Put Your Mind on “The Yum”

Sat-Chit-Ananda, as a compound, is a description of the quality of experience that’s occurring when we’re “in yoga” so to speak: when the mind and, ultimately, our being are directed toward and fixed in the direction of what deeply feeds us. The compound is made of three Sanskrit roots: Sat, Chit, and Ananda, each with their own meaning, but together connoting qualities of the experience of yoga.  Sat means being or existing.  Chit means to understand, comprehend, and to fix the mind.  Ananda is often translated as bliss, but the problem with that word is that it sounds somehow way too insubstantial in everyday language. Ananda isn’t some rarefied experience that only mystics experience but, rather, something accessible to each of us now.  It’s a normal, everyday experience.  So, I am translating it as “the yum!”.  When you put all three together, what you get is the following:

A state of being in which the mind is fixed on “the yum!”

Ananda: The Resonance of Yum!

When I say “the yum” I am not pointing to pleasure.  Pleasant feelings are temporary and fleeting experiences.  They come and go. The ultimate experience of yoga doesn’t come and go.  It’s always present, always accessible, and here and now.  Instead, “the yum” is the profound experience that something deep inside is fed and, thus, resonates profoundly.  We all have an experience of this from time to time.  It shows up in those moments in life that are especially rich, rewarding and poignant.  ”The yum” shows up in these moments and experience that remind us of our innate of love, peace, joy, and compassion.  ”The yum” is another way of describing our essence, who we essentially are.

One of our students recently lamented that she was unmotivated to come to practice yoga. She was finding it rather drab.  Clearly, she was in “the yuck,” so I asked her, historically speaking, what “the yum” of practice had been for her.  After a brief moment of reflection, I saw her eyes light up with mischief, and she said,”I love the play of it.”  The practice had become way too serious for her, so serious that it had led her away from her essence.  One of the ways she finds it is through fun and, from what I could tell, a little mischief. So her access point to experiencing the transcendent in the practice was to reawaken the sense of frolic in her practice.

Fixing “The Yuck” In Order to Get to “The Yum”

I sometimes hear students say the following: “I don’t like the way I look, and I don’t feel good in my body.  I just need more discipline in my life.”  That’s the equivalent of what I call: following ” the yuck” in order to get to “the yum.”  When we do this, we attempt to put a noose around what we don’t like about ourselves and suffocate it to death in hopes that an experience of the sacred and profound will magically appear.  The problem with putting effort on getting rid of, fixing, or overcoming “the yuck” is that instead of getting rid of it, we actually grow it and make it stronger.  The practice of yoga shows each of us that whatever we focus on, we grow more of.  And if our orientation is on getting rid of, destroying, overcoming, beating down, or fixing “the yuck,” more often than not, we find ourselves with more and more of “the yuck” to get rid of, fix, or overcome.

I remember when I was about to graduate from college, and I was thinking about all that I had to complete in order to graduate: the papers, the exams, and the lectures.  I thought, “once I’m done with all this shit, then I will feel free.”  Well, I finished the work necessary and graduated, but then I was confronted with the stark reality of what I was going to have to do to earn some money.  And, of course, I thought, “Once I have a job, then I’ll be okay.”  And the struggle went on and on because once I had found a paying job, it wasn’t the job I wanted.  I was looking at the whole experience of life from the perspective of trying to overcome “the yuck” in order to get to “the yum.”  The only problem I found was that it just led to more yuck.

What We Place Our Attention On is What We Grow in Our Lives

Trying to overcome “the yuck” in order to get to “the yum” doesn’t work.  When our attention is placed on fixing what doesn’t work, we get more of what doesn’t work.  And if we put our attention on what feeds us deeply and profoundly, which is the ananda in sat-chit-ananda, our lives become filled with more resonance, more fulfillment, more aliveness.  Invariably those students who learn to connect with their version of “the yum” don’t need to develop discipline.  When they find, what one student recently called “the bubbles in her Coke,” discipline naturally shows up as a byproduct.  It’s not something that they need to force or foist on themselves when they bring passion to what they do.

