The Greatest Gift

I just ran across the results of a "Yoga in America" study, offered by Yoga Journal. I found it fascinating. The top five reasons for starting yoga were listed as flexibility, general conditioning, stress relief, improve overall health and physical fitness. Why did I find that fascinating? Because all of those things are merely pleasant side effects of a practice developed to offer treasures far more valuable and significant to the human condition than the sum of all of them put together. I don't mean to understate the value of overall health and I am well aware of how our physical, mental and emotional well-being are intertwined.

But yoga points to something beyond health and well-being. Beyond what we can even imagine when we first start out. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali has been invaluable to me in my understanding and practice of yoga. It consists of 196 concise, bare-bones observations on the nature of consciousness and liberation. It offers a map, step by step instructions for cultivating an inner stillness and clarity steady enough to free us from suffering of all kinds whether physical, mental or emotional. In that clarity and stillness we see through the veils of illusion to the nature of reality. We have the capacity to be pure, clear conduits for love. It's advantageous to keep that bigger picture in mind and to align with it all day long, everyday - whether your practice is strong, medium or almost non-existent.

The Sanskrit word "Abhyasa" means practice - being willing to rest in inner stillness and it is the first requirement. It comes way before yoga postures, yogic breathing or meditation. It refers to a willingness to relax your grip on your story, your fears, all your desires to be right, to be heard, to be loved or to be better than someone else - and return to a state of inner stillness. It means remembering that there is a practice, a reason to wake up from our conditioned responses and ways of seeing. The first requirement is to want that and be willing to sacrifice for it. That seems almost too obvious to warrant stating it as a requirement. Or so I thought. It's not as simple or as easy as it may sound.

I came face to face with this teaching a couple years after my 19 year old son was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. He broke both his legs, knocked out most of his beautiful teeth and endured a serious brain injury. I held it together to get through the ordeal but then a couple years later, when all the dust had settled and he was getting his life back on track I had a huge meltdown. All the repressed emotions came up in an enormous volcanic eruption one day and as I walked down a wooded hiking trail near my home, I felt an urgent need to get myself grounded. I literally curled up on the ground at the base of a tree and wept. I wept out all the tears I had held back, I wept out all the fear I had experienced, all the frustration and anger I couldn't show as I struggled with doctors, nurses, therapists and my son. When an acquaintance  happened by, she looked shocked and dismayed to see me in such a state of despair but I looked up at her through my tears thinking "you don't know what a relief this is - how good this feels!"

Some years later, as I described the moment to my teacher, I said "it felt like a birthright, as a mother, to have that moment... it felt like a drink of water on the desert... it felt like I had been a pressure cooker and I let some of the pressure out..." At that point my teacher, Francis Lucille, got quiet a moment, then thoughtfully said to me, "Yes, you could let the pressure out... or you could just turn off the flame." (Quit feeding the story!)

The most interesting part of this story is what happened next. My first reaction - my initial gut reaction to that was an almost physical clinging, a hugging in to that experience. My knee-jerk reaction was "No thank you! I wouldn't trade that for the world!" It was then I realized the magnitude of what he was offering me. By then I had spent my entire adult life mining the deepest yoga teachings, longing for liberation from self-limiting thoughts. How advantageous to have a teacher! Here he was, pointing precisely to the spot where I was to make my next move, and there I was, clinging to what I knew, to what I was familiar with, to my story! In the very next moment I threw my head back and laughed at myself and the folly of it. What was I saying? Of course I will sacrifice the drama, deserved or not, delicious or torturous, for the holy grail of inner peace.

This kind of dedicated yoga can be done anytime, in any circumstances, and the more you practice, the easier and more obvious it gets. Observe thoughts and emotions as they arise, from a place of openness and acceptance, from a place of stillness. Observe how often you choose to invest in your own suffering. Observe how many of your daily activities add to an inner restlessness and agitation that keeps the mind in constant motion; from television, radio and newspapers to your actions and interactions with others, to everything you read and say. Observe how many of your thoughts throughout the day - your auto-pilot mind workings, feed your suffering, add to your "story" and take you deeper into a sense of separation and suffering. And while you're at it, see if you can detect a certain kind of enjoyment in it. (It's oddly addicting!)

Relief can be as simple as letting go of the clinging to and identifying with your story. Abhyasa is remembering that there is a noble practice and choosing to cultivate inner stillness again and again, each and every day. If you don't have the time or patience for an asana practice, then this is the best place for you to start. Everyone has time for this. Everyone has time for remembering that there is something infinitely more valuable to invest awareness in. Remember that there is a map... remember that there is another way of being that is more awake, more aware, more alive, freer and more joyful than anything you ever dreamed of.

