Remski’s Song of The Flesh: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra-s Revised

Author and scholar Matthew Remki

Matthew Remski is not the first to assert that Patanjali’s view of the flesh as “repulsive devolution of consciousness” flies in the face of the current yoga zeitgeist – but he is the first audacious enough to “remix” The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, (the closest thing to a canonical text we have in yoga) into a “manifesto for a changing tradition.”

Interweaving ancient wisdom, philosophy, psychology and evolutionary science with personal commentary and reverie, he spins this approximately 4000 year old ascetic manual on the study and practice of yoga into  a post-modern celebration of the flesh.

Sacrilegious? Perhaps. But as Remski points out, Patanjali’s methodology for disconnecting Purusa [consciousness ] from Prakriti (the chains of the body and material world) no longer fits with our current understanding of yoga as “union” – of joining/binding these dualities together.

The great sage Patanjali

The Yoga Sutra-s consist of 196 threads (aphorisms or sayings) divided into four parts, and Threads of Yoga is Remski’s “experimental translation” of these threads. Remski reminds us the Sutra-s were believed to have been distilled by Patanjali from the sayings of renunciates “ who at the dawn of urbanization fled their families and social roles to tiny forest ashrams, where, with great austerity, the attempted to tame the unruly and desirous flesh towards their goal of transcendent epiphany.”

But, as Threads of Yoga makes abundantly clear, this philosophy no longer has a place in a newly evolving yoga myths –one in which the flesh is no longer viewed as an obstacle “to the recovery of self-knowledge”- but it’s very source.

And it is this new modus-operandi which Remski so boldly attempts to put into words. He undertakes the weighty task of giving voice to a new yogic paradigm, one in which “The simplest techniques of breathing, spinal elongation, and joint fluidity have given countless flesh-alienated post moderns a renewed sense of vitality, purpose, grounding and connection.”

In this new ethos “consciousness” is not abstract, but “an embodied aspect of human experience”. In modern yoga, Remski writes “we are given a physical culture which rewrites the meaning of the flesh from inside out.”

“As media technology, and hyper-urbanization abstract us from bodily experience, the reach of modern postural yoga has pulled our tissues into the daylight.” We have discovered that the “Flesh is anything but inert or unintelligent. Flesh feels, emotes, surges towards its goals, and even thinks.”

Remski rejects the asceticism at the heart of the sutra-s because, as he sees it, “our suffering is not the result of our connection with the world, our experience of disconnection is suffering. ” And here is the moral crux of it: “ if the pleasure of muscle-skeletal alignment and warmed circulation does not somehow sweeten our interpersonal relationships, lend resilient courage to daily life, and inspire us towards social and ecological justice, we know were missing something. Through modern postural yoga we have remembered that our flesh innately wants to rejoice, connect and serve – and that it does not lie.”

Now isn’t that the truth? Hasn’t Remski hit the nail on the head? I think so. He certainly articulates my evolving yoga ethos.

So why, Remski asks us, has interest in the “ broader literature of yoga paled in the shadow of Paranjali’s austere monolith”? Why do quotations from the Sutra-s “ flash through yoga teacher training manuals and across social media, and under the e-mail signature lines of professional practitioner-teachers?” Does our continued reverence of Patanjali’s text “conceal a hidden wish to console our complex interpersonal suffering through social withdrawal and meditative narcissism? ” …”Do we meditate with Patanjali because empathy is difficult and love is painful?”

Patanjali’s path was lonely to a fault, “encouraging disassociation from place, things and people: hardly what is needed in a culture of disembodied hyper-individualism wrecking havoc on the environment.” The word love is never once mentioned in the sutra-s but Remski reminds us, it is only through compassionate relationship and empathy (not disassociation) that we have a hope of healing the planet or ourselves. Thus Remski revises Patanjali’s original sutra about Sauca (purity) “Seek that purity which leads to disgust for one’s own body and for contact with others” into “Ecology allows you to honor your flesh and the flesh of others.”

Threads of Yoga, Remski makes clear, is a remix of the sutra-s- not a direct translation. The purpose of a ‘remix’ is to “collect the raw beats of the past and brands them, transparently with the pulse of the present”… “My central goal is to “ bring the yoga sutra-s back into relationship with us as yogis, creative readers and closet philosophers”…”In my opinion, grappling with both its fits and its weaknesses will help contemporary yoga practice grow and evolve as a living culture.”

And in answer to the question as to why he chose to rely on the original at all (instead of creating his own brand new philosophy) he responds “I rely on the original because it has been a touchstone of my individuation process”…“I’m enthralled by the old text itself, and it’s aura, by dozens of previous translations and commentaries, fragments of oral tradition I have heard through the years, a thousand conversations with colleagues and strangers, vast cultural and historical divides, the new forests of contemporary psychology and neuroscience, and the strange, luminous fruit of my own practice.”

So I applaud Remski’s audacity.  He replaces Patanjali’s outmoded ideal of disembodied transcendence with a new vision of sacred embodiment – and he manages to do so without throwing the baby out the bathwater. He writes, “Patanjali-s relentless focus upon the structural problems of consciousness remains the root yoga concern, and this unwavering gaze will continue to inspire generations” …“but it is Patanjali’s close and precise attention that I wish to translate here, while leaving his metaphysics and asceticism behind”.

By using the sutra’s as a touchstone Remki starkly illustrates just how far modern yoga has strayed from its parent traditions, and he offers us an alternative speculation within a far different social philosophical context . “A context in which renunciate withdrawal will not heal our interpersonal pain nor speak to our social diseases. A context in which we desperately need to be reminded of our embodiment, and grounded in ecological awareness. A context in which the magic of bodily pleasure that got us practicing in the first place becomes the basis for reaching out with love into the world that made us, has always held us, and which we never wish to leave.’”

 Threads of Yoga seeks to “re-locate the mystical in the material” and in this project I think he succeeds. Because in the end what I enjoyed most about Remski’s book was not the visionary thinking or critical analysis but his poetic reveries on the nature of “embodiment” itself. Consider this translation from Part Three of the Sutra-s, The Book of Wonders:

“The freed flesh pulses through the facets of beauty, grace and glowing strength. When you see how the sense organs work, weave you together and commit you to the world, they become gateways of pleasure. These gateways can also encourage the exploration of internal worlds at the speed of light.”

And for Remski this is Samadhi – the transcendent moment – made meaningful by everyday immanence.

(pause)

“You begin to lengthen a muscle. At the first pulse of pleasure it takes the remains and lengthens itself. Your breath seeps into a forgotten place. A limb straightens. A network of unseen contractions disengages. Flesh and thought soften to neutral. Thought pauses its forward rush, and flesh reverses it retreat….this is the only life you know, and it fills you to overflowing. You live your life, yoga happens to you.”

Yoga PH.D. Integrating the Life of the Mind and the Wisdom of the Body by Carol Horton

My first reaction upon finishing Yoga PH.D was to ask – what remains to be said? Carol Horton has written the definitive book on the “paradoxical multidimensional” practice that is contemporary yoga.

With one foot in Eastern mysticism and the other in a Lululemon store, Horton’s covered it all – yoga’s history as esoteric tradition, its assimilation into 20th century fitness routines, and its current incarnation as “crassly commercial industry”.

But it is her personal story of transformation from skeptical academic to devout yogini, that brings this sociological history to life. Horton asks “How did I, a scholar dedicated to the “life of the mind” (as it was ubiquitously referred to in grad school) become passionately dedicated to writing a book inspired by the wisdom of the body? Ultimately the answer is simple: I followed the prototypical paradoxical path of yoga today.”

Carol Horton

And herein, lies the power of Horton’s narrative, because it is a microcosm of our transpersonal journey. Her story, she reminds us, “is simply an iteration of many others” who began looking for “stretching and stress relief” but soon find themselves disciples of the “contemporary spiritual movement” known as yoga.

Horton describes the path of conversion. “All that talk I’d heard about mind-body-spirit integration – which had seemed woozily New Age-y to me … became more and more compelling”… Yoga was opening new realities to me, taking me places that the purely rational part of my brain, which I had cultivated so assiduously for so many years, couldn’t go on its own.”

And herein lies the heart of the tale. Because like so many of us, Horton was “flush with the astonishing realization that yoga was having a transformative effect on my life” yet she found – she could not even begin to say how or why. What was yoga really? Where did it come from? How did it work?

“The most common explanation I’d hear vaguely invoked by teacher or in yoga magazines was that yoga works because it’s an unchanging spiritual practice developed thousands of years ago by all-knowing seers in India and handed down to us through the ages.”

Yogin

But Horton found this “fuzzy belief that we’d somehow been initiated into a timeless yet ancient lineage utterly unconvincing. It seemed self-evident that yoga was far too in synch with contemporary culture to have been directly imported from such a radically different time and place.”

And so through this desire to better understand her experience, both as Professor and Yogini – that Yoga Ph.D. is born.