A Context Wide Enough to Hold the Opposites

Following our own, individual sense of what “the yum” is for us can be a subversive act.  It takes us on what the poet, Robert Frost, called “The Road Not Taken.”  We often don’t end up following what our parents wanted for us; what society deemed acceptable; or where we thought we would ever end up.  Often times we find ourselves walking down glorious roads and sometimes on lonely ones.  But no matter how elated or alone we are, when we follow “the yum”, we realize that we have no choice, anyway.

That’s why ananda or “the yum” isn’t pleasure.  It’s what transcends pleasure and pain.  It is a context for life that is wide enough to be able to hold opposites: pleasure and pain, good and bad, right and wrong, sthira (stable) and sukha (pleasant). When we truly follow “the yum,” we know deep down that rain can come, sun can come, but we’re on our path, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.  What’s your “yum?”

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Science is Finally Showing Yoga’s Benefits

What I love about Broad’s idea of ‘yoga doctors’ is that science is starting to be able to describe why we feel so good when we do yoga.  Science has advanced to the point of being able to detect neurotransmitters, like GABA, that are evoked while we transition from upward facing dog to downward facing dog.  For many of us who were raised on science, the physical matter–rather than the metaphysical ethers–makes the benefits of yoga somehow more real and, thus, more accessible.  And for many of us who don’t give a hoot what science has to say about it– but do it anyway because it just feels good–we can, now stand justified with smug grins on our faces.

Either way, I’ve always been attracted to the notion that we could use yoga to heal and transform illness and injury.  As a teacher, I’ve seen and had the privilege of supporting hundreds of people heal old back injuries, broken hearts, and asthma.  I have a hard time with the notion, though, of yoga being medically standardized.  I also have a hard time believing that the yoga postures along with the various techniques of observation can be used in isolation to and from a yogic worldview.

I am not suggesting that for yoga to be effective that patients subscribe to notions like karma and reincarnation.  However, I do sense that the essence of yoga is a transmission not just of techniques and information, but of something much more subtle and rich.   Unfortunately, science cannot quantify this transmission.  My teacher didn’t simply teach me postures.  He taught me a way of being that would give me access to the sacred.  And, unfortunately, science, as powerful as it is, cannot quantify the effects of this type of interaction.  It cannot be conveyed in books, lectures,  or exams.

The Marriage of Yoga and Modern Medicine

While I applaud Broad’s idea, I am afraid that the marriage of yoga with science might be translated mechanistically.  So, for example, if you were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, your ‘yoga doctor’ might look in her Merck Manual of Yoga and see that the research shows that 10-20 breaths in shoulder stand along with seated victorious breathing for 10 minutes has a cure rate of 30%.  She would prescribe it and then asks you to come back in three weeks.  But that absolutely ignores the true healing that takes place when we practice yoga.

One of the main benefits of practice is going to a yoga class.  In this day and age, we are so isolated from one another, that so much of what shows up as illness is really the stress of loneliness.  So part of the cure of yoga is being connected to others: chanting the same chant, moving with each other, and seeing one another on a day-in-day-out basis.  Yoga is not just a series of techniques.  It’s community, as well.  Finally, yoga is also about the relationship of a teacher to a student.  As I said above, the benefits of that relationship cannot be quantified by science.

So while I do applaud the idea of yoga doctors, I would rather call them yoga therapist or yoga healers.  I think the latter terms imply an even balance of both the hard and soft sciences, and when it comes to yoga, we’re not simply working with hormones, neurotransmitters, and blood production, we’re working with an individual who is physical, emotional, and spiritual.  She’s also a member of a community, of society, and of the universe, as a whole.  The problem with modern medicine is that it tends to reduce us into body systems and body parts.  And, in a way, I think that this reductivism is really the source of much of the loneliness, malaise, and dis-ease that lures many of us to yoga classes in the first place.  If yoga is to make more forays into hospital settings, we need to think long and hard weather we want it to replicate the modern medical system or whether we want it to retain its essence.

