To Feel Your Body Is To See Your Body

As always with words, due to their symbolic quality, their variation of meaning from culture to culture, and their representative nature, a statement like this can easily be read, misunderstood, and filed away without its true magnitude and implications ever taking seed.  This blog is designed to empower you with one of the most profound awarenesses one can have in their yoga practice!

     When taken in its most literal meaning, “to see” is to perceive with the eyes and discern visually.  In that sense, how can feeling your body be the same as seeing your body?  However, as we look deeper into the definition(s) of our common words, we see that one word can have many uses.  Words are malleable in their meaning. For instance, “to see” may simply be used in the context of understanding or becoming aware of something such as “Oh...I see now...”.  What is this kind of seeing that seems interwoven with understanding and awareness?  And why is the same word used in description of the visual sense?  Could it be that Seeing and Understanding are both visual on some level?  If even in the minds eye?  And if one is seeing, where is the separation between the seer and the seen?  WHO is seeing?  And WHAT is being seen? Are they even separate?

    It is these questions that have fascinated me since the early days of my yogic explorations!  And it is as if the question doesn’t need to be answered... just simply asked.  “Who is the seer?”  or another way to put it might be, “Who is the feeler?” 

    Well if you are looking for an exact finite answer to the question, you’ve already missed the point.  One could answer “Well,  my brain is interpreting the light coming through my eyes!”.  And with that scientifically sound answer cheat themselves out of what may be the most profound yet tangible mystery one can experience in their yoga practice, or ANY practice for that matter.  And here’s why... 

    We as humans quite literally, in whatever language and whatever spiritual or materialistic orientation, refer to the body as “my body”.  For example, “My body hurts” or “I really like my body right now.”  Just that we can say “MY body” indicates a perceived differentiation between the person speaking about her body and the body itself.  And the question that I have been asking since the early days of my yoga practice has been simply, “Who is feeling my body.”... and even “What is

feeling my body?” 

    When we go into a yoga stretch, for example, we are feeling it.  This would be difficult to deny even for the most sedated and numbed out human being.  Whatever the mechanisms may be for feeling the body on the physical level, we are indeed aware of our bodies through the sensations we feel.  I often refer to this as natural biofeedback, or original biofeedback which is more commonly defined as follows:

biofeedback |ˌbīōˈfēdˌbak|
noun
the use of electronic monitoring of a normally automatic bodily function in order to train someone to acquire voluntary control of that function.


       Well, we are constantly experiencing biofeedback...

all day long... consciously and unconsciously.  It’s just that, ‘electronic monitoring” is not the medium for understanding such feedback.  Rather, it is way more direct and valuable than the information that a third party intermediary can provide... in fact, it is sensation itself! And as we feel the body by intentionally moving out of our normal range of motion (which is what a yoga practice typically requires us to do) we are allowing ourselves to feel ourselves like never before. It’s like meeting yourself.  In fact, it’s deeper than that.  You could even say you’re embarking on an intimate relationship with yourself.  Can you really feel anyone else’s hamstring stretch as well as your own?  Definitely Not!  You have an opportunity to be incredibly intimate with yourself!  Even more so than you could ever be with someone else.   (which, by the way, intimacy with others goes to a whole other level when you can be intimate with yourself)!  How can you really be intimate with someone else if you can’t even feel/see yourself consciously?!  And the yoga practice can be a bunch of different poses in a sequence that gets you all stretched out.  But imagine where you can go when your yoga practice becomes a vehicle to connect deeply with your own body/self in a conscious and respectful exploration which honors the biofeedback of your body.

    Most people’s yoga postures are nothing more than an im-POSE-ition.  Like a one way

monologue.  Has anyone ever spoken to you and yet every time you try to talk they just talk right over you?  And when you realize that it’s not going to change you start scanning the room for a way out of the ‘conversation’?  Well, if you consider your yoga practice a conversation between you and your body, do you observe that you are ‘talking over’ your body...which is to say inflicting your mental image of what the posture should look like onto your physical body whilst you ignore your body’s contribution to the conversation? Most people’s yoga practices are, by default, a monologue.... NOT a dialogue.  But in order to have a dialogue you must listen!  In fact, the seed thought of this blog may be ‘to feel your body is to see your body’ but you could just as well say ‘to feel your body is to listen/hear your body’!  And you can’t really see or hear your body’s feedback if you are constantly projecting a mental image of your self/body which is so often distorted due to the conditioning of society through our parents, schools, media, sciences, etc. 

       I’ll often say in my classes,  your body is a mirror.  Going into the posture is the equivalent of
looking in the mirror.  Allowing your breath to be deep while you’re looking in the mirror is like saying ‘yes’ to whatever appears.  Don’t push the mirror.  Don’t bend the mirror.  Just peer deeply and remain open. Don’t impose what you want to see over what is actually appearing as you will rob yourself of the invaluable and wonderfully honest reflection that is not ‘over there’ somewhere but so close that it’s IN you!  That’s intimacy!  And that’s beautiful! 
    As another example... I’ll often guide my students into a certain posture and tell them to close their eyes.  I’ll ask them to imagine suddenly waking up in their bodies blindfolded and challenge them to inquire “How do I know what position my body is in?”  I’m not interested in a scientific answer. 
Much like a Zen koan, the question itself IS the point.  When one asks themselves this question with their eyes closed, “What position is my body in” the reason they could conjure up even the faintest mental image of their physical orientation is because of the sensations they are experiencing due to the positioning of their body within the gravitational field of Earth, without which we would need a whole new way to reference our position.  It’s all non-visual sense information that in a sense allows us to “see” our body’s position in the mind’s eye. 

