. What is nice is that Niels Bohr himself kindly provides some eloquent quotes that show he has in fact understood the implications of his theories:
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”
“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature...”
Paradox IS Philosophy and Self-Realization
In both, he demonstrates a mystics understanding of the place where metaphysics begins, and philosophy also. These men were clearly great men, and really approached their field with an utmost seriousness and rigor to be so profoundly affected by their own understanding of their discoveries. In our current science-oriented culture where charlatans who claim to know merely propagate the ignorance they hypocritically deride society for having- or worse, don’t understand their own ignorance of how to “make progress” according to Bohr himself, one who really DID understand.
Ultimately, technical or intellectual understanding is far inferior to practical understanding. Here I speak of the practical understanding of ourselves such that we can easily grasp how paradoxes work, as a result of having deeply considered them within ourselves. The yogi or mystic who has considered these things within themselves could easily grasp without being “shocked” the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics, even if on a relatively superficial intellectual level.
Grasping how to move in the world, free of paradox ENTIRELY is something else besides. Freeing one’s self of dualities in totem is the ultimate desire of all spiritual aspiration, if indeed it is sincere.
Yogis ARE Scientists
Given that “an ounce of practice is worth tons of theory” (- Swami Sivananda) then, the practical inner work that would enable one to live in harmony with what the limited mind or intellect can grasp AND what is beyond that mind lay the superior practice of Yoga. The ancient method of Yoga says that ALL your concerns should rather be of that which is practical. Yoga is non-theistic and rather points to a systematic resolution of intellectual, emotional, physical, and metaphysical paradoxes.
In this way, yogis have been approaching, scientifically (in both a left-brained and right-brained manner) for thousands of years (that we know of) the practice of Yoga. Nothing is left out in Yoga and Vedanta. Indeed Vedanta is translated as the “end of knowledge”. Yet, Vedanta is a balanced viewpoint. Even Jnana yogis who study scriptures in an almost anti-social modern university sort of way are understood to be inferior to those who reform their personality in a more complete fashion using all four paths.
Summary
I hope I have shown the fallacy of ignorance based in science. I see it in so many places. The ignorance of the origins of knowledge (inside us) the ignorance of the great realizations and experiences of saints and sages of the past, especially in the East, the ignorance of the MASSIVE body of work produced by thousands of years of yogic scientists, both left and right brain oriented, and lastly the responsibility we have to really pay attention to the information we’re being given and the assumptions behind it. I hope I’ve been clear and thorough.
Fundamentally, my main issue with the way that this science is presented in general, I will go into specifics later, is the startling lack of grasp of what REAL scientists, philosophers and so on have always known: India is the mother of all science, religion, myth, mysticism and mathematics. Here are many many pages of quotes from the most esteemed of these:
What is India?
View more documents from SALIL GEWALI.
Ignorance Explained
To start with, I’d like to restate an obvious point: the main problem in human life is ignorance. Ignorance is a result of the presence of tamas in the mind. Tamas is heavy, dark and results in one-half of the psychological phenomenon known as The Shadow. Keeping aside a more correct explanation of tamas than is provided by Wikipedia, I’d like to say that tamas, as a guna, creates as a side effect, ignorance. See the Artlcle on The Gunas.
A Different View of Intelligence
John Dosbon, the inspiration behind this post, said it like this:
“For any cosmological model in which the Universe is considered to be "actual", the problem of the origin of sentiency and intelligence is insoluble. But if the Universe is apparitional, sentiency is in it from the word "go". Even the atoms are "sentient". We have senses for the perception of gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism, because the individual protoplasmic cells can respond to these same five kinds of energy. And the cells can respond to them because the atoms respond to them. The atoms themselves respond to gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism. The plumb bob "knows" where the Earth is, and the electron "knows" where the proton is. Sentiency is in this from the word "go", because the underlying existence is "involved" in what we see and must show through. It is hopeless to expect that something like sentiency or intelligence, or anything, for that matter, could arise by "evolution" (as a rose evolves from a bud), unless it was first put in by "involution". The reason the oak tree can "evolve" from the acorn is because it was first put in the acorn through "involution" by the parent trees. But in the case of the tree and the acorn, the involution is by transformational causation, parinama. Whereas, in the case of the underlying existence and the Universe, the involution is by apparitional causation, or vivarta. What underlies the Universe is involved by apparition in us and what we see. And since what underlies all this is infinite, there is no knowing what may evolve. (1)
The expectation that sentiency and intelligence might arise from "inert matter" is contrary to all the experience of our race. But matter is not inert. It is "ert", (it moves by itself) because what underlies the apparition shows through. And the notion that what is more might evolve from what is less is beyond the domain of reason.”
The implication of this is that being ignorant goes against nature. I happen to agree. We live in a time and culture that raises ignorance in every form up to something which is somehow desireable!
Before The Greeks
It seems that ALL science books I read refer back to the Greek civilization as a beginning point, the seed of all modern knowledge, exclusive of ANY other cultural influences. There are many articles (and indeed whole books) which talk fairly explicitly about what cultures did what BEFORE the Greeks. This new trend of so-called “superstar” scientists on their own holy war regarding science-as-religion (Richard Dawkins and his proteges)- they are the worst offenders in a long line of eurocentric scientists who sound more like ego-centric, rather than euro-centric scientists in the end.
Eurocentrism Defined Is Deconstructionism
At some point, this focus on the Greeks forgot all about one of the most prominent of Greek philosophy: Plotinus. One may debate whether Plotinus was a non-dualist or a monist as this man does, but I am in line with Ken Wilber on this one- he was a non-dualist, or at the very least was taught and influenced by non-dual thought from the East, as many philosophers were during his time.
In general, however, an ego-centric view is seen to be had by many deconstructionist scientists and this Mr. Hines is the least offender- if you want to be really offended, try debating (or just listening to) so-called comedian (and Dawkins protege’) Bill Maher. Bill Maher is essentially a television bully (not a comedian)- interrupting, name calling and so on. Because Bill Maher agrees with gay marriage and holds some other humanistic opinions doesn’t give him a free pass to ignore all science and philosophy that came before the Greeks just because he believes in a (currently successful) materialistic/scientific philosophy. He’s a slave to his left brain as much as any other bully egotist.
Quoting from Mr. Hines, the author of the monist view of Plotinus in the last link above:
“...obviously I don't know what ultimate reality is like. Nobody does, Ken Wilber included. All we can do is look at evidence and come to the best conclusions we can. I've got a strong scientific bent. It seems to me that understanding the observable universe is the best first step (and maybe the last step) toward grasping unseen mysteries.”
So, the conclusion that ONLY science holds the answers seems to be arrived at by MANY scientists- and I’ll point out that Deborah Hearn was NOT saying these things in an intentional way like Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins, nor was she on some holy war like they are- but rather she was brought up and her perspective is largely informed by a culture devoted to (and enslaved by) the left brain.
The left brain has a tendency, along with how we’ve been taught (that is key) in a Cartesian method of thinking that essentially says everything is separate. The subsequent success of this divided approach is apparent in modern technology. Still, we’re slow, as a culture to catch up to the implications of Quantum Mechanics. Looking back, it takes between 50-100 years to begin to grasp the implications societally of what our highest minds are achieving in science and pre-eminent thought. We lack the cultural precedent that Indians have to learn from their vast heritage, and our is almost entirely borrowed.
Check Your Assumptions
The conclusion is the NO ONE CAN KNOW these mysteries, and concurrent with that, another thought also is there almost automatically: NO ONE EVER HAS KNOWN.
The left brain is a seductive and logical taskmaster, especially when one’s perspective becomes too reliant upon it. Lacking a schooling system and a culture of thought that informs the individual about the right brain’s function, I can see how this ignorance arises, especially in science.
Everyone I’ve talked about here MAKES ENORMOUS ASSUMPTIONS regarding all this, and we (the public) buy it hook line and sinker, every time, as we’re surrounded by it constantly. It’s not any LESS ignorant than the idea that there is a vengeful God awaiting us after death, and maybe we’ll go to Hell.
Now, I do believe a great deal of science is good. It’s brought a tremendous amount of both good and bad things to the human race, according to the level of ignorance had by it’s users (see sign above). However, assuming that ONLY science can help us is a fallacy. A facile thought.
Why? Because eventually things taken apart begin to reveal their interconnectedness at very small levels and this is EXACTLY what was found by the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
If you read Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber, you’ll see that EVERY ONE of these major scientists in the field of quantum mechanics was ALSO writing and had deeply held beliefs similar to Eastern mysticism, then you start to realize the impact of working at this level of understanding even in science. In other words, consciousness catches up to you.
An example: Two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are obviously absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth. -Neils Bohr
What you also see is that most of these scientists has little understanding of how to relate directly through experience what they were running into. I believe that this is because they has little training that would assist them in understanding it.
Why Does The Particle Have To Be There?
Another amazing ego-centric assumption I was reminded of last night was brought home by a famous double-slit experiment in quantum physics that has (in the minds of scientists anyway) an amazing conclusion about their lack of control in experimentation and measurement.
Why I was so amazed at the level of assumption here was that in yoga and Vedanta philosophy, the main aim is to remember at every moment that you are not separate from anyone or anything. All yoga practice is, in some way or another, supporting this experience. It can be logically argued for, as the great Vedantic teachers have shown, or experienced directly through meditation or devotional practices. There are MANY MANY examples in Indian culture that support this, and the largest scriptural bodies of work (which are a tiny fraction of the actual teachings of these great Masters) on earth support this conclusion also.
East Meet West
Hello. We’re yogis and we’ve been resolving paradoxes for thousands of years. Nice to meet you.
I am just astounded at how cultural assumptions forgot over time how Greek myth and methods were derived. Yes, the Egyptians were there, but ultimately it’s all come from India. As you learn just a little Sanskrit, it’s amazing how the etymology of words in English come from Sanskrit. In Greek myth, Dionysus is remarkably similar to Lord Shiva in the Indian tradition and so on. Scientists who reference Greek thought as the end-all-be-all should look to the root of Greek myth and logic. In the end, knowledge has come from the Vedas. Yes, it’s been expanded, but let’s not forget who your mother is. The Mother of Modern Civilization was NOT Greece, it was India. Indian astrologers understood that the Earth went around the sun 5000 years ago. We forget this because people in Europe had a flat-land mentality at some point.
In the above picture, there appears to be only one direction to head in. Only ONE POSSIBLE CONCLUSION. Welcome To Flatland
Ken Wilber uses this term to describe a theory which lacks the cohesive and cross-discipline connections Art, Morals and Science had before they were split up into their pieces by Modernists:
“Modernity, on the other hand, did manage to differentiate the Big Three of art, morals and science, on a large scale, so that each began to make phenomenal discoveries. But as the Big Three dissociated, and scientific colonialism began its aggressive career, all ‘Is’ and all ‘we’s’ were reduced to patterns of objective ‘its’, and thus all the interior stages of consciousness – reaching from body to mind to soul to spirit – were summarily dismissed as so much superstitious nonsense. The Great Nest collapsed into scientific materialism – into what we will be calling “flatland” – and there the modern world, by and large, still remains.
Our job, it thus appears, is to take the strengths of both premodernity and modernity, and jettison their weaknesses.” Integral Psychology Pp 64-65
We’re SO Shocked
What I wondered was: Why do we assume that the particle CANNOT be influencing another particle across great distances? Why do we assume that the particle must be acting like a particle and not a wave- like in the above experiment? Why do we make all these assumptions about what a particle does or does not do? Ignorance. The particle itself knows it’s own self more than we do, it seems! Why is it that it’s on the particle to demonstrate consistent behavior?
Why do we assume separation between each of us as people or us from animals or us from the environment (and everything else, while we’re at it)? Why would science? Why do scientists? This is why I started off this article talking about ignorance.
Most startling (to scientists) was the assertion that the two slit experiment shocked so many people. She even put up a famous quote from Niels Bohr, of which there are many, that said:
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” - Niels Bohr
What is so shocking? What makes anything so shocking? Well, any fact that contradicts your cultural conditioning. Think about it. Truth has a way of doing that. What is nice is that Niels Bohr himself kindly provides some eloquent quotes that show he has in fact understood the implications of his theories:
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”
“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature...”
Paradox IS Philosophy and Self-Realization
In both, he demonstrates a mystics understanding of the place where metaphysics begins, and philosophy also. These men were clearly great men, and really approached their field with an utmost seriousness and rigor to be so profoundly affected by their own understanding of their discoveries. In our current science-oriented culture where charlatans who claim to know merely propagate the ignorance they hypocritically deride society for having- or worse, don’t understand their own ignorance of how to “make progress” according to Bohr himself, one who really DID understand.
Ultimately, technical or intellectual understanding is far inferior to practical understanding. Here I speak of the practical understanding of ourselves such that we can easily grasp how paradoxes work, as a result of having deeply considered them within ourselves. The yogi or mystic who has considered these things within themselves could easily grasp without being “shocked” the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics, even if on a relatively superficial intellectual level.
Grasping how to move in the world, free of paradox ENTIRELY is something else besides. Freeing one’s self of dualities in totem is the ultimate desire of all spiritual aspiration, if indeed it is sincere.
Yogis ARE Scientists
Given that “an ounce of practice is worth tons of theory” (- Swami Sivananda) then, the practical inner work that would enable one to live in harmony with what the limited mind or intellect can grasp AND what is beyond that mind lay the superior practice of Yoga. The ancient method of Yoga says that ALL your concerns should rather be of that which is practical. Yoga is non-theistic and rather points to a systematic resolution of intellectual, emotional, physical, and metaphysical paradoxes.
In this way, yogis have been approaching, scientifically (in both a left-brained and right-brained manner) for thousands of years (that we know of) the practice of Yoga. Nothing is left out in Yoga and Vedanta. Indeed Vedanta is translated as the “end of knowledge”. Yet, Vedanta is a balanced viewpoint. Even Jnana yogis who study scriptures in an almost anti-social modern university sort of way are understood to be inferior to those who reform their personality in a more complete fashion using all four paths.
Summary
I hope I have shown the fallacy of ignorance based in science. I see it in so many places. The ignorance of the origins of knowledge (inside us) the ignorance of the great realizations and experiences of saints and sages of the past, especially in the East, the ignorance of the MASSIVE body of work produced by thousands of years of yogic scientists, both left and right brain oriented, and lastly the responsibility we have to really pay attention to the information we’re being given and the assumptions behind it. I hope I’ve been clear and thorough.
Yogic Life and Sex
07/05/10 22:08
This post is in response to a question asked on Facebook by one of our friends regarding sex, and as I wrote it, I thought that it would make a nice article:
"I have a funny Vedic question for you and Regis. What makes it ok for a vedic to have a sexual partnership? Not sure if my new vedic friend knows how it could be ok, so that he won't degrade his ultimate evolution?"
Tantra=Sex?
This also got me to thinking about what the West regards as tantra, which is thought to be akin to “sexual yoga”. A simpler yogic explanation is: mantra (sacred sounds/syllables) + yantra (sacred designs/geometry)= tantra. It is something which is fairly abstract and misunderstood to be sexual, because tantra is found in the union between the male and female energies. Looking at a Lingham is a good way to see a representation of a tantric concept, because it’s a male/female representation, designed to remind you of the unitive nature of the universe. It’s generative because of a misunderstanding and all sexual union arises from it through a basic ignorance of it’s higher, more inclusive principle at work.
Sexual Imagery on Hindu Temples
The above sculpture is found on the outside of a Hindu Sun Temple in South India. Not understanding that it’s representing a superficial aspect of human life, one could think that because these sculptures are found on the OUTSIDE of the temple, that they are therefore MORE IMPORTANT. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are on the outside because they are less important. When you visit these temples, observe how the more subtle and therefore powerful slowly is revealed as you draw closer to the centre of the temple itself, where often you will find a statue, or in some cases, nothing at all.
Understanding the nature of sex against a backdrop of Hindu thought will help tremendously, as one key aspect of the Hindu culture is that reproduction and family life is a main spiritual agreement with God. In Hindu thinking, there are four aims of life (purusarthas), and they are seen in many different contexts. You will see them described slightly differently, depending on the perspective of the speaker. To address the variety of viewpoints shown here and in Vedic thought in general, I like to think of them as planets with a gravitational pull on us, affecting many moons of our psycho-archetypes.
Four Aims of Life
Kama (pleasure, enjoyment)
Artha (security, material concerns)
Dharma (right living, moral life in society)
Moksha (desire for liberation)
Four Phases of Life
In Western Society:
hahaha!
In Eastern Society:
Against these Four Aims, the Four Phases of Life are set, and you can easily see how they are related and support each other:
Brahmacharya Ashrama : Youth, usually age 8 to 24; apprenticeship, studying in a guru-kula with a spiritual teacher, celibate
Grihastha Ashrama: Householder & married family life, usually age 25 to 50, raising children, working, etc.
Vanaprastha Ashrama: Children are grown, job has matured, one begins to phase one's self out of normal running of the family, giving over to children and begins to prepare for the final phase of life. Ages 50-65
Sanyasa Ashrama : One renounces worldly life to prepare for physical death or possible rebirth properly, detaches gradually from sense objects, family, and material objects. Given that spiritual life always focuses on how to detach from all worldly pursuits, it’s easy to see that this might include detachment from one’s wife also. However, often the wife would accompany the husband “into the forest” as it were. Even kings of old did this with their wives, clearing the way for the younger generation to succeed them. Ages 55-Death.
An excellent article on these four stages of life compared with castes is here.
Householder Life
One of these key archetypes is that of the Householder. In the context of householder life family is the main concern. Therefore, artha is security and gathering up those things to secure yourself and your family. In that same context, kama is seen as enjoyment of meals, music, talking between family and friends and yes, even sex with your wife. Then, the "kama" sutra is a series of scriptures devoted to this topic. Note that all this is considered in some way holy. In fact what is difficult to understand for the Western mind is that ALL life is to be spiritualized and understood in that context. In a family context dharma could be understood as fulfilling your role properly as a husband, father, parent, son, daughter, etc. and treating each of these as a relationship to God also. This is a beautiful way in which Hindu thought proceeds. Even a celibate devotee may have a relationship with his chosen form of God (Krishna, Rama, Durga, etc.) in any of those roles too!
The Third Sex
Shown above as a half-man, half-woman diety named Ardhanarishwara (ardha means half), these individuals (and mythic icons) fulfill an important role in society. Mentioned in many places in Hindu thought, scriptures, etc. is the idea of a third sex. People of the third sex are also classified under a larger social category known as the “neutral gender.” Its members are called napumsaka, or “those who do not engage in procreation.” There are five different types of napumsaka people: (1) children; (2) the elderly; (3) the impotent; (4) the celibate, and (5) the third sex. They were all considered to be sexually neutral by Vedic definition and were protected and believed to bring good luck. As a distinct social category, members of the neutral gender did not engage in sexual reproduction. This non-reproductive category played an integral role in the balance of both human society and nature, similar to the way in which asexual bees play out their own particular roles in the operation of a hive. In Hinduism there are no accidents or errors, and everything in nature has a purpose, role, and reason for existence.
The Doshas or the Qualities of Nature
Fundamentally, one must understand the three gunas, or qualities of nature, and the four aims of life and how they combine together. Seen from a energetic standpoint, that of understanding the doshas: vata (air), pitta (fire), kappa (earth) found in Ayurvedic thought, and the subtle doshas: prana (energy), tejas (intellectual energy), and ojas (reserves), respectively; one can understand that restriction of sexual activity is to preserve one's energetic integrity.
To understand this, you must look at how spiritual devotee's spend their time. Aside from being inward focused more than other lifestyles it's largely spent in the pursuit of increasing one's prana or life force, especially at the beginning. Breathing exercises (prana- vital force, yama- control of) increase the relationship with the prana and increase it's flow. Tejas is the mental acuity or force behind intelligence or the mental fire in which understanding of mental topics are "digested". This is naturally similar to the pitta dosha whose energy is closely related to the digestion of food.
The "container" of the life force is found in ojas, however. A lack of ojas due to our typical Western lifestyle of "dispersal" doesn't help us in many ways, and can easily be understood to be weak in many Western aspirants. When one gets sick, one's ojas is low. When one has been working too hard (using prana), not sleeping or eating properly, one's ojas container can develop holes or cracks, allowing the prana to seep out, even while not in a current activity. Much of spiritual life is oriented toward preserving ojas, increasing it, and being aware of it's influence on us, so that we don't waste our energy needlessly.
So, if you think of prana as being air both increasing and flowing more strongly, you will need a container in which to hold this moving flow, like a balloon that must be strongly maintained to contain a large volume of air. The physical manifestation of ojas eventually becomes semen in men and eggs in women. Semen can be thought of like a distillation of ojas (the pinnacle of the subtle doshas) for the purpose of creating another life. It's literally a seed, and as we consume seeds and nuts for their great energy, so also our semen and eggs contain this great potential energy.
Energy and Sex
Dispersing this energy can create a life when having sex, but preserving it can turn that energy (over time) ultimately back into the mumukshu (spiritual aspirant with a burning desire for liberation) who preserves it. Indeed a burning desire is needed to withstand the amount of energy that is available to the person who restricts their sexual impulses consciously. Important to note here is that often restricting the sexual impulse is considered repressive. It is not this I speak of. It is specifically NOT restricting your impulses because they have become out of control in a repressive manner. It is a conscious restriction to achieve a desire that is greater than mere sex itself, a desire for unification with a larger Self.
Spiritual Focus
This mumukshutva "feeling" can overcome us during any of the four phases of life, however, and it's important to understand which you are currently in, before deciding to become celibate or not as a spiritual practice, considering the total context of the culture in which you live, etc. For Westerners, this can create a confusion as to how to proceed through when much of this Hindu thinking is not commonplace here.
It is when you reach a real desire for liberation from birth and death (mumukshutva) that sex recedes in the background with one's awareness of one's larger Self and eventually becomes simply unimportant. This difficulty in "receding" sex is related, as is easily seen, to food and in general the level of sensual desires one has trained into the mind through one's cultural influences. Our Western culture emphasizes personal, individual enjoyment above all else, perpetuating a mythological "frontier" idea in our minds which is simply irrelevant to modern life.
Brahmacharya (misunderstood to be celibacy)
Brahmacharya means literally "under the teaching of Brahma", the mythical 'creator' in Hindu thought. I think people misunderstand the idea of brahmacharya a lot. it is both a phase of life and an approach to spiritual life that recognizes the more subtle nature inherent in our eternal karmic makeup, and where the mind is aware of it, consciously chooses that above the genetic impulse naturally present in the physical body.
In more developed yogis, when one's mind is super-focused on the understanding of one's Self where one's energy and thought dissolves the small-"i" or "personality" into the vast ocean of the larger, "poorna" or fullness- the desire for sex simply becomes secondary and eventually unnecessary.
I have even experienced this myself when pursuing bicycle racing. My desire for sex eventually went to zero, as my focus was just somewhere else, and I sort of "forgot" about the need to have sex or pursue a sensual life at all.
What brahmacharya is, then, is a more right-focused turning away from sensual and material life into something which is more subtle, larger and therefore more "real". What could be better than total completeness compared with sex? Sex doesn't measure up at all in this respect.
Believing Our Way Out
Understand also that genetic impulses are NOT a solution to the karmic problem. Right thinking, according to Vedanta, is the only way to fix the first problem, the problem that got us into this karmic mess we are in now: misunderstanding ourselves to be separate from God.
Many people ask me: "what do I believe in?" I don't. I want to believe my way out of this problem. Sexual impulses ultimately don't assist one in gaining the understanding needed, unless pursued in a spiritual context with a partner who knows and understand the phases of life, and can see what phase of life you yourself are in. It's an important discussion to have.
Spiritual Life vs. Romantic Life
In the West, it can be difficult to find someone who will agree that there is a larger goal to be found in life than the romantic ideal of love between a couple. Neither sex is free of it's influence, either.
This idea is so embedded in our cultural references of songs, movies, music, and interpersonally that we may find ourselves pulled toward it, even where you can see a beautiful spiritually oriented person in front of you. Conflicts can arise between two people who understand love as attachment (which is what all Western culture tells you).
You can see from the phases of life that if a life is to be had according to these principles, it would take a tremendous amount of courage to face this cultural legacy as well as the interpersonal agreement to focus on larger more subtle ways of thinking and living.
Summary
In summary, if sex is to be seen in a larger, more reverential and detached manner in the Hindu way of thinking, then one must consider many subtle factors. While it can be a beautiful and challenging agreement to make with your partner to work toward these subtleties as a couple, using sex as an important reference point (like our culture does) makes little sense without the larger overall context in which to place it. I hope that I've effectively showed this context and answered some questions about it.
Books & Readings
Sex and Superconsciousness (Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh, aka Osho) is a good book for sure to read about sex- probably the best book on that topic available, and clears up many misunderstandings had about Osho regarding sex. It's also a wonderful read about spirituality in general. Specifically, there is a beautiful heart-aching description of the nature of ego in that book that is worthy of a book or article by itself.
I read another one about Buddhism and sex (I forget the name) and from that book it would appear that the Buddha himself had to address ten thousand questions regarding this from his devotees, set up rules around it all and it's been a constant topic since then also.
What I would say is, since this is a more "vedic" question, is that you should read some articles from Swami Dayananda Saraswati or Swami Krishnananda.