1Excerpts from the book were published in the New York Times under the title, “How Yoga Can Wreck You“ and got all sorts of controversy.  One of my favorite responses comes from my friend, Eddie Stern, under the title “How the New York Times Can Wreck Yoga.”

Either way, she feels hostage to his moods and to his indecisiveness.  She says, “I can’t really move forward in my life until he makes a decision.”

While not all of us have been in a position like this, we can all empathize with her. We’ve all experienced the sense that our happiness, security, or well-being was in the hands of someone or something outside of ourselves.  The problem my friend is stuck with is that she’s in a perspective that leaves her powerless.  All the power is in his hands.  Each time she feels elated or crushed by his next intended move on the chess board of their life together, she has no say.

A Profound Meditation on the Self

The recognition that we always have a say, however, is what is the essence of the practice of drishti in Ashtanga Yoga.  Mostly, when teachers discuss drishti, they talk about it as a way to keep the mind focused in the present moment. They describe the various gazing points as tools to keep the mind anchored in the present moment, much like the bandhas or the sound  of the ujjayi breath.  But it’s my sense that the drishti is so much more profound than this.  It’s really a meditation on waking up to where we direct our attention and how it effects our relationship to the Self.

The Windows of the Soul

You know the saying, “The eyes are the windows to the soul”?  When we say this, we think about looking into another’s eyes, but when we practice drishti during or Ashtanga practice, we’re looking through our own eyes and deep into our own souls.  Drishti, in the context of Ashtanga Yoga, is a form of sense withdrawal (pratyahara).  While we gaze at the tip of nose (nasagrai drishti) or the hand (hastagrai drishti), we’re not simply looking at objects, but we’re noticing the gazer that is gazing at them.

While the Sanskrit word, drishti, means to gaze, the drashtaa is the seer, and the drishya is the object that is seen or known.  So, for example, if we’re gazing at the tip of the nose (nasagrai drishti), the nose is the drishya, the capacity to gaze is the drishti, and the one that gazes is the drashtaa. The significance of this triad known in Sanskrit as triputi is that when we’re practicing the drishti, it isn’t exclusively the nose we’re really looking at.  Rather, it’s the whole phenomenon of the self (drashtaa)  looking (drishti) at the nose (drishya).  And so the nose is really a profound meditation into the questions: Who it is that is looking at the nose?  In short, the drishti is not just a point of concentration that keeps us focused outward, but an inquiry into the relationship of the seer within (drashtaa) and to the objects that define it.

Choose Your Gaze Wisely

As I shared the practice of drishti with my friend, she began to see that his indecisiveness was simply a stimulus that evoked feelings of pain and uncertainty that have always been with her and that were independent of him.  In addition, she could see that she wasn’t simply at the whim of his uncertainty but that by continuing to gaze (drishti) at his uncertainty (drishya), she (drashtaa) was choosing to suffer.  The most significant revelation she discovered through this practice was that by continuing to direct her attention toward his doubt, she didn’t have to be with her own regret and insecurity, as well as her wisdom and depth.  By waiting for his decision, she didn’t have to make one, herself.

Once she woke up to her role in his vacillation, she could be at choice.  She could ask the questions: Did she want to continue to put energy into and empower his vacillation?  What wounds did she need to handle that predated their relationship?  And did she want to continue to wait for him to decide to stay or go, or could she find a different path?

The practice of drishti allowed her to see she could be conscious of and at choice in where she focused her attention.  By focusing entirely on being held captive to his capriciousness, it left her uncertain, scared, and even sleepless.  But if she redirected the awareness on the greater learning this experience evoked in her, then she could actually use it to grow.  In addition, she recognized that by focusing on the negative in him, she only experienced pain and negativity within herself.  So she chose to redirect the focus of their conversation from what his next move will be to how they could consciously collaborate in designing a new relationship with one another.  All of this recognition simply occurred because she was able to recognize that her gaze, her drishti, didn’t just have an object that it was attached to.  On the other end was her, a subject, a soul, and a spirit very much at choice in terms of where she wanted to direct her gaze.