Now obviously, I can’t even begin in this blog post to cover the panoramic scope Horton achieves in these pages (yoga history and mysticism, somatic psychology, alternative medicine, new age spirituality, not to mention powerful economic forces promoting the commodification of the body) so I’m not going to try. But I will (at the acknowledged risk of gross over-simplification) try to share just a few of the enlightening observations she makes on her journey of yogic discovery.

In Part 1. Historical Reflections: Ancient and Modern, Horton begins with the facts. Yoga is no sacred time-worn practice but a secular modernist invention. While the traditions of yoga are indeed ancient (some early precursors going back thousands of years) the postural based practice of today is at best, a distant relation.

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya

But Horton’s insight is not to reject contemporary yoga as a fraud. Horton argues that the core practice of asana, as developed by Indian gurus of the late 19th and early 20th century revolutionized yoga “from an esoteric discipline that could only be learned through a guru-disciple relationship into a spiritual technology available to all.”

No longer about achieving freedom from the karmic wheel of rebirth, or transcending or escaping the body, modern yoga was an “uniquely Indian expression of an international movement” that saw the body “as a potential site of integrated physical, psychological, and spiritual development.”

Teachers like Vivekananda and Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya  merged ‘ancient’ yogic wisdom with gymnastics, calisthenics and body building routines, to create a new body based yoga “designed to work with and through the body in ways that responded to the newly self-alienating conditions of modernity”. They forged new accommodations between science and spirituality that Horton contends, made yoga “relevant to our rapidly industrializing, globalizing world.”

B.K.S. Iyengar

In Part II, Personal Reflections: Yoga, Psychology & Spirituality, Horton theorizes “In a society where many, if not most people feel disconnected from their own bodies, asana reconnects us to the multi-dimensionality of our own physicality.”

She explores how yoga, as originated by these 20th century masters and their disciples (such as Iyengar and Desikachar) works to systematically “integrate the life of the mind and the wisdom of the body”.

In the chapter titled Handstand Psychotherapy: Integrating Body/Mind she writes how struggling with Pigeon pose helped release subconscious memories and repressed emotions, and how mastering Handstand encouraged her to move past self-imposed fears and limitations.

In Burning off Karma to Be a Better Mom, she tells how years of continual practice have allowed her to approach a state of witness consciousness. “I can practice letting go of my self structured whirlwind of preoccupations and opening up to the world around me at any time”…”Whether or not we call this deeper experience spiritual is inconsequential. Instead, what’s significant is that it occurs – and quite regularly at that”.

“My yoga practice, I realized was like a strand of pearls threading through my days. In my mind’s eye I saw the slow, ongoing process through which each small moment of internal stillness and spaciousness I’d ever experienced on the mat connected to the next.”… “On good days, I touch it for guidance. On bad ones, I see it glimmering faintly, far away in the dark.”

The power of Horton’s luminous words ring true, I suspect, for many of us. She certainly speaks for me when she concludes that whatever contemporary yoga is – she is amazed to find that “this combination of physical movement, conscious breathing and mental focus featured in contemporary asana practice allows me to experience the magic of the present moment more consistently that anything else I’ve ever encountered.”

In Part III Sociological Reflections: Yoga & American Culture, Horton reflects that “Some people are convinced that yoga works because it taps them into some special source of ancient Indian wisdom. Many attribute its effectiveness to their particular method or teacher, swearing by the rigors of this or that system, or the wisdom of this or that guru like leader. Some, more cerebral types, believe that sooner or later, neuroscience will give us detailed explaining by mapping the complexities of the brain.”

But the way Horton sees it, there is no one answer. Yoga is inherently paradoxical. We can’t reduce it. It is East and West. Ancient and Modern. Traditional and Revolutionary. Physical and Spiritual. Scientific and Esoteric, Rational and Extra-rational.

Yoga is a “simultaneously generative mix of the sacred and the profane”…“ a modern invention with ancient roots, a fitness fad with spiritual sustenance, a 6 billion ‘industry” with non material values”. And it has reached millions of people because somehow it “simultaneously speaks to the ordinary concerns of everyday life and offers a bridge beyond them.”

One of my favorite moments in the book is when Horton writes of finding herself in deep meditation with a group of Midwestern woman in a “cookie-cutter conference hotel perched on the edge of two intersecting free-ways”…“After we’d finished I looked around the room of with new eyes. The soulless generic-ism of this corporate space with garish wall to wall carpeting was infused with a new sense of possibility. The women around me glowed with a softer aura, as if lit up from within. And for a moment that felt both long and short, at the same time, there was a deep sense of quiet”.

So to end this post, I reiterate it’s beginning. Really, what remains to be said? Other than this – “I look around, and notice that light looks brighter. Even the shadows are more rich and resonant. I feel a frisson of magic in the air that my everyday mind hadn’t believed to be there. I get a glimpse of the realization that despite everything, the world really is full of richness, beauty and wonder.”

Thank-you Carol Horton, who could have said it any better?

The Yoga of Food: Spring Nettle Pie

(Note: I’ve reposted this from Yellow Yogi in honour of Nettle Season)

“Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.”   Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma

I am standing on the edge of a forest, my gumboots wedged in mud, the sun dappling the ground before me. There, standing in a warm mist, is the object of my foraging quest – spring nettles. Packed with nutrients our overworked domesticated soil can no longer provide, these graceful ‘weeds’ are a literal medicine – and I don’t just mean the kind sold (for a fortune!) in herbalist remedies.

I’ve trudged for nearly an hour over bracken and fallen logs because I’m seeking a nourishment that goes way beyond the mechanics of nutritional components. By hunting, harvesting, preparing, cooking and serving these nettles, I plan to engage in a practice of conscious eating, to reconnect with my first relationship to nature.

Truth is, I’ve become so dulled by a steady diet of mono-crops, processed pseudo foods, and the rhetoric of “nutritionism” – I’ve lost touch with what is truly life-sustaining.

Case in point. I recently discovered the weeds I have been tirelessly toiling to eradicate from my garden (Lambs quarter and Purslane) are amongst the most nutritious plants we know of – far more ‘healthy’ than the domesticated salad greens I replaced them with.

And this is only a microcosm of the bigger agricultural picture. Sad fact is, as we’ve tilled the soil, we destroyed the original humus and eliminated away whole bio regional food systems. Today it’s estimated we’ve lost 75 percent of plant diversity to a handful of genetically uniform, high-yielding monocrops ( i.e. rice, corn, soy and wheat).

So I’m here in this dankly redolent forest grove to bypass thousands of years of agricultural conditioning. As I put on my gloves and begin to gingerly clip the top velvety leaves (which conceal a thicket of spiny stingers) I am seeking to remember a time when we roamed in tandem with seasons to gather the food freely provided by fields, trees, rivers and oceans. A time before ‘weeds,’ before the ownership of land and crop, a time when the food we consumed actually nourished us.

The Birth of Agri-Business

While farming seems enshrined as a golden ideal, a given, a pastoral archetype of communion with mother earth, we forget that it subdued, subdivided, stripped and slash burned her. It required us to settle in one place, to develop cycles of cultivation and harvest, create tools and even develop whole new food stuffs (grain into flour). And slowly the natural diversity of foods provided seasonally by our regional landscapes disappeared.

But perhaps the biggest change that occurs in our transition from hunter gatherer to farmer, is that food is no longer seen as a gift of nature but becomes a ‘product’ of human knowledge, craft and labor. It becomes a commodity to be earned by the sweat of our brow.

And it’s clear; some vital nutritive element was lost in the process. Archeological records show the introduction of agriculture marked not only a general decline in height, weight, bone density, and dental health but an increase in birth defects, malnutrition, and “diseases of civilization”–such as cancer, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance), heart disease, to name but a few.

It is obvious that this trade-off of health for wealth remains the basis of our food system. Agriculture may have fed more of us but it left control of the food supply in ever fewer hands. Soon big business will own all the seed patents (maybe even the patent to life itself) and their genetically modified products (whose seeds are engineered to self destruct) will all there will be available for consumption.

According to agribusiness and their food experts, it doesn’t matter if our food ‘ is grown, processed, preserved and fumigated with hundreds of toxic chemicals, then nuked with radiation. These interventions, we are assured, are necessary for food productivity and ‘safety’ but fact is, they just make the system more profitable by granting maximum shelf life. Food that is ‘dead’ can’t rot.

Meanwhile food corporations receive government subsidy to churn out junk food so depleted of nutrients (that as food activist Raj Patel points out) even if we stuffed ourselves with it, we could literally starve. Fact is, our food supply is no longer the product of nature but of food science – and it may be labeled “all natural” – but it is anything but.

So I ask you –finally – the big question. If the food we consume isn’t real – how can it possibly sustain us?

The Yoga Of Eating

Which brings me back to the dank black earth beneath my feet. To why I’m here hunting nettles, with my scissors and basket in hand. I’m here because I believe in the old adage – we are what we eat. Where our food comes from, how it’s made and what’s in it, does matter.