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_23.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/sadh/sadh_07.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_76.html
I posted a link to many of Swami Dayananda's articles on my Wall recently, and here is that link: http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhpsds.html
I would read Swami Dayananda's work, as it's very very easy to understand him explain these subtle topics. Especially the one about Viveka- Discerning Realities, and Becoming a Complete Person both which talk about some aspects of the four aims of life.
"I have a funny Vedic question for you and Regis. What makes it ok for a vedic to have a sexual partnership? Not sure if my new vedic friend knows how it could be ok, so that he won't degrade his ultimate evolution?"
Tantra=Sex?
This also got me to thinking about what the West regards as tantra, which is thought to be akin to “sexual yoga”. A simpler yogic explanation is: mantra (sacred sounds/syllables) + yantra (sacred designs/geometry)= tantra. It is something which is fairly abstract and misunderstood to be sexual, because tantra is found in the union between the male and female energies. Looking at a Lingham is a good way to see a representation of a tantric concept, because it’s a male/female representation, designed to remind you of the unitive nature of the universe. It’s generative because of a misunderstanding and all sexual union arises from it through a basic ignorance of it’s higher, more inclusive principle at work.
Sexual Imagery on Hindu Temples
The above sculpture is found on the outside of a Hindu Sun Temple in South India. Not understanding that it’s representing a superficial aspect of human life, one could think that because these sculptures are found on the OUTSIDE of the temple, that they are therefore MORE IMPORTANT. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are on the outside because they are less important. When you visit these temples, observe how the more subtle and therefore powerful slowly is revealed as you draw closer to the centre of the temple itself, where often you will find a statue, or in some cases, nothing at all.
Understanding the nature of sex against a backdrop of Hindu thought will help tremendously, as one key aspect of the Hindu culture is that reproduction and family life is a main spiritual agreement with God. In Hindu thinking, there are four aims of life (purusarthas), and they are seen in many different contexts. You will see them described slightly differently, depending on the perspective of the speaker. To address the variety of viewpoints shown here and in Vedic thought in general, I like to think of them as planets with a gravitational pull on us, affecting many moons of our psycho-archetypes.
Four Aims of Life
Kama (pleasure, enjoyment)
Artha (security, material concerns)
Dharma (right living, moral life in society)
Moksha (desire for liberation)
Four Phases of Life
In Western Society:
hahaha!
In Eastern Society:
Against these Four Aims, the Four Phases of Life are set, and you can easily see how they are related and support each other:
Brahmacharya Ashrama : Youth, usually age 8 to 24; apprenticeship, studying in a guru-kula with a spiritual teacher, celibate
Grihastha Ashrama: Householder & married family life, usually age 25 to 50, raising children, working, etc.
Vanaprastha Ashrama: Children are grown, job has matured, one begins to phase one's self out of normal running of the family, giving over to children and begins to prepare for the final phase of life. Ages 50-65
Sanyasa Ashrama : One renounces worldly life to prepare for physical death or possible rebirth properly, detaches gradually from sense objects, family, and material objects. Given that spiritual life always focuses on how to detach from all worldly pursuits, it’s easy to see that this might include detachment from one’s wife also. However, often the wife would accompany the husband “into the forest” as it were. Even kings of old did this with their wives, clearing the way for the younger generation to succeed them. Ages 55-Death.
An excellent article on these four stages of life compared with castes is here.
Householder Life
One of these key archetypes is that of the Householder. In the context of householder life family is the main concern. Therefore, artha is security and gathering up those things to secure yourself and your family. In that same context, kama is seen as enjoyment of meals, music, talking between family and friends and yes, even sex with your wife. Then, the "kama" sutra is a series of scriptures devoted to this topic. Note that all this is considered in some way holy. In fact what is difficult to understand for the Western mind is that ALL life is to be spiritualized and understood in that context. In a family context dharma could be understood as fulfilling your role properly as a husband, father, parent, son, daughter, etc. and treating each of these as a relationship to God also. This is a beautiful way in which Hindu thought proceeds. Even a celibate devotee may have a relationship with his chosen form of God (Krishna, Rama, Durga, etc.) in any of those roles too!
The Third Sex
Shown above as a half-man, half-woman diety named Ardhanarishwara (ardha means half), these individuals (and mythic icons) fulfill an important role in society. Mentioned in many places in Hindu thought, scriptures, etc. is the idea of a third sex. People of the third sex are also classified under a larger social category known as the “neutral gender.” Its members are called napumsaka, or “those who do not engage in procreation.” There are five different types of napumsaka people: (1) children; (2) the elderly; (3) the impotent; (4) the celibate, and (5) the third sex. They were all considered to be sexually neutral by Vedic definition and were protected and believed to bring good luck. As a distinct social category, members of the neutral gender did not engage in sexual reproduction. This non-reproductive category played an integral role in the balance of both human society and nature, similar to the way in which asexual bees play out their own particular roles in the operation of a hive. In Hinduism there are no accidents or errors, and everything in nature has a purpose, role, and reason for existence.
The Doshas or the Qualities of Nature
Fundamentally, one must understand the three gunas, or qualities of nature, and the four aims of life and how they combine together. Seen from a energetic standpoint, that of understanding the doshas: vata (air), pitta (fire), kappa (earth) found in Ayurvedic thought, and the subtle doshas: prana (energy), tejas (intellectual energy), and ojas (reserves), respectively; one can understand that restriction of sexual activity is to preserve one's energetic integrity.
To understand this, you must look at how spiritual devotee's spend their time. Aside from being inward focused more than other lifestyles it's largely spent in the pursuit of increasing one's prana or life force, especially at the beginning. Breathing exercises (prana- vital force, yama- control of) increase the relationship with the prana and increase it's flow. Tejas is the mental acuity or force behind intelligence or the mental fire in which understanding of mental topics are "digested". This is naturally similar to the pitta dosha whose energy is closely related to the digestion of food.
The "container" of the life force is found in ojas, however. A lack of ojas due to our typical Western lifestyle of "dispersal" doesn't help us in many ways, and can easily be understood to be weak in many Western aspirants. When one gets sick, one's ojas is low. When one has been working too hard (using prana), not sleeping or eating properly, one's ojas container can develop holes or cracks, allowing the prana to seep out, even while not in a current activity. Much of spiritual life is oriented toward preserving ojas, increasing it, and being aware of it's influence on us, so that we don't waste our energy needlessly.
So, if you think of prana as being air both increasing and flowing more strongly, you will need a container in which to hold this moving flow, like a balloon that must be strongly maintained to contain a large volume of air. The physical manifestation of ojas eventually becomes semen in men and eggs in women. Semen can be thought of like a distillation of ojas (the pinnacle of the subtle doshas) for the purpose of creating another life. It's literally a seed, and as we consume seeds and nuts for their great energy, so also our semen and eggs contain this great potential energy.
Energy and Sex
Dispersing this energy can create a life when having sex, but preserving it can turn that energy (over time) ultimately back into the mumukshu (spiritual aspirant with a burning desire for liberation) who preserves it. Indeed a burning desire is needed to withstand the amount of energy that is available to the person who restricts their sexual impulses consciously. Important to note here is that often restricting the sexual impulse is considered repressive. It is not this I speak of. It is specifically NOT restricting your impulses because they have become out of control in a repressive manner. It is a conscious restriction to achieve a desire that is greater than mere sex itself, a desire for unification with a larger Self.
Spiritual Focus
This mumukshutva "feeling" can overcome us during any of the four phases of life, however, and it's important to understand which you are currently in, before deciding to become celibate or not as a spiritual practice, considering the total context of the culture in which you live, etc. For Westerners, this can create a confusion as to how to proceed through when much of this Hindu thinking is not commonplace here.
It is when you reach a real desire for liberation from birth and death (mumukshutva) that sex recedes in the background with one's awareness of one's larger Self and eventually becomes simply unimportant. This difficulty in "receding" sex is related, as is easily seen, to food and in general the level of sensual desires one has trained into the mind through one's cultural influences. Our Western culture emphasizes personal, individual enjoyment above all else, perpetuating a mythological "frontier" idea in our minds which is simply irrelevant to modern life.
Brahmacharya (misunderstood to be celibacy)
Brahmacharya means literally "under the teaching of Brahma", the mythical 'creator' in Hindu thought. I think people misunderstand the idea of brahmacharya a lot. it is both a phase of life and an approach to spiritual life that recognizes the more subtle nature inherent in our eternal karmic makeup, and where the mind is aware of it, consciously chooses that above the genetic impulse naturally present in the physical body.
In more developed yogis, when one's mind is super-focused on the understanding of one's Self where one's energy and thought dissolves the small-"i" or "personality" into the vast ocean of the larger, "poorna" or fullness- the desire for sex simply becomes secondary and eventually unnecessary.
I have even experienced this myself when pursuing bicycle racing. My desire for sex eventually went to zero, as my focus was just somewhere else, and I sort of "forgot" about the need to have sex or pursue a sensual life at all.
What brahmacharya is, then, is a more right-focused turning away from sensual and material life into something which is more subtle, larger and therefore more "real". What could be better than total completeness compared with sex? Sex doesn't measure up at all in this respect.
Believing Our Way Out
Understand also that genetic impulses are NOT a solution to the karmic problem. Right thinking, according to Vedanta, is the only way to fix the first problem, the problem that got us into this karmic mess we are in now: misunderstanding ourselves to be separate from God.
Many people ask me: "what do I believe in?" I don't. I want to believe my way out of this problem. Sexual impulses ultimately don't assist one in gaining the understanding needed, unless pursued in a spiritual context with a partner who knows and understand the phases of life, and can see what phase of life you yourself are in. It's an important discussion to have.
Spiritual Life vs. Romantic Life
In the West, it can be difficult to find someone who will agree that there is a larger goal to be found in life than the romantic ideal of love between a couple. Neither sex is free of it's influence, either.
This idea is so embedded in our cultural references of songs, movies, music, and interpersonally that we may find ourselves pulled toward it, even where you can see a beautiful spiritually oriented person in front of you. Conflicts can arise between two people who understand love as attachment (which is what all Western culture tells you).
You can see from the phases of life that if a life is to be had according to these principles, it would take a tremendous amount of courage to face this cultural legacy as well as the interpersonal agreement to focus on larger more subtle ways of thinking and living.
Summary
In summary, if sex is to be seen in a larger, more reverential and detached manner in the Hindu way of thinking, then one must consider many subtle factors. While it can be a beautiful and challenging agreement to make with your partner to work toward these subtleties as a couple, using sex as an important reference point (like our culture does) makes little sense without the larger overall context in which to place it. I hope that I've effectively showed this context and answered some questions about it.
Books & Readings
Sex and Superconsciousness (Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh, aka Osho) is a good book for sure to read about sex- probably the best book on that topic available, and clears up many misunderstandings had about Osho regarding sex. It's also a wonderful read about spirituality in general. Specifically, there is a beautiful heart-aching description of the nature of ego in that book that is worthy of a book or article by itself.
I read another one about Buddhism and sex (I forget the name) and from that book it would appear that the Buddha himself had to address ten thousand questions regarding this from his devotees, set up rules around it all and it's been a constant topic since then also.
What I would say is, since this is a more "vedic" question, is that you should read some articles from Swami Dayananda Saraswati or Swami Krishnananda.
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_23.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/sadh/sadh_07.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_76.html
I posted a link to many of Swami Dayananda's articles on my Wall recently, and here is that link: http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhpsds.html
I would read Swami Dayananda's work, as it's very very easy to understand him explain these subtle topics. Especially the one about Viveka- Discerning Realities, and Becoming a Complete Person both which talk about some aspects of the four aims of life.
The Nine Modes of Bhakti
06/03/10 21:37
Sometimes seen as independent forms of devotion by some, while others regard them as stages leading to ever higher forms of devotion. The nine different bhavas or attitudes reflect the differences of temperaments and approaches in the devotees. However, the intense love for God is the common factor in all of them.
The nine forms of bhakti (devotion) are:
The ultimate aim of Bhakti Yoga (as with all four paths of yoga) is the mergence of the individual soul in the Divine Absolute. By merging in the ocean of divine love through the practice of devotion, the devotee attains union with the Divine and is liberated from birth and death.
The nine forms of bhakti (devotion) are:
Listening (shravana): Listening to devotional songs, recitations and scriptures can arouse feelings of devotion and love in the listeners.
Chanting (kirtana): Praising the Divine in its various aspects by singing simple songs which are either stories, prayers, divine names or mantras. This is a way of joyfully keeping concentrated on the Divine through music.
Remembrance (smarana): Smarana means to constantly think of the Divine by either recalling the glories and leelas (stories) of the Divine or by constantly repeating the Divine names in a process called japa. Smarana is directly linked to the first step of shravana, listening.
Service at the feet (pada sevana): Worshipping the feet can be a part of the ceremonial worship of a living teacher (guru) or it can also be meant as an attitude of surrender to the guru. The latter has traditionally been outwardly expressed by bowing and/or touching the guru’s feet.
Ritualistic worship (arcana): This is the performance of prescribed devotional rites.
Prostration (vandana): This stage can either be taken literally or symbolically. In the latter case, it would describe an attitude of surrender towards the Divine. As the former, it can be seen as a physical exercise meant to lead to the inner attitude of surrender.
Servant attitude (dasya): This is the stage where the devotee does every act out of service to the Divine Mother or Lord Hanuman is a prime example of this servant attitude.
Friendship (sakhya): Sakhya describes a very intimate, close state of association with God as the result of long, sincere devotional practice. Arjuna is a good example of friendship with The Lord (as in the Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata)
Self-offering (atma-nivedana): This is a stage of complete surrender, where the devotee worships and loves God without any thought of reward or personal gain.
The ultimate aim of Bhakti Yoga (as with all four paths of yoga) is the mergence of the individual soul in the Divine Absolute. By merging in the ocean of divine love through the practice of devotion, the devotee attains union with the Divine and is liberated from birth and death.
The Mechanics of the Mind
18/10/09 21:36
Why Understand The Mind In Yoga?
Even the translation of “yoga chitta vritti nirodha” can be confusing- “yoga is the suspension of the modifications of the mind”. This article will hopefully cover why this is relevant in yoga.
The mind must be described properly to be understood. You describe it so that one can become aware of it's various aspects in order to bring it under control. Since the point of yoga is to suspend the modifications of the mind, then it's clear one must grasp how the mind works.
The mind NOT the brain
It's important to note here, we are not referring to the brain. The brain is considered to be the receiver and physiological "antenna", if you will, of the Mind. The subtle being more powerful than the gross, the mind is considered to 'cause' the brain, not the other way around.
Understand Using Simple Metaphors
The way the mind works can be summarized using metaphors to describe it's various "personalities". At no time are there no thoughts, except in highly advanced yogis.
It is the nature of the mind to create thoughts, like waves lapping on the shore; the waves of thoughts are gradually eroding or depositing on this shore, depending on the nature of what they contain, and how strong the wind is.
The metaphors are as follows:
1) Mind Is Like Water
if one is looking for an accurate reflection of reality, one must have a calm lake of a mind.
Lake, Distorted By Strong Emotions
If one has large distortion, as in the case of strong anger, hate, jealously or other outsized emotions, one will see nothing but huge waves on the mind-lake caused by emotional disturbance. If you can decrease the wind on the lake by controlling the breath, then the amplitude of the waves will decrease.
Beautiful Seashells or Garbage?
This is one goal of yoga to make the lake of the mind like a mirror, free of distortions. As these waves connect to the shore of your life, what they contain can help or hinder like in the metaphor above- they can add or remove material from the shore of your life. They can leave garbage or beautiful shells and rocks. The water can be clear and you can see the life flowing in it well, or it can be silty, muddy and rancorous.
2) Mind Is Like A Monkey
Thoughts often can jump like a "Drunk Monkey Stung by a Scorpion" in the words of Swami Vishnu-devananda:
The thoughts go anywhere they please in delight of their utter freedom one habitually has given them. Squawking and making a great noise all the while, utterly unfocused and random, these thoughts leave you in a state where one can never really say where one is, what one is doing, and what one's priorities are.
One's subconscious mind is filled with information which is bubbling up in emotions caused by the past, some imagination and often is forever allowed to have it's way with one's conscious mind as it likes in this random fashion.
This tendency is exacerbated by our culture of computers, driving, quick-cut television, and persistent cultural drug use (just visit any convenience store- they are like mini drug stores- every sort of caffeinated beverage is available, plus now even more substances are widely in use like guarana, ginseng, etc, etc...)
3) Mind Is Like A Wild Horse
The Mind can be like a wild horse which likes to run in a particular direction in a vast territory and do as it likes. Being large and powerful as it is, it can often feel overpowering and dominating. However, even wild horses can be tamed with patience and a firm yet gentle persistence. I like to think of Seabiscuit in this way. An excellent article on "spirited children" talks about this topic in the same way.
One has to let the animal nature have some part of what it wants as one gets to know it. One must first allow the animal nature represented by the Wild Hose Mind know you are there, then know your intentions, then gradually guiding it to the direction you want it to go.
It will rebel at too many restrictions too quickly, so one must be careful as to not get kicked. If this happens, one is likely never to go near the Wild Horse Mind again, and then many chances are lost and time wasted in making real progress that is only enabled by this discipline. One method to control this is the "little,little" method of Swami Sivananda. One makes a small achievable change and makes it stick. Gradually, those small changes amount of what appears to many to be a complete change with time.
Speaking for myself, I had to treat my mind (and still do when good habits fall away and need re-establishing) in this same clear consistent way. As a coach, I understand the need for this when coaching others, yet I had never considered doing this with my own mind until my fellow ashramites suggested it to me. Thanks Uma Shankar and Anita!
4) Mind Is Like A Shy Lady
The mind hides it's true nature when you examine it, and it looks at you while one is looking away or not paying attention to it. The subconscious mind is full of these sorts of sneaky habits and it has been used to running things on your behalf for a long time. It will trick you in this way often as you work through your unconscious. The point of these yogic practices are to make much of the subconscious conscious, then increasing the super conscious awareness also, so naturally there will be a resistance to unveiling this shy lady and to look at her 'eye to eye'. Yet, it's only through this can the pernicious habits be uncovered.
5) Mind Is Like A Music Record with Grooves
When a record is scratched, the needle must be picked up and placed back at the beginning for the sweet music to begin playing again. Sometimes, doing so can be difficult, as the grooves of these scratches can be quite deep-
yet at the same time, so can the grooves that play sweet music. The grooves get deeper each time you play through either the scratch or the music, so therefore reinforces the problem or positive habit.
5) Mind Is Like A Fan
The mind, when switched off, or if one takes the time to really think about what one says and does- in Buddhism this is called mindfulness, one can slow down the mind. Similarly, when a fan is moving slowly, one can see the individual blades that make the air move, but as it moves faster, one has more difficulty in discerning between one thought, or blade in the metaphorical sense, and another.
Other Functions
The mind has other functions that aren't easily described by a metaphor or cut across several of the above metaphors. Below is how they practically work.
6) Strong Connection To Body/Breath/Senses
That which is beyond names and forms cannot be conceived in the mind and therefore cannot free us of the bondage of the sensual world, or provide a respite to it. Often we are drowning in sensual input from the world, TV, etc. and through concentrated practice we hope to get past them into something more real- more real meaning more subtle in the sense that our human material creations come first from the mind, then are constructed in what we term "reality". Following on from this, we find increasingly subtle states of existence.
7) Mind Thinks In Words & Pictures (Names & Forms)
Words are symbols that we have represented in our minds as a way of learning language. Pictures are the way the mind thinks, and therefore makes a strong reference point from the beginning of life towards the senses. It is impossible to imagine an object without a word coming up to represent it. We have therefore, since the creation of language, there is a propensity toward thinking that all of our representative symbology is reality, while reality itself is FAR more vast and subtle.
In our culture, we hardly even know where our words come from, what they mean, or what the history of language and words are, much less the reality behind them. If we do, we are often in a very very elite segment of the population. We, and by we, I mean the masses, spend much of our mental energy in pursuit of the mere representations of words or images, both spoken and visual, and this has trapped our minds into a very narrow version of "reality". Further, our reality is shaped by the mass media into even narrower ways of thinking.
Even the internet medium I am speaking to you on now is made more appealing (and a lot more time consuming for the author!) by the inclusion of photos.
8) Mind Is Fast & Powerful
The mind brings about thoughts, which are the fastest things in the universe, even faster than the speed of light. Being this way, they are incredibly powerful. The problem is that the faster the thoughts move, the less easy it is to see it rushing by (as in the fan metaphor above).
Therefore, we must learn to slow down the mind by retreating using various methods: meditation, yoga asanas, mouna (silence), etc. to limit the input and distractions so we can examine and focus strongly on each thought to become aware of them much more intimately.
This also means that just like sunlight concentrated through a magnifying glass, limiting the thoughts also produces much power and therefore responsibility. There are various allusions to this sort of thing in Hindu scripture and mythology.
9) Mind Keeps ONLY One Thought At A Time- The Key
If we can limit the input and distractions to the senses and therefore the mind, we can then use this fact to take some more control of our minds.
Mantras are one way of doing this. To read further about mantras, read Swami Vishnu-devananda's great and detailed book- Meditation and Mantras. An example is when you intensely focused on something- a good book or movie, or hard work, sports, etc. one can shut out all senses, pain, and other sense awarenesses towards the focus. This is a major tool of the yoga practice and so using this to counteract the quickness of the mind, and giving it many different ways of seeing god- chanting, mantras, focus point during meditation, karma yoga, etc. all of these give a specifically considered thought to the mind so it can have something to do, and then we focus strongly on that. After some time, this can lead to increased peace and eventually control of the mind and senses.
10) Mind Functions By Association
The mind functions by linking things together that remind you of something else- another time place, smell or other sensual reference. Understanding this and controlling it are important so that you don't spend lots of time reliving the past or imagining the future. Imagination functions largely from this associative place. This association function, left uncontrolled becomes the monkey mind.
11) Mind Is Habitual
The mind and the subconscious are often a mass (or mess, depending) of habits. These habits have been learned (in other words things you didn't necessarily choose, but rather adopted) and therefore can be unlearned. You can make choices about every interaction and every reaction to a stimulus. Seeing that habits are simply learned, one can also identify where one learned certain things and get to the root of problems by looking closely at where you adopted these behaviors, or opting out of them entirely so as not to reinforce them. When you operate out of habits, one is basically behaving as if one was in yesterday or some past time instead of operating out of the present moment or context.
This can be done by metaphorically "not watering" your old undesirable habits- i.e. paying attention to other aspects, and allowing these weeds of the mind to slowly die.
In summary, these are the mechanics of the mind. I have read and heard of differing psychotherapeutic perspectives on this theory, most of which closely resemble what I have outlined here.
Even the translation of “yoga chitta vritti nirodha” can be confusing- “yoga is the suspension of the modifications of the mind”. This article will hopefully cover why this is relevant in yoga.
The mind must be described properly to be understood. You describe it so that one can become aware of it's various aspects in order to bring it under control. Since the point of yoga is to suspend the modifications of the mind, then it's clear one must grasp how the mind works.
The mind NOT the brain
It's important to note here, we are not referring to the brain. The brain is considered to be the receiver and physiological "antenna", if you will, of the Mind. The subtle being more powerful than the gross, the mind is considered to 'cause' the brain, not the other way around.
Understand Using Simple Metaphors
The way the mind works can be summarized using metaphors to describe it's various "personalities". At no time are there no thoughts, except in highly advanced yogis.
It is the nature of the mind to create thoughts, like waves lapping on the shore; the waves of thoughts are gradually eroding or depositing on this shore, depending on the nature of what they contain, and how strong the wind is.
The metaphors are as follows:
1) Mind Is Like Water
if one is looking for an accurate reflection of reality, one must have a calm lake of a mind.
Lake, Distorted By Strong Emotions
If one has large distortion, as in the case of strong anger, hate, jealously or other outsized emotions, one will see nothing but huge waves on the mind-lake caused by emotional disturbance. If you can decrease the wind on the lake by controlling the breath, then the amplitude of the waves will decrease.
Beautiful Seashells or Garbage?
This is one goal of yoga to make the lake of the mind like a mirror, free of distortions. As these waves connect to the shore of your life, what they contain can help or hinder like in the metaphor above- they can add or remove material from the shore of your life. They can leave garbage or beautiful shells and rocks. The water can be clear and you can see the life flowing in it well, or it can be silty, muddy and rancorous.
2) Mind Is Like A Monkey
Thoughts often can jump like a "Drunk Monkey Stung by a Scorpion" in the words of Swami Vishnu-devananda:
The thoughts go anywhere they please in delight of their utter freedom one habitually has given them. Squawking and making a great noise all the while, utterly unfocused and random, these thoughts leave you in a state where one can never really say where one is, what one is doing, and what one's priorities are.
One's subconscious mind is filled with information which is bubbling up in emotions caused by the past, some imagination and often is forever allowed to have it's way with one's conscious mind as it likes in this random fashion.
This tendency is exacerbated by our culture of computers, driving, quick-cut television, and persistent cultural drug use (just visit any convenience store- they are like mini drug stores- every sort of caffeinated beverage is available, plus now even more substances are widely in use like guarana, ginseng, etc, etc...)
3) Mind Is Like A Wild Horse
The Mind can be like a wild horse which likes to run in a particular direction in a vast territory and do as it likes. Being large and powerful as it is, it can often feel overpowering and dominating. However, even wild horses can be tamed with patience and a firm yet gentle persistence. I like to think of Seabiscuit in this way. An excellent article on "spirited children" talks about this topic in the same way.