In the final analysis, it doesn't make any difference if you've come to yoga for flexibility or enlightenment. If you continue to delve into the teachings of yoga and skillfully cultivate your practice of abiding in inner stillness for a long, continuous time, you will enjoy the tremendous freedom from self-limiting thoughts that yoga brings. Who will you be without your story? Well, you will still have your story (we aren't performing a lobotomy!) but you won't be dragging it around like a ball and chain. You won't be held hostage by it. You won't have to define your life with it. When you don't have to care for your story, feeding it and wrapping yourself around it, acting it out and identifying with it, what's left is a great freedom in itself. You will be a conduit; a clear strong conduit for pure awareness and love. Dedicating your life to awakening, to awareness, to yoga/union to the greater whole, is the greatest gift you can give to yourself, your family, the world.

One simple thing you can do for your practice

If winter got the best of you, springtime is a perfect time to reclaim your inspired yoga practice. One of the things I've always loved about yoga is that anytime I wandered from my daily practice, I always felt completely welcomed back with no guilt, no shame, not even a setback. For me yoga has never been as much about performance of a certain position as surrendering to my inherent love of life.

The Yoga Sutras tell us that to really get the best of what yoga has to offer, we need to stick with it consistently for a long time. I wanted to share a little trick that works: one simple thing you can do to strengthen your commitment and insure consistent practice that lasts.

This is best done immediately following a really great yoga session. It doesn't make any difference if it's a yoga class, a retreat you're attending, or a perfectly aware, full session at home. Make sure you're not in a hurry to rush off to the next event. Bring a lovely piece of paper/stationery or a blank card selected especially for the occasion. If like me, you are a connoisseur of fine writing instruments, then bring along your favorite pen too.

After your next wonderfully rich, spot-on yoga session, sit quietly for a few minutes, or lie in savasana, breathing and receiving the many blessings being offered to you. Be still... open... quiet... and aware... Let yourself deeply and fully receive. Take your time. Enjoy.

When you are ready, take up your paper and write a note to yourself: the self that will invariably become distracted with all the many wonderful things to do, read, research, watch and discover in the world; the self that will decide NOT to do a yoga practice some mornings. From where you sit now, feeling what you are feeling and knowing what you experientially know right now about yoga, write yourself a note about why a regular practice of yoga is important to you. Essentially, it's a love letter to yourself.

When you are finished, place your LOVEly note in an envelope and place it somewhere you can easily get to, but won't forget about. If you have a little altar space in your yoga room, that would be ideal. I used to put mine under my yoga mat or under my meditation cushion. When I had to roll up my mat and put it away in a closet, I rolled it in my mat.

Here's the deal: promise yourself that any day you find yourself choosing to skip your practice, you will at least show up to read the note. That's all. It's beautiful. It's remarkably effective.

A note from your most awake, aware, alive, illumined self to your crazy, wild, spontaneous and sometimes distracted self. Just a note. Not a nagging note, not a finger wagging scolding note, but a love note, reminding you of the value of a promise you made to yourself. So if you don't stay to practice, simply reading your note will to some degree, shift you energetically, back to your expanded love-space while simultaneously serving to reinforce your commitment to sanity, clarity and higher consciousness.

And don't be surprised if you find yourself breathing slower, deeper, and with more awareness, maybe even finding a minute or two you didn't think you had for a standing yoga mudra, which may be followed by a few other spontaneous asanas, which may be followed by a slight change in plans... 

Do you have strategies you use to help you stay on track? We'd love to hear what works for you. Please share.

Here are a few more ways to bring a rock solid grounding and consistent balance to your life. Have you had any luck with any of these? Have you tried these crazy shoes? Post a note below and let me know your thoughts.

Sit back, relax and free up your feet to enjoy greater ease, grounding and balance in the standing asanas. Then leave me your comments or questions below.

Q. I am really interested in the relationship between achieve- ment of our highest potential and the tendency we have of getting caught up in our thoughts and desires for how we "wish" things would be. Can you rap on how to integrate the practice of being fully in Presence with personal achievement?

