The Mind just doesn't "get" Yoga.

Yoga is in a realm beyond words.

For as crazy in love with yoga as I've been, there is a part of me that remains skeptical. Just this morning, I'm embarrassed to say, I had a moment of fear when I wondered, "How am I going to stand in front of those people and teach them yoga." I was in a moment of feeling lost and disconnected, and I was about a block away from the building where I teach my first class of the day. And thankfully, moments later the looks of warm greeting and expectation from the class caused the doubting me to vanish. I was a passionate teacher, and totally into it once I got started.

There is an aspect of yoga (probably the heart of it) that is beyond words. All we really have to offer one another to pass yoga on is technique. Our minds can grasp technique. But what happens when we practice is ultimately beyond ordinary communication. Poetry tries, but only when we see through the spaces that the ideas open up do we get a fantastic glimpse. So, it's not the words of the poetry or the angles of the arms and legs in a yoga pose, but it is where we go from those launch pads of language and form that is so fortifying and affirming.

So I really believe that yoga is beyond the grasp of the thinking mind. And I find it wonderful that I want to talk about it so much. Isn't it strange to want to speak the ineffable?

The transmission of techniques is important. In a recent posts I've talked about my inner conflict with the traditional teachings, and how I've embraced the marketplace of yoga (because that's what I know...). This is another angle: the importance of studying, using, preserving, living and teaching yoga technique. There is something very real and powerful in these techniques for practicing yoga.

It's important to honor the teachings we have because the mind doesn't get it. And when we think that we've "got it" you can be sure that we're in an inflated state, or stuck because yoga is a window into the unknown. If we think that we know the unknown I'm sure that we are really oversimplifying. Labels and definitions help put things into human hands, but there is something about yoga that is beyond what any one person can hold by himself or herself.

I've been extremely fortunate to have studied extensively with the best Ashtanga Yoga and Iyengar Yoga teachers in town. And the situations where I have been so humbly blessed with beautiful experiences have happened when teachers were honoring these techniques for practice that came from India.

The mind can shape the container that yoga goes into, but that's all. The imperfect process of our humanity becomes blessed with yoga, and escapes the container of ordinary mind.

Linda-Sama recently commented on a post, "there is a saying in India: dharma teachings are like a bowl of rice; you pick out the dirt and leave the rest to nourish you."

There are flaws in the teachings, but even so, we might also be nourished by their wisdom.

*simul-posted at Elephant Journal*

In Defense of Marketplace Yoga

In the society I live in, it might seem like there is no reason to defend marketplace yoga — the marketplace of yoga seems just fine, actually, but there are those among us who are concerned about what is actually getting translated into this marketplace. Are we just telling ourselves nice stories about yoga, or are we really "getting" the yoga?

I have my own experience of yoga education located in this very marketplace to offer up as an example:

In fact, the part I'll talk about now happened in the upscale Gold Coast neighborhood in Chicago. It was the year 2000 at an ashtanga yoga studio that has since closed: Priya Yoga that was at 1 East Oak Street, located above a pizza shop. When walking up the stairs to yoga, the nose was greeted with the smells of pizzas baking.

It was when I was pushing my way up the flights of stairs to Priya Yoga after work that a pungent voice of inner-judgment would often assault me: Who the hell do you think you are, doing this Gold Coast yoga?

But somehow I made it up those stairs, again and again through the barrage of insulting thoughts. It helped that the studio was warm and friendly, and it also helped me that the teachers and other people seemed to like my being there. I loved being there. I loved the yoga. It became like another home for me.

After one Friday-night ashtanga yoga class here my life would be changed invisibly yet indelibly. When this particular yoga class was over, I was on the way out when I stopped to thank the yoga teacher. I was looking into the eyes of this instructor, when what appeared like golden rain began falling down, yet somewhat suspended, like glinty-gold bits in a snow-globe slowly and lightly falling down toward me and all around me — shining bits of light. I had a sense that everything around me was permeated with love: my body, the teacher's body, the air between us and all around me, the other people, the desk behind the teacher, the walls, the carpet, the ceiling, the next room, the door, the hallway and stairs, absolutely everything seemed to be permeated with this love as integrated into the fabric of all things and non-things. Yeah, I was high after that yoga session. Was this experience a figment of my body chemistry? Was it somehow a delusion caused by dehydration, exhaustion or toxicity?

What scientifically happened to me is a little less important than what spiritually happened to me. I actually thought for the first time in my life that the fabric of our world might be good. I had felt it to be absolutely and irrefutably good from a song in my cells. Love had spoken from every particle I was aware of in that moment.

I think that our realizations in yoga are more about our dedication as individual practitioners than about the marketplace of yoga, but this economy does support the houses of yoga and teachers of yoga that create a situation where amazing and previously-unimaginable things can happen for people.

I am grateful that I have been able to have this and many other beautiful, meaningful, and life-enhancing yoga experiences — that I don't think are over by any means. But there was a money-based background that made it possible to experience the yoga that I have. So the marketplace is not separate from our yoga, it actually makes yoga more accessible than ever before because it is a part of our economy.

* also posted at Elephant Journal.

Non-dogmatic Yogi

I tell myself that I am not a dogmatic yogi. At the same time, I can only practice yoga based on the studies and practice I’ve done up to now. So it is inevitable that the tastes and flavors of the systems of yoga that I have practiced come through in what I do currently. I have learned from others who have passed what they have learned to me (so cool). I love that there are aspects of what I do that transmits this learning of yoga that came before me, and will go beyond me. I am filled with awe when I think this way. This is the reality of the experience for me.


