The One Who Will Never Leave You

Last week when I was assisting and observing a yoga class, a palpable sense of peace and security enveloped the room.  It was such a gift to be able to witness the integrated and quiet practice of other yogis set to inspiring music with sunlight pouring through the windows.  One song really drew me in and focused my thoughts on the deeper meaning of the practice.  The song became popular in the 80's and it's one we all know, by Cyndi Lauper, Time after Time. The version played in class was the slower, acoustic cover by Eva Cassidy. The refrain is, "If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me, time after time.  If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting...time after time." 

I thought about how we come to yoga to find our true selves, to connect to our essence.  When we come to class, or when we come to our mats at home, or really in any moment of the day when we come back to ourselves and make a connection, then in that act we are showing up for ourselves.  We are leaving everything else to the side and reconnecting with that part of ourselves which never changes: our light, our essence, the true self.  This is a great comfort and source of strength, knowing first of all that we have an immovable, eternal part of our being, and secondly that we have a way to connect to that part anytime, and whenever we need it most.  "If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me. If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting."  I saw people looking deeply, and finding the true self, balancing in a posture and catching themselves if they fell out of it, coming back home to themselves, eyes closed, during savasana.  And they have done this before, and they will do it again, time after time.  

I thought about yoga, and the meaning of the word: union.  Generally we think of the union of mind, body and spirit, and the unity we seek with one another and sometimes with a higher power.  But on this particular day, right before Valentine's Day, when I heard this love song I thought about union within the Self.  I thought about the wholeness we experience when we connect the parts of the fragmented Self and experience the essence of our being.  For me, that is yoga.  

We read and speak often of mistaking the false self for the true self, the ignorance that is referred to in Sanskrit as Avidya.  Through our practice we are confronting this ignorance: we are moving from the false self to the true self, from the gross to the subtle, from darkness to light.  Sometimes this feels like a struggle, and it can also look that way from the outside.  Other times it feels sweet, it feels like peace, it feels like coming home.  However it may feel for you today when you practice, try to find that sense of connecting with your true self, with your essence, and take comfort in being there for yourself...time after time. 

Criteria for a Yoga Teacher

Deepavali Anugraha Sandesha

www.sringeri.net

The job of a yoga teacher is highly specialized, and far more demanding than it appears on the surface.  Teaching yoga falls under the category of the “helping professions”.  There are many types of teachers in our world, but very few teaching jobs involve an ongoing interaction with the mind, body and spirit of the students.  To teach yoga well, there are four indispensable criteria: connection, discipline, precision and humility.  

Yoga is a holistic science, therefore a good yoga teacher cannot present it in a compartmentalized way.  For this reason, the number one criteria for a good yoga teacher is that he/she be wholly present and connected; connected within and without, aware of the inner self and consciousness, the greater consciousness that surrounds and sustains us, the body in all its majesty and fragility and the mind as the filter and veil between these dimensions.  This connection allows the yoga teacher to tune into each student’s energy, state of mind, physical health and progression in the practice of asana.  It also facilitates the structuring of each class, from the dharma talk to the sequencing of the postures.  There is no flow without connection.  

Yoga is a discipline to be followed with consistency.  Passion and dedication motivate the teacher and the student to stay with the practice, but even with these, it is impossible to stay the course without discipline.  Therefore, discipline is the second most important criteria for a yoga teacher.  We must show up regularly on our own mats, on our own meditation cushions, applying the principles of yoga in our day-to-day lives, or we will be unable to bring the fruits of our practice to our students.  To practice and teach yoga, discipline is an absolute prerequisite.

Yoga is an art to be perfected over the course of a lifetime.  No yogi dies having completely perfected the practice, because there are so many layers to uncover, something new to discover each time we come to the mat.  This continual evolution does not imply a lack of structure, or imprecision.  There are definite forms requiring skill and concentration to embody.  For this reason, precision is a third essential requirement for every yoga teacher.  Precision in the postures is key in the training of mind and body.  Precision must be distinguished from perfection; a perfect asana practice is not a requirement but our attention to form certainly is.  