One has to let the animal nature have some part of what it wants as one gets to know it. One must first allow the animal nature represented by the Wild Hose Mind know you are there, then know your intentions, then gradually guiding it to the direction you want it to go.
It will rebel at too many restrictions too quickly, so one must be careful as to not get kicked. If this happens, one is likely never to go near the Wild Horse Mind again, and then many chances are lost and time wasted in making real progress that is only enabled by this discipline. One method to control this is the "little,little" method of Swami Sivananda. One makes a small achievable change and makes it stick. Gradually, those small changes amount of what appears to many to be a complete change with time.
Speaking for myself, I had to treat my mind (and still do when good habits fall away and need re-establishing) in this same clear consistent way. As a coach, I understand the need for this when coaching others, yet I had never considered doing this with my own mind until my fellow ashramites suggested it to me. Thanks Uma Shankar and Anita!
4) Mind Is Like A Shy Lady
The mind hides it's true nature when you examine it, and it looks at you while one is looking away or not paying attention to it. The subconscious mind is full of these sorts of sneaky habits and it has been used to running things on your behalf for a long time. It will trick you in this way often as you work through your unconscious. The point of these yogic practices are to make much of the subconscious conscious, then increasing the super conscious awareness also, so naturally there will be a resistance to unveiling this shy lady and to look at her 'eye to eye'. Yet, it's only through this can the pernicious habits be uncovered.
5) Mind Is Like A Music Record with Grooves
When a record is scratched, the needle must be picked up and placed back at the beginning for the sweet music to begin playing again. Sometimes, doing so can be difficult, as the grooves of these scratches can be quite deep-
yet at the same time, so can the grooves that play sweet music. The grooves get deeper each time you play through either the scratch or the music, so therefore reinforces the problem or positive habit.
5) Mind Is Like A Fan
The mind, when switched off, or if one takes the time to really think about what one says and does- in Buddhism this is called mindfulness, one can slow down the mind. Similarly, when a fan is moving slowly, one can see the individual blades that make the air move, but as it moves faster, one has more difficulty in discerning between one thought, or blade in the metaphorical sense, and another.
Other Functions
The mind has other functions that aren't easily described by a metaphor or cut across several of the above metaphors. Below is how they practically work.
6) Strong Connection To Body/Breath/Senses
- Mind has a strong connection to Body: In Yoga, we use asanas (yoga postures) to learn to control the body and therefore the mind.
- Mind has a strong connection to Breath: In Yoga, we use pranayama (breath exercises) to learn to control the wind on the lake of the mind in a similar fashion to asananas with the body.
- Mind has a strong connection to Senses: The senses rule the mind quite often and provide fodder for the imaginations and memories of smells and so forth, giving rise to many of the above metaphors and their interplay. The senses can only see/hear/touch/smell the names and forms of Maya (the cosmic illusion of duality we all experience).
That which is beyond names and forms cannot be conceived in the mind and therefore cannot free us of the bondage of the sensual world, or provide a respite to it. Often we are drowning in sensual input from the world, TV, etc. and through concentrated practice we hope to get past them into something more real- more real meaning more subtle in the sense that our human material creations come first from the mind, then are constructed in what we term "reality". Following on from this, we find increasingly subtle states of existence.
7) Mind Thinks In Words & Pictures (Names & Forms)
Words are symbols that we have represented in our minds as a way of learning language. Pictures are the way the mind thinks, and therefore makes a strong reference point from the beginning of life towards the senses. It is impossible to imagine an object without a word coming up to represent it. We have therefore, since the creation of language, there is a propensity toward thinking that all of our representative symbology is reality, while reality itself is FAR more vast and subtle.
In our culture, we hardly even know where our words come from, what they mean, or what the history of language and words are, much less the reality behind them. If we do, we are often in a very very elite segment of the population. We, and by we, I mean the masses, spend much of our mental energy in pursuit of the mere representations of words or images, both spoken and visual, and this has trapped our minds into a very narrow version of "reality". Further, our reality is shaped by the mass media into even narrower ways of thinking.
Even the internet medium I am speaking to you on now is made more appealing (and a lot more time consuming for the author!) by the inclusion of photos.
8) Mind Is Fast & Powerful
The mind brings about thoughts, which are the fastest things in the universe, even faster than the speed of light. Being this way, they are incredibly powerful. The problem is that the faster the thoughts move, the less easy it is to see it rushing by (as in the fan metaphor above).
Therefore, we must learn to slow down the mind by retreating using various methods: meditation, yoga asanas, mouna (silence), etc. to limit the input and distractions so we can examine and focus strongly on each thought to become aware of them much more intimately.
This also means that just like sunlight concentrated through a magnifying glass, limiting the thoughts also produces much power and therefore responsibility. There are various allusions to this sort of thing in Hindu scripture and mythology.
9) Mind Keeps ONLY One Thought At A Time- The Key
If we can limit the input and distractions to the senses and therefore the mind, we can then use this fact to take some more control of our minds.
Mantras are one way of doing this. To read further about mantras, read Swami Vishnu-devananda's great and detailed book- Meditation and Mantras. An example is when you intensely focused on something- a good book or movie, or hard work, sports, etc. one can shut out all senses, pain, and other sense awarenesses towards the focus. This is a major tool of the yoga practice and so using this to counteract the quickness of the mind, and giving it many different ways of seeing god- chanting, mantras, focus point during meditation, karma yoga, etc. all of these give a specifically considered thought to the mind so it can have something to do, and then we focus strongly on that. After some time, this can lead to increased peace and eventually control of the mind and senses.
10) Mind Functions By Association
The mind functions by linking things together that remind you of something else- another time place, smell or other sensual reference. Understanding this and controlling it are important so that you don't spend lots of time reliving the past or imagining the future. Imagination functions largely from this associative place. This association function, left uncontrolled becomes the monkey mind.
11) Mind Is Habitual
The mind and the subconscious are often a mass (or mess, depending) of habits. These habits have been learned (in other words things you didn't necessarily choose, but rather adopted) and therefore can be unlearned. You can make choices about every interaction and every reaction to a stimulus. Seeing that habits are simply learned, one can also identify where one learned certain things and get to the root of problems by looking closely at where you adopted these behaviors, or opting out of them entirely so as not to reinforce them. When you operate out of habits, one is basically behaving as if one was in yesterday or some past time instead of operating out of the present moment or context.
This can be done by metaphorically "not watering" your old undesirable habits- i.e. paying attention to other aspects, and allowing these weeds of the mind to slowly die.
In summary, these are the mechanics of the mind. I have read and heard of differing psychotherapeutic perspectives on this theory, most of which closely resemble what I have outlined here.
The Fundamentals of Stress Management
10/02/09 21:33
The Fundamentals of Stress Management, as a topic, is one that can be covered simply in three steps:
- Slow to Moderate Movements (Asanas, or yoga postures)
- Breath Control & Mindfulness (Pranayama & Withdrawal of the Senses)
- Meditation (Withdrawal of the Senses and Concentration)
We will cover them one by one.
Symptoms of Stress
Many people come to us asking about how to relieve stress or to tell us that their lives have become unmanageable for one reason or another. The feedback they have begun to get from their friends and family is that they are stressed out- or not treating people with their accustomed manner.
They may have any number of accompanying physical symptoms of this as well; these range from anger, anxiety attacks, and elevated heart rate to pinched nerves, pain in various parts of the body, etc. They also may have a difficulty in digestion, inability to concentrate, difficulty sleeping, sensitivity to light or noise, short temper during driving, or a need to always have some form of stimulus going in the background- like music or TV- sometimes even during sleep.
Slow to Moderate Movements
By moving slowly and with attention, like the tree sloth above :-), accompanied by keen breath awareness, one begins to solve the puzzle of stress. In a way, you trick the mind from it’s normal jumpy nature into concentrating on small details of movements and moving toward an ability to match up the inhale and exhale of the breath with those movements.
By connecting the slow/moderate movements to the breath, one can then begin to really observe the breath and it’s relationship to muscular tension. It’s often surprising to people to note how much tension they can observe in muscles that they weren’t even aware of. As practice continues, the extra effort that seems to be made constantly in unfamiliar ranges of motion slowly disappears.
Often people find themselves sweating quite a bit more than they imagine for moving so slowly, and a clearer picture of how much extra effort it takes to hold so much tension in the body.
At the start, one’s challenge is to learn one’s limits and realize where extra tension lay in the body. Additionally, there is often pain caused by the extra tension, and so one must be careful to not be ambitious about how many postures or how far one can move in them. It’s best to not look around overly, but rather to keep one’s attention focused on one’s own body and breathing.
Stress is taken away by forcing the movements to become much more deliberate and gradually the connection to the breath can come. This tends to have an effect on the stress level by raising the energy level. This happens initially because tension inhibits the natural balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to emphasize the sympathetic. Since all muscles come in pairs, one muscle’s controlling nerves are meant to relax while the other contracts. Stress makes tension exist in muscles even when it’s appropriate for them to be relaxing, so the body fights itself, using extra energy in each movement.
Breath Control and Mindfulness
While breathing and mindfulness are a part of slowing down movements, when we have learned how to move and the basics of the postures, this stage take real significance.
You will know you have reached this part of your yoga practice because one will no longer be able to do any yoga postures without really integrating and aligning the breath. Your yoga teacher will be telling you about what to do, and you will begin to really feel your way around the pose, as the breath begins to guide the movements, instead of moving somehow in spite of it!
It is at this point, the practical effect of pranayama (breath control exercises) is to erode one’s stress by making one focus clearly on the control of the flywheel of emotional life. As a man breathes, so he conducts his affairs.
Mindfulness is a part where one then begins to take the subtle nature of one’s breath awareness and apply it to your emotional states during postures. Sometimes we want to push to learn a pose, or move too fast. We will have a subconscious reaction to holding a challenging pose and begin to work through those. Those with back stiffness or issues can often feel difficulty holding sitting forward bend or half-spinal twist. Since yoga is about balance, one begins to gain an understanding of the parts of your personal yoga practice that don’t contribute to holding the balance in postures, then finally inside one’s mind and emotional being.
Meditation
All of the previous activities in yoga are necessarily having an end in meditation. Meditation is the final culmination of all other ethical, movement, breathing, sense withdrawal and concentration activities found in intermediate to advanced yoga practice.
Far from merely sitting without doing anything; meditation is action in inaction. According to the Bhagavad Gita:
In verse 18 of Chapter 4, Lord Krishna proceeds to explain action and inaction. He says “ One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position, although engaged in all sorts of activities.”
This principle can also be called, according to Taoism: Wu Wei. Doing without doing.
Many are the benefits of meditation, and in all areas of life. Even though initially, meditation as we think of it isn’t really meditation in a technical sense. Meditation in a technical sense in an unbroken flow of thought toward the silent infinite.
We CAN gradually calm our thoughts down, however, through physical silence. When we first start to sit in silence, our task is to calm down our body and with this will follow a sense of calm in the mental realm as well. We follow this, as above, with breath awareness and gradually slowing the breath to an imperceptible rhythm. Like the lake above, without wind, the mind will not arise with waves- and the mind of the lake will be as calm and beautiful to experience as the photo promises.
With repeated practice, one can call upon the depth of the lake’s treasure at a moment’s notice and relieve stresses, even in the most difficult situations. This is all trainable and possible to everyone. You can see a good demonstration here of meditation:
We hope you can join us in learning, as we have, of this depth awaiting you in yoga.
Om,
DurgaDas and Leila
Yoga Class Etiquette
10/02/09 21:31
- Inform your teacher of any injuries or health problems you may have before class.
- Be on time for class. Best to be a couple of minutes early. If you're a new student, plan to arrive 15 minutes early to your first class.
- Bring a yoga mat if you have one. If not, we have a few loaners.
- Bring only the items needed for class into the practice area- yoga mat, towels and water. Please leave bags, cell phones and such in the changing room. Turn off cell phones.
- Try to observe silence in the practice area for a few minutes before, during (as much as possible) and after class.
- Try to ask questions well before or after class, as class should feel somewhat meditative. However, if you're uncomfortable or unsure about your asana, please ask!
- Be courteous if you need to leave the class. Try to leave quietly and between asanas. If you know before class that you must leave early, let your teacher know and kindly place yourself by the door.
- If you have any questions and/or concerns about anything pertaining to your yoga practice, please ask your teacher!
Swami Sivananda Daily Readings1
28/01/09 19:53
Just reflect for a while when you have failed in an attempt. Try to
be more careful in the next attempt. Try to remove those factors that
led you to fail previously. Fortify yourself now. Be careful and
vigilant. Be active and nimble as the squirrel. Be quick and at the
same time be capable and efficient. Do not commit mistakes.
Call forth all your latent energies or dormant faculties. When the
house is on fire - how alert you are. How skilfully and promptly you
act at that particular moment. You do not know where the power and
the energy are flowing from at that time. You are fully concentrated.
You contrive by skilful methods, then and there, to save your
property and the lives of those dwelling in the house. You do
marvellous actions and then, when the difficulty is over you say that
some mysterious `power of God' has worked through you!
Always cut the Gordian knot at once. Do not waste time. When once you
have resolved on a definite line of action, carry it out dexterously,
with a cool and calculating deliberation and consideration.
Procrastination is the thief of time. One who procrastinates can
never succeed in life, or in any of his undertakings.
The vast majority of persons, even so-called `educated' people, have
no definite aim in life. They drift here and there like a log of wood
on a restless ocean. They do not know what to do. After finishing
their B.A. or M.A. courses students do not know how to proceed. They
do not have power of judgment to select any good vocation that is
suitable to their temperament, that will bring them prosperity in
life. They become lazy. They are not suitable for any kind of
speculative business or any kind of activity demanding knack, pluck
and skill.
In persons of this sort, those who waste their time and energy, they
finish their life's career in gloom, despair and sorrow. The energy,
the intellect are there but they have no ideal, no clear-cut
programme of life. Their life is a failure.
Clearly understand the purpose of life. Then chalk out the line of
work that is congenial to your aim. Live up to your ideal. You can
realise the ideal right now, this very second. But if you walk with
faltering steps it will take ten years. The ideal must be there and
then you can develop your will.
-H.H. Swami Sivananda
be more careful in the next attempt. Try to remove those factors that
led you to fail previously. Fortify yourself now. Be careful and
vigilant. Be active and nimble as the squirrel. Be quick and at the
same time be capable and efficient. Do not commit mistakes.
Call forth all your latent energies or dormant faculties. When the
house is on fire - how alert you are. How skilfully and promptly you
act at that particular moment. You do not know where the power and
the energy are flowing from at that time. You are fully concentrated.
You contrive by skilful methods, then and there, to save your
property and the lives of those dwelling in the house. You do
marvellous actions and then, when the difficulty is over you say that
some mysterious `power of God' has worked through you!
Always cut the Gordian knot at once. Do not waste time. When once you
have resolved on a definite line of action, carry it out dexterously,
with a cool and calculating deliberation and consideration.
Procrastination is the thief of time. One who procrastinates can
never succeed in life, or in any of his undertakings.
The vast majority of persons, even so-called `educated' people, have
no definite aim in life. They drift here and there like a log of wood
on a restless ocean. They do not know what to do. After finishing
their B.A. or M.A. courses students do not know how to proceed. They
do not have power of judgment to select any good vocation that is
suitable to their temperament, that will bring them prosperity in
life. They become lazy. They are not suitable for any kind of
speculative business or any kind of activity demanding knack, pluck
and skill.
In persons of this sort, those who waste their time and energy, they
finish their life's career in gloom, despair and sorrow. The energy,
the intellect are there but they have no ideal, no clear-cut
programme of life. Their life is a failure.
Clearly understand the purpose of life. Then chalk out the line of
work that is congenial to your aim. Live up to your ideal. You can
realise the ideal right now, this very second. But if you walk with
faltering steps it will take ten years. The ideal must be there and
then you can develop your will.
-H.H. Swami Sivananda
Where DId Yoga Originate?
18/12/08 19:32
Here is a bit of writing we did in answer to the WikiAnswers question- “where did yoga originate?” The Answer I saw there was “india”. I thought it could use some more exposition, so I wrote the following instead and thought it would be good to post here:
Patanjali
That Yoga originated in India is a simple answer geographically, but temporally it was the more formalized and systematized understanding in the public consciousness after the publishing of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras that describe the 8 limbs or rungs of progress (up the ladder of yoga) or; asht(8)-anga(limbs) yoga that caused the general absorption of Sankhya philosophy into Yoga and Vedanta.
This is a more accurate way of saying it, rather than saying that, for example, rock-n-roll music originated in America. Rock music was popularized by Elvis Presley, even though his way was cleared by Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and completed by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and others subsequently.
In the same way, the strongly dualistic manner of presentation of philosophy present in Sankhya philosophy is subsumed into the larger and more encompassing Vedantic context it exists in now.
As in all cultures, it takes an event or personality behind a philosophy- the release of a book, a political event or some art form to push something to the forefront. Sage Patanjali was this for yoga, as a system, with the release of the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. Here is a book written by Swami Satchitananda, a disciple of Swami Sivananda about these Sutras:
To provide some cultural context, Yoga is a part of six systems of philosophy in India; essentially, six different ways of interpreting the Vedas:
Vaishesika and Nyaya have very large consistencies between them, although Currently, the general presentation of yoga in the world's consciousness can be described as fitting in well with a world view known as Smartism.
With the rise of Adi Shankara and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras these six views have largely been integrated into either yoga or Vedanta or both. Major forces in the rise of these yoga philosophies has been Swami Sivananda and his many influential disciples (particularly in the West), Sri Ramakrishna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda (Vedanta), and the various other more body-focused schools like the Bihar School of Yoga, The Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres, Integral Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga via Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his guru Krishnamacharya, BKS Iyengar, etc.
Patanjali
That Yoga originated in India is a simple answer geographically, but temporally it was the more formalized and systematized understanding in the public consciousness after the publishing of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras that describe the 8 limbs or rungs of progress (up the ladder of yoga) or; asht(8)-anga(limbs) yoga that caused the general absorption of Sankhya philosophy into Yoga and Vedanta.
This is a more accurate way of saying it, rather than saying that, for example, rock-n-roll music originated in America. Rock music was popularized by Elvis Presley, even though his way was cleared by Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and completed by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and others subsequently.
In the same way, the strongly dualistic manner of presentation of philosophy present in Sankhya philosophy is subsumed into the larger and more encompassing Vedantic context it exists in now.
As in all cultures, it takes an event or personality behind a philosophy- the release of a book, a political event or some art form to push something to the forefront. Sage Patanjali was this for yoga, as a system, with the release of the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. Here is a book written by Swami Satchitananda, a disciple of Swami Sivananda about these Sutras:
To provide some cultural context, Yoga is a part of six systems of philosophy in India; essentially, six different ways of interpreting the Vedas:
- Yoga - the process of union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness
- Vedanta - knowledge of Self, universe and God.
- Sankhya - philosophical and largely dualistic classification of the universe
- Vaishesika - analysis and characterising of the universe
- Nyaya - logic. Essentially the 'Aristotelian logic of India', it is the fundamental logical basis upon which Indian philosophy has been built
- Purva-Mimamsa - laws of formal religion, sacrifices, etc. The emphasis here is on correct action (orthopraxy) rather than correct belief (orthodoxy).
Vaishesika and Nyaya have very large consistencies between them, although Currently, the general presentation of yoga in the world's consciousness can be described as fitting in well with a world view known as Smartism.
With the rise of Adi Shankara and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras these six views have largely been integrated into either yoga or Vedanta or both. Major forces in the rise of these yoga philosophies has been Swami Sivananda and his many influential disciples (particularly in the West), Sri Ramakrishna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda (Vedanta), and the various other more body-focused schools like the Bihar School of Yoga, The Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres, Integral Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga via Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his guru Krishnamacharya, BKS Iyengar, etc.
What Is Classical Yoga?
12/12/08 19:33
In our experience teaching yoga, we have noticed that many people use yoga as exercise or for flexibility or even spirituality ‘lite’. DurgaDas was trained for some time in a classical monastic tradition, and both DurgaDas and Shakti took their yoga teacher training from a Classical Yoga organization- the Sivananda organization. Fundamentally, this method of teaching, therefore, follows in the philosophical vein of Smartism.
Even though our perspective is informed by other traditions and methods, the core of our teaching could be summarized as follows:
Even though our perspective is informed by other traditions and methods, the core of our teaching could be summarized as follows:
- An ancient system of knowledge based on the Vedas and Yoga scriptures. The understanding transmitted is larger than any individual.
- The method of transmission is through a lineage of spiritual teachers (masters/gurus) to students (disciples) in the Gurukula system; literally "in the house" (kula) with the remover (gu) of darkness (ru). What is transmitted is beyond mere information, but also attitudes and spiritual energy.
- It is a complete system. Yoga teachings are not intended to be partial; the yogic teaching system includes body/mind/spirit unifying practices including yoga postures, diet, austerities, ethics, meditation and much more.
- It is a discipline and the training is rigorous: it is not a quick fix and takes time. The student needs to be consistent, persistent and put effort into it.
- It is universal - not sectarian: the teachings are good for all, irrespective of cultural, religious backgrounds and other social conditions.
- It is selfless - spiritual knowledge can not be sold. All teachers are expected to behave with a spirit of karma yoga, detached from the fruits of their efforts.
- The goal is inner peace or Self-realization: i.e. realization of one's highest potentials.
The Five Points of Yoga & Faith
09/12/08 19:18
To carry forward the car metaphor regarding the 5 Points of Yoga of Swami Vishnu-devananda further, one could talk about faith in a car metaphor also.
Faith is a belief predicated upon nothing except a transcendence itself. The weight of transcendence can be seen in faith. If one uses the Five Points of Yoga as shown by Swami Vishnu-devananda:
Point (Car Metaphor in parentheses)
1 Proper Exercise (Lubrication)
2 Proper Breathing (Battery)
3 Proper Relaxation (Cooling system)
4 Proper Diet (Fuel)
5 Positive Thinking and Meditation (Good Driver behind the wheel)
then one has a well-equipped vehicle with which to negotiate the path one is on.
But what of the path itself? Is there anything we can say about this path, that clearly transcends the "I'-ness and "my-ness" ideas? Does the path itself being negotiated have any impact upon us? Surely it does.
One could teach a student of the 5 points of Swami Vishnu-devananda knowing that his time-tested method will work. Swami Vishnu-devananda created this metaphor for Americans because they saw how dominated they are by the culture of cars, even in the late 50’s when he arrived here, himself not knowing how to drive.
Yet the matter of the motive power behind the laying of these foundational teachings has yet to be described. One does not drive upon a road without precedent, without rules and protocols. People before you and after you will travel this path, pave it, leaving signs along the way for us to follow. These are the hidden personages surrounding us in spiritual life. These are the subtle (and oftentimes unconscious) reasons why people come to a physical location like an ashram or a retreat center and look to it to create an energy in their life that they feel to be missing.
An ashram or retreat center is little more than a place where the path is more well-maintained, and it makes the going forward easier. Much energy is spent in this maintenance by center or ashram staff. Classes are taught, an environment created, food served; all bent towards the one idea to carry you further with your own efforts by these subtle hands pushing your forward.
So what is this the protocol behind all of this? It’s faith.
Faith is ultimately the most practical and useful tool one has in spiritual life. Faith is the ability to visualize something one cannot yet see or feel, and then intention holds the visualization to the fire of faith, and continues holding it. The silent intention is very important. Intention is the arm that holds the weight of your closest desires for happiness and for a long time. Faith is so close to us, and often we can take it for granted and can lose our awareness of it.
It is closer to us than the clothing we wear. It is dearer to us than our next meal, yet somehow it's also forgotten for what it truly is. Why could one call faith practical? In what way is it used in daily life?
Imagine for a moment, you in your car, developed (more or less) through your own efforts in Swami Vishnu-devananda's 5 Points. You are well-lubricated, energetic, cool, full of fuel, and know how to operate your vehicle. Still, one can get onto the path, begin traveling and have a crash, or a breakdown in one’s mental state.
What are the reasons for crashing or breaking down? One is certainly free to drive off the road- yet since one is quite capable in handling the vehicle, this is not that likely-especially if one lives in an ashram or retreat center.
Still, somehow we often desire to drive off the road, right? One could be traveling a hard road- maybe your karma is such that your car would overheat going up the large hills you have to negotiate. One could overheat, get tired, frustrated and take a break, or give up entirely.
You could get lost- one could listen to the wrong person giving directions, or, you yourself might even think it's not necessary to ask for directions! While this is not a crash or a breakdown, you could say it is, in a way, because you are clearly driving. While maybe you are learning your way around, it much harder on the vehicle to drive over old broken roads and through wilderness than it is to travel a well-maintained road. These ideas are all eminently practical ones. Yoga is a practical path, if nothing else.
So what does faith have to do with any of this? Faith is the belief that 1) You are on the RIGHT road; 2) Going in the right direction; 3) Know where to turn to avoid the wrong road and/or rough roads; 4) When traveling on this road- someone will not cross over the double yellow line in the middle and hit you.
These are all quite practical protocols for moving through spiritual life, and quite necessary to remind ourselves of, as we travel.