To me, that’s the power of drishti. It’s not just something you do when you’re practicing asana.  If we consider all of life “the practice,” then we can start to wake up to where we’re focusing our attention.  Do we point it in directions that feed us and remind us of the rapture, wonder, and mystery that we are? Or do we point it at situations, people, and things that suck us dry and leave us with a sense of our impotence?  Mastering drishti is a life-long endeavor because it’s really the development of the capacity to wake up to both what we see, what it tells us about ourselves, and what choices we want to make, as a result.  And so next time you’re in downward dog, gazing in the direction of your navel, begin this profound inquiry by asking yourself, “Who is it that’s gazing?”

This is a classic situation that comes up in practice, both as a student of the tradition and as a teacher.  Do I uphold the tradition or honor the well-being of my student?  I think it’s obvious that my students’ well-being has to come first over the tradition, but in honoring the tradition, it can become a very slippery slope between letting go completely and gripping with a quality of rigidity.  In many ways, as a teacher and practitioner in and from The West, the dance of honoring tradition and the individual, at the same time, can be a challenging one.  How do we not lose the essence of the tradition and, at the same time, fit the practice to the individual?

‘Correct Method’ / ‘Incorrect Method’

I, personally, have struggled with this question for quite some time, probably since the first day I showed up in Mysore in 1993 and discovered that in order to bind my legs in a lotus posture (padmasasna), I had to dislocate the meniscus.  Each time I believe I have struck the perfect balance, I find that I have either become too rigid in a particular situation or way too ‘wishy-washy.’  Admittedly, I err on the side of ‘wishy-washy.’  Something about my personal makeup hates imposing right and wrong on my students.  And so much of following the tradition is about right and wrong.  There’s a right way to do the sequence and there’s a wrong way.  Throughout the years of being a student of Pattabhi Jois’, I heard the words “correct method” and “incorrect method.”

Yoga That Transcends Duality

And somehow, in my mind, a good and powerful system of yoga should and must transcend all duality.  Yoga is, after all, about the union of those opposing forces, masculine and feminine, right and wrong, evil and righteous.  In the language of The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, we’re balancing and harmonizing the solar and lunar energies within the left and right tubes or nadis of the subtle body that feed the energy vortexes, called chakras, in order to evoke or stimulate the sushumna, the central channel within the subtle body of the spinal column.  This is an energetic code for the experience of the transcendental experience that occurs when masculine and feminine, right and wrong, good and bad have been harmonized.  It’s a way of saying that a deeper, wider, and more profound reality exists beyond the bounds of duality.  In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali says that posture should be “steady and comfortable.” (2:46) “It results with relaxation of effort and the meeting with the infinite.”

Fighting through a posture just because the tradition demands us to do it in a particular way takes us further and further away from the essence of yoga.  And I think that this is where, as teachers and practitioners of any system that comes from a different culture–whether it is yoga or Zen— we need to maintain a critical eye.  It doesn’t behoove us or our students to fall into the trap of saying, “because that’s just the way it is.”  It’s simply the way it is as determined by the elite within the system that we’re in, whether it is the charismatic teacher or the agreement of the masses within the system.

Drawing the Line: Tradition vs. Individual Needs

But here’s where the dance gets interesting.  Where do we draw the line between honoring the system our teacher shares with us and yet remain flexible enough to honor our individuality?  I remember having this same conversation with an Orthodox Jew over a meal many years ago.  I asked her why she followed all 613 commandments with such stringency.  Her deadpan response was: “What am I going to do, follow 400 and then drop the other 213?  That’s a slippery slope.  Who am I decide?  That’s in Ha Shem’s [trans. The Name, which is code for God] hands.”     If we were to follow the Ashtanga tradition with the same stringency, then  men could only have sex during the nighttime. Not only that, if “the breath is felt to be moving through the surya nadi [the right nostril], then that is to be regarded as the daytime, and during that period, copulation and the like are not to occur.” (p. 10, Yoga Mala, P. Jois)