Finally, no matter how lofty our aims or intense our dedication may be--if we can’t keep our feet on the ground, if we can’t put our heads in the service of our hearts, if we can’t bow to something greater than ourselves, and to the greatness in our students--then we cannot be of service.  The fourth and final requirement for a good yoga teacher is humility.  Humility prevents the teacher from teaching to meet his or her own needs rather than the student’s needs.  Humility saves the teacher from the trap of the ego and the quest for perfection, in oneself and in the students.  Humility allows the teacher to keep learning, to retain a sincere passion for yoga, to experience the childlike joy the practice can bring. Every teacher must be humble above all else, for there is no service without humility.  

The ultimate role of a yoga teacher is to take the students on a journey, to guide and foster them in walking a path they are also traveling.  The journey begins by connecting with the body in a new way, connecting with the breath, integrating the mind, the body and the breath. The path leads to union, the true meaning of yoga. The path leads to the ultimate realization that we are not separate, but whole.  We are not separate from the Divine or from one another, and the many aspects of ourselves we normally see as separate can be integrated.  A yoga teacher opens the student up to the possibility of integration, within and without.  

Each yoga teacher possesses these enumerated qualities in differing degrees.  We all have our particular weaknesses and strengths.  Even after a thorough teacher training, many teachers must apply more effort to their practice and hone their skills before they can teach professionally.  The teaching becomes part of the practice, and we teach to learn.  Personally, on some level, I do possess each of the criteria I listed: connection, discipline, precision and humility.  In any given month or on any given day, I am more or less connected, disciplined, precise or humble.  Humility is the most natural of these qualities for me.  Discipline is the least natural.  The more disciplined I become, the more time I will be able to devote to my practice, which will in turn help me with the connection and precision.  The way I maintain my connection to myself, to God, and to others, is through my asana and meditation practice, through prayer, and through study of scriptures.  All of these take time and discipline, and with each, humility is also nourished.  The more disciplined and connected I am, the more precise I will become as well.  I know that if I work on becoming more disciplined, I can become a good yoga teacher.  

Being in the World, but not of the World

What does it mean to be in the world, but not of it? To me, it means transcendence.  To be in the world, but not of it, we must transcend the world.  The word “transcend” means to rise above; to go beyond the limits of; to overcome. Yesterday in church, on the eve of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, many of us sang, “We shall overcome.” I have a dream to overcome the world, to be in the world but not of it. 

This concept runs through all religions.  In both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, from the Abrahamic faiths to Buddhism to Taoism, everyone seeks freedom.  Anyone on a spiritual path seeks freedom from the snares of desire and material entrapments. What if our bodies and the world around us could ultimately lead us to the Divine, rather than distracting us from our spiritual goal?  We could enjoy the freedom to feel good and to do good, acting through and enjoying our physical bodies, without getting entangled and bogged down.  How do we reach such a state of detachment?

I looked up some Bible verses on this process of transcending the world, and saw that it was Jesus who said of himself and his disciples, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:16).  And then I read about the process of transforming our minds, something we do through spiritual practice and study: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). 

My spiritual practice and study are not only based in the Bible and Christianity, but also in yoga. In the book, The Heart of Yoga, there is a chapter entitled, “The World Exists to Set us Free.”  The author, T.K.V. Desikachar, describes a state of being called kaivalya, which is usually translated as isolation or detachment, a state freedom from worldly entanglements.  He calls it the ultimate goal of yoga, and the “inner state of freedom that yoga strives for” (pg. 111).  Reading about kaivalya, I thought immediately of the Christian concept of being in the world but not of it.  I then made the connection with the Buddhist concept of detachment.  I also thought of the Way of the Tao, and the transcendent nature of the spiritual path of Taoism.

All of these are ideas, intellectual constructs.  How do we reach the experience of transcendence?  There are many practices prescribed in yoga, and I do some of them, but what is most helpful for me as a Christian is to look at the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” so he not only talked about the Way, Jesus embodied the Way.  Jesus is the embodiment of transcendence.  He came to the world to show us how to be in it, but not of it. 