Faith is a belief predicated upon nothing except a transcendence itself. The weight of transcendence can be seen in faith. If one uses the Five Points of Yoga as shown by Swami Vishnu-devananda:
Point (Car Metaphor in parentheses)
1 Proper Exercise (Lubrication)
2 Proper Breathing (Battery)
3 Proper Relaxation (Cooling system)
4 Proper Diet (Fuel)
5 Positive Thinking and Meditation (Good Driver behind the wheel)
then one has a well-equipped vehicle with which to negotiate the path one is on.
But what of the path itself? Is there anything we can say about this path, that clearly transcends the "I'-ness and "my-ness" ideas? Does the path itself being negotiated have any impact upon us? Surely it does.
One could teach a student of the 5 points of Swami Vishnu-devananda knowing that his time-tested method will work. Swami Vishnu-devananda created this metaphor for Americans because they saw how dominated they are by the culture of cars, even in the late 50’s when he arrived here, himself not knowing how to drive.
Yet the matter of the motive power behind the laying of these foundational teachings has yet to be described. One does not drive upon a road without precedent, without rules and protocols. People before you and after you will travel this path, pave it, leaving signs along the way for us to follow. These are the hidden personages surrounding us in spiritual life. These are the subtle (and oftentimes unconscious) reasons why people come to a physical location like an ashram or a retreat center and look to it to create an energy in their life that they feel to be missing.
An ashram or retreat center is little more than a place where the path is more well-maintained, and it makes the going forward easier. Much energy is spent in this maintenance by center or ashram staff. Classes are taught, an environment created, food served; all bent towards the one idea to carry you further with your own efforts by these subtle hands pushing your forward.
So what is this the protocol behind all of this? It’s faith.
Faith is ultimately the most practical and useful tool one has in spiritual life. Faith is the ability to visualize something one cannot yet see or feel, and then intention holds the visualization to the fire of faith, and continues holding it. The silent intention is very important. Intention is the arm that holds the weight of your closest desires for happiness and for a long time. Faith is so close to us, and often we can take it for granted and can lose our awareness of it.
It is closer to us than the clothing we wear. It is dearer to us than our next meal, yet somehow it's also forgotten for what it truly is. Why could one call faith practical? In what way is it used in daily life?
Imagine for a moment, you in your car, developed (more or less) through your own efforts in Swami Vishnu-devananda's 5 Points. You are well-lubricated, energetic, cool, full of fuel, and know how to operate your vehicle. Still, one can get onto the path, begin traveling and have a crash, or a breakdown in one’s mental state.
What are the reasons for crashing or breaking down? One is certainly free to drive off the road- yet since one is quite capable in handling the vehicle, this is not that likely-especially if one lives in an ashram or retreat center.
Still, somehow we often desire to drive off the road, right? One could be traveling a hard road- maybe your karma is such that your car would overheat going up the large hills you have to negotiate. One could overheat, get tired, frustrated and take a break, or give up entirely.
You could get lost- one could listen to the wrong person giving directions, or, you yourself might even think it's not necessary to ask for directions! While this is not a crash or a breakdown, you could say it is, in a way, because you are clearly driving. While maybe you are learning your way around, it much harder on the vehicle to drive over old broken roads and through wilderness than it is to travel a well-maintained road. These ideas are all eminently practical ones. Yoga is a practical path, if nothing else.
So what does faith have to do with any of this? Faith is the belief that 1) You are on the RIGHT road; 2) Going in the right direction; 3) Know where to turn to avoid the wrong road and/or rough roads; 4) When traveling on this road- someone will not cross over the double yellow line in the middle and hit you.
These are all quite practical protocols for moving through spiritual life, and quite necessary to remind ourselves of, as we travel.
The Yamas- Step One of Ashtanga Yoga
08/12/08 19:16
The Yamas
The first two parts of the 8 Limbs of Yoga I discussed before are the ethical foundations of Yoga. The so-called “Ten Commandments” of Yoga. In this post, we will talk about the Yamas first. In my next post, we will talk about the Niyamas.
It is my attempt here to show how these precepts can be shown to have modern analogues, and to show a way back to simple principles well understood for thousands of years. At the root of many modern issues with our minds can be found these principles, or their violations. Grasping the underlying principles allows one to see past the surface of many neuroses and character defects and see how they tie together different types of mental (and therefore covering up spiritual progress with veils) and societal ills. I will give some examples, but by no means nearly all of them possible.
The Sakskrit phrase “yama” means control. So when we do prana-yama, then it’s a control of the vital force in the body and mind. In this case the first part (#1) in the previous post about the 8 Limbs. These are the “Don’t’s”. Let’s List them here:
In general, yoga philosphy is explained by the ancients, as a protocol by the most important parts first; in this case, ahimsa. This is the particular point which was emphasized by Gandhi in his quest to free India from British rule. It was based on this principle from Hindu scriptures, and it also applies in a Yoga context. Gandhiji was reading the Bhagavad Gita daily for his own reminders of how to proceed and the Bhagavad Gita is the main scripture of Yoga.
AHIMSA
Ahimsa is the undisputed King of all of the Yamas and Niyamas, and is the foundational precept upon which all yogic conduct is based. This is the principle upon which the freedom of India from the English was based, as led by Mahatma Gandhiji.
If one holds this concept truly close to one’s heart, one will find that all the areas of life are affected by it, and to the deepest levels. It’s possible to use this precept in every area of life, and is a main driving force behind the growing awareness in all spiritual and ethical practices in general.
If you look closely, you can see that the remaining 9 Yamas and Niyamas uphold this precept to a great extent and indeed the remaining 9 could be thought of as different ways of saying this.
SATYA
That which does not change in the three periods of time. Truth.
Mark Twain said these things about Truth, in his humorous and deeply ironic way:
“If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.”
- “Notebook, 1894”
and
An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.
- "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"
Where ahmisa is apparently mostly about actions, one can see that satya is mostly about communication, in my view. Where ahimsa would manifest as a personal action and internal compass, satya would manifest as external the internal truth of non-injury in speech and conduct.
What is beautiful about it is that it’s clearly the second most important of all of the ethical precepts because communication is a main way in which our companions feel our intentions (internal truth) and can compare them with our actions. Having said that, having one’s actions and words be congruent is a form of truth-telling also. Yoga philosophy examines deeply the practical interactions of life and I would ask that you consider them deeply as well.The last quote could be a quote from any Hindu or Yoga scripture, but it’s from the mouth of one of America’s most beloved authors. Having said this, I find that a modern way of speaking truth to each other is in the work of Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication courses. Reading the quote again with Marshall’s “giraffe ears” one can see that he’s used the word “should” twice in a short quote, and this word is a pretty violent word in general and is usually uttered by those who are thought to be speaking with some authority.
In North American cultures (and other cultures dominated for a time by the English), we are trained in the English form of schooling to learn from “authorities” and from people who have a lot of charisma i.e. “popular” or “pretty” people. In yogic terms, charisma is termed as “having a lot of prana”. A person who is familiar with using his or her prana to get his way, and is also used to having people listen to him purely on the basis of his charisma can often move into taking people’s trained compliance as meaning that they have entitlements. Thus, we can see the spiral of rewards and punishments based on the acquisition and manipulation of prana to control people, however subtly it might appear.
Considering all this in the light of Satya, the precept, be sure to understand when one speaks from this controlling place or when one is coming from a place, as Mr. Rosenberg would say, of “contributing to life” or “making life wonderful” for others. In his unique way, this is what Mark Twain was stating, yet it can certainly be stated in a less violent manner.
BRAHMACHARYA
Often interpreted strictly as celibacy, brahmacharya goes much further. If you take a look at the 8 Limbs again, you can see something analogous to this precept better if you looked at Step 5- Pratyahara, which is the withdrawal of the senses. Brahmacharya is much deeper than simply this, because it’s a focusing or a guiding of the energy which is often used in sexual pursuits, especially orgasmic energy.
Brahmacharya is a very good precept to examine, simply because our culture is so utterly immersed in it. I believe that the reason for this is that instead of guiding or focusing this energy many religious paths have demonized it and made it a “bad” thing. The nature of the mind is that it will rebel eventually against forms of repression- in political arenas or personal ones. Brahmacharya done badly means repression of these urges instead of guiding them properly, and our culture is a very repressed on in general. Only through understanding these urges properly can one really move toward a way of controlling it.
Maybe in India many years ago, this was easier, yet in our culture where we grow up with so many sexual images on television and in magazines, trying to go “cold turkey” on this particular impulse is quite impossible. For an excellent treatise on this topic, I would suggest one read “Sex and Superconsciousness” by Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh (now known as Osho) if you can find a copy of it.
When one attempts to control this impulse, one often finds that one’s own eating habits are affected. Sexual impulses and sensual ones, like eating, are often used to distract our minds from the real emptiness we are feeling- which is the connection to our true selves that can be found through sincere and strict yoga practices, of which meditation is the means, and Self-realization the goal. Gradually one comes to know the inner landscape of one’s own mind and unseen Self through turning inward. Let me state this unequivocally- ALL OTHER YOGA PRACTICES ARE MERELY TO ENABLE MEDITATION TO OCCUR.
ONLY through meditation- not sitting quietly wishing your mind would be silent- but real meditation, in which the focus of the mind is in unbroken stream toward God, like a stream of oil flowing from one vessel to another.
So you can clearly see all of the practices so far supporting the effort of the sincere yogi toward progress along the 8 Limbs of Raja Yoga.
ASTEYA
When one restraints the sensual impulses in brahmacharya, an accompanying feeling is present, which is contentment. It arises in the mind, yet still often fluctuates, depending on one’s level of advancement in the practice. One can look to songs in popular culture like “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield and “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend” by The Cars, among many others, to see very popular songs extolling the violation of this precept.
To keep this under control, one refrains from coveting things (asteya), nor take something which doesn’t belong to you. This may not seem like particularly important, or important enough to warrant placing it just underneath in importance to such a primal impulse’s (the sensual impulse) control. However, when one looks clearly at it, one can see that this precept is a way of preventing unhealthy attachments to worldly items. This is a difficult concept to promote in today’s world, when one’s sense of worth is determined by what one owns.
Still, look into it further. Here is a good example: www.storyofstuff.com
This link is a clear example of what is going on in a systemic manner about acquiring things. What is interesting about it is that what she observes in this a systematic violation of this principle of Asteya on a world-wide scale. She calls it “externalizing costs”, but it’s the same thing.
SInce Swami Vishnu-devananda’s approach was without inner peace we cannot have outer peace- like in the example I am referring to above- then it’s clear enough that this impulse can be controlled nicely by each individual and this will slowly amount to something.
To summarize this precept, I would advocate that each person reading this would examine closely the underlying reason for pushing one’s energy out into the world, seeking to grasp onto “things”. A thing can include a person- a wife, husband, child, car, money, power, control, etc.
This has many implications- the objectification of women in magazines and so on has the violation of this precept at it’s heart. It’s what gives one permission to allow one’s mind to become lustful, greedy, and so on. It’s what allows for slow, subtle, and gradual de-humanization of external things. Yet because these things can never give one a clear sense of one’s true Self, then often one thinks that it is simply a matter of effort, and instead of making a u-turn on the road of life and going inward to discover the Self, one continues for long miles on a lonely road chasing the tail of consumption. Often, as the miles tick by, it can feel very much like one has made progress- one’s car is upgraded, and the terrain might be nicer (i.e. nicer house, car, money, job) and still one’s mind isn’t peaceful.
In war, the dehumanization of people is the ultimate violation of this precept, because in that case, one has now permission to de-humanize many people and attempt to kill them en masse. We do this almost every day with animals as well, because- well, clearly they aren’t even human. In our seeking to “own” them, and take a life which isn’t ours, we have lost respect for them, for ourselves, and other human life also. Still, at the root of war is a desire for something someone else has- in general, resources.
Television’s promotion of the continuous violation of this precept is another pervasive thing, and has more subtle effects because of it’s method of interaction with people. Yet, I will not rail against television here. For an excellent treatise on the implications of television in this way, read Neil Postman’s book: Teaching as a Conserving Activity.
Yet, this starts with things as simple as overly desiring a woman like the one you might see looking lustly at a camera selling cars or underwear. The principle of desiring that which isn’t (or isn’t reasonable) and cannot be yours is the gateway to many other kinds of mental illnesses and attachments in which one can lose oneself and one’s clear idea of their true Self.
Even taking responsibility for another’s emotions is being greedy and controlling to some extent, to avoid pain. Therefore, we have things like co-dependency and so on.
APARIGRAHA
Non-acceptance of bribes and money is a warning against the kinds of exchanges which can bind you. Since I noted the phrase “graha” above means to grasp, this should be easily understandable.
One only needs to look to politics to see the influence of big oil, big busines, big military, big everything in governmental terms, to undestand the binding influence on our so-called “leaders” and people in positions of influence. This is clear enough. Yet, I say that this kind of thing happens in many jobs. “Don’t bite the hand tht feeds you”, even when it violates your principles. How many of you work in industries which do harm to the environment or work for the military, directly, or indirectly? Does your wage then become a violation of the precept of aparigraha? This only you can say for sure, but it’s an interesting question. I certainly have been in this situation myself. Years ago, I rode my bicycle across America, and I met a man named Ricky, who was riding also across and he’d worked for Raytheon or some military weapons manufacturer. He didn’t know that his work was actually going into creating bombs to kill people, and when he found out, he quit and took his considerable unused wage for a trip around to world, mostly by bicycle.
One doesn’t always have to work for a company that makes evil things in order for this to occur.
I worked in Silicon Valley for many years during some boom times, and then finally during bust times. What I noticed about the companies I worked for, especially the startups we all dreamt of hitting it big with, was this grasping, not of making bad things, but of my time, energy and emotional energy. You were in some way overcompensated for the type of work you were doing, and yet at the same time, expected to give almost your entire life and mentaility to the pursuit of this goal of “hitting it big” or getting bought out or have an IPO that went through the roof. I was very dissillusioned with my time spent looking for this sort of thing and I realized I had bumped into this myself and I was regretful of it. Soon after I went into spiritual life.
Thanks,
DurgaDas
The first two parts of the 8 Limbs of Yoga I discussed before are the ethical foundations of Yoga. The so-called “Ten Commandments” of Yoga. In this post, we will talk about the Yamas first. In my next post, we will talk about the Niyamas.
It is my attempt here to show how these precepts can be shown to have modern analogues, and to show a way back to simple principles well understood for thousands of years. At the root of many modern issues with our minds can be found these principles, or their violations. Grasping the underlying principles allows one to see past the surface of many neuroses and character defects and see how they tie together different types of mental (and therefore covering up spiritual progress with veils) and societal ills. I will give some examples, but by no means nearly all of them possible.
The Sakskrit phrase “yama” means control. So when we do prana-yama, then it’s a control of the vital force in the body and mind. In this case the first part (#1) in the previous post about the 8 Limbs. These are the “Don’t’s”. Let’s List them here:
- Ahimsa (non-violence, non-injury)
- Satya (truthfulness, not telling lies) NOTE: the Sanskrit phrase ‘sat’ means that which doe not change in the three periods of time- past, present, future- and this is an appropriate way of saying ‘truth’ isn’t it?
- Brahmacharya (chastity, restraint of sensual/sexual impulses and energy)
- Asteya (non-stealing, non-covetousness, lack of jealous urges)
- Aparigraha (non-accepting of gifts or bribes) NOTE: the Sanskrit phrase ‘graha’ means to grasp or hold. For example, the planets in vedic astrology (jyotish) are called grahas, as their job is to hold you to your particular karma. Therefore, apari-graha means to not accept something which will maintain it’s hold on you later, which is appropriate for not taking bribes!)
In general, yoga philosphy is explained by the ancients, as a protocol by the most important parts first; in this case, ahimsa. This is the particular point which was emphasized by Gandhi in his quest to free India from British rule. It was based on this principle from Hindu scriptures, and it also applies in a Yoga context. Gandhiji was reading the Bhagavad Gita daily for his own reminders of how to proceed and the Bhagavad Gita is the main scripture of Yoga.
AHIMSA
Ahimsa is the undisputed King of all of the Yamas and Niyamas, and is the foundational precept upon which all yogic conduct is based. This is the principle upon which the freedom of India from the English was based, as led by Mahatma Gandhiji.
If one holds this concept truly close to one’s heart, one will find that all the areas of life are affected by it, and to the deepest levels. It’s possible to use this precept in every area of life, and is a main driving force behind the growing awareness in all spiritual and ethical practices in general.
If you look closely, you can see that the remaining 9 Yamas and Niyamas uphold this precept to a great extent and indeed the remaining 9 could be thought of as different ways of saying this.
SATYA
That which does not change in the three periods of time. Truth.
Mark Twain said these things about Truth, in his humorous and deeply ironic way:
“If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.”
- “Notebook, 1894”
and
An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.
- "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"
Where ahmisa is apparently mostly about actions, one can see that satya is mostly about communication, in my view. Where ahimsa would manifest as a personal action and internal compass, satya would manifest as external the internal truth of non-injury in speech and conduct.
What is beautiful about it is that it’s clearly the second most important of all of the ethical precepts because communication is a main way in which our companions feel our intentions (internal truth) and can compare them with our actions. Having said that, having one’s actions and words be congruent is a form of truth-telling also. Yoga philosophy examines deeply the practical interactions of life and I would ask that you consider them deeply as well.The last quote could be a quote from any Hindu or Yoga scripture, but it’s from the mouth of one of America’s most beloved authors. Having said this, I find that a modern way of speaking truth to each other is in the work of Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication courses. Reading the quote again with Marshall’s “giraffe ears” one can see that he’s used the word “should” twice in a short quote, and this word is a pretty violent word in general and is usually uttered by those who are thought to be speaking with some authority.
In North American cultures (and other cultures dominated for a time by the English), we are trained in the English form of schooling to learn from “authorities” and from people who have a lot of charisma i.e. “popular” or “pretty” people. In yogic terms, charisma is termed as “having a lot of prana”. A person who is familiar with using his or her prana to get his way, and is also used to having people listen to him purely on the basis of his charisma can often move into taking people’s trained compliance as meaning that they have entitlements. Thus, we can see the spiral of rewards and punishments based on the acquisition and manipulation of prana to control people, however subtly it might appear.
Considering all this in the light of Satya, the precept, be sure to understand when one speaks from this controlling place or when one is coming from a place, as Mr. Rosenberg would say, of “contributing to life” or “making life wonderful” for others. In his unique way, this is what Mark Twain was stating, yet it can certainly be stated in a less violent manner.
BRAHMACHARYA
Often interpreted strictly as celibacy, brahmacharya goes much further. If you take a look at the 8 Limbs again, you can see something analogous to this precept better if you looked at Step 5- Pratyahara, which is the withdrawal of the senses. Brahmacharya is much deeper than simply this, because it’s a focusing or a guiding of the energy which is often used in sexual pursuits, especially orgasmic energy.
Brahmacharya is a very good precept to examine, simply because our culture is so utterly immersed in it. I believe that the reason for this is that instead of guiding or focusing this energy many religious paths have demonized it and made it a “bad” thing. The nature of the mind is that it will rebel eventually against forms of repression- in political arenas or personal ones. Brahmacharya done badly means repression of these urges instead of guiding them properly, and our culture is a very repressed on in general. Only through understanding these urges properly can one really move toward a way of controlling it.
Maybe in India many years ago, this was easier, yet in our culture where we grow up with so many sexual images on television and in magazines, trying to go “cold turkey” on this particular impulse is quite impossible. For an excellent treatise on this topic, I would suggest one read “Sex and Superconsciousness” by Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh (now known as Osho) if you can find a copy of it.
When one attempts to control this impulse, one often finds that one’s own eating habits are affected. Sexual impulses and sensual ones, like eating, are often used to distract our minds from the real emptiness we are feeling- which is the connection to our true selves that can be found through sincere and strict yoga practices, of which meditation is the means, and Self-realization the goal. Gradually one comes to know the inner landscape of one’s own mind and unseen Self through turning inward. Let me state this unequivocally- ALL OTHER YOGA PRACTICES ARE MERELY TO ENABLE MEDITATION TO OCCUR.
ONLY through meditation- not sitting quietly wishing your mind would be silent- but real meditation, in which the focus of the mind is in unbroken stream toward God, like a stream of oil flowing from one vessel to another.
So you can clearly see all of the practices so far supporting the effort of the sincere yogi toward progress along the 8 Limbs of Raja Yoga.
ASTEYA
When one restraints the sensual impulses in brahmacharya, an accompanying feeling is present, which is contentment. It arises in the mind, yet still often fluctuates, depending on one’s level of advancement in the practice. One can look to songs in popular culture like “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield and “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend” by The Cars, among many others, to see very popular songs extolling the violation of this precept.
To keep this under control, one refrains from coveting things (asteya), nor take something which doesn’t belong to you. This may not seem like particularly important, or important enough to warrant placing it just underneath in importance to such a primal impulse’s (the sensual impulse) control. However, when one looks clearly at it, one can see that this precept is a way of preventing unhealthy attachments to worldly items. This is a difficult concept to promote in today’s world, when one’s sense of worth is determined by what one owns.
Still, look into it further. Here is a good example: www.storyofstuff.com
This link is a clear example of what is going on in a systemic manner about acquiring things. What is interesting about it is that what she observes in this a systematic violation of this principle of Asteya on a world-wide scale. She calls it “externalizing costs”, but it’s the same thing.
SInce Swami Vishnu-devananda’s approach was without inner peace we cannot have outer peace- like in the example I am referring to above- then it’s clear enough that this impulse can be controlled nicely by each individual and this will slowly amount to something.
To summarize this precept, I would advocate that each person reading this would examine closely the underlying reason for pushing one’s energy out into the world, seeking to grasp onto “things”. A thing can include a person- a wife, husband, child, car, money, power, control, etc.
This has many implications- the objectification of women in magazines and so on has the violation of this precept at it’s heart. It’s what gives one permission to allow one’s mind to become lustful, greedy, and so on. It’s what allows for slow, subtle, and gradual de-humanization of external things. Yet because these things can never give one a clear sense of one’s true Self, then often one thinks that it is simply a matter of effort, and instead of making a u-turn on the road of life and going inward to discover the Self, one continues for long miles on a lonely road chasing the tail of consumption. Often, as the miles tick by, it can feel very much like one has made progress- one’s car is upgraded, and the terrain might be nicer (i.e. nicer house, car, money, job) and still one’s mind isn’t peaceful.
In war, the dehumanization of people is the ultimate violation of this precept, because in that case, one has now permission to de-humanize many people and attempt to kill them en masse. We do this almost every day with animals as well, because- well, clearly they aren’t even human. In our seeking to “own” them, and take a life which isn’t ours, we have lost respect for them, for ourselves, and other human life also. Still, at the root of war is a desire for something someone else has- in general, resources.
Television’s promotion of the continuous violation of this precept is another pervasive thing, and has more subtle effects because of it’s method of interaction with people. Yet, I will not rail against television here. For an excellent treatise on the implications of television in this way, read Neil Postman’s book: Teaching as a Conserving Activity.
Yet, this starts with things as simple as overly desiring a woman like the one you might see looking lustly at a camera selling cars or underwear. The principle of desiring that which isn’t (or isn’t reasonable) and cannot be yours is the gateway to many other kinds of mental illnesses and attachments in which one can lose oneself and one’s clear idea of their true Self.
Even taking responsibility for another’s emotions is being greedy and controlling to some extent, to avoid pain. Therefore, we have things like co-dependency and so on.
APARIGRAHA
Non-acceptance of bribes and money is a warning against the kinds of exchanges which can bind you. Since I noted the phrase “graha” above means to grasp, this should be easily understandable.
One only needs to look to politics to see the influence of big oil, big busines, big military, big everything in governmental terms, to undestand the binding influence on our so-called “leaders” and people in positions of influence. This is clear enough. Yet, I say that this kind of thing happens in many jobs. “Don’t bite the hand tht feeds you”, even when it violates your principles. How many of you work in industries which do harm to the environment or work for the military, directly, or indirectly? Does your wage then become a violation of the precept of aparigraha? This only you can say for sure, but it’s an interesting question. I certainly have been in this situation myself. Years ago, I rode my bicycle across America, and I met a man named Ricky, who was riding also across and he’d worked for Raytheon or some military weapons manufacturer. He didn’t know that his work was actually going into creating bombs to kill people, and when he found out, he quit and took his considerable unused wage for a trip around to world, mostly by bicycle.
One doesn’t always have to work for a company that makes evil things in order for this to occur.
I worked in Silicon Valley for many years during some boom times, and then finally during bust times. What I noticed about the companies I worked for, especially the startups we all dreamt of hitting it big with, was this grasping, not of making bad things, but of my time, energy and emotional energy. You were in some way overcompensated for the type of work you were doing, and yet at the same time, expected to give almost your entire life and mentaility to the pursuit of this goal of “hitting it big” or getting bought out or have an IPO that went through the roof. I was very dissillusioned with my time spent looking for this sort of thing and I realized I had bumped into this myself and I was regretful of it. Soon after I went into spiritual life.
Thanks,
DurgaDas
Ashtanga, The 8 Limbs of Raja Yoga
08/12/08 19:12
I outlined briefly in my introduction of “What is Silent Motion Yoga” about the 8 Limbs of Raja Yoga created by Sage Patanjali. I would like to cover this topic in some more depth now, before launching into a breakdown of each of the Sivananda basic poses.