    Meanwhile, where does this sense information exist in space/time?  You can describe the sequence
of chain reactions that lead to the end result of the experienced sense.  Such as the sequence of nerve signals to the brain that indicate pain, pleasure, soft, hard, and so on. But this doesn’t really explain WHERE the feeling occurs.  WHERE is the feeling perceived?  Is it in the legs that you are stretching?  Is it in the Pathways of the nerves that carry the ‘signal?  Is it in the brain?  Is it a combination?  Is it not in 3rd dimensional space at all? Does it even matter?  One thing is for sure... You don’t need to be able to explain the biological sequence of what we call feeling in order to feel!  So, let’s rule out the need to describe or explain the mechanics of feeling itself and agree that sensation is a real experience requiring no more intelligence than that already inherent in the organism... The person... You.

        People almost automatically assume that yoga, or any other physical practice for that matter, is black and white.  ie. You do one thing... You get one result.  To make what I’m saying less vague I’ll speak in first person... “If I do this posture, I will get a specific kind of stretch.  I either like this posture, or I don’t.  If I don’t like the posture, I begrudgingly await the teacher to say when to change to the next as I bear with it.  If I like how the posture feels then I am happy to stay in it.”  This is just an example of an inner narrative during our practices that happens instantaneously at a preconscious level... not as literal written sentences as they are here.  In either case,  It’s as though we automatically assume that one action has one result. 

          We are not typically made aware that we are playing a huge role in what the experience is that we’re having within the pose.  Please remember that point!  YOU play an incredibly important role in what the pose feels like.  What you feel is not fixed or static!! In fact the second you change your mind about it.... the experience changes... even the sensation can change.  For example, you go into a forward fold.  You normally are driven by wanting to touch your toes.  That drive makes you strive

and stretch creating a sensation that is less than pleasant but you are agreed that that’s what is needed in order to touch your toes.  One day you ask yourself, ‘What am I doing?  This doesn’t feel good.   Maybe I’ll stop trying to reach my toes and just ease up a little.  What is my body saying?’  And with this change in the narration you give yourself permission to stop pushing against your tissues and allow yourself simply to feel the stretch not as something in the way, but rather, more like how you would receive a massage stroke.  As a luxury... as something that feels loving and good.  I could be standing right over you watching as you go through this process and not see a change at all from a visual sense, but meanwhile, your experience took a drastic shift from one of struggle and discomfort, to one of peaceful and luxurious self love... all with a switch in the mind.  All with a willingness to feel/see yourself and let it be a dialogue instead of a one way conversation.

    By making the statement I did earlier,  “People automatically assume that yoga is black and white”, what I mean is that the conventional narrative is “Either I am doing a posture... Or I am not.”  Nothing in between those two.  But herein lies the root of yoga injuries, yoga practices that lose momentum, or just the downright unpleasant experience that MANY people have in a yoga class.  Neither the teachers nor the students have been equipped with the awareness of the very mechanisms we use to relate to our bodies.... And therefore we just take our experience, pleasant or unpleasant, at face value and either accept it... or we don’t.  Essentially, your experience in your yoga practice is predetermined because you lack the simple awareness that you have a vast, even infinite array of possibilities at any given moment as you explore space and time through the human body.  How do we go from Black and White to Technicolor in our yoga practice?

    This is what I teach.  Always ask yourself, “What am I really doing right now.”  “What is my motivation.”  “Am I honoring my body or imposing in this moment.”  When we can ask questions like this, we begin to get very good at exposing the rigid and fixed tendencies of self relating.  For example, if you are used to pushing yourself as though you pride yourself on being tough, you will rarely give yourself a gentle and sweet posture.  To use the black and white analogy, to not do the posture at all is ‘black, let’s say... and if you decide to do a posture you take it all the way to the edge and then some (white) and you have nothing in between.  As you begin to observe your tendency towards always having to be the best and how this is nothing short of an egotistical imposition on your silenced body, then you can become free to discover the vast spectrum of colors and flavors between black and white by easing up and having a dialogue instead of a monologue with your body. 

    My passion as a yoga teacher for years has been to shine light on the mechanisms of our relationship with our bodies... With ourselves.  This is what I mean when I say “Yoga Practice.”  The postures are just the occasion to bring to the forefront our habits of not only how we move our bodies, but also how we see ourselves, what motivates us to do what we do, and perhaps most importantly, the quality of this relationship with ourselves.  Without this awareness, your yoga practice is seriously limited and predetermined... Perhaps even detrimental.  We must make a point of observing ourselves as we explore the postures and the journeys between them because it is revealing through the Biofeedback or sense information what we are actually doing to ourselves in the present moment.  And then we can change or enhance our experience to no end.

       Many practitioners will require themselves to endure with sheer willpower even the most uncomfortable postures.  Especially if they are new to opening their bodies, are relatively tight, and under the assumption that they are ‘behind’ everyone else.   By automatically entertaining the latter thought in particular, the stage is set to be most certainly discouraging, uncomfortable and even painful/harmful.  Think about it.  You see others in the class moving into a posture way ‘further’ than your body is ready to.  Naturally you think ‘I want to get there too’ and you push in that direction to be met with not only the resistance of your tissues which are seemingly unwilling to oblige your aspirations... But also, and perhaps even more painful, the unpleasant feelings that accompany thoughts like ‘I’m so far behind....how long is it going to take me to get that flexible?...I’m never going to get there at this rate...yoga is just not for me...”  and I could go on and on.  But this is what

Meet Steve

many are experiencing.  And many of the teachers are not doing anything about it.  Often, the best you get is “keep practicing...you’ll get there some day”.  And then they wonder why Steve hasn’t shown up to class in months.  