From the interfaith perspective, the truths taught by Jesus are universal.  His examples of humility, service and dying to the self are the essence of the spiritual life.  The goal of transcendence is consistent in every tradition: we must let go of earthly attachments, embrace humility, die to the egoic self and detach from the physical realm to gain mastery over it.  All paths describe the Way.  Jesus embodied it; many say that Buddha did as well, and Mohammed, and Krishna.  The distinguishing feature of Jesus’ embodiment was his literal death and resurrection.  How did he transcend the world? He died. Then he came back with complete mastery over the physical world and the body.  We are called to do the same if we follow his Way. 

Christians speak of the “sinful nature” we have as humans.  I think of it as the nature of our mind and body without the light of the soul.  This is how we speak of “sin” in yoga, though the words we use are different.  In yoga we think more in terms of obstacles to our mental clarity and spiritual connection. When we are deluded by our limited thoughts and the egoic self, our actions become unwholesome, or “sinful.”  To remedy this, we uncover the light of the soul through daily practice. 

In Christianity, we are also called to live out our faith day to day.  It is a faith of action, not simply the profession of a belief.  Our Christian faith, like all faith traditions, has transformation as an aim.  This is what it means to be born again, to become a new creature.  It is not an intellectual belief or confession of faith that saves us.  I can repeat that Jesus is my Savior until I am blue in the face, but saying it won’t transform me or anyone else.  Jesus didn’t say, “To be born again, say that I am Lord, and you’re good to go.” Instead he said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life,” and “no one comes unto the Father but by me,” (John 14:6) and I understand that to mean, “You need to get on my path and walk it yourselves if you want to transcend this world and unite with the Divine.”  As Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Yogis or whatever we are, we need to get on the path and go, not looking back.  It is not in finding the Way that we transcend; we have to be the Way, ingest the Way, incorporate the Way, embody the Way… like Jesus.  We can do that while we are alive in this world; then we will truly be in the world, but not of it.

When we begin to transcend this worldly experience, we’ll know it.  We’ll feel lighter, freer, reaching the yogic state of kaivalya; a weight will be lifted off of us: “People in kaivalya behave like normal people, but they do not carry the burden of the world on their shoulders.  They live in the world, but they are not subject to it” (id.). This may be what Jesus meant when he said, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He was probably not intimating that the effort it takes to follow his Way is easy, but instead that the fruits of that effort are lightness of being, peace of mind, and ease of existence.  When the veil is lifted, the burden is also lifted.  The heaviness of our egos, our limited selves and the constraints of the material world will no longer weigh us down once we transcend by dying to the temporal and awakening to the Eternal. 

When we are of the world, we hang onto the beliefs, behaviors and attitudes of the world, like “I, Me, Mine,” and “I am right and you are wrong.”  If we hold onto this way of thinking, we know we have not been transformed.  Many devout, religious people are living this way, simply hanging onto the old Way and repackaging it.  We can recognize this behavior in ourselves when we say things like, “ours is the only Way.”  This attitude originates from the old, egoic self, born of the world.  Jesus said we cannot come unto to the Father unless we follow his Way, integrating his Truth and imitating his Life.  He didn’t defeat death by saying, “I am the Lord.” He defeated death by dying and transcending.  The Resurrection is not about the distant hope of resurrecting in a new body after a simple, physical death.  It is about learning to do what Jesus did, and following his Way, now.  It is about letting go of old ways, now.  That is how we are born again, still living in this world, but no longer bound by it. 

I have a dream, to live in the world, transformed.  I want to be in the world but not of it.  I want to embody the Way. 

Yoga for Holiday Balance

We are currently in the midst of the Holiday Season and for many of us and our culture in general, this is a time of excess: more social activity, spending a lot more money than we usually do, excessive eating and often eating things that are more sugary or rich than what we are used to.  It is easy to feel very out of balance this month, on many levels.  This is true for our minds as well as our bodies.  In our bodies, when we overeat and eat foods with a lot of toxicity, we feel bloated, lethargic and nauseous.  It is the same with our minds: when we are tuned into thoughts that are anxious, negative or toxic in any way, we can get depressed, impatient and angry.  We need something to bring us back into balance: on the level of the digestive system that could be fasting or a cleanse, and certainly on the mental side we would think of meditation as a remedy for imbalance or excessive, unwanted thoughts.  

