Quest of the Soul

The soul is having a quest through my genetics and my flesh, my stories and my emotions, and my isolation and my relationships. There is a soul seeking expression through everything I identify as me. Yet the soul is not the same as the terrain that it is trying to inhabit. How can I make the terrain of my life in this world a place where something that is not a thing--a soul--can express whatever needs to be expressed? Very mysterious.

"The right means are just as important as the end in view. Patanjali enumerates these means as the eight limbs or stages of Yoga for the quest of the soul. They are:
1. Yama (universal moral commandments); 2. Niyama (self purification by discipline); 3. Asana (posture); 4. Pranayama (rhythmic control of the breath); 5. Pratyahara (withdrawal and emancipation of the mind from the domination of the senses and exterior objects); 6. Dharana (concentration); 7. Dhyana (meditation) and 8. Samadhi (a state of super-consciousness brought about by profound meditation, in which the individual aspirant (sadhaka) becomes one with the object of his meditation - Paramatma or the Universal Spirit)."
-B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga, twelfth paragraph of the Introduction.

Patanjali outlines a plan for this soul-quest in the Yoga Sutras. Where does the eight-fold path lead? When I think of a path visually I see a way that has been described by others, like a dirt path through the woods (created by humans or perhaps deer) or a path of stones leading to a gazebo. But this is a different kind of path. It is only a "path" in the loosest sense of the word path. It is a journey that each of us takes alone. 

There is plenty of help along the way, though. There are others walking this path. So teachers and friends are of great help as we move along in life. But, I find that it isn't true for me to try to live through the choices of others. Mimicry is a way to learn, but through trying out the suggestions of others I quickly develop my own tastes, and a desire to express myself uniquely.

Action creates this path. Action offers new pathways into the mystery of mind. The more I do, the more I learn.  Action creates new possibilities in one's life. Just by making a choice and doing something to support it a unique experience unfolds. An experience that is about my choice. The soul is finding it's feet.

Niyama for Revolutionary Road

Niyama offers tenets that can help harmonize our inner lives. Some might wonder why we should focus on our inner worlds. Doesn’t the outer one provide enough challenge? It may. But consider the situation in the movie Revolutionary Road. The challenges of the characters are similar to challenges that most people face. And even though I didn’t especially enjoy this movie, it does do a great job of illustrating the concept of emptiness and hopelessness of giving up dreams to live life in the suburbs. The main characters find themselves giving up their uniqueness to adhere to conventional behavior. But it doesn’t work out very well for the characters in the movie, and the only person who can speak freely is someone who has a day pass from the insane asylum. Pretty sad. I found myself feeling a little crazy just watching this film.

But I think that if Kate Winslet’s character could have just explored herself a little more she might have been able to find balance. She was concerned with creating space for her cutie-pie hubby, Leonardo DiCaprio, to discover himself. But her character’s personality seemed so strong. If she could have just taken a class or something (so she would have been growing something inside herself along with children) I think she might have fared better. But the movie starts out by showing her personal dream failing, and sets us up for her feelings of hollowness and hopelessness that the mentally ill guy helps us to understand. This family’s downfall is that they couldn’t accept themselves, and found themselves faking it and lying to get through the hours.

What does this have to do with yoga?

It has everything to do with yoga, because what yoga presents is the possibility for inner transformation. And the character’s downfall is a failure of their inner worlds. It’s pretty common that the first set of life plans don’t work out exactly as planned. So this movie presents a pretty dismal version of this. The characters give up. Life is too much for them. Desperate and ghastly measures are taken. But in lives that are living (as opposed to screen characters) there are opportunities for renewal. We can dream new dreams—even in the suburbs.

Niyama is the second of the eight limbs of yoga. It offers a strategy for attuning oneself toward positive change, and discovering oneself. It has five aspects that are concerned with the personal life of a yogi:

1. Saucha – purity
2. Santosa – contentment
3. Tapas – discipline
4. Svadhyaya – self-study
5. Isvara-pranidhana – surrender

These five principles set the stage for positive personal growth. Niyama guides us to relate with ourselves consciously. In the world it’s easy to forget about oneself in striving to fit in. There is so much going on and so much distraction. That’s why the first limb, Yama, brings attention to behaviors that are harmful, to take away that draw on our valuable resources. And so we have some energy to devote to ourselves.