I subscribe to the yoga philosophy which tells us we are composed of layers of energy sheaths, the densest of which is the Annamaya Kosha, food sheath – our material body. In other words – the food we eat literally becomes our flesh.

A pretty scary idea when you consider how processed and irradiated ‘food’ in the light of Kirlian photography possess no ‘aura’ – the ghostly emanation of light energy (bio-photons) that normally surrounds living food, like raw carrots or broccoli. Now while food scientists cannot agree these Kirlian photographs mean anything, I nonetheless ask you to envision for a moment, how an auric picture of these nettles might reveal them ablaze with light and energy.

I am grateful that this small patch of nettles in a Vancouver Island rainforest provides me a rare opportunity to eat outside a system in which food is produced not for nourishment – but for profit. Because if growing your own food is today considered the most radical of acts, one that can and will overturn the powers that be (as a popular food activist slogan states) – isn’t foraging truly subversive?

So by filling my basket with free abundant produce, I reclaim my right to pure unadulterated food – and who knows, maybe even some vital force (whether it be chemical, photonic or energetic) no longer available (alive?) in the food supply.

And as I begin the long muddy trudge back to civilization, I am already imagining how after steaming, chopping and sauteing these nettles (like fresh baby spinach in flavor and texture ) with leeks, mushrooms and pasture raised butter, I will bake them into a crispy golden pie. And tonight at the Sunday dinner table when my family tastes the wildness of this green forest grove, they will be fed with more than nutrients.

So in the yoga of spring nettle pie, I will make flesh out of everything these wild nettles represent. And as I eat, I will remember the tall forests and abundant fields that once covered this land. I will hold on my tongue and my heart the temple of blue sky, the birdsong filled trees, the trickling stream of spring run off.

And I will remember how, despite standing so tall and so supple, their heart shaped leaves trembled in the wind as I bent down before them. And to that deeper mystery which drives life from the ground miraculously fusing sunlight, water and stardust into sustenance – I will remember to give thanks.

21st Century Yoga: Politics in Practice

My friends are serious people, with serious concerns. They want to halt the spread of GMO’s, uphold indigenous rights, and save the forests, etc. They are so serious in fact, that one of them recently asked me – why was I STILL writing about yoga? Wasn’t it time to move on to more consequential subjects? Well, I think they should pick up a copy of ’21^st century yoga: culture politics & practice, because it clearly demonstrates once and for all, that yoga is a serious topic.

Economic injustice, militarism, feminism, consumerism, environmentalism are only a few of the big subjects tackled in this diverse collection of essays. No longer content with perfecting postures or contemplating their navels, it seems yogis today are not out to transcend the world, but change it. Skillfully edited by Carol Horton and Rosanne Harvey, its contributors (described as “serious practitioners of yoga”) captured for me what makes 21^st yoga truly modern – it’s emphasis on social justice.

The crux of this new attitude is summed up by essayist Michael Stone who writes “If others are suffering, so are we.” Stone believes the point of yoga practice is to begin serving others. And if yogis “fall to the side of passivity, they are complicit in maintaining the status quo”… “we aren’t serving the truth of climate change and economic injustice.”

Clearly the onus on yogi’s today is not to be sitting around on our mats, but on getting out in the world, on putting our values into action. Being ‘spiritual’ is no longer enough, because it doesn’t necessarily make us better people.

Be Scofield makes this crystal clear in the essay Yoga for War: Politics of the Divine “Think about all of the white, middle-and upper-class people who have been practicing yoga, meditating, doing visualizations, and chanting in the West for decades now. Has it made them more aware of injustices? More concerned about white privilege or informed about racism? Better educated about poverty? More aware of animal cruelty in the food system? Have the millions of spiritual practitioners subverted anything political? No….We can all experience what we sincerely believe to be spiritual transformation yet remain oblivious to the dangers of the surrounding culture”.

Similarly, contributor Matthew Remski is all about putting 21^st yoga into action. In his essay “Modern Yoga Will Not Form a Real Culture Until Every Studio Can Also Double as a Soup Kitchen and other observations from the threshold between yoga and activism, he states “ I don’t need yoga to be a religion, I need it be a community.” Yoga currently has “ no family infrastructure. It offers no life transition rituals. It does not marry or bury us. It does not host A.A. Meetings. It runs no soup kitchens. ” He asks “Will we take all of this self-work and turn it inside out, and show societies that we have as much food as wisdom, as much politics as peace, as much home as Om?”

Remski wonders can yoga “continue to market itself as a consumer-class consolation, offering a fashionable inner peace to a preciously small fraction of humanity?” Because every beeswax tea-light casts “the shadows of unaddressed alienation and despair…”

Pretty heavy stuff right? That’s why this marvelous book clearly demonstrates why 21^st century yoga is such a serious subject. And while this book is not a manifesto, and its authors do not subscribe to singular definition of yoga ( as editors Horton and Harvey point out) I did it find it revealing how the writers time and time again, dipped into the traditional teachings and precepts of classical yoga to verify their thoroughly 21^st century beliefs.

Stone asserts that spirituality and economics must come together, because the accelerated accumulation of capital undermines yoga’s most important teachings of Ahimsa, (non-violence) and Aparigraha, (non-greed). Scofield reminds us of how the Yamas and Niyamas provide us with ethical guides for personal and social conduct. Frank Jude Boccio in his essay, Questioning the “Body Beautiful”: Yoga, Commercialism, and Discernment likens the body-centric orientation so prevalent in North American yoga today as Avidya -not seeing.

Rigveda

And while I don’t want to deny the value of their insights – inspired by the great philosophical canon of yoga – it’s also a little ironic. Because, as far as I can see, no matter how much they quote the Sutras,’ the Eight Limbs, Vedic texts, or Sanskrit terminology, there isn’t much historical correlation between yoga and activism.

Of course there is great wisdom in these teachings, but it doesn’t negate the fact that for the most part, the yogi’s of old sought to withdraw from the world -not better it. And so I’m curious  if our deep-seated desire to find historicity in our practice puts us at odds with our modern values?

Julian Walker‘s opening essay addresses this very question. He reminds us that “There is a central dualism in classical yoga that “holds spirit and flesh, consciousness and matter, God and Nature as pairs of opposites that are fundamentally distinct”. From this perspective “the purpose of yoga is to become completely awakened to our transcendent nature by dis-identifying from our bodies, minds, desires, possessions and indeed all of nature and the manifest world.” 

Walker asks us, does this really speak to our values as 21^st century yogis? Do we want to disassociate from our bodies and the world, or more fully engage in them?

Walker finds his inspiration elsewhere. While giving a brief nod to the Tantric tradition, he traces the true genesis of 21^st yoga back to the ideas of the American Transcendentalists of the 19^th century “…these nature mystics and lovers of life write not of transcending the material plane but diving deeper into it and celebrating their embodied experience.”

SaritPhotograpy.com

So I wonder if the attitude (that there are far more important things than everyday happiness, that yoga is not truly effective unless it is creating community or ending war) – is a bit shortsighted somehow. Because despite all the big issues and expectations we’ve hitched to yoga, aren’t we forgetting its importance as a tool for just ‘being’? Aren’t we forgetting the old counter cultural adage – the personal is political?

Nathan Thompson‘s essay explores how the mind/body split, the division of man and nature, the sacred and the profane, still permeates much of spiritual practice, meditation and yoga today. His background in both Zen and Yoga communities allowed him to observe how this division gets played out in practice. “Whereas Zen students often get lost in their heads as they strive for enlightenment, the average yoga student is fixated on the appearance and general mechanics of their bodies.”

But either way, Thompson believes– this mind/body split is the reason “The vast majority of our society is divided from the very ground upon which we stand, and the very air we breathe, and in the end this system oppresses us all. It limits not only our spiritual capacity, but our everyday lives in general.”

So I worry, that by clinging to historical definitions and traditions of yoga – we become blinded to what makes 21^st century yoga truly unique. What Horton describes as a “wholly modern form of embodied spirituality that celebrates the inherent sacrality of everyday life”.

I’m totally with Walker when he writes while many ‘purists’ would argue “that the materialism, consumerism, enjoyment of sense pleasures, celebration of form and image, and the hedonist group participation in over-stimulating flow classes is not what the ancients had in mind…I find what gives yoga depth, substance, transformational power and juiciness today is rooted in a much more eclectic and life-affirming aesthetic.”

So yes, I do agree that the responsibility of the modern yogi is to take action in the world, but I also take heed of Walker’s and Thompson’s warning – we must not lose touch with ‘living’ joyfully within it

That said, its clear that yoga today is about seeking more than embodiment or personal transcendence. As Horton writes, today’s yogis are “embracing ‘yoga’ as a means of engaging with, rather than retreating from the complexities and problems of the contemporary world”. No longer just intoning OM in the studio, they’re banding together in political action groups to feed the hungry, defend worker’s rights, and save old growth forests. Just for a start.