Yoga Practice As a Metaphor

The problem, as I see it, is that we’re facing the issue of a literal reading, as opposed to a metaphorical reading of “the practice.” Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, says that myth and the ritual that accompanies it: “ denotes something transcendent…so that you always feel accord with the universal being.”  Myth uses metaphor to denote one kind of object or idea but used in place of another to suggest a likeness. When we fall into the trap of reading myth or ritual and its accompanying symbols literally, we miss the deeper, wider, and higher spiritual implications that they have the potential to put us in touch with.  All ritual–including the practice of Ashtanga Yoga with its precise vinyasas, victorious breathing (ujayi), internal locks (bandhas), and gazing points (dristis)—are pointing to an inner experience, to fields of consciousness that reflect our inner most being.  However, in the practice of Ashtanga, we often mistake the literal for the metaphorical; the form for the formless; the act for the way of being that that act is pointing to.

When I reflect on almost twenty years of practice, it seems to me that there have been periods of time when I’ve gotten stuck in the literal. I have, at times, been lured by the trajectory of progressing from the primary series, to intermediate, and then, eventually to the advanced series. Early on as a neophyte practitioner, I’d even hoped that as I advanced along the series, somehow life would take on a new shine, that samadhi was right around the corner.  But this approach led to nothing more than physical feats that contortionists from Cirque du Soleil do much better than I ever could.

The Trap of Focusing on ‘Correct Method’ and ‘Incorrect Method’

Really, what I discovered was that “correct method” and “incorrect method” really missed the point and only calcified and petrified aspects of my psyche that needed the light of consciousness.  After all, as a young man of nineteen years old, I came to the practice with the hopes of being more connected to something greater, to overcome feelings of smallness, fear, and grief.  But as I progressed along the path laid out for me, instead of becoming more spacious, more connected, my orientation became focused on doing it “correctly.”  I got stuck in a myopic vision of the path of yoga being about attainment of some image of perfection.  In essence, my practice became another place where I had to struggle.

Oh, and what a mistake that was because it lead me away from the essence of the practice.  I mistook the tools at my disposal–like the postures (asanas) or the internal locks (bandhas)–as the path.  In other words, instead of using these points of focus as metaphors that pointed to more profound states of consciousness, I read them literally and used them to be “good,” so that my teachers and the community of yogis would recognize and like me. In addition, my practice, at times, became purely physical.

What Mula Bandha Can Show Us

If, for example, I performed the root lock (mula bandha) throughout the practice, I told myself that I would be able to jump back and jump through with greater ease. Indeed, the engagement of the core muscles does increase strength and agility.  But that literal reading kept that act of yoga simply a bodily feat.  Mula bandha, can also be read metaphorically.  Its magic isn’t just in the physical mastery of it.  Its magic also lies in where it points consciousness. Given that it is at the base of the body, it points us in the direction of the earth, the part of us that is earth element.  Engaging mula bandha might remind the yogi to be connected to the earth no matter how contorted life becomes.  In addition, mula bandha might encourage us that while consciousness has a propensity to disconnect, that the path of the yogi is to stay in form, to use the body as a tool to experience both inner and outer fields of consciousness.  Mula bandha itself might be a meditation into the root of our being, who we are at the most base level: the part of us that is simply a tube eating, digesting, and defecating.

The essence of what I am saying is that as teachers and practitioners of this method, when we get too literal with the practice, we miss the deeper inquiry that the practice offers us.  If it becomes about progressing along the series, doing it “correctly”, only doing it the way it’s done in Mysore, etc. then the depth and breadth that is the promise of yoga might never be tasted or known.  Honestly, having been down that road, I can say with certainty, there is no pot of gold at the end of the primary, intermediate or advanced series, nor is there any great boon from doing it “correctly” or even “traditionally.”

Why Do You Practice?

I like what Cambell says about what we’re after in life.  “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” (Campbell, J, The Power of Myth, 1998, episode 2, chapter 4, PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video) Some may dispute this, but I, personally, sense that the essence of practice is to access this aliveness.  Nobody and no system has a better clue about how to do that than we, personally.  It helps to try out lots of different tools and stick to the systems and teachers that offer them, but in the end, each of us has to become the final arbiter.  We have to have the courage to ask ourselves, does this resonate?  Is it bringing me closer to truth?  Is it deepening my consciousness?  And if the answer is, “no,” and it doesn’t jibe with the tradition or the teacher, we have to be courageous enough to stand on our own and to continue to seek and discover an access points that do.