When I saw that Yogaview was offering an Ashtanga Yoga Week with Petri Raisanen I was intrigued. I cleared my schedule of early morning classes and private lessons to participate in a week of morning Mysore yoga practice. I just felt the need to do this for myself. And I thought that practicing with this teacher from Finland would be interesting. Before he became a full-time Ashtanga teacher he worked as a traditional Finnish folk healer, and his healing intent shown in his teaching style.

Several years ago, when I regularly practiced according to the Mysore style practice, I mostly felt that the adjustments were trying to get me somewhere—and this most likely reflects my own intent in the practice at the time. But I tended to feel a little over-stretched from the practice, psychologically and physically. At the same time I experienced benefit, also. My yoga practice at this time had a momentum that carried me to a new place.

In Petri’s teaching verbal instruction was sparse, but his physical adjustments and presence spoke volumes. His eyes are magical (they just are), and he carries a joyful vibe that’s infectious. When a student was getting something he would exclaim, “YES!” I love that.

I experienced an especially spirit-nourishing moment in Supta Kurmasana. In the past this always felt like a stressful pose, and my teachers did their best to pull and arrange my body parts into it. And just-so-you-know, my feet were not behind my head and my hands touched, but were not clasped, so it was a modified pose. However, I had a moment in my version of the pose on that morning where I felt totally contented and relaxed, positively joyful to be right where I was with my arms and legs beautifully braided around my experience of myself, safe in the center. I wanted to stay there, but also felt a pull toward completing the practice, so I moved on eventually.

When I walked in on that first day of practice I was a bit afraid because I was coming back to a practice I had not done in some time. I stood at the front of my mat for a while just getting a grip, and Petri welcomed me and said, “You know Sun Salutations, right?” And yes I did, and more than that also. Before I knew what happened I was loving it. …such a great experience.

I remember thinking during the week that anybody who dismisses or talks poorly about another system of yoga simply has not done enough of it. I have had incredible experiences in Ashtanga, Iyengar, Anusara, and Kripalu (Heck, I got a lot out of Richard Hittleman's Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan, back in the day…). So what gives? It makes me wonder about the mentality of yogis who want to structure their experience in an exclusive way. Why must my yoga be better than your yoga? To really grow as human beings, and be better yogis maybe we need to try one anothers yoga.

The Instance and the Multitude

Knowing my point of view in any given moment is an instance in understanding. As I know this, my own singleness and differentiation, this can be seen as ekagrata or one-pointed awareness. I am aware of the fullness of myself. When I direct my awareness toward a more inclusive view of the world, consciousness expands.

In yoga practice I might break it down differently: ekagrata might represent my single-pointed awareness on the work of my little toe in a pose. And I enlarge my perspective as I tune my awareness to all parts of my body.

Another instance in understanding is reaching out to really understand a friend’s point of view. To grow further one would reach beyond one’s circle of close friends.

These examples all represent ways of working with consciousness. The journey of yoga teaches a practitioner to tune in with the workings within ones self, and how to harmonize with the world at large.

The sixth and seventh limbs of Patanjali’s Ashtanga yoga are Dharana and Dhyana. Dharana is ekagrata, one-pointed concentration, and Dhyana is meditation, expanded consciousness.

When I was walking around this morning, I tried to find something that was one-pointed, and couldn’t: even a single stem can have many blooms. Above, I used the example of my little toe as a possibility for a singularly focused attention, and it is if I make it so, but if I focus there suddenly I become aware of the inner toe, outer toe, extension of the toe, and so on. The single-pointed awareness blossoms into a multifaceted entity.

Because it is Easter Sunday, I am thinking of the biblical story of Christ in Christianity. In the story, Christ dies for the people. He sacrifices his singularity for the multitude, and through this he transcends this worldly experience, and comes back to earth on Easter Sunday, closer to God.

Honoring the Inside

The five senses are used to quest outward, tasting, touching, smelling, hearing and seeing our way through the world. Even as we are learning about the first four limbs of yoga (and their components) we are using our senses going outward to integrate ourselves peacefully into the world. In the first limb, Yama, we watch ourselves acting in the world, and ask, are we harming, lying, stealing, etc.? It requires that we watch the outer world to get feedback and see how we are doing. Similarly with the second limb, Niyama, we must watch and see, are we expressing purity, contentment, discipline, etc.? Are we doing these things? Are we living life according to these tenets? The third limb, Asana, is what we do with our bodies, as in posture. And the fourth limb, Pranayama is breath control. How are we breathing? How are the ribs moving? How is the belly moving or not? These four limbs have landmarks in time and space, directly related with the physical world, and looking to it for feedback towards the aim of growth.

The fifth limb in Ashtanga yoga is Pratyahara, sense withdrawal. It calls for us to turn the senses away from external stimulation. We relax the eyes, not looking outward. Release the tendency to listen outward when practicing Pratyahara. Can we use the sense of touch to feel internal and subtle sensations? As the yogic explorer we ask, what is inside? What is there besides the world of external stimulation? In Pratyahara we devote the sense organs to who we are apart from the external life. It honors the inner self, prepares the space for going deeper into practice, and sets the stage for the next three limbs.

Pratyahara also informs my experience of myself, by teaching me to go inward. Instead of only a recorder and absorber of life’s energies, I also become a generator. I begin to consider and see what I want to put out there, instead of only wondering what I can take. Looking inward aligns us with our highest goals.