    The seed thought of this blog is “To feel your body is to see your body.”  And to understand that this is even happening as a ground floor to your yoga practice, you are now equipped with the awareness which will allow you to observe what works and what doesn’t.  What feels right and what doesn’t.  This opens up a whole other realm involving the infinite possibilities of what one posture can show us.  And I will have to unpack in a later blog... but for now... You can anticipate diving into self observation and trust what you feel/see as you journey through the vast inner universe of your body.

Not /What/ ... But ((Who))

      As always,  words can be interpreted many ways, so this title is just a short distillation of a huge theme that I use as a very important mind-shifting yoga reminder (Yogaminder) in the on going mental rehabilitation that the practice of true Yoga facilitates...

..."Mental rehabilitation?  But I'm totally normal!"... 

      Yes, I know... so am I.  I too have normal insanity.  Good news is, this dis-ease is the kind that can be cured with the right Antidote... Awareness... and the will to suffer no more!  This amazing cure-all is totally free... And the point of this blog, to give this 'Yogaminder' some Juice for your use!

       My body buzzes with the overwhelming excitement of Liberating Yoga from its exercise based associations and into its incredible Life Changing power-potential!  Where do I even start?!...  Well, since I'm just some guy who seems to have the audacity to claim such lofty intentions, I should just deflect the attention off of me and onto the guy who is often considered the father of Yoga, Patanjali. 

Though I should note that he is not the only, or the first, author of Yoga.  But the Sutras he so brilliantly wove for us a couple thousand years ago were made possible by the countless pioneers before him whose shoulders he could then stand upon.  And now, we are standing on his, and the many Yogis that followed shoulders to take Classical Yoga into our modern age and understanding.  One translation of Patanjali's first Sutra, which I had read before but then, one day, absolutely floored me, is this...

"Yoga is the mastery of the activities of the mind field.  Then the seer rests in its true nature." 

...Booyah! 

      He didn't say the booyah part... I added that.  And need I point out the fact that stretching isn't mentioned in there?  Today, we say "yoga" we think "stretching... on a mat..."  Or we think of postures.  Or we think of yoga studios filled with people breathing loud and body odor flying all over the place.  Or we think of more pleasant things, like our ever deepening love affair with an amazing physical practice that has changed our lives in many ways.  For I've become painfully clear that I had better be... painfully clear.  It could seem like I'm putting down doing yoga on the mat.  Let it be known that the guy writing this blog (me) teaches yoga on a mat for a living and I Love it!  That being said (and hopefully feathers unruffled),  please understand that my desire to liberate the meaning and purpose of yoga is NOT in any way belittling yoga on the mat!  If anything, it empowers yoga on the mat.

       For example, I use the phrase 'The Yoga of yoga' to try and capture that there is a deeper essence to yoga than just stretching precisely because it is usually assumed that that's what yoga is.  Try asking about 5 people throughout the day "what is yoga?" and you'll see what I mean.  Yet, an acquaintance approached me a few days ago to very sweetly guide me to be 'careful' with this phrase (Yoga of yoga) as it seems as though I'm claiming that Saith Yoga (my particular brand) is better than or superior to other yogas, and was therefore alienating.  Well, I guess I can see what she means.  And I understand how at first glance, without a second thought whatsoever, you could conclude this.  But I certainly have no desire to sugar coat what needs to be said.  And, well, I've discovered many times upon putting myself out there and saying what needs to be said, that pleasing everybody, let alone phrasing things in some magically homogeneous way, immune to misinterpretation, is just not realistic!  I've even said it in a previous blog... that I'm in no way claiming my yoga is better than another yoga... Because I'm not referring to MY yoga!  I'm referring to Classical Yoga, as authored by the same pioneers we revere as the bringers of this amazing science, which has been all but completely eclipsed by yoga, the exercise, in our culture.  I refer to this as 'pop yoga'.  And any form of yoga without knowledge and implementation of its true meaning is devoid of substance and limited in its lasting benefit.  So as aspiring yogi's (myself included) I consider it of utmost importance to attain this literacy and simply put first what is first! 

       What Patanjali pointed out for us right off the starting block is amazing!  When he refers to the 'mind field' he is referring to the activities of the mind, or thoughts and thought processes, conscious and unconscious, which create our experience of reality itself.  In other words, the whole enchilada... Mind you... that the mind as I refer to it here is not separate from our feelings, our hearts, our emotions... a belief disseminated through and by some of our new age pioneers who were attempting to show that our feelings are important too.  Bravo!  We didn't need that stuffy mental bathwater anyway!  Let's just get the 'baby' back, eh?  Without a mastery, let alone a simple awareness of these activities of the mind, we are as a feather in the wind, subject to whatever thoughts (and their accompanying emotions) they may bring.  This is not freedom!  This is total enslavement.   Which is why Marley sang decades ago...

 

'Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.'  

      A marvelous Yoga quote right there!  He sang... we moved on.  But for how many people did the magnitude of this statement really hit home?  You can even be in a 'free' country, but its true worth remains untapped until we are truly free in our minds.  Which, as I see it, has one first and most important step... 