I began to think of my own life and what motivates me. Don’t get me wrong, I often break commitments to myself and I let myself down all the time.  But my most obvious commitment, and the one that I just can’t shake (and I have tried) is the one I have to my yoga practice.  As you know, this practice is not for the faint of heart.  It’s demanding of body, mind, and spirit and can sometimes be the very thing I most resent.  Although my relationship to it has changed over the years, my commitment has been unwavering.  Even as I write this I can feel my heart and belly resonate with a feeling of rightness. It is a profound sense of knowing that I can’t explain with my intellect. It is this feeling that I can feel, right now, percolating from deep within, that gets me onto my mat each morning.  For me, it’s my passionate, heartfelt, longing to know myself authentically and my experience of how my practice supports this longing that pulls me out of bed, especially on those days when it feels like I have nothing left.  This doesn’t mean that it’s easy or that I’m always enthusiastic.  But it is the sacred promise I made to myself and the fact that breaking that promise leaves me feeling dull and dis-connected that literally fuels me from the inside and keeps me on track in those times when everything else in me could care less.

In Yoga this deep resolve is known in Sanskrit as Sankalpa and it is a very powerful method of directing our lives in a positive, affirming way.  Sankalpa can be translated as a willful determination to become something or to do something with your life.  It’s an intense passionate desire that is felt with the entire mind, body, and soul.  It is not something that can easily be forgotten but rather, something that lives so deep inside your cells that it remembers you. All is takes is a quiet moment with ourselves so we can clear our minds and connect to our deepest truths.

Many of us make intellectual resolves all year round that often get lost and rarely lead us toward lasting change.  This is because these resolves are not planted deeply enough within us.  They have not entered into the subconscious mind and have not been backed up with deeply ingrained willpower and fierce commitment.  Like with anything in life, effort and right action are necessary for our desires to be made possible. Yoga is a path of action and Sankalpa calls forth action. If we are clear about what we want and we approach it with strong feeling and commitment, we will begin to feel the mind become more structured and our lives become an expression of what our heart’s most deeply desire.

In my early days of Ashtanga, my practice revealed a weakness in my lower back that persisted for many years. Sometimes it would be a dull ache and other times the pain was so excruciating that I could barely walk, never mind practice asana.  What a devastating feeling this was as now my whole life centered around yoga practice.  I felt like my body was betraying me and that the practice couldn’t support me.

Despite the pain I continued to practice, ignoring the body’s signals hoping that I could move through this weakness and” get on” with things.  My ego mind was saying one thing and my body was screaming another. I saw my back pain, and ultimately my body, as an obstacle in the way of my path.

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali offers us the opportunity to look at all symptoms, all physical pain, as areas of weakness that need attention and one-pointed perseverance to understand and ultimately overcome.  Here, he is reminding us to go into our pain or discomfort and to use it as an access point to better know the self. Patanjali invites us to meet all that arises, not as an obstacle, but as a messenger that alerts us to a new discovery about ourselves and names persistent practice as the means to getting there.

Patanjali describes asana as “steady, comfortable, and relaxed” and states that the yogi should be able to hold the body in posture for a long period of time without feeling instability.  This is the ultimate goal of asana practice but it doesn’t happen overnight and few of us get there without meeting some challenges along the way.  We inevitably will run into those parts of ourselves, physical, mental, or emotional, that are weak, compromised, or asleep.  Finding stability, comfort, and ease in posture takes time, commitment, and perseverance.  It requires us to accept exactly where we are before we slowly, through consistent and persistent practice, open to a deeper potential. If we push through injury or painful sensation we are acting violently towards ourselves, causing further damage to the physical structure and further disturbance to the mind.  This is not Yoga.