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali gives us a specific technique to rebalance ourselves, and we can use it in our practice and in truly every aspect of our lives.  It is such a valuable technique.  Any guesses as to what it is? The Sanskrit term is Pratipaksha Bhavana.  Sutra 2.33 reads, “When disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite [positive] ones should be thought of.”  One translation of pratipaksha bhavana is “moving to the other side of the mansion,” so it’s similar to what we might do with a baby or a young child who is screaming and crying and can’t get un-fixated.  We take the child into another room, changing up the environment and providing a different stimulus than whatever it was that produced the upset.  That is something I have experienced often with my own kids, and even with myself.  We all do this, and here is a holiday example: if we are having a discussion with a family member during a holiday gathering and something they say triggers us, knocking us back into the dark side of our samskara, our habitual negative patterns, one of the quickest ways to snap out of the cycle of reactivity is simply to walk away and focus on something else; we may excuse ourselves to go and wash dishes, or better yet, we may say, “OK, I am feeling a little sluggish after that meal and I need a constitutional,” and we go for a walk outside, getting rebalanced and re-grounded in our bodies and in the fresh air.  

This is what we are doing in our yoga practice.  We are training our minds and our bodies, little by little, to run on a more positive track.  Whatever challenge we come in with, be it worry, poor self-image, distractibility or any other negativity, we get on our mat and replace those thoughts and feelings with qualities more like peace, stability, compassion and the thought, “I can do it.  I can do this posture, today, right now,” and we come out seeing life in a different way, perceiving ourselves differently.  We get grounded in who we really are, and we balance the scales of our experience adding enough positive to temporarily and gradually more permanently cancel out the negative. We want a fix that's quick, but we also want a fix that will stick.

So in today’s practice, let’s rebalance, let’s move to the other side of the mansion by following pratipaksha bhavana, through focusing on the steadiness of our breath instead of our racing thoughts, focusing on our drsti or gazing point instead of the movement around us, and experimenting with our bodies, putting them into unfamiliar positions that open us up to a more positive perspective. 

Defogging My Glasses: Seeing with the Spirit

I had something scary happen to me when I was driving at night recently.  I had attended a class for my yoga teacher training and when we came out of the class, the temperature had dropped considerably and there was a thin coating of ice on my windshield.  It was dark, and I couldn’t really tell the thickness of the ice from looking at it briefly, but I was cold and wanted to get into my car and get home to my kids and my to-do list, and I figured my windshield defroster would take care of it pretty quickly.  So I got in and started the car and turned on the defroster, and then tried the windshield wipers.  That didn’t do the trick so I figured I’d try the windshield sprayer along with the wipers, and that worked… for about 30 seconds, just long enough for me to get out of the parking lot and onto the road.  Then, surprise, surprise, the water from the sprayer froze on the windshield and I couldn’t see out, again.  I thought, well, anytime now the defroster will create enough heat to melt this little bit of ice, but it didn’t… so I just kept squirting the washer fluid onto the windshield and using the wipers, and I could see for a couple of seconds, but what then happened is that the ice started to thicken.  Not good!  No bueno at all, to be driving in the dark on a two-lane highway in Putnam County with an icy windshield. 