*Exercise your ability to start Noticing...Witnessing... Observing...*

     Observing what?  Observing your own thoughts and thought patterns.  Observe without judgement.  Just... notice.  We have a lovely built in mechanism in our bodies that tell us when something feels right and good, and when something feels off or wrong.  And we respond to this all day long to varying degrees in every little action and interaction with life.  The problem is this... We respond to the feelings and from the feelings yet, so very often we missed the most important link in the chain which is revealed upon self inquiry...for instance, 'what was I thinking just then that made me feel this way?'  Upon asking this simple question we gain the extremely important skill to see how our thoughts make us feel.  And to be clear what is actually intuition vs. what feelings are reacting to our thought process. Now, it's not that the feelings are responding to the outside stimulus connected to what you're thinking about.  But rather, how aligned your thought process is with your true nature regardless of whether or not the thought is accurate about your situation.  For example, lets say you are afraid of a tornado hitting your house (Replace 'tornado hitting house' with any fear).  You feel the fear of it in your body, even if there is no actual tornado.  You could take all kinds of actions in response to the FEAR of a tornado coming, therefore creating a the reality of panic and preparation when there is no actual danger outside of you.  You create a world around you that is based on the fear and driven by the visceral experience of that fear and you are, in essence, at the mercy of a thought that has nothing to do with reality, yet, feels very real.  Now if you have others with you, you then pull them into your imagined drama whether or not they share your feelings and thoughts about what is happening.   And this is nothing short of a violation of other people's personal space.  All because you assume that if you think something or feel something, then

it is the reality.  How irresponsible is that!? And this happens ALL the time.  All that to say, noticing how your thoughts make you feel... or... using your feelings as an 'alarm' or reminder as to the nature of your thoughts is the first HUGE step.  And can save you from serious drains on your energy and unnecessary dramas.   Right beyond this milestone, the ability to choose which thoughts you entertain and which ones you abandon from the vantage point of pure presence.  Follow the formula...

*Choose what you think=change how you feel=change your experience of reality=shift your life*

        There are many who would simply argue that you can't choose what you think.  There are many who think you can but then don't practice it.  Either way, you are a victim.  Strong word I know, but relative to the freedom you gain upon exercising your mastery of the mind field... Yes, you are definitely enslaved to whatever may occur to you, good and bad.  Therefore, to exercise the ability to consciously choose your thoughts is to exercise your most essential freedom.

         We so often take our feelings at face value without ever examining the accompanying narration in our minds and challenge their validity.  And all too often take action from there even if, upon examination, we would have discovered that the founding belief that seeded the said action is indeed unfounded relative to our truest values.  Taking action could be simply to speak... or to actually do something physically forceful (like a yoga pose you think is going to get you yogi status when you master it even though its imposition on the body is not serving you in enhancing your yogic awareness) Let me give you an everyday example first...

        You're driving in your car and the person in front of you is driving so slow you feel like it is almost a personal assault on you.  You may think something like... 'this always happens to me when I'm in a hurry to get somewhere.' or...  'How can this person be so out of it?!'  You get frustrated... aggravated (the emotion or feeling which is your body's natural response to thoughts of this nature).  Your breath becomes shallow but you don't notice this. The feeling of frustration becomes your reality in this moment.  And it takes hold only once you have, in essence, latched on to this particular narrative which happens to be no more valid than any other potential narrative to the current circumstances (for example, 'wow, guess I'm not meant to speed to my destination right now...what a beautiful day it is outside...").  You aggressively swerve around the car in front of you as if to give the driver a message and that's when you see the cute elderly lady with the silver curly hair and the bright red lipstick in the driver seat barely able to peak over the steering wheel to see the street.  Your heart sinks as you feel for this brave being who is taking one of her last remaining freedoms in the last years of her life (instantly, a new emotion from a new narrative).  You start to grow mortified that you could have perhaps caused her strain or even contributed to discouraging her from venturing out into the world in her car due to rude and impatient drivers like yourself (compounded emotion seeded from the previous thought and developed over seconds with your knee jerk mental tendency to punish yourself) you imagine that you could have seriously hurt her and are overcome with resolve to make sure it's at least cocky teenage boy who needs a proper humbling before you ever take such actions again (haha) and the emotion changes again.  All easily avoided if you took that same initial situation where she pulled out in front of you as an opportunity to take a deep breath and look at the world around you in appreciation of life... just to throw out an example.  The thoughts we latch onto are the 'tracks' that we engage with, which then become our life's experience.  It's like a choose your own adventure book but you have to be on your toes enough to not miss the crucial moment of choice, otherwise you will default to autopilot... then something else chooses... I know not what.  (Take a moment with that one)

       Let me give you another example.  As this instance is a real life event that just happened now while I was writing.  I'm not sharing this to toot my horn, but rather to show that practice of exactly what I am sharing (self observation) leads to real-life, liberating and gratifying growth as well as an ever-growing sense of personal freedom.

       So there I was... writing a blog... (hehe) My son comes in and sheepishly confesses that there was 'broken glass'.   In a single instant several potential triggers flash before my eyes.  They sound like

'He's breaking stuff all the time these days' .... 'he wasn't paying attention and needs to be reprimanded' ... 'this always happens when I sit down to work' ...  And the like (Parents, I know you now EXACTLY what I'm talking about).  I also in an instant observe (after years of practice) that each of these thoughts share a vibration of resistance to what is.  Having observed myself in the past I have visceral knowledge of the results stemming from automatically reacting to situations like this from the frustration of being interrupted along with countless fears of my son developing bad habits that I as the father have to make sure don't get worse.

       In this reaction I have witnessed my son's trepidation about 'angry daddy' which generated strong defensive reactions from him which compounded with further reactions from me that then led to remorse and guilt on my end as well as resentment and inherited self-deprecation on my child's end.  Now if I was not aware of my true power to observe, grow, and change, this would be the end of the story. That is, of course, until he inevitably, and unconsciously, manifested another situation to face the approval/disapproval mechanism so common in child development, and I'd be faced with the choice again to react or try something new.  It took me a while to see that my guilt at choosing the wrong course of action was not serving my growth.  That the only resolution was a r-evolution...