The principles of Niyama outline a plan for taking care of oneself. Saucha has to do with inner and outer cleanliness. Santosa calls for the cultivation of contentment. Tapas is the discipline to stay with it. With Svadhyaya, or self-study we can observe the effects of practice and study. And Isvara-pranidhana is surrendering to the truth, or to a greater sense of reality. It takes into account that the world is bigger than oneself. Things happen that are out of our control.

Niyama outlines a compassionate approach for making changes. I have heard people say that they are stuck, even trapped in their lives. It’s usually best to start with something simple, and to follow through with it. Recently, I made a positive change. I always do some yoga practice (even if it’s only thirty minutes) before the first private session or group class I teach. What was previously holding me back was that I regularly teach 7am classes and my travel time is almost an hour. So I have early mornings, and was sometimes just showing up to teach as if that was enough. But I have found that the extra time for practice before teaching is essential. Practice later in the day is good but it doesn’t sharpen my senses for teaching the way early practice does. This change requires discipline (Tapas) to ensure that I persist with it. The practice clears my mind (Saucha) so I can be more accurate in my teaching. I watch the effects of this practice (Svadhyaya). And I feel good about my work (Santosa). And above all, I surrender to the truth of the moment (Isvara-pranidhana).

Brahmacharaya, Yikes!

A man was talking on his cell phone on the Howard Line CTA train: “You gotta take care of yo wife.” Pause. “You know what I mean.” Pause. “He. He. ‘Cause the little man is all we got.”

I might know what he means. Our sexuality is important. And at the same time who we are is so much more than our “little man” or “little woman.” I think we’ve got a whole lot more than our sex organs in this life. And it’s dangerous if we believe that the only important or good thing about life is sensual pleasure—which includes a lot more than sex. It could indicate depression if that’s what we think, and create a fertile ground for addictions to take hold. And yet many of us seem to be in this kind of space to one degree or another. I am.

The call to pleasure is strong! And, just the thought of someone trying to tell me what to do with that part of my life makes me want to hide under something! No!

Yet, the concepts defined in the eight limbs of yoga, including the fourth aspect of Yama: Bramhmacharaya, or self-restraint with sensual pleasures, I feel are nature defined, rather than exterior rules to be enforced. The concepts have the potential to indicate where we might be unbalanced, and individuals can take it from there, either by ignoring the information or by going deeper.

“Can’t wait for the workday to be over” (so I can drink beer, or enjoy something). “My day will get good as soon as I get off work…” These are the kinds of statements I hear from people all the time. What is it that happens after work that is so good? Sometimes it’s getting drunk, sleeping, or sitting in front of the TV. I think it’s the promise of doing something you want that is so good. But, are we really doing what we want in our off time? Or is life a constant struggle? We might be so tired from a stressful job that a drink is the best thing one can imagine at that time. Escape!

Our hectic and stressful lifestyles make restraint of any kind difficult. We want what we want, and if the money is in the pocket and it’s legal, what reason is there to hold back? Our extreme work requires extreme play. Current society is built on this.

When I am in a contented state of mind, I enjoy more natural foods, light foods that are subtle in flavor (in line with Brahmacharaya). I am happy with life when I feel good. And when I am stressed there are times that a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream seems like the cure to my pain. It’s not the ice cream that is bad, it’s the way I have engulfed the whole container desiring escape into a beautiful ice cream dreamland that is suspect. The ice cream can’t save me or solve any of my problems; all it can do is give me a moment of pleasure. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but it is bad for me when it’s a pattern of escape, whether it’s with ice cream, cookies or whatever.

There is only so much time in this life, and I want to use it as well as I can. I believe there is something more for me in this life, something I can accomplish; there is some way I can contribute to this world to help make it a better place. And when I loose sight of that, that’s when I want to escape. It can be so painful to not know, or to feel hopeless.

The message from Brahmacharaya to me at this time is: Don’t get so lost in what you’re feeling that you forget what you are doing.

Ahimsa Dogwalking and Primordial Love

A friend and her husband were walking their big pit bull/German shepherd dog, a rescued mutt in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY when the dog charged towards some bushes. My human friends looked to see what was there. It was a frightened bunny. So they decided to give Roofis his walk around the lake, and if the rabbit was still there when they got back they were going to rescue him. (In Prospect Park a bunny too afraid to run away from a big dog is in grave danger.) My friends recognized him as an animal abandoned by people.