No Impact Project: Training Eco-Leaders

So dear friends, I invite you to pick up a copy of 21^stcentury Yoga, culture, politics and practice – and read how yoga is changing the world. (And I haven’t even scratched the surface of the other important topics this book explores, such as yoga’s role in healing such 21^st century afflictions as depression, addiction and body image disorders.)

Like these authors I write about yoga because it asks essential questions about what it means to be human, to be spiritual, to have a body, about our role in the world. Questions critical to our well-being, not only individually but collectively. So in closing dear friends, I ask you, what is more serious than yoga?

The Practice of Teaching

OMG. Thank-you Ajna Yoga for another amazing workshop in my ongoing yoga therapy training. Thank-you for reminding me of what a really nice bunch of people yoga teachers are – and what valuable work they do.

I was honoured to be in the presence of a diverse group of teachers who, whether they taught gentle restorative yoga or invigorating core flow, were all bound by a greater value system. To strive to connect to what is authentic in themselves and their students, and to be of assistance and to serve.

And they made me appreciate, despite its somewhat flaky reputation, why teaching yoga is hard and serious work. As esteemed teacher Donna Farhi puts it “ In what other profession must one take into the physical, psychological, physiological, emotional, and spiritual condition of an individual, and speak to all these dimensions in the course of teaching?”

Yes exactly, and its a tall order indeed.

Perhaps that is why the number one self-doubt we spoke of as teachers was ‘imposter’ syndrome. That we are never quite enough to measure up to the responsibility we’ve given ourselves. Questions about our effectiveness are ever-present, and this, we were reassured by our wise workshop leaders, Jules Payne and Jennifer Piercy, was as it should be.  Questioning and doubting ourselves is part of the process, it is what keeps us on track.

From their combined decades of experience they distilled for us an essential truth. Teaching may be all about putting yourself out there, but it can’t be done with integrity – without concentrated inner work.Yes, this was a workshop on creative sequencing (how and why we put poses together) but it was about way more than methods of releasing hips and shoulders or using the right mudra to channel Prana. It was about finding – and believing in our unique voices. And this entails a process of intense self-examination that is put to the test every time we take the head of the class.

For example, by putting ourselves in the spotlight, we are forced to detach from the ego and its insistent need to be liked. If a student flounces out of a class with a huff, do we doubt ourselves, question our methods, or cultivate detachment and let it go? According to Jules and Jennifer, to be a truly effective teacher, one must do both– and it is a practice in itself.

Because as everyone agreed, good teaching takes root in our ability to stay awake, to constantly ask ourselves -why are we here? What is our job exactly?What is the most important aspect of what we do? And as we shared our stories and discussed our concerns, other commonalities began to emerge.

Falling into the rut of rote teaching was a big fear. How can we inspire if we are not inspired ourselves? But finding the trade-off between what keeps us motivated and stimulated and meeting the needs of our students– where they are – right now – is often a challenge. While we agonizingly plan our classes down to the last breath we must also be able to throw our agenda out the door when it does not serve the people or person before us.

There was also a lot of ethical concern about balancing business and service. Yoga is not normally a lucrative career, so making enough money to pay the bills can become all-consuming. Finding the balance between earning a well-deserved living and serving those more economically challenged was a big issue. One teacher arranged a sponsored spot for a woman from a woman’s shelter in her workshop on stress and trauma. Another planned to offer a free class a week to youth at risk.

Another joint struggle was keeping up with our own personal practice. After teaching eight classes a week, the yoga mat at home is not so inviting. And because most of us have other jobs it’s often hard to make time. There was a lot of guilt about this because its accepted wisdom in the yoga teaching world that one must not allow ‘teaching’ to replace our own individual practice. By losing connection to our own growth process as yogis, we cannot possibly be ‘authentic’.

Authenticity is a big buzzword in the yoga world and it leads us straight back to the big bugaboo of ‘imposter syndrome’. That we are ‘wannabe gurus’, because who are we to teach when we are so obviously unenlightened? (Who knows better our secret flaws and weaknesses?) But the only way it seems to get past this demon, is practice. To be constantly seeking that inner compass, our personal truth, to guide us through.

So what I came to understand through this workshop and the experiences of my colleagues, was how teaching in many ways has been one of my greatest teachers. And I realized that just like any regular practice, teaching is marked by its own disciplines, precepts, and rituals, and they must be given mindful attention on a regular basis.

For many of us one such ritual was ‘grounding’ before class. While each had our personal method, we found it essential to detach from the day, find our own calm center. Because, we agreed, how can we possibly connect with our students if we aren’t fully present? And yes, as flaky as it sounds, our energy matters.

Our ‘vibes’, our heart field, our electromagnetic signature, can guide the field of a room. And if things aren’t all right in us, how can we possibly set a tone of peace and self acceptance? The very emotions that medical research increasingly shows, are key to regeneration and healing? And isn’t this why we are gathered together at this yoga therapy workshop? Because we are committed to the belief that yoga heals?

So as Jules and Jennifer urged, we must cut ourselves some slack. We must trust our intentions are good and acknowledge the challenge of the job we’ve taken on. And from their workshop I took this epiphany about teaching away. If yoga is all about increasing self-awareness, then teaching can be likened to an alchemical crucible, it heats everything up, forcing transformation. Its calls us to overcome our own weaknesses, fears and insecurities in search of the greater good. So fellow teachers, let us be compassionate toward ourselves, and keep our focus on our goals. We need to be merciful about our failings, because we are humans, not gurus, after all.

The Great Belly: A Yogini’s Lament

poor belly

Consider the poor belly, zipped up and girded, its protuberance detested. It is the underdog of the body yet hardly anyone comes to its defense – not even yogis. Just google “belly and yoga” and you’ll find hundreds upon hundreds of websites, classes and DVDs all devoted to blasting its fleshy folds to oblivion.

Today we desire something called “abs” and getting them is all about cultivating core strength and power, about firing up the third chakra, the seat of our will. And clearly, women are in the greatest need of assistance. We are as naturally endowed in the belly as we are in the breasts and buttocks (perhaps signaling that sex and fat are meant to go together?) And lets face it, an overabundant, jiggling and dimpled belly clearly signifies one thing – our appetites run amok.

It seems pointless to deny that ‘abs’ signify willpower and control while ample girths signify succumbing to the mindless desires of the body. And such wanton behavior has long been one of patriarchy’s chief complaints about women. We are all about the dangerous temptations of the flesh, emotional, primal, we lack discipline.

That’s what bothers me about the images fed to us by the yoga marketing machine. They speak to an ideal of spiritual discipline in which denial is the name of the game. And they take root in an ascetic tradition that spurns the body and the physical world, and female bodies in particular.

The Fall of the Sacred Belly

I find it telling that the belly, once revered as a symbol of abundance and fertility is today so despised. Early cultures spanning the Neolithic to the Paleolithic produced a continual stream of female figurines, engravings, ceramic designs and paintings all featuring the glory of huge, even gargantuan stomachs.

These images are believed to represent the Great Mother Goddess, and her mountainous belly had little to say about ‘transcendence’ salvation or original sin. In these prehistoric cultures, everything – nature, stars, rocks and human beings were considered sacred. They were part of the body of the Great Mother Goddess who gave life, and she nourished, protected and loved us – without reservation.

Honoring her was not about austerities or obeisance, it was about celebrating and feeling life – here and now. Sociologists often attribute our prehistoric obsession with fat as signifying ‘plenty’ in a time when food was a precious commodity, but I see something deeper at work. I believe these bellies celebrated woman’s unique capacity not only to take in nature’s bounty – but to revel in it.

According to author Lisa Sarasohn, (The Woman’s Belly Book)  the belly of the Great Mother Goddess signified woman’s miraculous connection to “the force that brings forth, sustains and renews life”. It’s abundant folds signify not only her procreative powers but her capacity to nourish herself, to feel and fulfill her desires. So she asks, is it any wonder from the point of view of a patriarchal authority invested in keeping women under control, that the belly became so subversive?

It’s no secret that women and bodily desires have long been lumped together as evil, and Sarasohn believes that belly hatred is part of a continuing cultural assault that “frames woman’s bodies as objects to control”. And it’s agenda? To wage war on woman’s deepest source of ‘knowing’  -her belly.

The Mind Body Divide

This war began, according to author Philip Shepherd, with the disposal of the Great Mother Goddess and her belly embracing ways. While the Goddess was all about sacred embodiment it was with the arrival of patriarchal gods approximately two thousand years ago, that the body became defiled.

Shepherd’s book New Self, New World: Recovering our Senses in the 21st Century details how, with the rise of patriarchy that the center of consciousness ( the feminine center of feeling in the belly) began its migration to the masculine isolated, sensation-less, tower of our head. And this is relevant to women who have, throughout written history, been equated with the life of the body.

The body -and women -became dangerous distractions not only to reason, thinking and logic but spiritual purity itself. Because in this new order, a woman’s body is no longer sacred but an impediment to transcendence. God is now officially male, bodiless and ‘out there’ somewhere.