      This time, I asked him what happened.  When he began beating around the bush (another trigger for me is that he is getting too good at weaving tall tales and I have to nip it in the bud by calling it out... leading to more drama) I simply said in a totally uncharged voice 'it's okay if you made a mistake, just tell me what happened'.  And he did!  I then discovered that he was retrieving what he thought was ranch dip for his carrots (commendable that he took initiative to feed himself... and healthfully too! :D) and instead dropped the horseradish I just bought all over the floor.  I simply resolved to clean it up without any further discussion cause it was quite simply what needed to be done... and that's that!  Upon Niko's realization of Daddy's calm acceptance, he began to giggle and forgive himself...which made me feel happy inside... which led to kisses and 'I Love you's' in the end.  The situation that just played out because of my identifying as the observer instead of with the knee jerk reactionary thoughts, is the reality I wish I could have created countless times when it was already too late.   And I have changed reality... by observing my thoughts, their accompanying feelings, and choosing to entertain the thoughts I know are based in trust that all is well. I know these may seem like personal examples, or even relatively unimportant examples.  But it's not about the particular circumstances... it's about the formula! 

    What's the formula that is 100% transmutable from scenario to scenario?  I'll tell you... The common denominator is Presence.  The mind FIELD where all activities take place.  It's an ability you always have to simply watch as the field of awareness and nothing else.  To gain insight into your reality-generating thought/feeling mechanisms, good and bad, that would otherwise operate automatically.  And this of course takes a kind of courage.  A willingness to let go of the familiar pattern and rest in your true nature as the witness.  There is a burn.  There is a sense that if your are to truly let go of the familiar reaction, that things won't work out.  And it's QUITE the opposite. :)
 

      What's the big deal?  Ultimate power... that's all.  Once you have identified with the presence that witnesses your processes, wasting no time on judgments (which takes us back out of the witnessing) you then have the power to choose differently.  In choosing differently you can consciously opt out of any thought processes that trigger the response in your body which creates stress (and over time dis-ease) and open up to new, creative possibilities with the same exact scenario.  What's the big deal?  Only that you change your experience of Reality and therefore Reality itself!  Only that you exercise your God given right to freedom.  Only that you are not enslaved to a robotic auto-response, knee jerk, predetermined chain reaction which is entirely at the mercy of your circumstances.  Normal insanity consists of the programs we run on the daily that are based on a subconscious (and totally 'normal') agreement that reality somehow happens outside of you, and TO you, without any rhyme OR reason.  It's us versus the world.  Victorious or not, it's at the root of the victim mentality. And either you have good luck (which inevitably has it's invisible evil twin lurking in the outskirts) or you're the unlucky sort.  Or anywhere in between.  And we're supposed to feel free in that?!

      Normal Insanity!  Well, with everyone carrying on like we're separate atoms bouncing around in a cosmic soup of stuff, why would we stop and take a moment to question it?  Well...How bout because it SUCKS!?  Having all your life's experience predetermined by inherited, unexamined and therefore fixed mental programs (mind activities) is a definition of hell!

  

     And my dear fellow aspiring yogis... We bring this same insanity into every area of our lives INCLUDING INTO OUR YOGA PRACTICE (I'm not yelling... just dealing with the limitations of written word to express importance without the variability of my vocal tone which I assure you is sweet, endearing, kind, and with just twinge of pleading ;)  Yes!  We bring this into our yoga practice!  And into our relationships... and our relationship with money... our diets... our religions... our jobs... you name it!  To be Presence itself (Observant) is to be Awake! To be Awake is to 'rest in your true nature' as Patanjali said.  And when we are asleep to the reality making process, which is funded by our attention and energy, we are not WHO WE REALLY ARE.  It's like playing a video game and believing you are the character on the screen... or the actor in the movie and the drama is taken on as your own. You forgot you are in the driver seat with the hand on the steering wheel and you are at the mercy of the virtual reality whose rules are predetermined by the collective consciousness... or whoever 'writes' the program... the media?... (shivers).   Wouldn't you rather be the Author?  Wouldn't you rather have the Authority?  Well you do.  But you have to choose it.  Claim it.  Exercise it.  Practice being presence itself!

      So again I say,  Not /What/... but ((Who)).  When your attention is on the /what/... the thing that's playing out around you (not excluding the yoga you are 'doing')... you have lost your true power.  When your attention is on the ((Who)) you step into REALITY where REAL choices are made.  Including my all time favorite...the choice to do NOTHING. (Pause) The freedom to do nothing is one of the most POWERFUL choices one can make to unplug from 'the matrix'... to use that analog.  And as much as I'd like to say you can take a blue pill (or was it red?) and just unplug...it's just not like that. We have to take the 'Presence pill' again and again and again in order to unplug from it.

When you are just attempting to make a different choice when you've been in the same pattern of thinking for a long time... Doing nothing...not reacting... IS the most proactive thing you could ever do!  And this is equivalent to identifying as presence itself!  To simply feel your breath instead of reacting... for example.

      The patterns and programs that we are running automatically which we inherited from the ego based culture we live in can only survive with our continual choice to act on them.  It's like YOU are the energy source and the programs can't function without your participation in them.  When you participate in the program, it becomes animate and real.  Conversely... when you simply opt out of participating in the thought processes which you have identified to cause suffering... they fade away.  It's not a denial process.  Rather, it's a relinquishing of your attention from autopilot, whose programs are predetermined and often dysfunctional, and then refocusing your attention towards the observer, the seer, the omnipresent witness itself, our true nature, where peace and centeredness preside. 