A. I'm not sure I'm understanding the question but I'll try. That integration would be exactly the same as, say, being fully in Presence while cooking dinner, or, staying in Presence/pure awareness while at work, or while making love, or even while in meditation, because as you know, just because you sit to meditate doesn't mean you will automatically slip into a state of non-localized presence, or pure and causeless joy.
    The way I see it, abhyasa (practice) is ongoing. As yogis, we are always checking in with our state of consciousness, the quality of thoughts and our level of identifying with ego. That's practice. We have certain "formal" practices where we set up a situation and come into it with a certain degree of commitment and focus toward that end. Those formal practice sessions, whether sitting in meditation or practicing asana (postures), make remembering to practice in other situations a whole lot easier. I think of the formal or what's sometimes referred to as "on the mat" practice as a sort of weight-lifting for consciousness. We are creating a groove and the more we show up for it, the easier it is to return.
    The sister practice of abhyasa is vairagya, which is equanimity. So as you move toward your goals in life, whether its achievement of your highest potential or getting through your next meeting without losing your cool, when you find yourself struggling with what is, you can remember to practice equanimity. You start to learn to take life in stride, and not get all bent out of shape about how you "wish" things would be.
     Then you won't have to constantly rearrange your world to suit your happiness. Things are as they are and we can do what we can to make things better but sometimes there is nothing more to add. At that point, there's nothing more but to take a look at your own reactivity and get on with your practice of vairagya.  Just do the best you can with what you have right in front of you. Do what's obvious.

hi, Jenifer.

Thank you for your response. I'm not through being leery of of the warrior, and that's still quite apart from my physical difficulty in  performing it. At bottom, I'm skeptical that the inner warrior can be brought to a positive role in today's world, and maybe not in the ancient world, either. You imply, I think, that I have issues with my own inner warrior, and that's perfectly true, but saying so doesn't prompt me to sit down and keep quiet about the philosophy of doing the warrior poses. I acknowledge that the inner warrior is universal, and that because of that, the seeker has somehow to bring it positive fruition and that simple repression is not practical, or not as a long-term thing. But I very much suspect that positive fruition is to be found in a kind of domestication of the inner warrior, and that isn't likely to be accomplished on the warrior's own terms. All
the age-old issues of masculinity, femininity, aggression and competence in finding something better are implicated here.
Thanks again.

Hello Jake,

I was reading Structural Yoga Therapy, by Mukunda Stiles this morning and I thought of you when I read this passage from yoga sutras 46 - 48 in chapter 2:
"Yoga pose is a steady and comfortable position. Yoga pose is mastered by relaxation of effort, to create a lessening of the natural tendency for restlessness, and identification of oneself as living within the infinite stream of life. From that perfection of yoga posture, duality, such as praise and criticism, ceases to be a disturbance."

It is not unusual for some yoga teachers to introduce and work with only 3 or 4 asanas in a 90 minute class… so important is it to work on the subtle alignments and mental/emotional focus necessary to get to "steady and comfortable". Especially in postures like the warriors.

You say, "At bottom, I'm skeptical that the inner warrior can be brought to a positive role in today's world, and maybe not in the ancient world, either." I am surprised you would have such difficulty with this, as examples abound. I'll admit, they aren't the ones that make the headlines, usually, but still, they are everywhere. The first one that comes to mind is the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings that recently took the headlines. What a tragic event! An organization of the grieving sprang up called Sandy Hook Promise. The organization's mission statement looks like this:

"Our hearts are broken; our spirit is not. And it is with this knowledge that we are able to move forward with purpose ... and strength ...This is a Promise: To support our own: our families, our neighbors, our teachers, our community with dedication and love as well as the material and financial needs they will require in the days ahead. This is a Promise: To truly honor the lives lost by turning our tragedy into a moment of transformation. This is a Promise: To be open to all possibilities. There is no agenda other than to make our community and our nation a safer, better place. This is a Promise: To have the conversations on ALL the issues; conversations where listening is as important as speaking; conversations where even those with the most opposing views can debate in good will. This is a Promise: To turn the conversation into actions, things must change. This is the time. This is a Promise we make to our precious children because each child, every human life is filled with promise, and though we continue to be filled with unbearable pain we choose love, belief, and hope instead of anger. This is a Promise: To do everything in our power to be remembered not as the town filled with grief and victims; but as the place where real change began. Our hearts are broken; our spirit is not. This is our promise.”

I think it takes tremendous inner strength and resolve to move from total grief, your life seemingly collapsing in on you, to expansive, heart-opening selfless action. This is the kind of warrior strength and focus and clarity of purpose that moves us beyond duality such as praise and criticism. Once you attune to this kind of inner warrior in action in today's world, you will begin to notice it more and more everywhere you look. Someone once told how their mom taught them to always seek the helpers in times of tragedy, because they are always there. What a great gift to give a child… when everyday on television and all around there are incomprehensible tragedies and suffering!