And from this, according to Shepherd springs “ the primary wound of our culture” – the mind/body split. Because while the brain rules thinking and doing, it is the abdomen, the gut that is the center of being. And what we have lost is our connection to that most feminine aspect of being – feeling. This is not a metaphoric claim, but a physiological fact.

Two Brains =War of the Sexes?

Our Second Brain

Today gastrointestinal research has revealed that we have two brains, one in our head and one in our gut. Far more than a mindless organ of digestion, our belly contains a nervous system so neurologically similar to the brain in both structure and functioning, it is called our second brain.

The walls of our gut contains some 100 million neurons (more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system) and their job is not to think or reason but to “feel”. This second brain is not the seat of conscious thoughts or decision-making, it is charge of something we understand as gut instinct or gut feeling.

So what happens when we view the gut not as a field of intelligence, but as inert matter, run by the thinker in our head? Well according to Shepherd it has left us
“locked in the towers of our brains, thinking, planning, analyzing and rationalizing” cut off from nature, from feeling and being itself.

Shepherd suggests the cranial brain is the center of the male aspects of consciousness and the feeling belly brain is the center of female aspects of consciousness. Today it seems normal that the ‘idea filled’ head should rule over the ‘sensation filled’ belly, but Shepherd reminds us that in order to claim our full intelligence, each must find its complement or completion through the other. Yet our head centered viewpoint see’s the belly as something to be overcome, and it still identifies women and their appetites as targets for control.

The 21st Century Belly

The belly is home to our body centered wisdom – our gut knowing, our instinct for self-preservation. So what does it mean to us as women that the life affirming presence of the belly has been replaced by a flat fat-less concave expanse between protruding hip-bones?

I cant help but wonder if there is any connection with belly loathing and the fact that women are main sufferers of eating disorders and gastrointestinal issues? Why are we unable to find nourishment?

Woman’s bellies are biologically programmed to be round. Its gentle pad of fat is meant to protect our reproductive organs, and without it our hormones malfunction and we quickly become infertile. Could its absence be one reason why reproductive disorders are rampant?

Is the lack of joyful jiggling belly one reason why women are the main consumers of antidepressants? Or why teen-age girls cut and maim themselves in ever-growing numbers? Because the psychological diagnosis is that these young women are desperate to ‘feel’ – anything.

Now I know I’m probably going to get a slew of comments –pointing out that too much belly fat is unhealthy, indicating the overproduction of insulin brought on by the dangerous over consumption of sugar and white carbs. And while I fully acknowledge this reality, it doesn’t really address my central concern – our cultures deep-seated discomfort over our bellies.

Because as Sarasohn points out, that as women have increasingly began to “ participate in the ‘mans’ world – the belly, the literal and figurative sign of womanly power – became, ideally, invisible.”

That’s why I want to google “belly and yoga” and come up with an entirely new and revolutionary set of links. Ones that tell a story not conforming to patriarchal or ascetic ideals of getting our bellies under control, but of letting it all hang out. And what I ask you, exactly, are we building our core strength to overcome?

Isn’t it time to question the agenda at work? We need to remember as writer and yoga teacher Julian Walker points out in his essay from the book 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics, and Practice that from the classical perspective “the purpose of yoga is transcend our bodies, minds, desires, possessions and indeed all of nature and the manifest world.”A perspective from which woman were once not even allowed to practice yoga  because they were impure and unclean?

Is that really what we want? Because what is at stake is our ability to nourish ourselves, to thrive, to be joyfully present in the world.

I find a viable alternative and visible role model within the less recognized yogic traditions of Tantra. Tantra’s practitioners sought divinity within the body and the roots of its practice trace back to the Mother Goddess worshiping early cultures.

Their Goddesses of Nature, of Love, of Earthly Abundance, of Feminine Wisdom are lovingly and meticulously depicted in temple art and statuary spanning centuries. And their bellies, adorned, bedecked and framed by jewelry, are an erogenous zone all of their own. Rounded and prominent as the jutting breasts and full-some hips and buttocks, they speak not of asceticism or denial, but to the sensual pleasures of life, and of the sacred nature of embodiment.

Numbskull: The Brain/Body Paradigm

“I am my head, but I own my body. ” Ken Wilbur, No Boundary

Recently I was shocked when a yoga teacher I admired referred to her body as a  ‘meatsuit’. While her meaning was that her true self or being resided in spirit, her stark metaphor brought into high relief how great the mind/body schism still is, even in such a ‘body friendly’ culture as yoga.

While yoga is supposed to be about ‘union’, phrases like “feel your body” or “listen to your body” or “get in touch with your body” reveal a view of the body and mind as separate. They betray our deeply entrenched belief that the body is something the mind/brain operates .We present our bodies with a variety of postures to breathe through. We practice yoga to energize, detox, stretch and strengthen the body, but the underlying belief is that the mind directs, it is where our “true self” – the driver resides.

According to author Philip Shepherd’s book New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the 21st Century we are under the sway of a paradigm that has ”organized our awareness of the body and the world according to metaphors borrowed from machinery. He writes “we may talk about how good it feels to be ‘in the body’ but we speak about in the same way that we might remarked on the sensuality of driving a well-appointed luxury sedan”. And one that needs maintenance to keep it in tip-top shape. The flaw with this approach, is the body is obviously not, a lifeless compendium of gears and gadgetry.

So why have we accepted a way of viewing our bodies as quite literally ‘dead meat’? In fact, if popular imagination is any yardstick, we seem to believe if we can just keep the brain alive in the proverbial ‘vat’ we don’t even need a body at all. According to Shepherd, we have become, in a literal sense, all “numbskulls”. We have withdrawn our awareness of ourselves to the one organ in the body that is numb to sensation, that surgeons can cut into without need of anesthetic; the brain.

The brain may analyze, rationalize, plan and obsess but it cannot feel. It is the body, the heart, the gut, the skin, the fingers, that feel. And as our culture constantly reminds us – the sensations of the body are not to be trusted. So we isolate ourselves in our minds. “Our thoughts buzz and bounce in our cranium;we can see the world and hear it and think about it as our ideas go around and around in circles, but we have forgotten how to ‘be’ in it.”

Thus the cranium has become quite literally our headquarters – and Shepherd makes the point that it serves as the model for all corporate, governmental and organizational headquarters that exist. “The head sits apart from the ordinary world, secluding itself with the equivalent of high walls and closed doors, safely distanced from the uncontrollable sensations of Being.”

For Shepherd this hierarchy of head over body is the prototype for all the hierarchies we project in the world; male over female , man over nature, mind over matter, doing over being etc. And within this hierarchy, the body and the world become mechanisms for exploitation, control of acquisitions of goods, money, property, status etc. become stand-ins for a full experience of the present. But the problem of course, is that substitutions never quite satisfy.

This is why the body is so much more than a meatsuit. It is the basis for everything we believe and act out in the world. It’s why we must call into question the descriptions, that as Shepherd writes, “we have literally taken in our bodies, dividing up self and world in the process.”

Because while we see the brain as the man in charge, science increasingly suggests that it may be other way around. Research recently published in Cognitive Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, adds to growing evidence that our bodies intelligence governs how we think. In fact studies suggests that our body may be the realm from which all decisions and action originate – and they occur well below and well before the thresh-hold of conscious awareness. Your body, your gut, your skin, your heart, knows things before “you” do. (for more click here)

We can’t access this intelligence through thinking. It is only through feeling, the agency of sensation ( a word which derives from the Latin word sentire, which means both “to feel’ and ‘to think’) that we connect with this ‘knowing’. This thinking/feeling is what Shepherd calls – the logos mind – “the mind that conceives – and receives.”

“The logos mind is the thinking of the felt self. It enters the experience of the felt present just as you might east into a hot bath”…” Sensational thinking guides the aerialist aloft on his tightrope, and the mothers love for her child, and the limitless understanding that love bestows. It guides our understanding of Bach or Rembrandt.”

The intelligence of the body is our primary reality and despite popular thinking, it is not separate from anything. It is already connected to “the unbroken wholeness of the world to which we belong – which happens to be our primary reality.” We forget that beneath the subatomic ground of being, our fingers and toes and thoughts and emotions are one. They are vibrations, waveforms of energy which merge with everything else that exists (and doesn’t exist) in an interconnected energy field that Einstein called “the only reality.” In other words, there is no division between spirit and flesh. Our meat is us.

Yet it seems the dominant paradigm is reflected by what yogini and blogger, Erica Mather wrote last January for Elephant Journal, “I think the content of your character is far more important than the rotting meat suit it’s housed in.Yes, yes, your body is your temple, but you are not your body.”

Shepherd believes the division of body and mind is the primary wound of our culture because it denies us the freedom “To feel the world as a whole, and see the self as a whole within it, and, in feeling that wholeness, to live it”. But the catch 22 we are caught in is that “until we can experience the body’s intelligence we wont be able to identify with the body; but until we can identify with body we won’t be able to feel its intelligence”.