As you may have gathered, it turns out that my defroster is a little on the slow side.  Fortunately there was next to no traffic going in my direction and I could go kind of slow and eventually the heat from the defroster did work and I could see.  Still—that was a scary experience, and I could have avoided it had I only used the ice scraper that was sitting on the floor of the passenger side of my car.  You may ask, “wasn’t that rather impatient and shortsighted of you? Didn’t you just come from a yoga class where you cultivate qualities like patience, presence and focus?” I would answer you, “As a matter fact, yes it was impatient and shortsighted! What state of mind must I have been in to have made a decision like that? A hurried state of mind, no doubt.  And at the same time, what a happy accident! What a great metaphor to use for the way the condition of our minds dictates our vision!" When we experience an unfocused, agitated state of mind, this has a negative impact on our clarity, our spiritual visual acuity.  When our minds are unclear, we really can’t see well, or at all!  Those of you who wear glasses can also relate very well to this metaphor.  When you are sitting outside at a football game in the winter, for example, and you bend down and blow on your hot chocolate to cool it off, your glasses fog up!  Among other things, changes in temperature and humidity cause your glasses to cloud up.  This happens to me a lot, too. 

So, from a spiritual perspective, what do we do about that?  What do we use as the defroster in our spiritual practice?  What can do we do to clear our windshields, to defog our glasses, so we can really see what’s going on, so we can see clearly to walk our path to the Divine?

In yoga, we talk about creating heat (tapas) with our practice for the purpose of unclouding our vision, and allowing the true Seer within us to emerge.  We use all of our physical and mental training to defrost our windshield, our filter of perception, so we can begin to see ourselves, the world, and even to see God.  The yogic teachings tell us that the entire purpose of this natural world around us is to allow our souls to see themselves, and to allow God to be seen.  We get to that place through engaging in spiritual practice and purifying our minds.  I’m going to read you two scriptures that use this same metaphor for attaining spiritual visual acuity, one from the Yoga Sutras and one from the New Testament of the Bible:

Sutra 1.41 from The Yoga Sutras: Just as the naturally pure crystal assumes shapes and colors of objects placed near it, so the Yogi’s mind, with its totally weakened modifications, becomes clear and balanced and attains the state devoid of differentiation between knower, knowable and knowledge. This culmination of meditation is Samadhi. 

1 Corinthians 13:12: For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part; but then I shall know even also as I am (King James translation).

For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood [by God] (Amplified Bible translation). 

Upon reading Sutra 1.41 and taking notes in class on the idea of yoga practice culminating in mental clarity, I looked up this Bible verse which describes a similar transformation for students on a disciplined spiritual path.  We know that our current mental and spiritual vision is dimmed and we struggle with this impairment.  Nonetheless, we keep going in our practice, believing that we can eventually reach the apex of clarity.  We develop faith that through our practice, the Seer within us will emerge and perceive reality uncolored by our clouded mental patterns. 

There is a reason I immediately thought of this spiritual lesson when I had that experience in my car.  It didn’t just come from me, so I can’t take all of the credit.  The yoga teacher I have studied under for the longest amount of time has spoken in class about trying to see through a fogged up mirror or windshield, and how in our practice we create the heat that will clear away all of that fog so that each time we practice, we are removing more and more of the fog.  When she has used this example, in the more trying postures or moments of the class, she reminds us of what we are really doing, working to clear up that glass so we can really see.  In my own practice, this lesson holds true.  

Though I have experienced many calm and clear moments, I generally have some anxiety that clouds my perception.  I firmly believe that some of the thinking patterns left over from early conditioning have caused the one lingering health problem I have (nerve damage).  I committed to a regular yoga practice motivated a great deal by a desire to heal my nervous system and my mind.  

I agree with the yogic philosophy which says that we need a healthy mind and body to develop spiritually.  The one caveat I would add is that many people who become ill make use of that illness precisely for spiritual growth, and I fall into that category.  Ideally, we would all be working towards our mental clarity and spiritual growth before our negative patterns encouraged or nourished illness, but in reality illness often precedes the deeper spiritual quest.  Some of us need that extra push to get going.  So I am very thankful that my particular disability does not physically impede me from yoga or meditation practice, and I have compassion for all those who cannot undertake a physical practice due to illness, praying that they are nonetheless able to become spiritually refined in the midst of their suffering. 