      THIS is the yoga practice I'm speaking of.  And THIS is what Patanjali was pointing out in the Sutra above.  Yoga is the Mastery (which involves repetition and practice to attain) of the activities of the mind field (which, unattended, potentially lead to disastrous choices, actions, and chain reactions... and meanwhile wreak havoc in your body through many variations of fight or flight distress/dis-ease.) And then the seer RESTS (Ease, peace, relaxation, yoga) in its true nature ((WHO YOU REALLY ARE)). booyah   

       Now... how does this effect our practice on the mat?!  This is what Saith Yoga ventures to teach.  By putting first what is First... The essence of yoga... Identifying as the infinite presence, as the field of awareness where all you think, feel, and do takes place, the yoga on the mat can finally flourish, and you as the practitioner will know this beyond any shadow of a doubt!  Let's look at ((How)).  Imagine doing your yoga practice on the mat without any awareness of the ((who)), you're just doing postures, or doing what the teacher says, and you are enduring the practice in hopes it will get you

'there'.  'There' is the place where you are flexible enough, strong enough, whatever enough, to do the practice with ease.  In the Yoga of yoga, we put awareness first thereby inverting the 'top heavy' approach to yoga where the physical techniques are priority and instead inviting a sense of ease, acceptance, sensual freedom, and enjoyment of the natural awakening of our dormant body and it's untapped capabilities.  In fact this can be in any physical activity.  Dancing, walking, eating, making love... making love... making love.  When you have the freedom to be as you are, instead of trying to 'get there' all the time, then inspiration itself can breathe.  And this is when our true yogic ability can emerge no matter how flexible or inflexible we are!  What a relief!! 
 

      So instead of just focusing on the /what/.  Ashatnaga yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Raw food,  Ayurvedic food, Holistic medice, alopathic medicine, hot, cold, gay, straight.... go to the ((WHO)).  Practice being the observer in ALL activities.  Heck, even your 'awful' habits that, no matter how hard you try, you can't seem to kick.  Dang! Eat that whole chocolate bar at 1 am with a full awareness of the ((WHO)).  The WITNESS...  The Observer!  Watch all the little thought processes around it.  The initiating thought, the sweet defiance of embarking on the forbidden pleasure, the ensuing guilt, the resolve to NEVER EVER again ________ ... watch the process... with nothing but total awareness.  People try to 'quit' stuff all the time and either can't stay away from  ______ or can't quit at all...  And one of the great yogi's of recent times, Alert Einstein, said something amazingly pertinent to this blog...

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

        I mean, c'mon!  How awesome is it that he said that?!  We try to quit our neurotic habits from a neurotic mindset.  And it NEVER works.  It's like fighting terror with terror.  We have to transcend our actions and habits by using the simple practice of Yogic Observation, dislodge yourself from the 'video game' and empower yourself to make choices from a higher awareness.   That's yoga. 

 Get to know yourself inside and out.  Learn how you tick just by choosing to observe AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!   I promise, you'll get REALLY good at transcending the /what/  and Awakening to the ((WHO)). And this is what Yoga is ALL about!  You can be a True Yogi even if you never roll out a mat in your life!  shhh, it's a secret

The Yoga of yoga is the Art of Awakened Living

        I refer to the "Yoga of yoga" quite a bit throughout saithyoga.com and the teachings contained therein.  And in choosing the name I recognized one potential misinterpretation of this name, but it was not enough to stop me from choosing it.  When we say, “Discover the Yoga of yoga,” it is not to imply that we are teaching a Yoga that’s better than other yogas... I am not creating another style or approach.  Rather we are attempting to capture the Essence of True Yoga including and beyond  the forms of yoga we are so familiar with in today’s popular culture.  So to discover the Yoga of yoga, is to essentially liberate yoga beyond the mat, beyond stretching, beyond Kirtan, even beyond it’s Indian origins while, of course, honoring that India birthed this sacred science in many diverse expressions and pathways into the Divine... into Aum.  And so did numerous other cultures.  They just gave it a different name.  The Toa, God, Christ, Allah, Sunyata, etc. 

I feel it is of utmost importance to, Once and for all, declare the innate Global nature of the science called Yoga and to clearly address why Yoga is not just an Indian thing from India.  Nor is it just an exercise on a mat.  Granted, it is a Sanskrit word. With beautiful meaning.  Yoga translates to "Union"... to yolk together.  The particular “flavor” of this ancient science of reaching Aum, Peace, Enlightenment, Nirvana is very much Indian.  And Brilliantly so!!  However, just as Gandhi’s irrefutable virtues such as Civil Disobedience in the name of Truth are not exclusive to India.  Neither are the teachings of Yoga.  Nor are the convictions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s equality only African American.  The Self Evident Truths articulated by our forefathers do not only belong to white Americans, but to all people of all colors, genders, and beliefs.  In other words, they are Global... Universal... Non-Sectarian Truths. 

This realization in turn exposes the worldwide tendency of the human species to categorize other humans as being of a certain race, religion, or nationality and therefore subject to the stereotypes associated with that worldview or “kind of person.”  It’s a rather fixed mindset that automatically taints the other as being different and therefore unequal,  lesser than, or even expendable in extreme cases.  Therefore, the diversity that the USA boasts is based in tolerance of the differences of others without truly embracing the other.  We have a strong tendency to separate ourselves from others.  We may even “know” as a fact  that we are all equal... And believe that we are all one... yet inside we still may have a tendency towards hierarchical thinking when it comes to other human beings.  