For me, in the beginning, my physical pain did become an obstacle in the sense that it got “in the way” of practice as I knew it.  I could no longer go on auto-pilot and just perform asana.  I had to be willing to find new ways to connect to my body that supported my particular areas of weakness.  Some mornings I did the traditional practice with full vinyasa and deep back bending, while other mornings I was lucky to make it through a modified version of the sun salutations. I found this initially, very difficult, mostly for my ego and due to my belief of how things were supposed to be.   Over time I came to I realize that my practice had deepened and transformed and had become more focused and fulfilling.  And slowly, my pain subsided, and my back got stronger. My pain and physical limitation forced me to take a very deep look at my practice, my body and my approach to both.   Ultimately I was led to a deep understanding of how to best meet myself, in practice and in life.

When we are willing to listen to the body’s signals physical pain and injury can help teach us how to most intelligently approach our bodies, our practice, and our lives.

If Yoga is, in its essence, the awakening to the inner reality of our being, than everything we encounter along our path is a messenger that brings us back to a deeper understanding of who we are. So stay interested and curious.   Be willing to face all you encounter.  Modify as necessary but never stop practicing.

As Gurujii always said:. “ Slowly, slowly…Do your practice…and all is coming.”

The tradition my co-teacher, Devorah Sacks, and I come from has a unique spin on this eight-limbed path.  As students of the renowned yoga master from Mysore, India, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, we’ve been taught that all we need to do is to work on asana and pranayama, and the rest of the limbs naturally and spontaneously will follow.  But that’s not to say we are to ignore the other six-limbs.  Rather, the other limbs are to be considered benchmarks that give us direct feedback on the quality of intention we bring to our practice.

Getting Fit and Chilling Out

As a long-term teacher of Ashtanga Yoga, I’ve come to recognize that most people don’t come to practice in order to have a deeper connection with the yamas and niyamas. They come either to get fit or to ‘chill out.’ This is usually the first aspiration that shows up on the mat. If the new student is persistent and continues to practice through the initial phase of soreness, stiffness, and the difficulty of waking up in the early morning to get on her mat, she will more often than not begin to wonder about the philosophical aspects of the practice.

I cannot say for certain what it is about practicing breath and posture that elicits this curiosity, but I do know for certain that at least 80% of the students I have taught make it past the initial stage of just wanting to get strong and flexible. That initial aspiration doesn’t go away altogether. It just becomes obvious that the goal of yoga is much wider and broader than originally perceived.

How the Eight Limbs Work Together

Within the yoga that Jois taught, the eight limbs do not follow a linear sequence. In other words, we’re not taught to master the first limb before moving on to the next limbs. ¹ In this tradition, the first two limbs, yamas and niyamas spontaneously arise out of the steady and continuous practice of asana and pranayama. Jois used to say that when the body and mind were cleansed of impurities, that following these rules was easy, natural, and obvious. And when the mind and body were gummed up with negativity and illness, to follow yamas and niyamas put the yogi at odds with herself and only created more tension.

And according to Jois, the last four limbs—which are, essentially, deeper levels of introspection, attention, and meditation—cannot be practiced. They arise spontaneously from the steady practice of the first four limbs. In other words, meditation cannot be practiced, according to this tradition. It just naturally grows from the continuous practice of breath work, posture, and the observance of certain morals and mores.

Focus on Asana and Pranayama And All Is Coming

Here’s the bottom line: essentially, Jois is saying is that all we need to do is to just practice asana and pranayama and the rest of the limbs follow spontaneously and naturally.  By the way, his teacher, Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is really the grandfather of modern yoga, said the same thing. So this isn’t idiosyncratic to Jois’ tradition. This is what all Krishnamacharya’s well-known students, including B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, Indra Devi, A.G. Mohan, and Srivatsa Ramaswami, basically teach and taught.

Meditation Happens

If you look at this closely, it’s a pretty far-out idea.  The tradition is saying that you cannot do meditation. Meditation cannot be done. Meditation just comes. It’s like that William Blake quote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is – infinite.”  So, as yogis, it is our job to cleanse the doors of perception through the continuous, steady practice of asana and pranayama. In fact, that is all we really have the power to do anything about. And so at the heart of the practice of yoga, we’re just cleansing and clearing away what’s in the way. Once cleared, the goal of yoga naturally and spontaneously occurs.