So can we begin by asking, as Buddhist Mike Hoolboom and Simone Moir, Gestalt psychotherapist, did in a recent article, why we say “I move my arm” but not “I beat my heart’? Why we say “ I close my eyes” but not “I grow my hair” or” I wriggle my toes” but not “I circulate my blood? “All those actions that are voluntary and controllable the ego will identify with. Actions that are spontaneous and involuntary are untrusted, not-self or objectified. If I can’t control it, it’s not me. If the actions are spontaneous, it’s not me. Then who is it? Who is this body?”

In order to find the answer, Shepherd tells us we must give up thinking to feel. The vibrations of being are “the energy of the world felt within the body’s stillness”. Shepherd wants us to understand “that by opening to the consciousness of our bodies we can awaken our full intelligence and come home to our wholeness, bit by bit.”

So as yogi’s and yoginis, can we find a body language that reflects ‘union’ instead of separation? One that rejects the metaphors of mechanics, of the mind as the true ‘boss’ of the self, of the body as dross, gross mindless matter? To believe the true self lies in some bodiless realm of spirit is to negate the obvious truth that it is through the meatsuit, not the mind, that we find “Being”.

 

The Sacred Spine: Our Axis Between Heaven and Earth

“If we look around us for a moment, we will find people everywhere with back problems; we live a one-sided life when we neglect the body and the spine.”  Judith Harris, “Jung and Yoga: The Psyche-Body Connection”

Probably the most common injury/issue I deal with as a yoga teacher is low back pain. While there are plenty of good physiological reasons for this state of affairs (i.e. sitting all day at computers) I’m coming to believe that psychological factors play the bigger role. In fact, after reading Judith Harris’s book Jung and Yoga: The Psyche-Body Connection, I’m coming to think that our current epidemic of ‘bad backs’ boils down to a spiritual disorder.

Harris is a Jungian analyst and a yoga teacher who sees the bodies ‘symptoms’ as metaphors for our inner state. Our posture, whether we are slouched in defeat or tall in victory is largely unconscious, yet it reveals much about who we are. Harris writes “In body language, we can think of the potential to experience life as resting in the spinal column, itself the backbone of life”.

The spine is the first structure that forms inside the womb. From here, everything, body, limbs etc. take root. The spine literally supports us from behind, yet in our progress oriented “getting ahead” world, we relentlessly move forward, relying solely on the front of our bodies. One of western culture’s most common postural problems is our tendency to thrust our heads (our minds?) ahead the rest of the body, throwing the spine out of alignment.

Harris’s work explores an idea laid down by the one of the great forefathers of modern psychology, Carl Jung. For Jung “behind’ symbolized the region of the unseen, the unconscious. And Harris sees low back pain as symptomatic of our unconscious disconnection to our spine and backbone (and everything it represents). This has left us unstable “without roots, to where we have come from, to the moment, to where we are headed in the future.” 

Harris reminds us that in Hatha yoga the spine was seen as the center of our sacred anatomy. It was considered the microcosm of the Axis Mundi, the pillar that supports the world. This pillar was seen as the axis between Heaven and Earth, and was paradoxically in constant motion while being motionless at the center. Harris writes “This implies one of the most important goals of yoga; to bring the body and mind into stillness in order to experience the inner world.”

The spine was also likened to a mountain. Tadasana is the name of the basic standing pose in yoga and brings together the Sanskrit word for mountain and the word asana meaning posture or pose. “In Tadasana, we stand like a mountain with a huge firm base beneath our feet, at the same time, in the upper body we are striving upward to achieve a feeling of expansiveness, while constantly maintaining a position of utter stillness.”

The spine actually divides, at the waist, just above the sacrum, to make this elongation possible. In Hatha yoga this lengthening and stretching of the spine was critical to spiritual development, opening the body to the free flow of life force energy (prana) stimulating power centers (chakras) and pathways (nadi’s) and ultimately allowing spiritual energy (kundalini) to rise up from the tip of our tailbone to the apex of the brain.

The sacrum is a curved bone which consists of five fused vertebrae, it is the foundation of our spine, it roots and supports the entire spinal column.

When we stand in proper alignment, the force of gravity passes down through the center of head to backs of knees and ankles making the sacrum the literal center of gravity in the body.And according to Harris this makes the sacrum the” focal point of our relationship to the ground, the body and to our human reality.“

The sacrum, as center of gravity, is the fulcrum of opposing energies. ”Gravity will draw feet into the floor, giving us the anchor that we need to live in the world” yet it is “counteracted by the tendency of living things to expand and grow upward toward the sun.” So while we take root there must also be a counteractive force (in fact no muscular movement is possible without contraction) that moves us upward toward the heavens and spirit.

Hatha yoga calls the sacrum a sacred or holy bone, because it is the center of the divine body. Because it literally connects the lower half of our body to the upper half, it is seen as a place of transformation, where the union of upper and lower, of above and below, of the divine and the human occurs. 

That’s why I find it fascinating that most of our lower back issues are rooted in this ‘sacred’ area. Telling also, is the fact that for the vast majority of back pain cases, a specific physiological cause or source will never be identified. Have we, as Harris asserts, become so ‘frontally’ directed towards getting ahead, that our back, the sacrum -our root and center – has fallen into the dark, the unconscious? Have we forgotten the necessity of balancing heaven and earth, of finding both the sacred and corporeal within ourselves?

I find it revealing that my own lower back problems vanished when I committed to becoming a yoga teacher. This decision marked my step back from an overly rational way of seeing, from materialistic concerns, to believe in well, something – anything. I’ve always thought my back pain faded because I re-educated my body through training in proper alignment, but now I’ve begun to wonder if it wasn’t my commitment to a more spiritually oriented life that ‘cured’ me.

The word sacrum comes originally from the Latin word sacer, meaning holy or sacred. So to conclude, I ask those suffering with low back pain to ‘drop down’ into this sacred area, your center of gravity, while simultaneously reaching up with the crown of your head, towards the sun and the heavens. Consciously come into alignment with the axis mundi, the center of the cosmos and the center of yourself. 

You’ll be glad you did. Because as Harris writes “ The strength that comes from being rooted is inexpressible in words. Whether standing sitting or lying down we feel the immense support of something holding us from below, which in the end is absolutely irreplaceable.” So I invite you to physically root – and take flight – in full consciousness of what your spine, your support, your backbone represents – your root in the material world and your connection to the divine.

To Speak or Not to Speak: Patanjali and the Yoga of Truth

Image of the sage Patanjali

    “To one established in truthfulness, actions and their results will be become subservient.” Book Two, Portion on Practice #36, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Recently I’ve found myself in one of those awkward situations in which I’m unsure of the wisdom of telling the truth – of saying to a certain individual – the words burning in my throat. While I’ve been telling myself that its best to show restraint, I’ve come to suspect it’s only fear that makes it easier to say nothing. But the real problem is this; stranded between my choice of cowardly silence and the desire to give voice, I’ve become stuck, unable to fully commit to either – or any – course of action.

This has got me thinking a lot about Patanjali (the revered medieval sage of yoga) and his Sutra on the meaning – and ramifications – of truthfulness. Especially, his teaching that truth (satya) is about much more than just abstaining from lying, it about the finding the courage to ‘speak’, even if difficult or painful. This is necessary because words in themselves are talismanic forces that shape reality and call the world into being. We must be established in truthfulness, not just to increase our moral virtue, but to increase our power to achieve what we want – even our destiny – in the world.

According to Sri Swami Satchidananda‘s popular translation of this Sutra, “If you are always truthful, if no lie comes from your mouth, a time will come when all you say will come true….By the establishment of truthfulness, Yogis get the power to attain for themselves and others the fruits of work without doing the work. In other words things come to them automatically.”

While this idea seems like magical thinking to us now, for Patanjali, it was a fundamental precept. And it made satya – one of the most powerful forms of yoga we could practice.

Satchidananda reminds us that while telling the truth (and reaping its benefits) may sound easy in theory, it’s actually hard work. It isn’t about blurting out the first reactive words that arise, its about taking time to discern the emotions behind them. This requires a great deal of inner contemplation because truthfulness can only achieved by an “absolutely honest mind”. We must be honest with ourselves first (about our true feelings, desires and motivations) before we can be honest with others.

So I have had to admit, in terms of my personal situation, the real reason I’m biting my tongue isn’t discretion. It’s just fear. I am fearful of the ‘actions and their results” that my words will bring. Because then I might hear things I don’t want to know, my ego may get a bruising, I could get hurt. But most of all I’m afraid because the words that arise in me, demanding to be voiced and heard, are demanding that I grow, move into the future. They have the power to change my world – simply by being spoken.

Being afraid of the future is no way to live. So I have decided with Patanjali’s guidance, to engage in the long arduous process of finding-and then hopefully telling the truth. I recognize that truth is subjective, that my truth will be different from yours, but I must move past my fear of hearing your ‘truth’ in order to tell mine. I must find the courage to go forward. I must become aware of what I am truly thinking and feeling, step back from ego and fear, to find the true voice of my heart.