By the time they arrived back at the same spot, they had met up with friends also walking their big dog, and the rabbit was still there cowering in the shadow under the bushes. A friend offered to hold the leashes of both dogs, and the other three went under the bushes for the rabbit.

The friend holding the dogs became concerned that others in the park were feeling uncomfortable about the commotion in the bushes so she started to call out, “Bunny wunny fritter-face,” over and over in an effort towards communicating what was going on under the bushes.

Then a primordial scream filled the air, and the dogs took off, pulling my friend to the ground on her back. The rabbit was caught. It was picked up by one of the friends, and the dogs were just triggered to run by the staggering scream that cut through the darkening night.

Rabbits are prey animals, so when they are picked up they might interpret that as the end of their life, thus the primordial scream. So at the end of the adventure, everyone was fine. My friend who was pulled down by the dogs was okay and laughed it off. And this is the beginning of the story of how I came to live with my first rabbit, Fritter (I am petting him in the above picture.).

Ahimsa, the first tenet of Yama, the first of the eight limbs of yoga, is non-violence or non-harming. I also interpret it to mean compassionate action, and compassionate action can mean tough love, or loving when the going gets tough, even loving the world enough to quarrel with it and standing up for what is right. The translation “non-violence” might lead someone to the false notion that yogis are soft, as in pushovers. This is not the case.

Now, my friends from the story do not identify themselves as yogis, but nonetheless the story, itself, has aspects that illustrate ahimsa in action. For example, when they encounter the rabbit, they make the best decision in the moment that considers the important factors. They do what they came out there to do, which is walk the dog. They might have become overwhelmed with an impulse toward martyrdom, “We have to save this rabbit, now!” But they decided to take care of Roofis first. And by doing that they ended up meeting more people along the way who could help.

Ahimsa also concerns thoughts, not just compassionate action, but also includes what is happening behind the scene. So, when the friend holding the dogs saw that it was getting dark and there were concerned glances towards the bushes from others in the park, she decided to call out a goofy bunny song, “Bunny wunny fritter-face,” to let people walking by know that this was a compassionate project happening beneath the bushes in Prospect Park. I guess it seemed to work.

Fritter, the rabbit, had no idea what was happening to him. I would say he thought he was going to die, and the sound that issued forth from him was his last grasping for his soft and fuzzy life. But then he was fine, held firmly in the arms of a caring person, and he didn’t fuss on the way home. And this is just how it is, sometimes. We go through a harrowing experience and then everything is fine, and possibly better than it was before.

This reminds me of falling in love, and the dance performance I saw last night, ‘Lacunae’ performed by Jonathan Meyer at Links Hall in Chicago. I had never seen such intimate details of a man’s emotional life expressed through the body. The title, Lacunae, means unfilled spaces or gaps. And the work communicated volumes about loss, the parts we don’t usually talk about. There was a section, in particular that I read as attempting to connect, and wanting to loose oneself, possibly in love. I felt my own heart breaking as I watched this innocence playing itself out before me. For the dance led into difficulty, and faking it for others, and I didn’t get a sense that the emotions were resolved at the end. This is just what’s happening for this performance: incredible longing, attempts at escape, courageously opening up, and then confusion at the outcome.

Who hasn’t lived this story? It’s a very human story. And, when you’re going through it, it has a primordial grip as if you are going to die. Which is what the story of Fritter’s primordial scream reminds me of. It reminds me of those times in life that just seem to be too much, and then, seemingly inexplicably, you are on the other side and things are fine, possibly better than before. Life goes on.

And how does Ahimsa play into this? Well, I’m not sure I have an answer, but as individuals we can make choices that support thinking, communicating, and acting with compassion. This means taking the time you need to know yourself and make right decisions. Sometimes even if you are the instrument or vehicle through which someone else has a primordial or major reckoning experience (like you’re the one who says it’s time to break up), there are greater forces at work. Just like Fritter misinterpreted being lifted off the ground in the park as a prelude to his demise only to find himself in caring arms, the world might have plans for us that we cannot fathom.

Yama Energy

The first of Patanjali’s eight limbs, Yama, has five aspects that form the basis for spiritual discipline, and it harmonizes relationships between people by governing social interactions.