I am going to list these in reverse order, as this structure is intended to be seen as a ladder:
At Silent Motion Yoga, it's recognized that all of these principles aren't separate in any individual, including the children we teach, in pre-schools and childcare facilities.
I have read that Sage Pantanjali thought of this "Kriya Yoga" before it was co-opted by some modern teachers (i.e. Paramahamsa Hariharananda, Paramahansa Yogananda and his disciple Swami Kriyananda)- because this indeed is what is is a method of. The word kriya means "cleansing" and it also means "action". Since karma also means "action" it's important not to confuse them. One is a cleaning effort, a purification, and the other is the fruits of your previous actions.
YOU CAN DO IT
What is interesting about this, and is never really talked about among the casual student of modern yoga is that considering this entire ladder, conceptually presented to us as a service to the world by Patanjali, really means that true understanding of ourselves and others is within our grasp, it's possible.
What is more, it means it's TRAINABLE. For a longtime athlete, and coach of athletes like myself, this particular things was HUGE in my consideration as to what system of thought to align myself with. Yoga is an entire comprehensive set of practices whereby one starts mainly with purification. I think that this applies also to everyone in all walks of life. I have broken down Ashtanga Yoga, Swami Vishnu-devananda's 5 Points of Yoga, and the 4 Paths of Yoga into parts applicable to the athlete also in some detail. In later posts, I will talk about this, or think about attending one of my courses on this subject.
The problem here is that the idea of purification itself has been poisoned by many Western practices of religion, and because yoga is thought to be religion, then it gets thrown into the same negative bucket of ideas as that.
A closer look tells us differently. Not helping matters is a long line of so-called 'gurus' from the sixties and seventies who took advantage of the largesse of the Western devotee (even including the Beatles!), and made a mockery of real spirituality. Unfortunately, this is still going on today, even in the middle of good institutions set up by real gurus like Swami Vishnu-devananda.
The founding instructional method of teaching in yoga practice is called the gurukula. Guru means "remover of darkness. 'kula' meaning 'house of'. So literally, the student would come and live with the guru, usually from age 8 or so and stay until 25 where they would then go back to their parents and talk about marriage. We will talk about the phases of life in a later post. Typically, this instruction was free, and people would donate with the idea to continue the guru's means of instructing the students.
Again, the difficulty here is that in the modern age, we have no proper teachers from which to support an entire school based on their ideas. The best we have in this respect, and I think of them as gurus are people like Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf schools), and Maria Montessori (Montessori Schools). I will talk more about the gurukula system in later posts.
In later posts (as this one is getting long), I will break down these asht (8) angas (limbs) one by one and discuss them.
Kindly write me with any questions you would like to see answered or your comments are welcomed.
Thanks,
DurgaDas (Regis Chapman)
I am going to list these in reverse order, as this structure is intended to be seen as a ladder:
- Samadhi- Self-Realization, The Goal of Life (8)
- Dhyana- Meditation, the mysterious ladder to real knowledge (7)
- Dharana- Concentration, one pointed focus (6)
- Pratjahara- Withdrawal of the Senses, removing the mind from their influence (5)
- Pranayama- Control of the Vital Force, which allows all things to live (4)
- Asanas- Postures without movement, yoga poses (3)
- Niyamas- Observances, “The Do’s”, things one must do (2)
- Yamas- Restrictions, “The Don’ts”, the things one must refrain from (1)
At Silent Motion Yoga, it's recognized that all of these principles aren't separate in any individual, including the children we teach, in pre-schools and childcare facilities.
I have read that Sage Pantanjali thought of this "Kriya Yoga" before it was co-opted by some modern teachers (i.e. Paramahamsa Hariharananda, Paramahansa Yogananda and his disciple Swami Kriyananda)- because this indeed is what is is a method of. The word kriya means "cleansing" and it also means "action". Since karma also means "action" it's important not to confuse them. One is a cleaning effort, a purification, and the other is the fruits of your previous actions.
YOU CAN DO IT
What is interesting about this, and is never really talked about among the casual student of modern yoga is that considering this entire ladder, conceptually presented to us as a service to the world by Patanjali, really means that true understanding of ourselves and others is within our grasp, it's possible.
What is more, it means it's TRAINABLE. For a longtime athlete, and coach of athletes like myself, this particular things was HUGE in my consideration as to what system of thought to align myself with. Yoga is an entire comprehensive set of practices whereby one starts mainly with purification. I think that this applies also to everyone in all walks of life. I have broken down Ashtanga Yoga, Swami Vishnu-devananda's 5 Points of Yoga, and the 4 Paths of Yoga into parts applicable to the athlete also in some detail. In later posts, I will talk about this, or think about attending one of my courses on this subject.
The problem here is that the idea of purification itself has been poisoned by many Western practices of religion, and because yoga is thought to be religion, then it gets thrown into the same negative bucket of ideas as that.
A closer look tells us differently. Not helping matters is a long line of so-called 'gurus' from the sixties and seventies who took advantage of the largesse of the Western devotee (even including the Beatles!), and made a mockery of real spirituality. Unfortunately, this is still going on today, even in the middle of good institutions set up by real gurus like Swami Vishnu-devananda.
The founding instructional method of teaching in yoga practice is called the gurukula. Guru means "remover of darkness. 'kula' meaning 'house of'. So literally, the student would come and live with the guru, usually from age 8 or so and stay until 25 where they would then go back to their parents and talk about marriage. We will talk about the phases of life in a later post. Typically, this instruction was free, and people would donate with the idea to continue the guru's means of instructing the students.
Again, the difficulty here is that in the modern age, we have no proper teachers from which to support an entire school based on their ideas. The best we have in this respect, and I think of them as gurus are people like Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf schools), and Maria Montessori (Montessori Schools). I will talk more about the gurukula system in later posts.
In later posts (as this one is getting long), I will break down these asht (8) angas (limbs) one by one and discuss them.
Kindly write me with any questions you would like to see answered or your comments are welcomed.
Thanks,
DurgaDas (Regis Chapman)
Yoga Postures and The Mind
08/12/08 19:11
Take a moment and smile. Not a smile because someone asked you to, but think about something that makes you really happy- like this kid:
Now, when I laugh, my face does a funny thing:
My eyes appear to almost close, and my whole face changes, as does my attitude internally. Try to feel bad while smiling- it's nearly impossible!
This is an example of how yoga works. I would like to recommend a smile pill to be taken every day as often as possible! Smile during your yoga postures also! Be aware of the changes in your mind as a reminder why you are doing yoga to begin with. For our children, this recommendation is very appropriate as well.
By placing yourself in yoga poses, you change the way you feel at a deep level.
Repeated and consistent practice of this can change your entire life. Yet, just as one can have discriminating tastes as to what goes into one's mouth, one must discriminate about what enters the mind. In a later post, I will talk about the effects of food on the mind, and for now I will focus on the poses' effects.
Yoga works with the body to control the mind. Yoga postures are only the beginning of yoga practice. Since the mind is not considered to be you, but rather your lens of viewing the world, then one can see how important this link is. Indeed, it's tempting in our modern "Cartesian" way to separate the 'brain' from the rest of the nervous system or even if you add the spinal cord to include the central nervous system, it isn't enough.
Consider that the brain and the body aren't really different things. How one's left arm feels has an effect on your outlook on life. Still, we can have a problem for a long time in one area and adapt our nervous system to deal with it. In doing so, patterns of awareness get set up that can be difficult to address after a long time, because the awareness that was formerly present is not longer.
Add this to the multi-various hormonal and chemical systems in place which rely on blood flow and so on and it's easy to see how complex and comprehensive this kind of system is. And because it's a system, then one aspect affects many others in a chain reaction, often causing long-term effects that linger long after the initial symptoms have disappeared. It is well-known the effects of chemicals on the body, given our pill-oriented culture. So, by dispensing with the complexities of all this, we come back once again to yoga and the postures.
Yoga's slow movements and focus on the breath enable one's awareness to become more subtle with practice. This awareness feeds one's ability to control the breath without 'hitching' or hesitations, and so the chest cavity is moved more smoothly throughout the day, not just during class.
In later posts, I will go through the basic 12 postures in the Sivananda sequence, one by one, and discuss the effects of the poses and points of focus for the mind during them.
In general, one must grasp the substantial difference between the basic Sivananda sequence created by Swami Vishnu-devananda and taught in all the Sivananda Teacher Training Courses worldwide and other so-called "styles" of yoga. The Sivananda sequence works with the energy centers, pose by pose, starting from the top (with the headstand), and moving down through them.
This is why variations on the basic sequence are used instead of very different poses thrown around without considering these. These energy centers are called chakras, and much is said about them in many esoteric disciplines, so I will not go into them deeply here.
This structure itself means that the yoga practice is a part in a larger context of general spiritual practice. It is this reason why one might meet with some consternation if you ask a trained Sivananda teacher what "style" they are teaching. Even if one is not doing consistent "spiritual practice" one can take a Sivananda-style class and still get the effects. This is all very confusing for the so-called "consumer" of Yoga in the world today.
While most "styles" of yoga focus on the slower movements and connection with the breath- another key aspect of Sivananda-style asanas practice is the focus on balanced movements. By balanced, what is meant is two-fold:
1) a forward bend is balanced with a backward bend, and right twist balanced with a left; and
2) appropriate rest is had to recover the muscles from the oxygen debt.
Both of these, done with proper awareness, lead one to a greater grasp of the balance between the sympathetic (The GO! part of the nervous system) and parasympathetic nervous system (the rest/digest part of the nervous system). My forthcoming book on this subject will deal with this in some detail. To summarize, efforts and relaxations are supported by the breath. Only with this balance and awareness can one really say one is doing yoga properly.
I welcome your questions and comments.
Thanks,
Regis Chapman (DurgaDas)
Silent Motion Yoga
Now, when I laugh, my face does a funny thing:
My eyes appear to almost close, and my whole face changes, as does my attitude internally. Try to feel bad while smiling- it's nearly impossible!
This is an example of how yoga works. I would like to recommend a smile pill to be taken every day as often as possible! Smile during your yoga postures also! Be aware of the changes in your mind as a reminder why you are doing yoga to begin with. For our children, this recommendation is very appropriate as well.
By placing yourself in yoga poses, you change the way you feel at a deep level.
Repeated and consistent practice of this can change your entire life. Yet, just as one can have discriminating tastes as to what goes into one's mouth, one must discriminate about what enters the mind. In a later post, I will talk about the effects of food on the mind, and for now I will focus on the poses' effects.
Yoga works with the body to control the mind. Yoga postures are only the beginning of yoga practice. Since the mind is not considered to be you, but rather your lens of viewing the world, then one can see how important this link is. Indeed, it's tempting in our modern "Cartesian" way to separate the 'brain' from the rest of the nervous system or even if you add the spinal cord to include the central nervous system, it isn't enough.
Consider that the brain and the body aren't really different things. How one's left arm feels has an effect on your outlook on life. Still, we can have a problem for a long time in one area and adapt our nervous system to deal with it. In doing so, patterns of awareness get set up that can be difficult to address after a long time, because the awareness that was formerly present is not longer.
Add this to the multi-various hormonal and chemical systems in place which rely on blood flow and so on and it's easy to see how complex and comprehensive this kind of system is. And because it's a system, then one aspect affects many others in a chain reaction, often causing long-term effects that linger long after the initial symptoms have disappeared. It is well-known the effects of chemicals on the body, given our pill-oriented culture. So, by dispensing with the complexities of all this, we come back once again to yoga and the postures.
Yoga's slow movements and focus on the breath enable one's awareness to become more subtle with practice. This awareness feeds one's ability to control the breath without 'hitching' or hesitations, and so the chest cavity is moved more smoothly throughout the day, not just during class.
In later posts, I will go through the basic 12 postures in the Sivananda sequence, one by one, and discuss the effects of the poses and points of focus for the mind during them.
In general, one must grasp the substantial difference between the basic Sivananda sequence created by Swami Vishnu-devananda and taught in all the Sivananda Teacher Training Courses worldwide and other so-called "styles" of yoga. The Sivananda sequence works with the energy centers, pose by pose, starting from the top (with the headstand), and moving down through them.
This is why variations on the basic sequence are used instead of very different poses thrown around without considering these. These energy centers are called chakras, and much is said about them in many esoteric disciplines, so I will not go into them deeply here.
This structure itself means that the yoga practice is a part in a larger context of general spiritual practice. It is this reason why one might meet with some consternation if you ask a trained Sivananda teacher what "style" they are teaching. Even if one is not doing consistent "spiritual practice" one can take a Sivananda-style class and still get the effects. This is all very confusing for the so-called "consumer" of Yoga in the world today.
While most "styles" of yoga focus on the slower movements and connection with the breath- another key aspect of Sivananda-style asanas practice is the focus on balanced movements. By balanced, what is meant is two-fold:
1) a forward bend is balanced with a backward bend, and right twist balanced with a left; and
2) appropriate rest is had to recover the muscles from the oxygen debt.
Both of these, done with proper awareness, lead one to a greater grasp of the balance between the sympathetic (The GO! part of the nervous system) and parasympathetic nervous system (the rest/digest part of the nervous system). My forthcoming book on this subject will deal with this in some detail. To summarize, efforts and relaxations are supported by the breath. Only with this balance and awareness can one really say one is doing yoga properly.
I welcome your questions and comments.
Thanks,
Regis Chapman (DurgaDas)
Silent Motion Yoga
12 Steps to Headstand Mastery
22/11/08 19:08
In Depth Asanas- Headstand Poses (Sirshasana)
When one learns headstand (sirshasana) one is tempted to come right into it, because we are taught in this manner, in a standard class. Therefore, this becomes our habit.
Many people who can do the headstand tend then, as a result of not being taught some more basic skills, to lack the ability to proceed past to more advanced postures without assistance of a wall. The decision to go to the wall carries with it a decision that learning balance is not important and this is to be avoided, else one becomes mentally dependent on assistance instead of learning balance yourself.
We have attended so-called 'advanced' yoga classes where when it came to do scorpion pose, everyone, including the teacher (!) headed for the wall. It became clear then that these kinds of yoga classes were leaving out what we feel to be the key aspect of ALL yoga practice- balance.
Once you get to the more advanced versions of the headstand like Vrschikasana (Scorpion) pose, one must have some other skills and awarenesses that simple headstand by itself does not give.
It is our aim to tell you some key information so that you will be able to understand how to do it properly.
The Twelve Steps to Complete Inverted Headstand & Variations Mastery
Proceed to next step ONLY after meeting the conditions for the current step. Most yogis in America, unless they have some gymnastics or acrobat training, will not be able to go beyond step 10. I have included the others for some expansion of the reader’s understanding of the quite basic nature of the physical aspects of yoga we practice in the West.
1) Basic entrance to posture, knees straight, hips slightly behind head vertically. Practice until one can stay in that posture with straight legs and a slightly bent neck with a little weight on it. This will prepare the neck for the next steps. No hopping into the posture, as this leads to imbalance, and falling out of the posture.
2) Half-headstand Weight Movement. with knees touching chest and bent and feet touching buttocks, practice shifting weight to elbows, then shifting weight to head movement practice. Movement is strictly linear. 20 repetitions each way. Knees and feet MUST touch each other the moment your second foot leaves the ground. This is critical to stability- see Common Mistakes, below.
3) Knees to Sky practice. Keeping the feet against the buttocks, move the knees until they point to the sky, and then come back down to touch the chest. Move to step 4 when you can do this 20 times in a row without falling.
a) Key to understanding this practice is that it’s in two parts:
i. Knees moving from chest to the point where the thighs are parallel to ground, halfway through the range of motion.
ii. Knees from halfway point to knees to the sky.
b) What is to be known about this is:
i. In the first part the knees are moving away from the centerline of the body, and so the hips must correspondingly be moved in the opposite direction, away from the centerline of the body, but on the opposite side.
ii. In the second part, the knees then move back toward the centerline, so one must move one’s hips again toward the centerline. In fact, the hips are more toward the centerline than when the knees are touching the chest.
4) Hold Standard Headstand for increasing amounts, until one can hold it comfortably for 5 minutes, focused on the abdominal breath.
a) One can do also here various foot movements, like putting feet together in Namaste’ and twisting left and right, as these are far easier than the next steps.
5) Small Foot Movements. Begin to practice small amplitude foot movements. Keeping knees locked, move the feet using the hips. Start linear by moving the feet backwards and forwards; i.e. toward the front of the body and then arching the back to move the feet behind the body. Next, move the feet left and right in small amounts, again from the hips.
6) Foot Circles. Now put all these left/right and forward/backward exercises together by moving the feet in small circles, first one direction, then the other.
a) Increase the movement into larger circles as one's ability increases.
b) Ultimately, one wants to be able to move the legs together to touch the ground easily and without lots of pressure on the elbows, as in the photos.
7) Crow to Headstand and Back. Do Kakasana, then slowly bring head to ground, lift legs up into headstand. Move hands to standard headstand position around head. Then reverse hands to crow position, bring legs down, and press back into a stable crow position.
8) Hand Variations. Practice hand variations in headstand. They are:
a) To start: Arms bent palms down
b) Arms straight out in front of face, palms down.
c) Arms straight out in front of face, palms up.
d) Spread arms out to 45 degrees, palms down.
e) Spread arms out to 45 degrees, palms up
f) Use hands in first hand variation position to rotate around on head. Practice moving left, then right direction, to build the neck muscles.
g) Move left hand up to the side of the left thigh.
h) Move right hand up to side of right thigh.
1
2
3
4
5
6
9) Vrschikasana (Scorpion) Pose and Variations- I will cover the particulars of this asana in a separate article. Variations for it include a handstand version, another where the yogi is resting only on the elbows, hands on the face; and finally coming into the pose from chakrasana (wheel) pose.
One can definitely be able to do this without needing the wall, if one has properly learned the other poses. One can see here from the photos that this advanced Scorpion pose does NOT require great back flexibility, contrary to popular myth.
10) Handstand. This pose is also very useful for building deltoid (shoulder/arm muscle) if one lacks strength to push up Vrschikasana (Scorpion) pose. To start, have a helper, and do small increment pushups in handstand as a way to build strength to hold this posture. Working on balance is key here. Eventually, one can try to build up to being able to press into a handstand. There is a site strictly devoted to hand balancing here.
11) Headstand to Side Crow. One of the most difficult of variations of the headstand, this posture requires extreme balance, strength, and control, as it incorporates simultaneous and large movements both front back and side to side at once. Click here to see Iyengar doing this variation in the 1930's. His control is astounding, and in the video he does quite a few variations of this advanced posture that most yogis cannot do, especially in America.
12) Poorna (Full) Headstand. The ULTIMATE Headstand Pose. This is literally a complete unsupported headstand, without use of the hands, elbows or arms.
Using the competence gained from the last of the described hand variations, try with assistance at first to hold the pose, but ONLY after a very long time spent working on headstand in the standard way, and being capable of holding the headstand for fully 30 minutes or more in the standard way.
Common Mistakes
1) Trying to do the headstand only, without practicing the more fundamental aspects that enable advancement past step 4, the normal headstand.
2) Not keeping the knees and feet together when lifting the second leg from the ground. ONLY when doing Scorpion Pose, do the knees or feet come apart.
3) Elbows out too wide, or moving them out during ANY phase of headstand or Scorpion. If one keeps one’s legs touching each other, then side to side movement is largely eliminated.
4) Too rounded of a back when in Step 1. This forces a little hop into the posture that is to be avoided.
5) Moving the feet up into headstand without putting knees up to the sky first. This is caused because of a lack of awareness of the two step nature of the knee movements, as I explain above in Step 3.
When one learns headstand (sirshasana) one is tempted to come right into it, because we are taught in this manner, in a standard class. Therefore, this becomes our habit.
Many people who can do the headstand tend then, as a result of not being taught some more basic skills, to lack the ability to proceed past to more advanced postures without assistance of a wall. The decision to go to the wall carries with it a decision that learning balance is not important and this is to be avoided, else one becomes mentally dependent on assistance instead of learning balance yourself.
We have attended so-called 'advanced' yoga classes where when it came to do scorpion pose, everyone, including the teacher (!) headed for the wall. It became clear then that these kinds of yoga classes were leaving out what we feel to be the key aspect of ALL yoga practice- balance.
Once you get to the more advanced versions of the headstand like Vrschikasana (Scorpion) pose, one must have some other skills and awarenesses that simple headstand by itself does not give.
It is our aim to tell you some key information so that you will be able to understand how to do it properly.
The Twelve Steps to Complete Inverted Headstand & Variations Mastery
Proceed to next step ONLY after meeting the conditions for the current step. Most yogis in America, unless they have some gymnastics or acrobat training, will not be able to go beyond step 10. I have included the others for some expansion of the reader’s understanding of the quite basic nature of the physical aspects of yoga we practice in the West.
1) Basic entrance to posture, knees straight, hips slightly behind head vertically. Practice until one can stay in that posture with straight legs and a slightly bent neck with a little weight on it. This will prepare the neck for the next steps. No hopping into the posture, as this leads to imbalance, and falling out of the posture.
2) Half-headstand Weight Movement. with knees touching chest and bent and feet touching buttocks, practice shifting weight to elbows, then shifting weight to head movement practice. Movement is strictly linear. 20 repetitions each way. Knees and feet MUST touch each other the moment your second foot leaves the ground. This is critical to stability- see Common Mistakes, below.
3) Knees to Sky practice. Keeping the feet against the buttocks, move the knees until they point to the sky, and then come back down to touch the chest. Move to step 4 when you can do this 20 times in a row without falling.
a) Key to understanding this practice is that it’s in two parts:
i. Knees moving from chest to the point where the thighs are parallel to ground, halfway through the range of motion.
ii. Knees from halfway point to knees to the sky.
b) What is to be known about this is:
i. In the first part the knees are moving away from the centerline of the body, and so the hips must correspondingly be moved in the opposite direction, away from the centerline of the body, but on the opposite side.
ii. In the second part, the knees then move back toward the centerline, so one must move one’s hips again toward the centerline. In fact, the hips are more toward the centerline than when the knees are touching the chest.
4) Hold Standard Headstand for increasing amounts, until one can hold it comfortably for 5 minutes, focused on the abdominal breath.
a) One can do also here various foot movements, like putting feet together in Namaste’ and twisting left and right, as these are far easier than the next steps.
5) Small Foot Movements. Begin to practice small amplitude foot movements. Keeping knees locked, move the feet using the hips. Start linear by moving the feet backwards and forwards; i.e. toward the front of the body and then arching the back to move the feet behind the body. Next, move the feet left and right in small amounts, again from the hips.
6) Foot Circles. Now put all these left/right and forward/backward exercises together by moving the feet in small circles, first one direction, then the other.
a) Increase the movement into larger circles as one's ability increases.
b) Ultimately, one wants to be able to move the legs together to touch the ground easily and without lots of pressure on the elbows, as in the photos.
7) Crow to Headstand and Back. Do Kakasana, then slowly bring head to ground, lift legs up into headstand. Move hands to standard headstand position around head. Then reverse hands to crow position, bring legs down, and press back into a stable crow position.
8) Hand Variations. Practice hand variations in headstand. They are:
a) To start: Arms bent palms down
b) Arms straight out in front of face, palms down.
c) Arms straight out in front of face, palms up.
d) Spread arms out to 45 degrees, palms down.
e) Spread arms out to 45 degrees, palms up
f) Use hands in first hand variation position to rotate around on head. Practice moving left, then right direction, to build the neck muscles.
g) Move left hand up to the side of the left thigh.
h) Move right hand up to side of right thigh.
1
234569) Vrschikasana (Scorpion) Pose and Variations- I will cover the particulars of this asana in a separate article. Variations for it include a handstand version, another where the yogi is resting only on the elbows, hands on the face; and finally coming into the pose from chakrasana (wheel) pose.
One can definitely be able to do this without needing the wall, if one has properly learned the other poses. One can see here from the photos that this advanced Scorpion pose does NOT require great back flexibility, contrary to popular myth.
10) Handstand. This pose is also very useful for building deltoid (shoulder/arm muscle) if one lacks strength to push up Vrschikasana (Scorpion) pose. To start, have a helper, and do small increment pushups in handstand as a way to build strength to hold this posture. Working on balance is key here. Eventually, one can try to build up to being able to press into a handstand. There is a site strictly devoted to hand balancing here.
11) Headstand to Side Crow. One of the most difficult of variations of the headstand, this posture requires extreme balance, strength, and control, as it incorporates simultaneous and large movements both front back and side to side at once. Click here to see Iyengar doing this variation in the 1930's. His control is astounding, and in the video he does quite a few variations of this advanced posture that most yogis cannot do, especially in America.
12) Poorna (Full) Headstand. The ULTIMATE Headstand Pose. This is literally a complete unsupported headstand, without use of the hands, elbows or arms.
Using the competence gained from the last of the described hand variations, try with assistance at first to hold the pose, but ONLY after a very long time spent working on headstand in the standard way, and being capable of holding the headstand for fully 30 minutes or more in the standard way.
Common Mistakes
1) Trying to do the headstand only, without practicing the more fundamental aspects that enable advancement past step 4, the normal headstand.
2) Not keeping the knees and feet together when lifting the second leg from the ground. ONLY when doing Scorpion Pose, do the knees or feet come apart.
3) Elbows out too wide, or moving them out during ANY phase of headstand or Scorpion. If one keeps one’s legs touching each other, then side to side movement is largely eliminated.