 The reason it is SO important to look at this CLEARLY and HONESTLY is so we can understand how this deeply ingrained sectarianism and tribalism prevents us from “reading between the lines” when it comes to receiving the Medicine of our great wisdom teachers and traditions throughout time!  One can easily, for example, categorize Yoga as “woo woo Indian stuff” and therefore never open their hearts to the immensely practical and life transforming power of it’s systems.  Another may categorize  Jesus’ teachings as being

tainted by fundamentalism and throw the baby out with the bathwater instead of sifting out the dogma and retrieving the highly Yogic pearls of wisdom that Jesus brought.  One may in an instant, without realizing it, see an image of abstinent monks in their mind at the mention of Buddha or Buddhism and opt out of an incredibly Life Affirming encounter with the Dhammapada, the sacred Buddhist text.  

I think you get the idea.  And when it comes to Yoga, how many people don’t even touch it because it’s “some thing that flexible people to while they chant Om and other weird sounds.”  Or maybe some guys say, “Yoga is for women!”.  Maybe it’s even beyond predisposed prejudices about yoga.  Maybe it’s just as simple as “I used to practice yoga, but now I’m not flexible anymore so I’m not going to practice it anymore.”  And another baby is thrown out with the bathwater of misguided notions of what Yoga really is.  It is time to upgrade what Yoga means to us.  And that’s what this blog is.  An upgrade mechanism.  All you have to do is let the words in.  Into your heart... Into your mind.   Into your HeartMind... as we will discover that they are not separate in Reality... in Yoga.  

Now that we’ve seen how our lens, or worldview, can taint our "Yoga Vision", let’s begin to take Yoga back to its true Essence and Power.  Yoga... can be brought into an Asana practice, sure.  Yoga... can be explored as ecstatic chanting.  Yoga... can be explored through meditation.  And Yoga can be brought into every aspect of our lives.  Because Yoga is not the thing we are doing... it’s the presence we are bringing to whatever it is that we are doing... In this Now moment.   So, for example... you can read the words of this blog right now.  And in "autopilot mode" you may interpret these words without and open and receptive mind free of judgement.  You may only be subject to the knee jerk reactions of a fixed and prejudiced mindset... if even subtly so.  EVEN IF YOU AGREE WITH ME! :o  On the other hand, as you take in these words, receptive to what they may require you to consider, while deeply breathing and aware of your posture, as you celebrate the miracle of transmission through written words by fully contemplating the nature of what is being said... You have Yogafied the reading itself through the act of being fully present with it.  THAT's Yoga!  You, as consciousness perceiving, automatically "Yogafy" everything you “touch” when you are unencumbered by the thought forms that take your attention out of this moment... The mental states that impede your ability to perceive with clarity and even Pure Love.  In

 this context the work of Yoga becomes one of Awareness!  One of Awakeness!  And in that can be applied to anything.  Eating, driving, making love, practicing yoga, practicing buddhism, going to church, meditating, on and on and on.  So if we changed the word “yoga” to PRESENCE, it is suddenly free from all its associations of being a contortionist thing, to being an Indian thing, to being a woo woo thing... etc.  and becomes an infinitely practical and powerful practice for everyone in every area of life.     

There was even a point in my teaching career where I was seriously thinking about giving up the title "Yoga Teacher" for this very reason.  Then I came to the realization that I don’t have to give up the word... I can upgrade it!  I can "Yogafy" the word yoga itself into it’s higher meaning.  This is what I mean by “upgrade”.  Hence, the Yoga of yoga.  And the Yoga of yoga is the art of Awakened living. 

The Unexamined Yoga Practice

Unexamined, one’s yoga practice may actually prevent one from experiencing Yoga...

       Again, a potentially controversial remark.  But you know this to be true.  Deep down it rings of the most obvious yet easy to overlook Truth.  Unexamined?  What does that mean?  Do I need to go to the yoga doctor to get a check up to make sure I’m doing yoga right?... uh.... no.  This has nothing to do

with doing yoga “right”.   It has nothing to do with DOING yoga.  The fact that the phrase “I do yoga” is so common is the first indication of how deeply we need to examine our practice in our culture... And what it is that we are actually  doing.   

Yoga by it’s very nature is BEING.   How can we DO... BEING?  Yet, as we observe our lives, we do notice that it is essential to make a space to intentionally touch into the Being-ness that yoga practice can facilitate.  I can’t just not do yoga... that doesn’t work either!  Yet, I’m always being, so why would I need yoga anyway?  The

conundrum arises from the limitations of the lens we are using to understand what Yoga is.  As with so many of the great wisdom teachings throughout time and throughout all traditions, the teachings are sourced from a higher consciousness that is beyond duality and then inevitably those high teachings are downloaded into a script catered to the lens of the ego, or what you could call an identity based and objectifying mode of perceiving reality.   An analogy that may bring clarity to this is, for example, picturing the 3 dimensional world in a 2 dimensional medium.  It can, in amazing ways, look just like the real thing, but when you get right down to it, it is just not 3 dimensional!   