1. Ahimsa – non-harming
2. Satya – truthfulness
3. Asteya – non-stealing
4. Brahmacharaya – chastity
5. Aparigraha – greedlessness

Yama deals with what we do and say in the world. These moral rules keep us from getting hooked into daily drama. So, if we are not harming (Ahimsa), not lying (Satya), not stealing (Asteya), not over-indulging in sensual pleasures (Brahmacharaya), and not coveting what we don’t have (Aparigraha), then what we choose to do and say can be free of selfish motives. Also we are not wasting our precious energy on harming, lying and so on.

Because we are in a time-bound state of existence, we don’t have the time to tell both truth and lies. Even though it might seem like that’s just how it is, I really don’t think we have time for it if we want to make the world a better place. To enable positive change we have to learn how to make the right choices, rather than reacting and acting without understanding how we are affecting things. Chance is only fifty-fifty, but if we can really learn to choose responses favoring truth, we are going to evolve spiritually.

This idea, that my energy is limited, has been hard to practically take into account as I choose my daily activities, both mental and physical. I can have good intentions about implementing a new and healthy habit, but unless I cut something I’m currently doing out, I can’t seem to get it done. There are only twenty-four hours in any given day, and all the time is necessarily accounted for with either good or bad habits. So when I want to make a change, it’s not as easy as it looks in my mind.

Yama offers helpful concepts towards channeling energy into life-affirming, compassionate activity by drawing it away from common human mistakes. The challenge is to control our basic instinct to survive by any means necessary and without concern for others. We can survive by harming, lying, stealing, promiscuity, and greed, but what is this kind of surviving? Our meat and genes survive, but not our humanity, not what is best in us, not our hearts. The energy that can be freed through greater awareness of our morality as outlined by the first limb of yoga, Yama, will deepen one’s yoga practice, and understanding of life.

Ashtanga Butterfly

There are eight limbs of yoga according to the Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali (Ashtanga means eight limbs.). I have represented the eight limbs of yoga with a butterfly image.


Ashtanga Yoga – Eight Limbs of Yoga

First limb – Yama – Moral discipline that regulates our survival instincts

Second limb – Niyama – Self-restraint that regulates our personal lives

Third limb – Asana – Posture that regulates physiology

Fourth limb – Pranayama – Breath control that regulates subtle energy

Fifth limb – Pratyahara – Sense-withdrawal, looking inward

Sixth limb – Dharana – One-pointed concentration

Seventh limb – Dhyana – Meditation, consciousness expanded

Eighth limb – Samadhi – Ecstasy, bliss

Just as the limbs on the butterfly connect into the same body (yoga), all eight limbs of yoga affect a person simultaneously. You can’t really disconnect a person from their natural aspects or limbs. So yoga is operating in our lives whether we’re aware of it or not.

You’ll notice that I gave Ashtanga Butterfly strong legs, and feet connected to the ground. The reason being that a newly discovered spiritual practice can leave someone ungrounded, so remember your feet. Remembering your actual feet is important in practice, but also the metaphorical feet, like relationships, personal history, home environment, and finances--all the things that connect you to a healthy, every-day life. There was a time when instead of connecting me healthfully to myself, my yoga practice served as a means of escape. When I got hooked by yoga it was because it was connecting me with bliss, the likes of which I had not encountered before. And, all I wanted was MORE! I approached my yoga practice like an addict wanting a fix. It gave me a way to escape painful feelings. These days I find myself doing things to ensure a more balanced practice and life. One thing I am consciously doing is remembering my history, because that is what brought me to this moment in life where I can appreciate connection and bliss, and sadness and endings.

I also gave Ashtanga Butterfly antennae projecting upward. This is in honor of the search for the unknown, finding connection, and learning to go deeper into oneself. Part of the practice of yoga for me is listening deeply, aiming to live closer to my truth.

Both aspects are important: connecting to the individual life that brought us here to this moment (symbolized by the feet), as well as listening deeply and being available to give definition to something new in oneself (symbolized in my drawing by butterfly antennae). The gatekeeper for this possibility is the mind, which can be seduced either toward earthly pleasures or toward heavenly bliss. The mind’s job is to direct our energies towards balance. What this balance looks like is my feet are on the earth and I am open to and watching intently the great mystery of life’s journey.

Read a later post about Getting High with Yoga