I used to try and meditate without combining it with any physical practice.  I do adapt well to sitting meditation and I had some success with it.  I was really able to do this regularly when I had a baby who napped, and then a young toddler and a younger baby who napped at the same time.  I was so preoccupied with raising my “Irish twins” at that point that I didn’t have any other pursuits, so if they were sleeping for two and a half hours, I would take an hour of that time to do sitting meditation.  I felt comparatively clear then, even in the midst of the chaos of very little ones in the house.  As they got older and stopped sleeping during the day, and as we added more and more pursuits to my life and our family life, I was finding very little time for sitting meditation, and when I did find the time, I wanted that time to really count.  I found that either practicing yoga in a class or at home before even just ten minutes of sitting mediation was a great help, and brought me clarity along with many other physical benefits I wasn’t seeing before.  

I find that through a challenging yoga sequence, my mind gets very quiet and focused.  I link to my body and my breath and nothing else gets in the way, and this is the action that really starts removing the fog from that glass.  At the end of a home practice or yoga class, I experience a body filled with much less nervous energy and more ease and balance.  My mind is much clearer, and whatever thoughts or disturbances I brought in at the beginning of the practice have dissipated by the end.  Very often, I feel like I still need a fairly active practice to achieve this, but sometimes even some slow and gentle asana sequences will get me where I like to be for meditation readiness, or simply for relaxation and improved clarity.  

Through yoga, I find that I am able to get closer to what I call my “higher Self,” which is probably very close to the idea of the Sanskrit word, Purusa (source of consciousness/perceiver).  I also feel closer to my ishta devata, Jesus or God.  No matter what it is I am facing in my life, if I stick to yoga practice, meditation and prayer, my mind opens up to equanimity and my heart opens up to compassion.  My hope is that I can become disciplined enough to experience more and more of this in my life.  Eventually when I teach, I want to bring to students exactly this kind of optimism, wherein they know that the physical and mental effort they expend on their mat and cushion will lead to a brighter path, clearer vision, a greatly enhanced and more accurate view of themselves and reality.  

I do believe as the ancient yogis did, and as people of other faith traditions do, that we have a soul within us, a part of us which is purely spiritual, sometimes called the atman.  As I understand it, the purusa and the atman are two different aspects of the soul; the atman is the universal soul, the part of us connected to the whole universe, while the purusa is our consciousness.  One of my seminary classmates who is also a yoga teacher told me to think of it as pure consciousness, and I also used to hear this at the end of yoga classes when we did guided meditations; the teacher would say, “pure awareness, pure consciousness,” and I didn’t know the term purusa at the time.  Now, upon reading Sutra 1.41, I think of the purusa as the individual pure consciousness which perceives divine consciousness, transcending the mind and allowing us to see with our spirit; it can only do this when we weaken the modifications of the mind.  When this happens, we can see “face to face” and know God as God knows us, just like we read in 1 Corinthians 13:12.  To get there, we devote ourselves to purifying the mind so that it does not get in the way of our purusa, starting with our body, the vehicle housing the mind and spirit.  I want to do this through yoga practice, and learn to help others who are on that path as well.  

Why is it necessary to train the mind to attain spiritual vision?  This quote from the book, The Heart of Yoga gives a precise answer: “…our purusa sees an object through the mind.  If the mind is colored, we cannot see clearly.  If the mind is very clear, then it is almost as if it does not exist.  We see the object exactly as it is.  The problems we have to deal with in life arise from the way the consequences of our actions have settled in our mind; that is, they arise from our samskara (mental conditioning).  We are not able to distinguish the colored image that exists in the mind from the real object” (Desikachar, 116). 

Ultimately I want to see, and I would like to help others to see as well, just as my yoga teachers, pastors, and all other teachers have encouraged me.  I know that I can’t give to someone else what I don’t first possess myself, but even if I can’t impart clarity to others, I can at least point them in the direction of it.  Again, in The Heart of Yoga, we read, “A yogi or yogini has not seen something others can never see; rather, he or she sees what others do not yet see” (Desikachar, 123).  Speaking to his own students, the yogis of their particular culture and time, Jesus said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, in order that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand” (Luke 8:10).  Through our dedicated spiritual practice we begin to unlock the parables, defrost the windshields and defog our glasses, attaining that spiritual visual acuity that makes true perception possible.