Patanjali reassures me that “With the establishment in honesty, the state of fearlessness comes”. And so I make a leap of faith in his words. I resolve to tell you my truth as bravely and consciously as I can, in full understanding that my words are incantations that create the world, speaking us into the future.

My New Yoga Manifesto

After summer break, with a new session of yoga classes approaching, my thoughts turn to what I most want to embody and share as a teacher. This year though, I am finding it especially challenging. My discovery that modern asana based practice was no sacred, time-worn discipline but a 20th century invention (see here and here) was a bit of a shock.

Not only did it undermine everything I’d been so evangelically teaching, it left me searching for a new language to describe yoga to my students. Can I, without reference to history, to ancient tradition, explain what this practice of postures we call yoga – is really all about?

Well, I have to try. Because I haven’t lost faith in what modern yoga-whatever it is- can accomplish. Medical science demonstrates that yoga makes us healthier and happier – and for this reason alone it deserves our committed practice.

So the big question then becomes – how to most effectively teach it? What framework should be provided, what context to explain yoga’s miraculous ability to revitalize, heal and transform?

I don’t disregard the influence of Eastern mystical wisdom. Because the irony is that while post modern practice has little to do with historic yoga, it has paradoxically distilled the essence of enlightenment teachings.

I believe modern yoga, by amalgamating ancient spiritual wisdom with modernist ideas of somatics and embodied cognition is forging a revolutionary new/old body technology that is capable of unlocking undreamed possibilities of human consciousness and potential. Possibilities, it seems, already well understood by the yogi’s of old. 

Now that’s a pretty big statement I know, so bear with me as I try to unpack it.

The Healing Art of Embodiment

Lets start with the idea of “conscious embodiment” – a concept central to somatic psychology and body work.  According to yoga historian Dr. Mark Singleton, somatics began to “interact with twentieth century international yoga through the development of psychoanalytic body work” pioneered by William Reich and Alexander Lowen. The term somatics is derived from the Greek “somatikos”, soma: “living, aware, bodily person”which posits that neither body nor mind is separate from the other; that both are part of a living process. 

This idea is also fundamental to yogic philosophy and Singleton points out many somatic practices “are explicitly derived from asana and pranayama, with the many of them identical to the prop-assisted posture of Iyengar yoga.”

One of the most important shared concepts between somatics and modern yoga is that chronic emotional tension creates physical patterns in the body, rigid shoulders, clenched jaws, restricted breathing etc. Like kinks in a garden hose, these rigidities armor the musculature, inhibiting healthy function by dampening the electrical activity of the nervous systems and spinal column, restricting the free flow of fluids, blood, lymph etc. and negatively affecting heart rhythms, blood pressure and hormonal balance.

Yoga, as does somatics, works on releasing emotional tension from our body, musculature, connective tissues and joints, allowing normal function to return. And it helps us develop awareness of the mental patterns that cause these ‘blocks’ in the first place. As the great yoga scholar and author Georg Feuerstein wrote “Gaining awareness of the body’s vital energy, one comes to realize that depression, confusion, fear, hatred, disease, and love are, in fact, cellular experiences of consciousness.” A statement, I’m sure, with which the ancient yogis would agree.

So while I think that much of modern yoga’s value in its somatic applications – in creating ‘conscious embodiment”- I think it goes even farther than that. Today science demonstrates how our minds can influence our biological functions but it is also uncovering evidence for another key yogic idea – that it also works the other way around. We can alter our psychology and our consciousness through the ‘technology’ of the body.

The Body: A Technology of Consciousness?

Research in the field of “embodied cognition”is demonstrating how everything from the tilt of our head to the turn of our toes influences our emotions and state of mind.

While scientists aren’t sure exactly why or how it works, studies reveal that reclining postures help to inhibit the flight or fight response and ease angry emotions while powerful or expansive postures boost testosterone, decrease the levels of the stress hormone cortisol and even increase tolerance to pain.

Now think of yoga poses we apply with specific effects in mind. Warrior postures, arms and legs spread wide and strong – for developing strength and power. Forward folds( triggering nerves connecting to our parasympathetic system) for cooling, calming and relaxation.

Are these postures not a real technology by which we can boost our mood and soothe ourselves? That they are centuries old or derived from 20th century calisthenics, no longer matters – because they work.

Even more fascinating are the implications raised by research exploring the ritual use of body posture to alter consciousness. Dr. Felictas Goodman‘s investigation into the use of ritual posture in cross cultural religious and spiritual practices, has documented at least seventy postures (many similar to yoga poses) which create verifiable physiological changes in brain wave function – switching the beta waves of ordinary consciousness to the low-frequency high amplitude patterns of theta waves.

In a similar range with sleep and dreaming, the theta state is one of deep relaxation and hyper awareness. Stress related hormones fall off and the brain begins to release beta-endorphins, the body’s own opiates. The theta state is associated with enhanced creativity and problem solving skills, heightened intuition, positive feelings of emotional connection, and spiritual experiences.

So could we, as modern yogis and yogis, with our newly evolved 21st century postural practice, be simply rediscovering an ancient mind/body technology?

Taken together, the implications of somatics, embodied cognition and the mind altering effects of ritual postures, seem to suggest that modern yoga is activating what author Joseph Chilton Pearce describes as a “ biology of transcendence” hidden in our cells, flesh and bone. A biology, I believe, whose potential was already being explored by the ancient enlightenment traditions – and that we as practitioners of modern yoga, are currently reinventing today.

So in finding new words for my students, to describe why yoga is so important and relevant to us now, I want to start with this. Yoga empowers us – physically, mentally and spiritually. It provides a tool by which we, in the midst of our secular culture, can re-sacralize the body and reconnect with our transcendent capacities for spiritual development. Postural practice may not be millenia old – but it is an instrument by which we can enhance our health, boost our intelligence, heighten our creativity and make ourselves happier. All in all, it sounds like a pretty good reason to practice to me!

Technologies of Qi: Yin Yoga & Connective Tissue

Connective tissue

“ A new paradigm is evolving in the West, one that broadens the scope of information and energy transportation mechanisms far beyond simple chemical and electrical models.” Berni Clark, author of The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga.

We are uncovering a new frontier within our bodies – one with previously unimaginable implications for our health and well-being. What was once disregarded by medical science as inconsequential “goo” – our connective tissue – turns out to be our largest (and most neglected) organ!

As our understanding of the body as a matrix of electromagnetic energies deepens, we’ve come to see that the fascia or connective tissue (structuring, sheathing and interconnecting our circulatory system, nervous system, muscular-skeletal system, digestive track, organs and cells) is actually an energetic communication system.

liquid crystals composing collagen

The collagen that makes up most of the connective tissue in your body is liquid crystalline in nature. Liquid crystals -known to be semi-conductors – are able to conduct energy in the way the wiring system in your house conducts electricity. They are also able to send, receive, store and amplify energy signals – like your high-speed internet connection.

Because fascia interconnects every system in the body – it provides a basis for information and energy transfer beyond purely chemical origins. In other words, while we’ve traditionally thought of communication in the body as mechanical ( chemical molecule fits into receptor like a key into a lock), we now realize we can open the lock faster with energy (like remote control devices).

meridian chart

These discoveries have caused James L. Oschman, in his book Energy Medicine in Therapeutics and Human Performance, to suggest that fascia is an intelligent organ of communication that is “conducting electromagnetic signals not only in the body, but from the cosmic energy field of the universe into the body and from the body into the field.” And in an idea eerily reminiscent of the healing wisdom of ancient Taoist China –  Oschman suggests that a healthy fully ‘integrated’ body may be a body that is entirely free of restrictions to the flow of energy signals.

Ancient Taoism held as a central tenet that the body was composed of vast network of energy pathways which they called meridians. And if one was to maintain a healthy body, these meridians had to be free of restrictions to the flow of Qi – the life force energy that permeates the cosmos.

And it seems the Taoists knew all about connective tissue, which they classified as Yin. They believed when we are active and energetic, Qi energy flows through our muscles, the Yang layer of the body. When we are still, Qi moves through the more resistant connective tissues and skeletal system, the Yin layer of the body. Balancing the energetic aspects of yang with the still practice of Yin was essential in maintaining the free flow of Qi through the body’s meridians.

Paul Grilley

Today Yin Yoga utilizes this Taoist philosophy in the creation of a modern practice which uses long slow holds in postures as as opposed to more fluid vigorous Yang practice. Yin yoga seeks to open and release the tightest places in our bodies – connective tissue, joints ligaments and tendons – which have become tight and restricted through injuries, repetitive stress, poor postural habits and even emotional trauma.

And according to Yin Yoga leaders such as Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers, this loss of mobility within the connective tissue restricts the flow of Qi energy through the meridians as well. Yin yoga by working the connective tissue helps cleanse energy meridians and stimulate the flow of Qi.