      So if Yoga, which means “Union”, is an art form and science for awakening to the non-dual reality, yet we are teaching/practicing it in the familiar dualistic mindset...It’s not Yoga.  It may seem like the real thing.  The spiritual words may be there... the sacred geometry may be depicted in the shapes of our asanas... you may even walk away feeling better than before.  But we are not doing Yoga.  You could even say... Doing yoga is not Yoga.  It’s like acting out the parts without being backed by any real substance.  You could go so far as to call it “imitation yoga”.  I realize what I’m saying is intense.  And at first, it may seem threatening to one’s sense of themselves as being the real deal when it comes to yoga.  But the fact of the matter is, in essence, you’re already the real deal!  And the question is... Is your yoga practice assisting in embodying this realization, or continuing to push it away like the elusive carrot of achievement, attainment, and even perfection?  In this context, what I’m saying can be celebrated in that it does not negate the practice you’ve had so far, but highly affirms it as an indispensable step towards a deeper more authentic Yoga Life and understanding which would not have come about without every step you’ve take thus far.  But the next step is what it’s all about!

The next step, the step that this blog is all about, is rooted in the axiom woven into it’s title.  This is where we see the “butterfly effect” within you.  This is a concept which I will unpack in another blog.  In the butterfly effect, the single and delicate flap of a butterfly’s wing in new england can initiate a sequence of chain reactions that could potentially escalate to a typhoon in the pacific ocean, hypothetically speaking. 

The butterfly effect that I’m speaking of, however, is within you.  And the “flap of the butterfly’s wing” is the motivational thought that brought you to the practice of yoga.  The “typhoon”, or the obvious consequential appearance stemming from that thought is the experience you have on your mat.  Now, let it be granted that Yoga is FAR beyond doing yoga asanas on a mat.  But since this is the meeting place of most yogis in our modern culture, we will start here.  The “butterfly thought”, I’ll call it, makes the difference between a highly therapeutic, liberating, expansive practice and a subtly destructive, ego-enforcing, unsustainable one.   From this perspective you begin to understand that yoga was never on the mat.  It has always been in the mind or consciousness.  The place where we make our thoughts, agreements about reality, and where we motivate our activities.  A thought is like a seed.  There are Yogic seeds, or seeds that come from your inner source of wisdom.  And there are un-Yogic seeds, or seeds that are born of a belief in separation, lack, external worth etc.   Both have the potential to motivate you to get on the mat.  One feels authentic, aligned, and well... good.  And the other carries whispers of friction, resistance, frustration and even injury.  

A header photo from a fellow Blogger at http://takeck.blogspot.com

Some examples of a Yogic seed:

-Today, I choose to roll out my mat, and continue my practice of presence while exploring the mystery of my body, and merging with my true nature of wholeness, wellness, and Love.

-I Love feeling and exploring my body through movements and shapes.

-I trust my body’s feedback in this pose as highly intelligent and I will honor it by not overriding it in order to get more flexible.

-Health and balance are my natural state.  Therefore brute force is only an obstruction. 

-My life is a practice of awakened presence into which my practice on the mat is seamlessly woven

And examples of an un-Yogic seed:

-I better get to the studio and practice today because it’s been 2 weeks since my last class and I’m falling behind.  My best friend has been going everyday and she’s going to be better than me at yoga.

-When I did this posture on my left side I could reach all the way to my toes.  It hurts to touch my toes

on the right side, but I have to be exactly the same on both sides because symmetry is beauty and I want to be beautiful.

-I’m never going to get as flexible as him. 

-That girl can see me in this pose, I better look good. 

These are just a few of endless examples on both ends.  And the thoughts themselves are not the point.  Rather, wherefrom the thoughts are sourced.  Or you could say, which thoughts are entertained.  Which seeds are watered.  We have all had the thoughts in the second category in some shape or form and have been motivated by them.  This doesn’t make you an un-Yogi for gosh sakes!  It’s totally a symptom of cultural conditioning.  We are made to believe that our Self Worth (which is our birth right to feel)  is derived through external means.  And in a sense, all physical reality is external relative to consciousness itself.  So even your own bodily achievements are external.  And the very wonderful gratification that comes from such achievements as being able to perform impressive yoga

postures is child’s play next to the experience of Real Yoga.  Yet, if this gratification is your version of the Holy Grail, then you’ve unconsciously agreed to put a ceiling on your Yoga practice.  You can become the most amazing contortionist in the world and not have experienced Yoga.  In fact, if you have “won” at that game and covet the trophy of imitation yoga mastery, you will have the hardest time of all letting go to the awesome wonder that Yoga really is.  Because within Real Yoga, we are all beginners, humbled in the infinite light of AUM.  

This is why your yoga practice can prevent you from experiencing Yoga.  The practice has nothing to do with the postures.  It has to do with sustained presence, self awareness, and a willingness to evolve.  Once yoga practice has a destination that looks a certain way, it is no longer Yoga.  Yet, that is EXACTLY what we are fed with, usually unconsciously within many group consciousnesses that we experience in Yoga class.  So it takes tremendous presence to witness one’s own motivating thoughts in any given moment, on or off the mat.  Because so many of them are socially normal and acceptable, they can easily go unnoticed and create the “typhoon” that leads to an unsustainable and even harmful practice.  In our “doing” of yoga, we’ve automatically set ourselves up to resist Yoga. 

And this is the original catch 22 I pointed out. However, rolling out your mat to do an asana practice doesn’t negate Being in Yoga.  It’s just that, well, without continuously examining your motivating thoughts, you may be doing something that is un-Yogic in it’s momentary effect, even if it looks like yoga.  The ideal asana practice is continuously Aum-ing while each posture emerges from your deep meditative state of observing and feeling simultaneously.  It’s a dialogue within yourself.  It’s a Yogalogue... where through the physical body, which is not separate from the mind, you are interfacing with the infinite field of consciousness, being-ness, breath, Aum... whatever you choose to call it... it is beyond names.  This... is Yoga.  

Written By Näthan Gangadean © 2013