You said "All the age-old issues of masculinity, femininity, aggression and competence in finding something better are implicated here." To me it's about overcoming our own obstacles - the ones that keep us stuck in our notions of ourselves as separate individuals, stuck in the muck of our own minds, and rising to new heights of possibility, of human expression and of Divine expression: LOVE. Is that "something better"? Well yes and no. Yes, it's better than the illusion we've invested so much of our words and defenses in, and no, it's not better because it is what we are - already! Peel off the layers and it's love you'll find… that's what you're made of… a pure awareness, total acceptance, openness and natural generosity of heart and mind. Anything else is merely layers upon layers of self hood.

It's up to each of us - and this is our one main and possibly only freewill - what do you want to invest in? Where will you put your focus? How will you cultivate your consciousness? So again, one of my favorite passages from Bhagavad Gita: "Kill therefore with the sword of wisdom the doubt born of ignorance that lies in thy heart. Be one in self-harmony, in Yoga, and arise, great warrior, arise." - Krishna. To me the systematic practice of yoga is one of the best tools we have to rise to our greatest human heights of achievement, healing, expression and potential.

Q. What's the deal with the Warrior asanas? Why is it teachers apparently consider them fundamental, and shouldn't they be considered artifacts of an obsolete world view and in any case dispensable for older learners? I flat don't want to do them, and I was getting a little better at them, though they are difficult for me. Isn't it true that in ancient India the warrior class was large and important, and so, the warrior point of view had to be represented in the yoga repertory? Isn't that point of view obsolete? Aren’t these asanas precisely evocative of the violent confrontation with an armed adversary?

A. Cheri Huber calls the whole human lot of us meaning making machines. I guess the warrior pose can be whatever you make it. It's never been evocative of violent confrontation with an armed adversary for me. For me it's always been about personal strength and courage.

We all need to be warriors to our own self-limiting thoughts, we need to be warriors to all the obstacles that loom between us and our greatest well-being. We can't just lie down and be door mats. We need to stand up for what we believe, for what we know is right, for our values. From the Bhagavad Gita: "Kill therefore with the sword of wisdom the doubt born of ignorance that lies in thy heart. Be one in self-harmony, in Yoga, and arise, great warrior, arise." - Krishna.

The warrior postures are great for accessing those qualities in ourselves. They are firmly grounded, yet powerfully tall, brave and open - courageous, even. And while we may find them uncomfortable and difficult, they do offer us an opportunity to challenge ourselves, to practice patience and perseverance.

While you are in the pose, be aware of your power chakra, at the solar plexus - the center of fire and strength and stamina. Breathe into that space, access your strength from there, rather than making your legs do all the work. Feel your power radiating from that core. Also, if you are on a sticky mat, you can utilize your core more fully and the strength of your entire leg, not just the area above the knee, by isometrically drawing inward on your legs (without actually moving your feet). This will energize your entire body and give a buoyancy to the pose so you don't feel as heavy. Keep drawing up through the top of your head and lifting the heart too. And don’t forget to breathe!

The way a warrior is completely absorbed in the task at hand, let your entire body/mind work together to engage fully in the pose. If you are not fighting yourself while in it, it's a LOT easier! When you are fully absorbed in the pose, there is no room for struggle. There is so much to do, so much to pay attention to.

One reason you may not like the pose is that accessing your inner warrior is uncomfortable to you. If that is the issue, explore it more deeply to find out what is going on there. If you don't like the warrior poses because you are afraid that physically you will hurt your knees or something like that, you should speak with your teachers about that. I have always held that no posture is worth risking your knees. You can use chairs and walls, and have your teacher help make sure your alignment is spot-on. Clear, regular communications with your teacher is essential.

Don't forget about abhyasa and vairagya - practice and equanimity. Practice is simply to remember to be fully aware as much of the time as possible, and not get lost in your patterns of thinking and then automatically believing everything you think. Equanimity is to be aware of when you have strong likes and dislikes such as "I flat out don't want to do them" and to get clear on what that's about because much of our strong likes and dislikes are simply mental patterns we are slaves to. That's another one of the great things about an asana practice - it opens things like that up for our examination.

So I'm not saying one way or another, what you need to do about the warrior poses. Only you know. Pay close attention. Explore all concepts, beliefs and preferences, to determine whether they are ultimately freeing you or imprisoning you. Remember, your practice is your practice and you get to choose which poses belong there and which ones do not.