4) Too rounded of a back when in Step 1. This forces a little hop into the posture that is to be avoided.
5) Moving the feet up into headstand without putting knees up to the sky first. This is caused because of a lack of awareness of the two step nature of the knee movements, as I explain above in Step 3.
In Depth Asanas Prelude
19/11/08 19:05
Silent Motion Yoga ‘In Depth’ Asanas Series
This article will serve as an index to the forthcoming ‘In Depth’ Yoga Poses Series.
Since we here at Silent Motion Yoga & Coaching would like to explore these poses in more depth than one would typically find anywhere else, we will not go into the basics of the postures as much, and allow you to see the Sivananda.org site that describes them instead if you are unfamiliar with them.
There are three key aspects to each asana or yoga pose, and I will describe each in the context of the following three:
Balance
In order to do the above steps, one must have balance, the key principle in yoga practice in all three bodies: physical, astral, and causal. Here is the definition of balance, according to the dictionary. You can see that many things apply regarding that definition and yoga practice.
We will be quite specific regarding balance as we describe what is needed to poses and the balance component.
Here is our definition, in one equation, so to speak:
Why Are Poses Hard?
There is a fundamental principle about yoga poses that can enable you to understand how complicated or physically difficult a pose is to move into, out of or to hold.
The Basic Class- The links below take you to our comments on each pose.
We will be posting photos, audio and video as time goes on, to illustrate the principles we are describing here, so kindly bear with us as we assemble the needed materials.
This article will serve as an index to the forthcoming ‘In Depth’ Yoga Poses Series.
Since we here at Silent Motion Yoga & Coaching would like to explore these poses in more depth than one would typically find anywhere else, we will not go into the basics of the postures as much, and allow you to see the Sivananda.org site that describes them instead if you are unfamiliar with them.
There are three key aspects to each asana or yoga pose, and I will describe each in the context of the following three:
- Getting into the posture
- Holding the posture
- Getting out of the posture
Balance
In order to do the above steps, one must have balance, the key principle in yoga practice in all three bodies: physical, astral, and causal. Here is the definition of balance, according to the dictionary. You can see that many things apply regarding that definition and yoga practice.
We will be quite specific regarding balance as we describe what is needed to poses and the balance component.
Here is our definition, in one equation, so to speak:
Not only is this style of class inherently respectful of the chakra system, it’s also balanced in the sense that one does a counter posture for each posture, and allows for a rest after most postures. This repetition and balance of effort and relaxation, if the student can emphasize the relaxation component with abdominal breath awareness, then it’s possible to learn quickly how to bring about relaxation outside of class also.
Balancing as well is the generally slow to medium paced movement into and out of poses. I mean to say that by doing this slowly, one can learn to gradually slow the typically hurried movements one has in daily life rushing to get things done.
A Sivananda Yoga Class is divided into 12 separate basic postures, in order of the chakra system, which is what shows that this system of yoga poses is grounded in spiritual practice, due to it’s respect for this energetic opening. Of course, there are nearly endless variations on these basic postures, allowing for many different types of classes from meditative and introspective to hardcore in difficulty.
Details on how the teaching of yoga postures in many classes we have attended are sorely lacking, or where to find more specific information might allow the student to progress, should they choose to. Where needed, we will point out these aspects also.
In general, an ideal class would last 2 hours, but is adaptable in a full manner down to 1.5 hours and further if certain aspects, like pranayama are taken out entirely, which I am reluctant to do, with good reason.
General Principles
Before we outline the order of poses themselves, we would like to state some general principles of the class that we find important:
- Yoga Asanas (Poses) are spiritual practice and is about moving the prana in the body in specific ways to produce health, flexibility and connection with one’s awareness in movement and action. Having said this, it’s important to note, as I have before, that yoga poses are to be held in a stable and relaxed manner. Since the word asana means literally ‘without motion’, then seems appropriate.
- In general, it’s a good idea to be able to silently and calmly hold each posture for at least 3 minutes (and per side, as appropriate) and that mastery of each pose comes after holding the posture for 3 hours.
- The entire class is designed to bring about a state of mind where the body and mind are calmed to the point where meditation can begin. Indeed, all the poses lead up to the last 15 minutes of class, where a guided relaxation takes place. A prayer precedes and finished each class also. At the start, the Gajananam, and at the end the Maha Mritunjaya mantra, the Universal Prayer, and Om Shanti three times.
- This is the first in a series of articles about asanas 'In Depth'. This text will expand on the information found in the Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga by Swami Vishnu-devananda.
- We have found in teaching yoga classes that there are some common issues that arise during our asanas practice and a common thread of solutions as well. The main point about these tips is that they are designed to be used in a real classroom situation and can be applied in a way that is nearly invisible and shouldn't put you in a position to be 'not following the teacher', or doing something different from everyone else.
- We recommended NOT using props (unless needed for pregnancy, obesity or injury), and if needing to use props, gradually wean one’s self off of the use of them. As Swami Vishnu-devananda said “I am not only teaching you to stand on your hand but also your own two feet.” Relying on one’s own self-effort and self-confidence is a key to spiritual progress, even though we all can use assistance now and then in specific circumstances. Hopefully the tips I will give you here will teach you to be more self-reliant when stresses and strains from your asanas practice and regular life come up.
Why Are Poses Hard?
There is a fundamental principle about yoga poses that can enable you to understand how complicated or physically difficult a pose is to move into, out of or to hold.
- Number of Operating Joints
- Height of Center of Gravity
- Range of Motion Required per joint and compression (bone to bone, genetic) differences between people
- Breath & Concentration Competence
The Basic Class- The links below take you to our comments on each pose.
- Sitting (Asana)- The Main Pose that all other asanas are to help one achieve comfortably.
- Sirshasana (Headstand)
- Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand)
- Halasana (Plow)
- Matsyasana (Fish)
- Paschimotanasana (Sitting Forward Bend)
- Bhujangasana (Cobra)
- Salabasana (Locust)
- Dhanurasana (Bow)
- Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Spinal Twist)
- Kakasana (Crow)
- Pada Hastasana (Hands to Feet Posture)
- Trikonasana (Triangle)
We will be posting photos, audio and video as time goes on, to illustrate the principles we are describing here, so kindly bear with us as we assemble the needed materials.
Western Aspirants in Eastern Spiritual Practice
11/11/08 19:03
Western Aspirants in Eastern Spiritual Practice; How Cultural Conditioning Affects Our Practice
"When we fall into another day
hiding the things we've lost
the secrets to gather
nothing's forever
miles under frozen dust
a diamond vein don't know what it is
and this is the main reason for the victim of the circumstance
can we decide to shine down the light
inside all the darkness out what we are"
song: Garden of Stones by Vanden Plas, album: The God Thing
The Question
I was asked to answer the question "If I could help one person........" what would their attributes be? What is an apt description of them?
To Be Free of Conditioning
As I thought about this question, I saw that my own conditioning, and the arising desire to be free of that same conditioning, was at the root of my own spiritual practice that began many years ago as a child before I even became aware of "spiritual practice" as a term or endeavor. I decided when I was ten years old that I would go about this goal, and have pursued it ever since. The key that unlocked the door of spiritual practice for me is found in The Answer at the bottom of this article in the voice of Richard Harris with the words of Kahlil Gibran.
Root Causes of Spiritual Stress
In so doing, I have attempted to understand some root causes of difficulty for Westerners in Eastern modes of spiritual practice, and I have discovered some key aspects to our Western cultural conditioning that seems to impede us. Swami Sivananda offers many key understandings of these kinds of impediments to spiritual practce, and you can learn this is you take the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course about the 8 Impediments to Spiritual Practice and I would refer you to his words on this subject. Still, he was a Swami in a very traditional Indian culture at a time in history when that culture was more traditional than now.
You may want to take a look at my article on The Seven Phases of Separation to grasp what is behind what I have written here.
Key Aspects of Western Conditioning
A key attribute of people I would assist in spiritual practice or improving their lives are born and conditioned culturally in a Western manner. There are many things one might imply when one says this; such as overriding belief in science, fractured religious history, the belief that life and philosophy of the world began in Greece, proceeded through Rome and then spread to the rest of world from there, with the odd and apparently unrelated trip to Egypt for some pyramids!
It is as though Eastern culture and Native cultures didn't exist at all, according to the general sense of things, even though the philosophy of Native American cultures had a great impact upon the writing of our U.S. Constitution. Most people don't know this.
For a great book about our educational system, I recommend "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by Dr. James W. Loewen. In general, there is a real arrogance and entitlement to our Western cultures that doesn't exist culturally nearly as much as it does in Eastern cultures, and even more so in America, where I live.
Much of our Western culture is predicated on "being an individual", and in America we seem to have a need to pretend we are "pioneers" of some sort, still out riding the range on horseback! The reality is that we have a fairly narrow range of choices, and even our counter-culture movements are all co-opted and promoted on television. Everyone has a uniform, and when you where that uniform, you belong, so the theory goes. In this rather ill culture, you hear about co-dependency, counter-dependency, addictions and control behaviors far more than in Eastern cultures.
“There is a prejudice against the spoken lie, but none against any other, and by examination and mathematical computation I find that the proportion of the spoken lie to the other varieties is 1 to 22,894. Therefore the spoken lie is of no consequence, and it is not worth while to go around fussing about it and trying to make believe that it is an important matter. The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.” - Mark Twain
Cultural Relativity
Much of my statements are a valid observations, and yet many valid cultural observations are much MORE valid depending on the which culture one is referring to. For example, almost all Indian culture is based in family. All one needs to do is travel there to be convinced that the entire country of India is fundamentally, irrevocably co-dependent, yet remarkably lacking in the sort of addictions we observe here, on the whole. This is their social norm. This changes the perspective on making value judgements based on such observations. As cultures around the world become "Westernized" there is a tendency toward control behaviors, which are at the root of addiction.
Teachers Must Teach Based on Types of Conditioning
So considering the type of person I would want to assist in spiritual practice must be considered in the light of the cultural conditioning of the place where they are, my own experience and struggles within the framework of that, and then examine the type of cultural background the spiritual practice was rooted in. Yoga is rooted in an Eastern way of thinking, which has far different assumptions, and in general is more balanced with left and right brained modes of thinking and holds closer one's own personal skepticism.
The famous back and forth "maybe" head nod of Indians is used when they for example don't want to be seen as saying no, but don't want to say yes, either. Saving face is paramount in Eastern cultures, so modes of instruction is also rooted in allowing both teacher and student to save face.
Even Eastern languages are spoken differently depending on the relationship the speaker has with the hearer. In Vietnam for example they need to know how old you are and what your role is to be able to address you properly. I have witnessed Vietnamese people addressing my old spiritual teacher like she was a Buddhist nun, and she herself was Vietnamese, so she would tell me about how she was being spoken to was different depending on her role as a sister, daughter, or what have you.
Even as we understand that the sort of physical problems we in Western culture develop don't manifest in the same patterns (for example, in the West, the implications of sitting in chairs that creates much back and hip tension, shortening of the hamstrings, etc.) in India and Asia because that culture simply moves, and sits very differently as a part of their cultural conditioning. We must understand also that the approach to practice for a teacher of a Western student is far different than that needed to deal with a Taiwanese student, for example; while the physical, mental and spiritual principles underlying the practice remain the same.
The Role of the Teacher
First, I would like to address also my role as a teacher. Neil Postman is a key figure in commentary about our schools, and his perspective- one that I believe in deeply- is that schools should function as a "thermostatic" factor in addressing the cultural stresses found by it's students. If a student is too "hot" or too "cold", so to speak, schools can address this by their curriculum.
Therefore, as a teacher, I think that my role is to teach "thermostatically" with respect to how the student's culture (in most cases in the U.S./Canada, the Western viewpoint) operates and provide a way for the student to achieve a middle ground, physically emotionally and intellectually at the outset and spiritually ultimately.
So in attempting to teach effectively to a Western audience of students Eastern philosophy, we must still address the student with whom FEELS more comfortable with philosophical approaches, yet their entire context of culture is based in pragmatism. This strain by itself will often spin a Western student out of Eastern spiritual practice.
The Western Pragmat-ism
To summarize the key factors I would like to discuss here regarding Western conditioning, I would like to say that North American culture is based fundamentally in pragmatism.
From the dictionary: Pragmatism:
1 : a practical approach to problems and affairs
2 : an American movement in philosophy founded by C. S. Peirce and William James and marked by the doctrines that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief
Much of our pragmatism comes from our curriculum. Curriculum as I mean it here means two things:
1) The First Curriculum: Television and Media (now, including the internet). A wonderful treatise on the effects of the first curriculum (although with statistics from 1979) can be found in one of the best books on teaching: "Teaching as a Conserving Activity" by Neil Postman. This topic is too in depth to cover here.
2) The Second Curriculum- our school system. Much of the structure of our school system comes from the influence of John Dewey, who is considered a key figure of the Pragmatism movement, after Pierce and James mentioned above. Prior to 1950 or so, most of culture was in the hands of public schools. So what was being taught in schools was and is essentially pragmatism, only now often even more narrowly focused. As a result, many other types of holistic schools like Montessori and Waldorf schools have arisen in popularity in recently years.
What Does It Buy Me?
What the pragmatic approach has done is to promote on every level the desire for a result. "What will it DO for ME?" is the key question. This requirement of external things to DO something then means one must require one's self to always also be doing something. Even our downtime, what little of it we give to ourselves is found in movies, television, music, theater and entertainments of every sort. "Work hard and play hard" is the motto. "Just Do It" is a very popular slogan by Nike because it resonates in the heart of this pragmatism.
"patience is just another word
under the old man's tongue" song: Garden of Stones by Vanden Plas, album: The God Thing
Even our Silence is Taken
We then have no silence in our lives. No space where there is a spot in between likes and dislikes where to can rest our weary selves from all the effort we are required to put out. If we don't put out constant efforts, we are lazy, undisciplined or going through a burnout or breakdown. Even burnouts and breakdowns are to be handled as quickly and efficiently as possible! We're busy!
We watch TV to relax, but this merely agitates and reinforces a monkey mind! When we exercise or do any activity, we tend to do it in this gung-ho manner that leaves us so tired we finally can see fit to give ourselves a break, if only for a moment and a protein bar.
Doer-ship
Doer-ship is the law of the land in Western cultures. *I* and doing this and *I* am doing that. ALL Eastern culture's spiritual practices rail against this self-arrogating doer-ship. "Action in inaction and inaction in action" as a concept is found in the Bhagavad Gita. "Action-less action" is in the Tao Te Ching, and so on. The flute of Krishna symbolizes the spiritual aspirant who is being an instrument of God, being transparent. As a teacher, this is always present with me and something I learned at the ashram.
Punishments/Rewards
Additionally, the Western system often uses a punishment/reward stimulus for achievement, in spite of it's clear failure as a method (see Alfie Kohn's book, Punished by Rewards, for a research-supported treatise on this topic). Therefore, the so-called "good" students who adopt this pragmatic approach early on avoid those punishments, and not only reap rewards that are intrinsic to the field of study but also reap the rewards of social acclaim.
I Just Need To Understand!
Required also is understanding before taking a step. It is somehow seen that every action in life is like building a house or assembling a new piece of furniture. The left brain requires this, because it's been trained in this way to respond without any involvement of the person. TV exploits and trains this, as does years of rote memorization of topics throughout school and the requirement of obedience.
Instructions must be read and understood before any step can be taken. At every step, Western students want to know the "why" behind the experience they have yet to have, without taking the time to experience it more fully and allow the teacher to then explain what they have been going through, so one can come to an understanding.
The famous "wax on, wax off" example in the Karate Kid is a typical response. At every step the ego must have advance knowledge of what is to come next, because the mind has been conditioned to be mild and obedient, even though that SAME mind would bristle at the mere suggestion of such a thing. Maybe yours did too when I mentioned it just now!
The 30 Second Life Change
Even so, we have a mythology about Western students undertaking Eastern training in movies and TV constantly. I have seen many movies where a person undergoes a 20 year process in a week under the tutelage of some Eastern Master and subsequently dispatches the forces of evil with his profound and expanded awareness. This "30 second" solution is another subconscious construct CONSTANTLY re-inforced by commercials that will allow for you to get a gorgeous woman or man through the mere purchase of a certain product. TV shows present moralistic resolutions to life-changing problems every week in 30 minutes or less.
Thus, we have a society that arrogates it's entitlement to a result at every opportunity- even before the process has begun. This is clearly the case in the U.S. This pragmatic approach has left those of a more philosophical mindset to feel left out of the general social educational milieu, especially if one's style of preference is to understand how the context in which one's actions and efforts of learning are to give meaning to one's life.
These contexual questions are answered only the realm of philosophy and experience, and a huge supporting sub-culture of psychologists, coaches, gurus, spiritual teachers, self-help books and so on have grown up to fill the need to address the void left over from the narrow view of pragmatic (in idealistic terms, pragmatism) thinking. We will examine this in the next section.
The Eastern Philosophical Approach
In Eastern cultures, the teacher, and in many cases this means also elder (and the older the more respect is given for one's life experience) holds a singular position of respect. This is the cultural norm. Eastern teaching takes, in general, a philosophical approach. By seeing all the activities of life being taught by the teacher in the context of this general philosophy, the student can integrate emotional development as well as academic scholarship. In the context of a more wholly regarded teacher, student and person, respect is given to the effort to learn and to the experience of the teacher as a means to that end.
For an Eastern student and teacher, it's self-evident what being a good student gives to the person so the entitlement we see in the West is usually not a factor. The study and discipline of learning contains it's own rewards and these are what is generally accepted as true without a need for punishments and rewards.
In general, this Eastern approach is a more balanced and multi-sided development structure. It is an approach shared amongst most Eastern cultures, except where the influence of British methods of teaching still hold sway.
East Meets West
Many of the difficulties we have seen with the arrival of indian gurus in the West in the 1960's, and Western students (even if high level Swamis) of Indian and other Eastern Masters of Buddhism, Taoism and the like comes from a difficulty of integration in these cultural aspects.
Who Is Meeting Who and Where?
Western students wear their difficulties with schools, teachers and teachings much more "on their sleeve", so to speak. Challenging a teacher is commonplace, and requiring the teacher to meet the student where the student is, is commonplace. An Eastern student would never consider such a thing, however their skepticism about a teacher or teaching is kept much closer to their chest. It's expected that an Eastern student be given only the principles and philosophy behind, and their job as students is to work this out internally for themselves. In other words, to meet the teacher where THEY are at instead. The teacher's role is to put a student through processes that allow for their growth and realization of their own earned experiences.
This is seen to be the role of the student in the first place- to come UP to the level (hopefully) of the teacher. Only by following the instructions and processes of the teacher can this be done. When a student has some difficulty with a subject, then it's meaning to the student is what matters and the student also knows the teacher grasps this. These factors are assumed also by teachers. Therefore, Eastern students develop a healthy discriminatory and questioning method without having a need to challenge a teacher on so many point of discipline or content and they will feel supported in their growth and expanding understanding.
Addicted to Praise
A Western student is often addicted to praise, and so doesn't feel like progress is made without external acknowledgement of performance or achievement. A gold star must be given for all minor progress. An Eastern style teacher often will not give so much of this, except where resoundingly appropriate, with the understanding that too much praise will bring about a mental weakness for students.
This can be a challenge for a Western mind to accept. Western teaching divides the student from the teacher and subsequently the present subject matter at hand. It's all about the content and it's repetition and not it's application or what it means to the student is forgotten. Students often do not feel supported in their learning, nor do they get any sense that how they feel about their learning is of any consequence.
Western students often struggle to apply specifics to the general principles at hand, lack a habit of discriminative inquiry or "trying on the concepts", and as a result can be easily deceived by teachers who ask them to submit to learning in an "Eastern method" but only end up being taken advantage of. For example, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had an airplane with gold fixtures in it. This shows some considerable lack of discrimination on the part of his followers.
Simply listening without the attendant discriminatory, analysis and thinking skills is a recipe for difficulty. It can take up to a year to begin to be comfortable with this way of learning initially, yet it's ultimately rewarding since learning changes for the student and their world opens up to them.
Since all relationship is a co-creation, one must develop some way of seeing and understanding so one can see the differences between teachers who would lead you to the threshold of your own mind vs. asking you to follow them, or merely accept what they say.
Western students have a need to be in control of their own practice and decisions regarding every item, if it to be accepted.
The Spiritual Tourist
There is a tendency to exaggerate the misunderstandings found in these cultural disconnects to the end of not wanting to grasp the mechanics of how learning is done in the Eastern way of teaching and thus we have the rise of the "spiritual tourist". This is a person who is interested in Eastern modes of spiritual life, but thinks that the best way to do that is by "shopping around" for spiritual insights. Or, they may take the alternative route into one or another of the Western "workshops" like The Experience or Landmark.
Surely, so the thinking goes, that if I take a little from each spiritual teacher, then I will get the "best" of each of them. Swami Sivananda described it this way, to paraphrase the story:
"When one is in the desert and one wants to seek for water, if you can find a shady tree and dig a deep hole, you have the best chance of finding water. When one digs many shallow holes, one is not likely to find water."
The guru or teacher is the shade tree. It is only growing because of the presence of water. The shade tree you see off in the distance is an illusion, and if you attempt to go to it, then often you will never find it and be further still away from your original shade tree.
The Value of One Approach
Because of the nature of television (by this I DON'T mean it's content) the Western mind is conditioned to regard all data as more or less equal. Even where the information might be resonating or relevant, it's often still regarded as "just another piece of information". We have, in Western spiritual culture, literally become spiritual tourists with a large photo collection of gurus and ideas that have no cohesive, living embodiment with with to talk.
The benefit of the sacrifice of all these ideas and memories from one's 'spiritual vacation' means to sit in front of a single teacher and learn in the way THEY teach you. This provides a fundamental building block of consistence and persistence.
It's the nature of really being a student. It's a simple mechanical thing. Why does all water flow toward the ocean? Because it's the lowest. Simple gravity. To be a student, one must put one's self in the lower position to be able to get the water of knowledge.
Food & Social Activities
We in the West live in fear. We live with a constant lingering feeling of lack that drives us because of the nature of our monetary system and it’s intended consequence which is consumerism. In this constant and unnamed fear, we stuff more and more food (and belongings) into and onto our bodies to drown out the perceived lack. When spiritual practice begins, we struggle to heed the call of the teacher/coach/guide that might give us ways to replace our fears with something more substantial and nourishing, our own and different thoughts. Right thinking can replace this fear of lack.
“And what is fear of need but need itself? Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?” -Kahlil Gibran
This ‘unquenchable thirst’ is precisely what almost everyone EXCEPT a spiritual teacher wants for you. Everyone on television, radio and advertising is out to create this lack, which can be overcome by toothpaste, or perfume, or a new car. Our material lives are largely based on making money from someone else’s fear of lack. The “Keeping Up With the Jones’s” mentality recedes further and further into the distance and is replaced by contentment, a natural side-effect of all real spiritual practices, whatever form they might take.
For those in lack, the easiest way to get fulfillment is to go back to the most fundamental nourishing feeling we can get externally and that is the feeling of eating, which triggers your unconscious ‘suckling at the mother’s bosom’ feeling.
The Western aspirant’s first spiritual challenge is related to food. This one topic is a magnet for ALL of the categories of above listed difficulties. All of society points at the need to indulge one’s self in the various veils that cover the understanding of one’s Real Self. We are almost always in some form or another using something we put into our mouths to ‘self-medicate’. In the West, we simply have more of these self-medicating options available to us than in other cultures. This fact has made us mentally, physically and spiritually weak, as a culture.
The nature of these obscuring veils have not changed too much since the dawn of time, yet the average marketer’s/politician’s/television/radio executive’s understanding of the nature of this same mind, and how to manipulate it has increased tremendously, as has the reach of broadcast technologies into our lives. We are marketed almost constantly, even to the point of having an appreciation for commercials as an art form.
In this fearful environment, we gather up all our indulgences into our perception of what goes in our mouths. We often don’t feel good unless we have eaten something to drown out our spiritual stress. Even those who claim to be spiritual struggle with it in this context.
We smoke, we drink, we eat too much food, we endlessly discuss the nuances of food and how it’s cooked, eaten, found, and grown. The cook who feeds people day after day is HIGHLY complimented, even more than is needed. We know more about the specific contents of our food than ever, yet understand less it’s effects on the subtle nature of the mind. Everything points to enjoyment of the sensual nature of food and drink. If we understood these subtle energetic effects, we would have FAR less ADD and so on from eating so much sugar, and less of almost every disease.
As an antidote for this, read about “Proper Diet” from the Sivananda.org site.
“The vast majority of people dig their graves through their teeth.” -Swami Sivananda
I have found it to be the case when teaching or coaching that people will easily speak to me in an unkind fashion if I begin to talk regarding food. Working with athletes for many years I found this to be the case, and it’s also the case as a teacher.
This point is quite interesting because in India, people generally eat together but do not speak. This is especially true in spiritual places like ashrams. I often wondered why this might be, aside from the obvious struggles that I myself have dealt in my mind when restricting rather strongly my own diet. Through this experience I have discovered that food and sexual impulses are very related in the Western mind, and see that when one’s “right” to eat whatever we want, or to enjoy sensual input in that particular manner is inhibited, there come triggers for people. If a spiritual teacher would advocate restricting one’s food for spiritual reasons (a form of tapas or austerity) then people begin to deconstruct my own food choices (vegan, wheat-free, dairy-free).