Western science has long been skeptical of Eastern energy or meridian maps. Looking for channels and conducting tubes, they found little evidence of energy lines. But their investigations did not include the supposedly inert connective tissue. And ironically as Yin Yoga teacher Bernie Clark suggests “they may have discarded the very tissues that formed the channels they were seeking.”

It was Dr.Robert Becker, back in the 60′s who first demonstrated that connective tissue provides pathways for the energy flow. He established that when pressure is applied to connective tissue, joints, bones (as in Yin yoga poses or externally applied stretch and pressure during bodywork and massage) they polarize into positive and negative electrical poles and generate piezo-electricity. This current of electromagnetic energy then travels along the most conductive channels available in the body, channels that Becker suggested corresponded with the meridians of Eastern healing wisdom.

Today researchers like Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama in Japan, and Helene Langevin of the University of Vermont are documenting further evidence that the fascia network corresponds to the network of acupuncture points and energy pathways as described by the ancient healers. Dr. Motoyama was able to demonstrate a correlation between the electrical conductivity and the location of meridians. Motoyama has found chains of Hyaluronic Acids  in the connective tissue of the body. Hyaluronic acid has the amazing property of being able to fix and polarize water in large quantities. When water is polarized it is able to conduct electrical impulses and therefore information. Motoyama theorizes that Qi flows throughout the pathways created by chains of hyaluronic acids.

electromagnetic fields of the body

Grilley contends this research reaffirms that the meridians run through the connective tissue of the body, and he writes, if “researchers are right—if the network of connective tissue does correspond with the meridians of acupuncture and the nadis of yoga—strengthening and stretching connective tissue may be critical for your long-term health.”

No kidding. That’s a big understatement when you consider that electromagnetic frequencies are vastly more efficient in imparting information than chemical signals. fMRI imaging has shown that when meridian or energy points in the body are stimulated, neural circuits in the brain are activated faster than what neural conduction can explain.

That’s why, as our technology allows us to peer ever more deeply into the body we are discovering a new land. One that brings us full circle with ancient philosophy by envisioning the body -not just a mechanical system of separate parts -but as an energetic system that is interconnected to all that is.

So that’s why I consider Yin Yoga to consider to be a Technology of Qi. We are not only balancing yin and yang -we are cleansing our energetic circuitry. This encourages the free movement of information and perhaps even invites in what the Taoists considered the flow of life force energy itself.

My Vitality Project: Secrets of the Immortals

Figure from Fountain of Youth

“ It is not merely a matter of arresting the normal processes of ageing and decay but, through a life time of practices, creating a new subtle body, capable of flying on the wind, of being in more than one place at once, immune from harm from fire, water or weapons, and able to assume invisibility; in fact having all the supernatural powers.” J.C. Cooper, Chinese Alchemy: The Taoist Quest for Immortality

My quest to discover the secrets of vitality has become a serious business. What I once took for granted – the seemingly endless source of energy to work, party and play – has become a precious commodity parsed between the activities of my day. And lets face it, despondency over encroaching jowls is also a big motivator.

Now I’ve been around the block enough to sort the wheat from the chaff. For example I’ve discovered that when it comes to optimal health, slavishly following the latest ‘expert’ advice isn’t always reliable. I made the mistake of glutting myself with whole grains for nearly a decade! Getting rid of this overload went a long way towards restoring lost energy – by literally jolting me out of a carb coma.

What has been more dependable is my sixteen year love affair with yoga. What began as a flirtation deepened into commitment. Yoga not only improved my health and emotional well-being, it redirected my attention toward a much older body of knowledge. Stretching back into the mists of pre-antiquity, within the Tantric traditions of India and the alchemical traditions of China and Tibet, is an ancient wisdom -one in which the secrets to eternal youth are spelled out.

This “spiritual science’ taught that with dedicated single minded practice, we could ‘refine’ and ‘perfect’ the ordinary body into the a body immune from harm or decay – the body divine. Known in varying traditions as the immortal, illuminated, or diamond body, it’s achievement was considered the realization of our highest human potential. The goal of these teachings was not to leave the flesh behind like an old suit, but to ascend in the body - to a higher level of being. As an old sage expounds in a Taoist fable, “There are two paths, that of lesser people who leave the body and go, and that of greater people who go with the whole body.” 

These ancient techniques have been honed and improved upon by many great teachers over the centuries. Once secret and transmitted only from guru to disciple, much of this knowledge is freely available to anyone who wishes to pursue it. And as far as I can tell, whether they be Tantric, Buddhist or Taoist, the sages left us two main premises to follow.

The first is that there is no division between consciousness and flesh – when one transforms the mind, they transform the body – and vice-versa. Thus overcoming ego, and the causes and negative effects of personality and conditioning, is paramount. Because when properly harnessed, our mind, emotions and thoughts constitute a ‘body technology’ that can alter physical dimensions of reality.

Secondly, in order to extend longevity and reach the greatest possible vitality we must actively commune with and enhance the life force energies (qi, jing, shen, prana ) that permeate the universe. This is to be accomplished through breathing and meditation techniques, internal energy regulation, ritual body postures and yoga, the utilization of astronomical and geomantic forces, and the consumption of magical herbs and foods – just for a start!

So welcome to my project of regeneration. I pledge to learn as much as I can about these disciplines and put them into daily practice. I will make time for meditation and self-reflection, use my K1 point to get grounded, open my meridians, cultivate my elixir fields and flow qi through my micro and macroscopic orbits. I will use Tantric prana dharanaprakti  breathing to concentrate my prana, salute the life giving sun, use mudras and open my chakras. I will even put into practice a few things modesty forbids me to mention…

Okay – so there is a danger I realize. In this youth obsessed culture it is easy to slide down the slippery slope to compulsion. I well remember the aging evil queens of fairy tales, whose hankering to remain ever young brought mayhem and destruction. Is this simply a vanity project? The last-ditch attempt by a middle-aged woman to hold on to the last straw of youth. Well, perhaps. What can I say?

But really, there is no going back. I no longer believe in the scientific materialist paradigm in which the body is a mechanical system, fated by time and genes to wither and die. Which doesn’t mean I’ve lost my faith in science. Because new discoveries in neurotheology, epigenetics, bio-electrics, and energy medicine are bringing us full circle with the beliefs and practices of the ancient mystics. And they are offering astonishing evidence of our unexplored and innate healing potential.

Studies in the field of epigenetics for example, demonstrate what the ancients already knew, that our cells may be functional vessels, but they are also energy fields of possibility and potential. Our psychology creates an information pattern, or “bio-field” that directly shapes our cells and DNA. With each thought and emotion we hold we produce either stress or healing responses which echo through our biological system, turning disease related genes on or off.

Telomerase

Medical research also documents the efficacy of meditative practices and yoga in improving our longevity. For example, studies on telomerase - the enzyme in cells that repairs the shortening of chromosomes that occurs throughout life reveal that long time meditators like Yogis and Buddhist monks are aging at a slower rate than the rest of us. Studies being done at Stanford University found that people had 30% more telomerase after attending a 500 hour meditation retreat!

Consider also a landmark study conducted by Harvard University, in which researchers demonstrated they were able to reverse the markers of aging. A group of seniors were placed in an environment that recreated the 50′s – a time when they were all in the prime of life. After two weeks their cardiac functioning, strength, hormone levels, blood pressure, eyesight and hearing had all improved.

So I ask you, is it really so outlandish to consider that the body has capabilities we have only begun to discover? Or rediscover? I guess it boils down to this. In a world defined by the search for the perfect pill, I am ready to place my faith in the ultimate placebo, belief itself. 

Ever since the 1950′s, pharmaceutical funded medical trials have shown that sugar pills and sham treatments can heal disease, rejuvenate cells, reverse tissue damage, cure warts and even enlarge breasts. So I’m willing to wager it doesn’t matter whether it’s a sugar pill or an ancient esoteric secret if “I” believe in it – my body will too.

But isn’t this the hardest part? Can I overcome a lifetime of conditioning that tells me aging and disease are inevitable and dictated by our genes? That tell me the fountain of youth is just a fable – woven out of magical thinking and a fear of mortality as old as the hills?

It strikes me that while our ancestors saw their consciousness and the natural environment as all the technology they needed, we now believe we need some cybernetic implant, chemical concoction, miracle ingredient, some cutting edge scientific advancement to vaunt us past death into post-human status.

The goals of Transhumanism (merging man with cybernetics and robotics) have much in common with the ancient enlightenment agendas; the acquisition of superhuman powers, a perfected body, the achievement of immortality. We are still being driven by the same impulse to transmute ourselves into something better, something new and improved. But I wonder – do we really need all the hardware?

That’s why my quest to discover the secrets to vitality is going back to the basics. I’m placing my I bets on the mystical time-honored traditions, with their more natural, accessible and affordable methodologies. Whether I succeed, feel more energized and revitalized, maybe even grow more youthful – who knows? But of this much I am sure – and I quote the great Taoist Sage, Lao Tzu – “When I let go of who I am, I become who I might be.”