Usually they want to know my reasons for it, so they can find out whether or not they should judge my reasons strongly or harshly. This pre-condition for “reasons” plays against the above-mentioned “need to understand”. We must grasp that enjoyment is a luxury. We spare very little thought to those who eat simply for nourishment, or have very little food to eat in general.
And we talk. And talk. And talk during the eating of food, disturbing our digestion.
We make decisions as to whether or not to stand on principles like non-injury (ahimsa), the fundamental principle of yoga practice because we might run into social difficulty when ordering food in restaurants! We “eat around” the meat in meat dishes to avoid complicating matters for our friends who aren’t vegetarians, thus robbing them of the our steadfast example of what it might be like to stand on principle without having to make a fuss out of our diet choices.
People everywhere, meat eater, vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, flexitarian, or whatever they all take pledges of allegiance to being a certain “type” of food consumer. Those who identify with it too much tend to wage little tabletop wars with others not of their ‘faith’ and thus embarrass and create bas social situations for everyone. We live in fear of choosing something different than our so-called friends because of this perception. If one really adheres to the principle of ahimsa, one’s best choice is to be a vegetarian (whatever this means to you) and not make a fuss about it. The best spiritual work is done with ZERO recognition.
I am a vegan, wheat-free, dairy-free eater partly due to allergies (from eating too much sugar as an endurance athlete) and partly because of principle. However, I promise not to make a fuss (unless I am your teacher, and even then not in public situations, except where warranted) by your food choices.
One’s karma is one’s own. I have no need to take on yours or wage a war about food against you or anyone else. I let my example be my best instruction.
What Students REALLY Want
What Western students of Eastern method REALLY are looking for, in my experience, is a connection with these apparently "lost" parts of themselves, that are not reinforced by the culture in which they were raised.
Specifically:
1) Like Minded People. Company with people who regard each other as whole, wise, capable, and resourceful- FROM THE OUTSET. There is an assumption of wellness and completion. One's internal perspective can be heard externally and thus validated. In Buddhism, this is known as the sanga, one of the "three jewels" of that practice. In Yoga, this is called satsanga, or company with the wise or with truth.
What It Does:
Convinces the mind that other people are doing it, so I can too. There is a reassurance in groups that is a natural consequence of the herd instinct in the mind. One's perspective is shared and through the act of sharing and hearing other people share, one's division from one's Self is lessened.
2) Consistence and Persistence. The key to meditation practice is threefold: time, place and space. These are the key components to any ongoing and sweeping change or practice and the teacher and the student must be given the opportunity to explore the realms of deep understanding and trust between them.
What It Does:
Convinces the mind by overcoming the Wild Horse nature of the mind and allows grooves in the record of the mind to be established by hearing the same thing said from several different people and perspectives.
3) Challenge. A key to growth. Specifically, in a physical sense, a change in the plasticity of the brain is found when going outside on one's established patterns.
What It Does:
Breaks Patterns. Tests willingness. Promotes maturity. Since spiritual practice takes on increasingly transcendent reflection, forms and expression, one always has a place to challenge the conditioning of one's mind. Spiritual practice is one that leads one closer to one's understanding of the internal reality and subsequently the external reality changes as a result. In the West, we are taught that external aspects are more important to put energy into, and so a lasting challenge for a Western student of Eastern teaching is this internal facing energy concentration.
4) Integral Philosophy. A watery approach that gives meaning and emotional reinforcement to their thoughts, deeds and actions, a way to allow to die old, separating thoughts. By watery I mean that it has a depth and percolates into the dry spaces
What It Does:
Convinces the left brain with facts about the structure and function of endeavor undertaken in the emotional realm. Gives the ego something to think about and do while balancing habits are formed that can slowly attenuate it. Provides lifestyle alternatives that support this. Logical conclusions support right thinking about the ultimate nature of the mind, the phenomenal world and can be read about in advance of experiencing it for one's self. Motivates one to continue on the path by providing a road map and context of practical efforts.
5) A Real Teacher. The spiritual energy of someone simply living their high thinking nature is felt by the student, even when the student doesn't "understand" why from a logical perspective. The teacher's words are important, but in the end the teacher's excellent example and internal/external congruency is the foundation of their teaching method. Nothing is so powerful as that singular example.
What It Does:
Provides a template of living conduct, energy, ethics, kindness and loving nature to emulate. This is far more rare in the West than in the East, although poor or charlatan teachers are found everywhere.
The Answer
So all this to answer the question "If I could help one person........" what would their attributes be? What is an apt description of them?
I want to help those who are having any of the difficulties of facing real Eastern spiritual practice as I describe it above and have experienced this struggle myself. I want to work with people who understand what the below verses by Gibran mean.
I want to work with a person who can see my real faith in the possibility of their progress to whatever end they desire in this context of earnest spiritual practice, and will persist in .
It requires the adoption of a way that goes beyond a call to action. If what you need is a call to action, I am happy to bugle it out for you, yet most people in our society need a context I believe that this is what a teacher is meant to do. I believe also that this is what most Western people are missing in their lives. Without context, lives lose meaning over time.
I want to work with people in the way Kahlil Gibran describes below, and I think it applies here, for me. To those with whom these things resonate, I am ready to work with you.
On Teaching
"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.
On Work
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say, that life is indeed darkness, save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Work is love made visible."
Let us work together.
"When we fall into another day
hiding the things we've lost
the secrets to gather
nothing's forever
miles under frozen dust
a diamond vein don't know what it is
and this is the main reason for the victim of the circumstance
can we decide to shine down the light
inside all the darkness out what we are"
song: Garden of Stones by Vanden Plas, album: The God Thing
The Question
I was asked to answer the question "If I could help one person........" what would their attributes be? What is an apt description of them?
To Be Free of Conditioning
As I thought about this question, I saw that my own conditioning, and the arising desire to be free of that same conditioning, was at the root of my own spiritual practice that began many years ago as a child before I even became aware of "spiritual practice" as a term or endeavor. I decided when I was ten years old that I would go about this goal, and have pursued it ever since. The key that unlocked the door of spiritual practice for me is found in The Answer at the bottom of this article in the voice of Richard Harris with the words of Kahlil Gibran.
Root Causes of Spiritual Stress
In so doing, I have attempted to understand some root causes of difficulty for Westerners in Eastern modes of spiritual practice, and I have discovered some key aspects to our Western cultural conditioning that seems to impede us. Swami Sivananda offers many key understandings of these kinds of impediments to spiritual practce, and you can learn this is you take the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course about the 8 Impediments to Spiritual Practice and I would refer you to his words on this subject. Still, he was a Swami in a very traditional Indian culture at a time in history when that culture was more traditional than now.
You may want to take a look at my article on The Seven Phases of Separation to grasp what is behind what I have written here.
Key Aspects of Western Conditioning
A key attribute of people I would assist in spiritual practice or improving their lives are born and conditioned culturally in a Western manner. There are many things one might imply when one says this; such as overriding belief in science, fractured religious history, the belief that life and philosophy of the world began in Greece, proceeded through Rome and then spread to the rest of world from there, with the odd and apparently unrelated trip to Egypt for some pyramids!
It is as though Eastern culture and Native cultures didn't exist at all, according to the general sense of things, even though the philosophy of Native American cultures had a great impact upon the writing of our U.S. Constitution. Most people don't know this.
For a great book about our educational system, I recommend "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by Dr. James W. Loewen. In general, there is a real arrogance and entitlement to our Western cultures that doesn't exist culturally nearly as much as it does in Eastern cultures, and even more so in America, where I live.
Much of our Western culture is predicated on "being an individual", and in America we seem to have a need to pretend we are "pioneers" of some sort, still out riding the range on horseback! The reality is that we have a fairly narrow range of choices, and even our counter-culture movements are all co-opted and promoted on television. Everyone has a uniform, and when you where that uniform, you belong, so the theory goes. In this rather ill culture, you hear about co-dependency, counter-dependency, addictions and control behaviors far more than in Eastern cultures.
“There is a prejudice against the spoken lie, but none against any other, and by examination and mathematical computation I find that the proportion of the spoken lie to the other varieties is 1 to 22,894. Therefore the spoken lie is of no consequence, and it is not worth while to go around fussing about it and trying to make believe that it is an important matter. The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.” - Mark Twain
Cultural Relativity
Much of my statements are a valid observations, and yet many valid cultural observations are much MORE valid depending on the which culture one is referring to. For example, almost all Indian culture is based in family. All one needs to do is travel there to be convinced that the entire country of India is fundamentally, irrevocably co-dependent, yet remarkably lacking in the sort of addictions we observe here, on the whole. This is their social norm. This changes the perspective on making value judgements based on such observations. As cultures around the world become "Westernized" there is a tendency toward control behaviors, which are at the root of addiction.
Teachers Must Teach Based on Types of Conditioning
So considering the type of person I would want to assist in spiritual practice must be considered in the light of the cultural conditioning of the place where they are, my own experience and struggles within the framework of that, and then examine the type of cultural background the spiritual practice was rooted in. Yoga is rooted in an Eastern way of thinking, which has far different assumptions, and in general is more balanced with left and right brained modes of thinking and holds closer one's own personal skepticism.
The famous back and forth "maybe" head nod of Indians is used when they for example don't want to be seen as saying no, but don't want to say yes, either. Saving face is paramount in Eastern cultures, so modes of instruction is also rooted in allowing both teacher and student to save face.
Even Eastern languages are spoken differently depending on the relationship the speaker has with the hearer. In Vietnam for example they need to know how old you are and what your role is to be able to address you properly. I have witnessed Vietnamese people addressing my old spiritual teacher like she was a Buddhist nun, and she herself was Vietnamese, so she would tell me about how she was being spoken to was different depending on her role as a sister, daughter, or what have you.
Even as we understand that the sort of physical problems we in Western culture develop don't manifest in the same patterns (for example, in the West, the implications of sitting in chairs that creates much back and hip tension, shortening of the hamstrings, etc.) in India and Asia because that culture simply moves, and sits very differently as a part of their cultural conditioning. We must understand also that the approach to practice for a teacher of a Western student is far different than that needed to deal with a Taiwanese student, for example; while the physical, mental and spiritual principles underlying the practice remain the same.
The Role of the Teacher
First, I would like to address also my role as a teacher. Neil Postman is a key figure in commentary about our schools, and his perspective- one that I believe in deeply- is that schools should function as a "thermostatic" factor in addressing the cultural stresses found by it's students. If a student is too "hot" or too "cold", so to speak, schools can address this by their curriculum.
Therefore, as a teacher, I think that my role is to teach "thermostatically" with respect to how the student's culture (in most cases in the U.S./Canada, the Western viewpoint) operates and provide a way for the student to achieve a middle ground, physically emotionally and intellectually at the outset and spiritually ultimately.
So in attempting to teach effectively to a Western audience of students Eastern philosophy, we must still address the student with whom FEELS more comfortable with philosophical approaches, yet their entire context of culture is based in pragmatism. This strain by itself will often spin a Western student out of Eastern spiritual practice.
The Western Pragmat-ism
To summarize the key factors I would like to discuss here regarding Western conditioning, I would like to say that North American culture is based fundamentally in pragmatism.
From the dictionary: Pragmatism:
1 : a practical approach to problems and affairs
2 : an American movement in philosophy founded by C. S. Peirce and William James and marked by the doctrines that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief
Much of our pragmatism comes from our curriculum. Curriculum as I mean it here means two things:
1) The First Curriculum: Television and Media (now, including the internet). A wonderful treatise on the effects of the first curriculum (although with statistics from 1979) can be found in one of the best books on teaching: "Teaching as a Conserving Activity" by Neil Postman. This topic is too in depth to cover here.
2) The Second Curriculum- our school system. Much of the structure of our school system comes from the influence of John Dewey, who is considered a key figure of the Pragmatism movement, after Pierce and James mentioned above. Prior to 1950 or so, most of culture was in the hands of public schools. So what was being taught in schools was and is essentially pragmatism, only now often even more narrowly focused. As a result, many other types of holistic schools like Montessori and Waldorf schools have arisen in popularity in recently years.
What Does It Buy Me?
What the pragmatic approach has done is to promote on every level the desire for a result. "What will it DO for ME?" is the key question. This requirement of external things to DO something then means one must require one's self to always also be doing something. Even our downtime, what little of it we give to ourselves is found in movies, television, music, theater and entertainments of every sort. "Work hard and play hard" is the motto. "Just Do It" is a very popular slogan by Nike because it resonates in the heart of this pragmatism.
"patience is just another word
under the old man's tongue" song: Garden of Stones by Vanden Plas, album: The God Thing
Even our Silence is Taken
We then have no silence in our lives. No space where there is a spot in between likes and dislikes where to can rest our weary selves from all the effort we are required to put out. If we don't put out constant efforts, we are lazy, undisciplined or going through a burnout or breakdown. Even burnouts and breakdowns are to be handled as quickly and efficiently as possible! We're busy!
We watch TV to relax, but this merely agitates and reinforces a monkey mind! When we exercise or do any activity, we tend to do it in this gung-ho manner that leaves us so tired we finally can see fit to give ourselves a break, if only for a moment and a protein bar.
Doer-ship
Doer-ship is the law of the land in Western cultures. *I* and doing this and *I* am doing that. ALL Eastern culture's spiritual practices rail against this self-arrogating doer-ship. "Action in inaction and inaction in action" as a concept is found in the Bhagavad Gita. "Action-less action" is in the Tao Te Ching, and so on. The flute of Krishna symbolizes the spiritual aspirant who is being an instrument of God, being transparent. As a teacher, this is always present with me and something I learned at the ashram.
Punishments/Rewards
Additionally, the Western system often uses a punishment/reward stimulus for achievement, in spite of it's clear failure as a method (see Alfie Kohn's book, Punished by Rewards, for a research-supported treatise on this topic). Therefore, the so-called "good" students who adopt this pragmatic approach early on avoid those punishments, and not only reap rewards that are intrinsic to the field of study but also reap the rewards of social acclaim.
I Just Need To Understand!
Required also is understanding before taking a step. It is somehow seen that every action in life is like building a house or assembling a new piece of furniture. The left brain requires this, because it's been trained in this way to respond without any involvement of the person. TV exploits and trains this, as does years of rote memorization of topics throughout school and the requirement of obedience.
Instructions must be read and understood before any step can be taken. At every step, Western students want to know the "why" behind the experience they have yet to have, without taking the time to experience it more fully and allow the teacher to then explain what they have been going through, so one can come to an understanding.
The famous "wax on, wax off" example in the Karate Kid is a typical response. At every step the ego must have advance knowledge of what is to come next, because the mind has been conditioned to be mild and obedient, even though that SAME mind would bristle at the mere suggestion of such a thing. Maybe yours did too when I mentioned it just now!
The 30 Second Life Change
Even so, we have a mythology about Western students undertaking Eastern training in movies and TV constantly. I have seen many movies where a person undergoes a 20 year process in a week under the tutelage of some Eastern Master and subsequently dispatches the forces of evil with his profound and expanded awareness. This "30 second" solution is another subconscious construct CONSTANTLY re-inforced by commercials that will allow for you to get a gorgeous woman or man through the mere purchase of a certain product. TV shows present moralistic resolutions to life-changing problems every week in 30 minutes or less.
Thus, we have a society that arrogates it's entitlement to a result at every opportunity- even before the process has begun. This is clearly the case in the U.S. This pragmatic approach has left those of a more philosophical mindset to feel left out of the general social educational milieu, especially if one's style of preference is to understand how the context in which one's actions and efforts of learning are to give meaning to one's life.
These contexual questions are answered only the realm of philosophy and experience, and a huge supporting sub-culture of psychologists, coaches, gurus, spiritual teachers, self-help books and so on have grown up to fill the need to address the void left over from the narrow view of pragmatic (in idealistic terms, pragmatism) thinking. We will examine this in the next section.
The Eastern Philosophical Approach
In Eastern cultures, the teacher, and in many cases this means also elder (and the older the more respect is given for one's life experience) holds a singular position of respect. This is the cultural norm. Eastern teaching takes, in general, a philosophical approach. By seeing all the activities of life being taught by the teacher in the context of this general philosophy, the student can integrate emotional development as well as academic scholarship. In the context of a more wholly regarded teacher, student and person, respect is given to the effort to learn and to the experience of the teacher as a means to that end.
For an Eastern student and teacher, it's self-evident what being a good student gives to the person so the entitlement we see in the West is usually not a factor. The study and discipline of learning contains it's own rewards and these are what is generally accepted as true without a need for punishments and rewards.
In general, this Eastern approach is a more balanced and multi-sided development structure. It is an approach shared amongst most Eastern cultures, except where the influence of British methods of teaching still hold sway.
East Meets West
Many of the difficulties we have seen with the arrival of indian gurus in the West in the 1960's, and Western students (even if high level Swamis) of Indian and other Eastern Masters of Buddhism, Taoism and the like comes from a difficulty of integration in these cultural aspects.
Who Is Meeting Who and Where?
Western students wear their difficulties with schools, teachers and teachings much more "on their sleeve", so to speak. Challenging a teacher is commonplace, and requiring the teacher to meet the student where the student is, is commonplace. An Eastern student would never consider such a thing, however their skepticism about a teacher or teaching is kept much closer to their chest. It's expected that an Eastern student be given only the principles and philosophy behind, and their job as students is to work this out internally for themselves. In other words, to meet the teacher where THEY are at instead. The teacher's role is to put a student through processes that allow for their growth and realization of their own earned experiences.
This is seen to be the role of the student in the first place- to come UP to the level (hopefully) of the teacher. Only by following the instructions and processes of the teacher can this be done. When a student has some difficulty with a subject, then it's meaning to the student is what matters and the student also knows the teacher grasps this. These factors are assumed also by teachers. Therefore, Eastern students develop a healthy discriminatory and questioning method without having a need to challenge a teacher on so many point of discipline or content and they will feel supported in their growth and expanding understanding.
Addicted to Praise
A Western student is often addicted to praise, and so doesn't feel like progress is made without external acknowledgement of performance or achievement. A gold star must be given for all minor progress. An Eastern style teacher often will not give so much of this, except where resoundingly appropriate, with the understanding that too much praise will bring about a mental weakness for students.
This can be a challenge for a Western mind to accept. Western teaching divides the student from the teacher and subsequently the present subject matter at hand. It's all about the content and it's repetition and not it's application or what it means to the student is forgotten. Students often do not feel supported in their learning, nor do they get any sense that how they feel about their learning is of any consequence.
Western students often struggle to apply specifics to the general principles at hand, lack a habit of discriminative inquiry or "trying on the concepts", and as a result can be easily deceived by teachers who ask them to submit to learning in an "Eastern method" but only end up being taken advantage of. For example, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had an airplane with gold fixtures in it. This shows some considerable lack of discrimination on the part of his followers.
Simply listening without the attendant discriminatory, analysis and thinking skills is a recipe for difficulty. It can take up to a year to begin to be comfortable with this way of learning initially, yet it's ultimately rewarding since learning changes for the student and their world opens up to them.
Since all relationship is a co-creation, one must develop some way of seeing and understanding so one can see the differences between teachers who would lead you to the threshold of your own mind vs. asking you to follow them, or merely accept what they say.
Western students have a need to be in control of their own practice and decisions regarding every item, if it to be accepted.
The Spiritual Tourist
There is a tendency to exaggerate the misunderstandings found in these cultural disconnects to the end of not wanting to grasp the mechanics of how learning is done in the Eastern way of teaching and thus we have the rise of the "spiritual tourist". This is a person who is interested in Eastern modes of spiritual life, but thinks that the best way to do that is by "shopping around" for spiritual insights. Or, they may take the alternative route into one or another of the Western "workshops" like The Experience or Landmark.
Surely, so the thinking goes, that if I take a little from each spiritual teacher, then I will get the "best" of each of them. Swami Sivananda described it this way, to paraphrase the story:
"When one is in the desert and one wants to seek for water, if you can find a shady tree and dig a deep hole, you have the best chance of finding water. When one digs many shallow holes, one is not likely to find water."
The guru or teacher is the shade tree. It is only growing because of the presence of water. The shade tree you see off in the distance is an illusion, and if you attempt to go to it, then often you will never find it and be further still away from your original shade tree.
The Value of One Approach
Because of the nature of television (by this I DON'T mean it's content) the Western mind is conditioned to regard all data as more or less equal. Even where the information might be resonating or relevant, it's often still regarded as "just another piece of information". We have, in Western spiritual culture, literally become spiritual tourists with a large photo collection of gurus and ideas that have no cohesive, living embodiment with with to talk.
The benefit of the sacrifice of all these ideas and memories from one's 'spiritual vacation' means to sit in front of a single teacher and learn in the way THEY teach you. This provides a fundamental building block of consistence and persistence.
It's the nature of really being a student. It's a simple mechanical thing. Why does all water flow toward the ocean? Because it's the lowest. Simple gravity. To be a student, one must put one's self in the lower position to be able to get the water of knowledge.
Food & Social Activities
We in the West live in fear. We live with a constant lingering feeling of lack that drives us because of the nature of our monetary system and it’s intended consequence which is consumerism. In this constant and unnamed fear, we stuff more and more food (and belongings) into and onto our bodies to drown out the perceived lack. When spiritual practice begins, we struggle to heed the call of the teacher/coach/guide that might give us ways to replace our fears with something more substantial and nourishing, our own and different thoughts. Right thinking can replace this fear of lack.
“And what is fear of need but need itself? Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?” -Kahlil Gibran
This ‘unquenchable thirst’ is precisely what almost everyone EXCEPT a spiritual teacher wants for you. Everyone on television, radio and advertising is out to create this lack, which can be overcome by toothpaste, or perfume, or a new car. Our material lives are largely based on making money from someone else’s fear of lack. The “Keeping Up With the Jones’s” mentality recedes further and further into the distance and is replaced by contentment, a natural side-effect of all real spiritual practices, whatever form they might take.
For those in lack, the easiest way to get fulfillment is to go back to the most fundamental nourishing feeling we can get externally and that is the feeling of eating, which triggers your unconscious ‘suckling at the mother’s bosom’ feeling.
The Western aspirant’s first spiritual challenge is related to food. This one topic is a magnet for ALL of the categories of above listed difficulties. All of society points at the need to indulge one’s self in the various veils that cover the understanding of one’s Real Self. We are almost always in some form or another using something we put into our mouths to ‘self-medicate’. In the West, we simply have more of these self-medicating options available to us than in other cultures. This fact has made us mentally, physically and spiritually weak, as a culture.
The nature of these obscuring veils have not changed too much since the dawn of time, yet the average marketer’s/politician’s/television/radio executive’s understanding of the nature of this same mind, and how to manipulate it has increased tremendously, as has the reach of broadcast technologies into our lives. We are marketed almost constantly, even to the point of having an appreciation for commercials as an art form.
In this fearful environment, we gather up all our indulgences into our perception of what goes in our mouths. We often don’t feel good unless we have eaten something to drown out our spiritual stress. Even those who claim to be spiritual struggle with it in this context.
We smoke, we drink, we eat too much food, we endlessly discuss the nuances of food and how it’s cooked, eaten, found, and grown. The cook who feeds people day after day is HIGHLY complimented, even more than is needed. We know more about the specific contents of our food than ever, yet understand less it’s effects on the subtle nature of the mind. Everything points to enjoyment of the sensual nature of food and drink. If we understood these subtle energetic effects, we would have FAR less ADD and so on from eating so much sugar, and less of almost every disease.
As an antidote for this, read about “Proper Diet” from the Sivananda.org site.
“The vast majority of people dig their graves through their teeth.” -Swami Sivananda
I have found it to be the case when teaching or coaching that people will easily speak to me in an unkind fashion if I begin to talk regarding food. Working with athletes for many years I found this to be the case, and it’s also the case as a teacher.
This point is quite interesting because in India, people generally eat together but do not speak. This is especially true in spiritual places like ashrams. I often wondered why this might be, aside from the obvious struggles that I myself have dealt in my mind when restricting rather strongly my own diet. Through this experience I have discovered that food and sexual impulses are very related in the Western mind, and see that when one’s “right” to eat whatever we want, or to enjoy sensual input in that particular manner is inhibited, there come triggers for people. If a spiritual teacher would advocate restricting one’s food for spiritual reasons (a form of tapas or austerity) then people begin to deconstruct my own food choices (vegan, wheat-free, dairy-free).
Usually they want to know my reasons for it, so they can find out whether or not they should judge my reasons strongly or harshly. This pre-condition for “reasons” plays against the above-mentioned “need to understand”. We must grasp that enjoyment is a luxury. We spare very little thought to those who eat simply for nourishment, or have very little food to eat in general.
And we talk. And talk. And talk during the eating of food, disturbing our digestion.
We make decisions as to whether or not to stand on principles like non-injury (ahimsa), the fundamental principle of yoga practice because we might run into social difficulty when ordering food in restaurants! We “eat around” the meat in meat dishes to avoid complicating matters for our friends who aren’t vegetarians, thus robbing them of the our steadfast example of what it might be like to stand on principle without having to make a fuss out of our diet choices.
People everywhere, meat eater, vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, flexitarian, or whatever they all take pledges of allegiance to being a certain “type” of food consumer. Those who identify with it too much tend to wage little tabletop wars with others not of their ‘faith’ and thus embarrass and create bas social situations for everyone. We live in fear of choosing something different than our so-called friends because of this perception. If one really adheres to the principle of ahimsa, one’s best choice is to be a vegetarian (whatever this means to you) and not make a fuss about it. The best spiritual work is done with ZERO recognition.
I am a vegan, wheat-free, dairy-free eater partly due to allergies (from eating too much sugar as an endurance athlete) and partly because of principle. However, I promise not to make a fuss (unless I am your teacher, and even then not in public situations, except where warranted) by your food choices.
One’s karma is one’s own. I have no need to take on yours or wage a war about food against you or anyone else. I let my example be my best instruction.
What Students REALLY Want
What Western students of Eastern method REALLY are looking for, in my experience, is a connection with these apparently "lost" parts of themselves, that are not reinforced by the culture in which they were raised.
Specifically:
1) Like Minded People. Company with people who regard each other as whole, wise, capable, and resourceful- FROM THE OUTSET. There is an assumption of wellness and completion. One's internal perspective can be heard externally and thus validated. In Buddhism, this is known as the sanga, one of the "three jewels" of that practice. In Yoga, this is called satsanga, or company with the wise or with truth.
What It Does:
Convinces the mind that other people are doing it, so I can too. There is a reassurance in groups that is a natural consequence of the herd instinct in the mind. One's perspective is shared and through the act of sharing and hearing other people share, one's division from one's Self is lessened.
2) Consistence and Persistence. The key to meditation practice is threefold: time, place and space. These are the key components to any ongoing and sweeping change or practice and the teacher and the student must be given the opportunity to explore the realms of deep understanding and trust between them.
What It Does:
Convinces the mind by overcoming the Wild Horse nature of the mind and allows grooves in the record of the mind to be established by hearing the same thing said from several different people and perspectives.
3) Challenge. A key to growth. Specifically, in a physical sense, a change in the plasticity of the brain is found when going outside on one's established patterns.
What It Does:
Breaks Patterns. Tests willingness. Promotes maturity. Since spiritual practice takes on increasingly transcendent reflection, forms and expression, one always has a place to challenge the conditioning of one's mind. Spiritual practice is one that leads one closer to one's understanding of the internal reality and subsequently the external reality changes as a result. In the West, we are taught that external aspects are more important to put energy into, and so a lasting challenge for a Western student of Eastern teaching is this internal facing energy concentration.
4) Integral Philosophy. A watery approach that gives meaning and emotional reinforcement to their thoughts, deeds and actions, a way to allow to die old, separating thoughts. By watery I mean that it has a depth and percolates into the dry spaces
What It Does:
Convinces the left brain with facts about the structure and function of endeavor undertaken in the emotional realm. Gives the ego something to think about and do while balancing habits are formed that can slowly attenuate it. Provides lifestyle alternatives that support this. Logical conclusions support right thinking about the ultimate nature of the mind, the phenomenal world and can be read about in advance of experiencing it for one's self. Motivates one to continue on the path by providing a road map and context of practical efforts.
5) A Real Teacher. The spiritual energy of someone simply living their high thinking nature is felt by the student, even when the student doesn't "understand" why from a logical perspective. The teacher's words are important, but in the end the teacher's excellent example and internal/external congruency is the foundation of their teaching method. Nothing is so powerful as that singular example.
What It Does:
Provides a template of living conduct, energy, ethics, kindness and loving nature to emulate. This is far more rare in the West than in the East, although poor or charlatan teachers are found everywhere.
The Answer
So all this to answer the question "If I could help one person........" what would their attributes be? What is an apt description of them?
I want to help those who are having any of the difficulties of facing real Eastern spiritual practice as I describe it above and have experienced this struggle myself. I want to work with people who understand what the below verses by Gibran mean.
I want to work with a person who can see my real faith in the possibility of their progress to whatever end they desire in this context of earnest spiritual practice, and will persist in .
It requires the adoption of a way that goes beyond a call to action. If what you need is a call to action, I am happy to bugle it out for you, yet most people in our society need a context I believe that this is what a teacher is meant to do. I believe also that this is what most Western people are missing in their lives. Without context, lives lose meaning over time.
I want to work with people in the way Kahlil Gibran describes below, and I think it applies here, for me. To those with whom these things resonate, I am ready to work with you.
On Teaching
"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.
On Work
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say, that life is indeed darkness, save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Work is love made visible."
Let us work together.
20 Important Spiritual Instructions by Swami Sivananda
10/11/08 19:00
20 SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS By SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA
NOTE: Please understand the context. These instructions were for a 1940’s-1950’s Indian monastic audience.
These twenty instructions contain the very essence of all Yoga Sadhana, Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Yoga will all come to one who follows them whole-heartedly. They are the unfailing keys to quick and effective development and culture of the physical, mental, moral and spiritual self of man.
1. BRAHMAMUHURTA
Get up at 4 a.m. daily. This is Brahmamuhurta which is extremely favourable for Sadhana. Do all your morning spiritual Sadhana during this period from 4 a.m. to 6:30 or 7 a.m. Such Sadhana gives quick and maximum progress.
2. ASANA
Sit on Padmasana (lotus pose), Siddhasana (adept's pose) or Sukhasana (any pose you like) for your Japa and meditation for half an hour, facing east or north. Increase the period gradually to three hours. Practice Sirshasana (headstand) and Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) for maintenance of health and Brahmacharya. Take light physical exercises as walking, etc., regularly. Do twenty rounds of easy, comfortable Pranayama (breathing exercises). Do not strain yourself while doing Pranayama.
3. JAPA
You can repeat any Mantra (sacred syllable), such as pure Om or Om Namo Narayanaya, Sri Ram, Sita Ram, Sri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram, Om Namah Sivaya, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, Om Saravanabhavaya Namah, Hari Om, or Gayatri (a sacred Vedic Mantra), according to your taste or inclination, from 108 times to 21,600 times daily. Devotees of Christ may repeat the name Jesus or Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus. Parsis, Sikhs and Muslims may select a name or Mantra from the Zend Avesta, Granth Sahib or Koran respectively.
4. DIETETIC DISCIPLINE
Take Sattvic food. Give up chillies, tamarind, garlic, onion, sour articles, oil, mustard, asafoetida. Observe moderation in diet (Mitahara). Do not overload the stomach. Give up those things which the mind likes best for a fortnight once or twice in a year. Eat simple simple food. Milk and fruits help concentration. Take food as medicine to keep the life going. Eating for enjoyment is a sin. Give up salt and sugar for a week or a fortnight. You must be able to live on rice, dhal and bread without any pickle. Do not ask for extra salt for dhal, and sugar for tea, coffee and milk. People taking non-vegetaraian diet should try their best to gradually give up flesh-eating as completely as possible. They will be immensely benefited.
5. MEDITATION
Have a separate meditation room under lock and key. If this is not possible then a corner of the room should be set apart with a small cloth screen or curtain drawn across. Keep the room spotlessly clean.
6. SVADHYAYA
Study systematically the Gita, Ramayana, Bhagavatam, Vishnu-Sahasranama, Lalita-Sahasranama, Adityahridaya, Upanishads, Yoga Vasishta, Bible, Imitation of Christ, Zend Avesta, Quran, the Tripitakas, the Granth Sahib and other religious books from half an hour to one hour daily, and have Suddha Vichara (pure thoughts).
7. ELEVATE THE MIND
Get by heart some prayer - Slokas (prayer verses), Stotras (hymns) and repeat them as soon as you sit in the Asana before starting Japa or meditation. This will elevate the mind quickly.
8. BRAHMACHARYA
Preserve the vital force (Veerya (seminal energy)) very, very carefully. Veerya is God in motion or manifestation (Vibhuti). Veerya is all power. Veerya is all money. Veerya is the essence of life, thought and intelligence. This instruction is not for bachelors only. Householders also must follow it as far as possible. They must be extremely moderate in their marital connections with their spouse. This is very important.
9. CHARITY
Do charity regularly, every month, or even daily according to your means. Never fail in this item. If necessary forego some personal wants but keep up this charity regularly.
10. HAVE SATSANG
Give up bad company, smoking, meat and alcoholic liquors entirely. Have constant Satsang (association with holy people). Do not develop any evil habits. Deliberately exert to develop positive virtuous qualities.
11. FAST
Fast on Ekadasi (11th day of the Hindu lunar fortnight) or live on milk and fruits only. Christians must fast on alternate Sundays, Muslims on alternate Fridays, and Parsis on a suitable day every fortnight.
12. JAPA MALA
Have a Japa Mala (rosary) around your neck or in your pocket or underneath your pillow at night. This will remind you of God. Twirl the beads during your leisure. You should repeat the Name at all times, whatever task you may be engaged in.
13. OBSERVE MOUNA
Observe Mouna (vow of silence) for a couple of hours daily. Do not make gestures and inarticulate noises during the period of silence.
14. DISCIPLINE OF SPEECH
Speak the truth at all cost. Speak a little. Speak sweetly. Always utter encouraging words. Never condemn, criticize or discourage. Do not raise your voice and shout at little children or subordinates.
15. BE CONTENT
Reduce your wants. If you have four shirts, reduce the number to three or two. Lead a happy, contented life. Avoid unnecessary worry. Be mentally detached. Have plain living and high thinking. Think of those who do not possess even one-tenth of what you have. Share with others.
16. PRACTICE LOVE
Never hurt anybody. Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah (Non-injury is the highest virtue). Control anger by love, Kshama (forgiveness) and Daya (compassion). Serve the sick and the poor with love and affection. This is service of God.
17. BE SELF RELIANT
Do not depend upon servants. Self-reliance is the highest of all virtues.
18. HAVE SELF-ANALYSIS
Think of the mistakes you have committed during the course of the day, just before retiring to bed (self-analysis). Keep a daily spiritual diary and self-correction register as Benjamin Franklin did. Maintain a daily routine and resolve-form. Do not brood over past mistakes.
19. DO YOUR DUTY
Remember that death is awaiting you at every moment. Never fail to fulfil your duties. Have pure conduct (Sadachara).
20. REMEMBER GOD
Think of God as soon as you wake up and just before you go to sleep, and at all other times whether engaged in any work or not. Repeat His Name always. Surrender yourself completely to God (Saranagati).
This is the essence of all spiritual Sadhana. It will lead you to liberation. All these spiritual canons must be rigidly observed. You must not give any leniency to the mind.
NOTE: Please understand the context. These instructions were for a 1940’s-1950’s Indian monastic audience.
These twenty instructions contain the very essence of all Yoga Sadhana, Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Yoga will all come to one who follows them whole-heartedly. They are the unfailing keys to quick and effective development and culture of the physical, mental, moral and spiritual self of man.
1. BRAHMAMUHURTA
Get up at 4 a.m. daily. This is Brahmamuhurta which is extremely favourable for Sadhana. Do all your morning spiritual Sadhana during this period from 4 a.m. to 6:30 or 7 a.m. Such Sadhana gives quick and maximum progress.
2. ASANA
Sit on Padmasana (lotus pose), Siddhasana (adept's pose) or Sukhasana (any pose you like) for your Japa and meditation for half an hour, facing east or north. Increase the period gradually to three hours. Practice Sirshasana (headstand) and Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) for maintenance of health and Brahmacharya. Take light physical exercises as walking, etc., regularly. Do twenty rounds of easy, comfortable Pranayama (breathing exercises). Do not strain yourself while doing Pranayama.
3. JAPA
You can repeat any Mantra (sacred syllable), such as pure Om or Om Namo Narayanaya, Sri Ram, Sita Ram, Sri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram, Om Namah Sivaya, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, Om Saravanabhavaya Namah, Hari Om, or Gayatri (a sacred Vedic Mantra), according to your taste or inclination, from 108 times to 21,600 times daily. Devotees of Christ may repeat the name Jesus or Hail Mary, Mother of Jesus. Parsis, Sikhs and Muslims may select a name or Mantra from the Zend Avesta, Granth Sahib or Koran respectively.
4. DIETETIC DISCIPLINE
Take Sattvic food. Give up chillies, tamarind, garlic, onion, sour articles, oil, mustard, asafoetida. Observe moderation in diet (Mitahara). Do not overload the stomach. Give up those things which the mind likes best for a fortnight once or twice in a year. Eat simple simple food. Milk and fruits help concentration. Take food as medicine to keep the life going. Eating for enjoyment is a sin. Give up salt and sugar for a week or a fortnight. You must be able to live on rice, dhal and bread without any pickle. Do not ask for extra salt for dhal, and sugar for tea, coffee and milk. People taking non-vegetaraian diet should try their best to gradually give up flesh-eating as completely as possible. They will be immensely benefited.
5. MEDITATION
Have a separate meditation room under lock and key. If this is not possible then a corner of the room should be set apart with a small cloth screen or curtain drawn across. Keep the room spotlessly clean.
6. SVADHYAYA
Study systematically the Gita, Ramayana, Bhagavatam, Vishnu-Sahasranama, Lalita-Sahasranama, Adityahridaya, Upanishads, Yoga Vasishta, Bible, Imitation of Christ, Zend Avesta, Quran, the Tripitakas, the Granth Sahib and other religious books from half an hour to one hour daily, and have Suddha Vichara (pure thoughts).
7. ELEVATE THE MIND
Get by heart some prayer - Slokas (prayer verses), Stotras (hymns) and repeat them as soon as you sit in the Asana before starting Japa or meditation. This will elevate the mind quickly.
8. BRAHMACHARYA
Preserve the vital force (Veerya (seminal energy)) very, very carefully. Veerya is God in motion or manifestation (Vibhuti). Veerya is all power. Veerya is all money. Veerya is the essence of life, thought and intelligence. This instruction is not for bachelors only. Householders also must follow it as far as possible. They must be extremely moderate in their marital connections with their spouse. This is very important.
9. CHARITY
Do charity regularly, every month, or even daily according to your means. Never fail in this item. If necessary forego some personal wants but keep up this charity regularly.
10. HAVE SATSANG
Give up bad company, smoking, meat and alcoholic liquors entirely. Have constant Satsang (association with holy people). Do not develop any evil habits. Deliberately exert to develop positive virtuous qualities.
11. FAST
Fast on Ekadasi (11th day of the Hindu lunar fortnight) or live on milk and fruits only. Christians must fast on alternate Sundays, Muslims on alternate Fridays, and Parsis on a suitable day every fortnight.
12. JAPA MALA
Have a Japa Mala (rosary) around your neck or in your pocket or underneath your pillow at night. This will remind you of God. Twirl the beads during your leisure. You should repeat the Name at all times, whatever task you may be engaged in.
13. OBSERVE MOUNA
Observe Mouna (vow of silence) for a couple of hours daily. Do not make gestures and inarticulate noises during the period of silence.
14. DISCIPLINE OF SPEECH
Speak the truth at all cost. Speak a little. Speak sweetly. Always utter encouraging words. Never condemn, criticize or discourage. Do not raise your voice and shout at little children or subordinates.
15. BE CONTENT
Reduce your wants. If you have four shirts, reduce the number to three or two. Lead a happy, contented life. Avoid unnecessary worry. Be mentally detached. Have plain living and high thinking. Think of those who do not possess even one-tenth of what you have. Share with others.
16. PRACTICE LOVE
Never hurt anybody. Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah (Non-injury is the highest virtue). Control anger by love, Kshama (forgiveness) and Daya (compassion). Serve the sick and the poor with love and affection. This is service of God.
17. BE SELF RELIANT
Do not depend upon servants. Self-reliance is the highest of all virtues.
18. HAVE SELF-ANALYSIS
Think of the mistakes you have committed during the course of the day, just before retiring to bed (self-analysis). Keep a daily spiritual diary and self-correction register as Benjamin Franklin did. Maintain a daily routine and resolve-form. Do not brood over past mistakes.
19. DO YOUR DUTY
Remember that death is awaiting you at every moment. Never fail to fulfil your duties. Have pure conduct (Sadachara).
20. REMEMBER GOD
Think of God as soon as you wake up and just before you go to sleep, and at all other times whether engaged in any work or not. Repeat His Name always. Surrender yourself completely to God (Saranagati).
This is the essence of all spiritual Sadhana. It will lead you to liberation. All these spiritual canons must be rigidly observed. You must not give any leniency to the mind.
The Science of Seven Cultures (Sadhana Tattwa)
10/11/08 18:49
Sadhana Tattwa
Click here for a link to all books written by Swami Sivananda
SEVEN-FOLD SELF CULTURE BY SWAMI SIVANANDA
NOTE: These instructions were for a 1940’s-1950’s Indian audience. Please see the context.
(a) An ounce of practice is better than tons of theory. Practise Yoga, Religion and Philosophy in daily life and attain Self-realisation.
(b) These thirty-two instructions give the essence of the Eternal (Sanatana Dharma) in purest form. These are suitable for modern busy householders with fixed hours of work. Modify them to suit your convenience and increase the period gradually.
(c) In the beginning take only a few practicable resolves which form a small but definite advance over your present habits and character. In case of ill health, pressure of work or unavoidable engagements, replace your active Sadhana by frequent rememberance of God.
1. HEALTH CULTURE
1. Eat moderately, take light and simple food. Offer it to God before you eat. Have a balanced diet.
2. Avoid chillies, garlic, onions, tamarind etc., as far as possible. Give up tea, coffee, smoking, betels, meat and wine entirely.
3. Fast on Ekadasi days, take milk, fruits and roots only.
4. Practice Yoga Asanas or physical exercises for fifteen to thirty minutes everyday. Take a long walk or play some vigorous games daily.
2. ENERGY CULTURE
5. Observe silence (Mouna) for two hours daily and four to eight hours on Sundays.
6. Observe celibacy according to your age and circumstances. Restrict the indulgence to once a month. Decrease gradually to once a year. Finally take a vow of abstinence for whole life.
3. ETHICAL CULTURE
7. Speak the Truth, Speak little, speak kindly, speak sweetly.
8. Do not injure anyone in thought, word or deed. Be kind to all.
9. Be sincere, straightforward and open hearted in your talks and dealings.
10. Be honest. Earn by sweat of your brow. Do not accept any money, thing or favour unless earned lawfully. Develop nobility and integrity.
11. Control fits of anger by serenity, patience, love, mercy and tolerance. Forget and forgive. Adapt yourself to men and events.
4. WILL CULTURE
12. Live without sugar for a week or month. Give up salt on Sundays.
13. Give up cards, novels, cinemas and clubs. Fly from evil-company. Avoid discussions with materialists. Do not mix with persons who have no faith in God or who criticise your Sadhana.
14. Curtail your wants. Reduce your possessions. Have plain living and high thinking.
5. HEART CULTURE
15. Doing good to others is the highest religion. Do some selfless service for a few hours every week, without egoism or expectation of reward. Do your worldly
duties in the same spirit. Work is worship. Dedicate it to God.
16. Give two to ten percent of your income in charity every month. Share what you
have with others. Let the world be your family. Remove selfishness.
17. Be humble and prostrate yourself to all beings mentally. Feel the Divine
Presence everywhere. Give up vanity, pride and hypocrisy.
18. Have unwavering faith in God, the Gita and your Guru. Make a total self-
surrender to God and pray : “Thy will be done : I want nothing” .Submit to the
divine will in all events and happenings with equanimity.
19. See God in all the beings and love them as your ownself. Do not hate anyone.
20. Remember God at all times or, atleast on raising from bed, during a pause in work
and before going to it. Keep a Mala in your pocket.
6. PSYCHIC CULTURE
21. Study one chapter or ten to twenty five verses of the Gita with meaning, daily.
Learn Sanskrit atleast sufficient to understand Gita in original.
22. Memorise the whole of the Gita, gradually. Keep it always in your pocket.
23. Read the Ramayana, Bhagavata, Upanishads, Yogavasistha or other religious
books or on holidays.
24. Attend religious meetings, Kirtans and Satsanga of saints at every opportunity.
Organise such functions on Sundays or holidays.
25. Visit a temple or place of worship atleast once a week and arrange to hold kirtans
or discourses there.
26. Spend holidays and leave periods, when possible, in the company of saints or
practice sadhana at holy places in seclusion.
7. SPIRITUAL CULTURE
27. Go to bed early. Get up at four o’clock. Answer calls of nature, clean your mouth and take a bath.
28. Recite some prayers and Kirtan. Practice Pranayama, Japa and meditation from five to 6’o clock. Sit on Padma, Siddha, or Sukha Asana throughout, without movement, by gradual practise.
29. Perform your daily Sandhya, Gayatri Japa, Nithyakarma and worship, if any.
30. Write your favourite Mantra or Name of the God in a notebook for ten to thirty minutes, daily.
31. Sing the Names of God (Kirtan), prayers, Stotras and Bhajans for half to one hour at night with family and friends.
32. Make annual resolves on the above lines. Regularity, tenacity and fixity are essential. Record your Sadhana in a spiritual diary daily. Review it every month and correct your failures.
Click here for a link to all books written by Swami Sivananda
SEVEN-FOLD SELF CULTURE BY SWAMI SIVANANDA
NOTE: These instructions were for a 1940’s-1950’s Indian audience. Please see the context.
(a) An ounce of practice is better than tons of theory. Practise Yoga, Religion and Philosophy in daily life and attain Self-realisation.
(b) These thirty-two instructions give the essence of the Eternal (Sanatana Dharma) in purest form. These are suitable for modern busy householders with fixed hours of work. Modify them to suit your convenience and increase the period gradually.
(c) In the beginning take only a few practicable resolves which form a small but definite advance over your present habits and character. In case of ill health, pressure of work or unavoidable engagements, replace your active Sadhana by frequent rememberance of God.
1. HEALTH CULTURE
1. Eat moderately, take light and simple food. Offer it to God before you eat. Have a balanced diet.
2. Avoid chillies, garlic, onions, tamarind etc., as far as possible. Give up tea, coffee, smoking, betels, meat and wine entirely.
3. Fast on Ekadasi days, take milk, fruits and roots only.
4. Practice Yoga Asanas or physical exercises for fifteen to thirty minutes everyday. Take a long walk or play some vigorous games daily.
2. ENERGY CULTURE
5. Observe silence (Mouna) for two hours daily and four to eight hours on Sundays.
6. Observe celibacy according to your age and circumstances. Restrict the indulgence to once a month. Decrease gradually to once a year. Finally take a vow of abstinence for whole life.
3. ETHICAL CULTURE
7. Speak the Truth, Speak little, speak kindly, speak sweetly.
8. Do not injure anyone in thought, word or deed. Be kind to all.
9. Be sincere, straightforward and open hearted in your talks and dealings.
10. Be honest. Earn by sweat of your brow. Do not accept any money, thing or favour unless earned lawfully. Develop nobility and integrity.
11. Control fits of anger by serenity, patience, love, mercy and tolerance. Forget and forgive. Adapt yourself to men and events.
4. WILL CULTURE
12. Live without sugar for a week or month. Give up salt on Sundays.
13. Give up cards, novels, cinemas and clubs. Fly from evil-company. Avoid discussions with materialists. Do not mix with persons who have no faith in God or who criticise your Sadhana.
14. Curtail your wants. Reduce your possessions. Have plain living and high thinking.
5. HEART CULTURE
15. Doing good to others is the highest religion. Do some selfless service for a few hours every week, without egoism or expectation of reward. Do your worldly
duties in the same spirit. Work is worship. Dedicate it to God.
16. Give two to ten percent of your income in charity every month. Share what you
have with others. Let the world be your family. Remove selfishness.
17. Be humble and prostrate yourself to all beings mentally. Feel the Divine
Presence everywhere. Give up vanity, pride and hypocrisy.
18. Have unwavering faith in God, the Gita and your Guru. Make a total self-
surrender to God and pray : “Thy will be done : I want nothing” .Submit to the
divine will in all events and happenings with equanimity.
19. See God in all the beings and love them as your ownself. Do not hate anyone.
20. Remember God at all times or, atleast on raising from bed, during a pause in work
and before going to it. Keep a Mala in your pocket.
6. PSYCHIC CULTURE
21. Study one chapter or ten to twenty five verses of the Gita with meaning, daily.
Learn Sanskrit atleast sufficient to understand Gita in original.
22. Memorise the whole of the Gita, gradually. Keep it always in your pocket.
23. Read the Ramayana, Bhagavata, Upanishads, Yogavasistha or other religious
books or on holidays.
24. Attend religious meetings, Kirtans and Satsanga of saints at every opportunity.
Organise such functions on Sundays or holidays.
25. Visit a temple or place of worship atleast once a week and arrange to hold kirtans
or discourses there.
26. Spend holidays and leave periods, when possible, in the company of saints or
practice sadhana at holy places in seclusion.
7. SPIRITUAL CULTURE
27. Go to bed early. Get up at four o’clock. Answer calls of nature, clean your mouth and take a bath.
28. Recite some prayers and Kirtan. Practice Pranayama, Japa and meditation from five to 6’o clock. Sit on Padma, Siddha, or Sukha Asana throughout, without movement, by gradual practise.
29. Perform your daily Sandhya, Gayatri Japa, Nithyakarma and worship, if any.
30. Write your favourite Mantra or Name of the God in a notebook for ten to thirty minutes, daily.
31. Sing the Names of God (Kirtan), prayers, Stotras and Bhajans for half to one hour at night with family and friends.
32. Make annual resolves on the above lines. Regularity, tenacity and fixity are essential. Record your Sadhana in a spiritual diary daily. Review it every month and correct your failures.