What’s the Point of the Other Six Limbs?

So why even mention the eight limbs if all we can really do are asana and pranayama? The limbs are signposts along the journey. They’re there to let you know about the quality of your aspiration and intention in your asana and pranayama practices. In other words, if you take away the other six limbs, and all you had were the asana and pranayama, it wouldn’t be altogether clear where the journey of yoga were taking us. But given the fact that introspection, attention, and meditation “should” naturally arise along the path of yoga, if they’re not, it’s a good indicator that there is something askew with the way we’re approaching our practices. Likewise, if the yamas and niyamas become more obscure to us and more difficult to practice along the path, then that, too, is an indicator that our practice is not, in fact, supporting our transformation.

By asking myself the question, “who’s practicing”, I have the opportunity to get some space, out of the way of myself, and of the many grapplings of my ego mind.  The inquiry invites me to step away from the present thought or emotion that is taking over the moment and to step back into a space of vast, openness that is untouched by the chaos of my mind.  It reminds me of the ground of well-being that is always present, no matter what.

The mind moves towards whatever thoughts, feelings or emotions are present.  It’s conditioned to do so.  If we stay overly identified with our mind-stuff, the lens we view the world through gets too narrow and tainted by all of the vrittis (movements).   If we can remember, in the midst of the chaos, to step out of the way of whatever has a hold over us, the lens gets wider and perspective shifts.  The noise of our minds gets quieter (and eventually less interesting) and the boundless, spacious, purity of the background shines through, giving us a glimpse of Who we truly are.

My mind easily gets twisted up with anger, tiredness, laziness, grief, anxiety, you name it, I’ve got it.   If I stayed identified with any one of these emotions I may not even get out of bed in the morning let alone attempt my yoga practice.  So, each day, with every practice, I inquire, “who’s practicing?” and, slowly, slowly the feeling of spaciousness widens and the radiance brightens.  And the feeling of grace lingers just a little longer.

When I remember to pause and inquire into the nature of this “I” that is involved in all of the doing, I meet the unchanging, welcoming, perfection that has always been here and that will forever be.

This is a natural outgrowth as more and more people both learn and are touched by the method. The unfortunate thing is that it misses the point of the Mysore-style methodology, which by its nature honors each student’s constitution, body, emotions, personal development, culture, etc. The problem is that as yoga becomes increasingly popular, the practice is morphing into something that alienates the practitioner from his or her own wisdom. In the Ashtanga world this change is being called “traditional” ; however, I want to posit the notion that there is nothing traditional about it; in fact, it is an unfortunate and new result of the popularity of yoga. And if we continue to alienate our student’s innate wisdom from the practice, Mysore-style yoga will become a practice for only the select few.

Unlike led classes, the Mysore-style allows for a relationship to arise between the student and the teacher in such a way that the practice can be made to fit the student, as opposed to the other way around. In led classes, generally speaking, it is difficult for the teacher to work much on an individual basis with the student because he or she has to ensure the flow of the class as a whole. Mysore-style, however, is the equivalent of a private master class with the support of group energy. In other words, a student has the opportunity to be inspired both by the intensity of the class and the direction and support of the teacher. When a student finds his or her yoga home, indeed, it is like coming home. Both the relationship with the teacher and the class as a whole cradles and supports them in achieving yoga, however the student chooses to define that word.

Breakthroughs

Over the years, I have noticed within the Ashtanga world that yoga has increasingly become defined as the mastery of asanas as opposed to the achievement of yoga. The goal of yoga has become the need to bind the hands in marichyasana d in order to progress through primary series or stand up from a back bend in order to move to intermediate series. Frankly speaking, milestones like this are not helpful. Many, many individuals will never be able to bind in marichyasana d because constitutionally they just cannot. What often happens is that people will compromise their knees in order to get into the posture. So marichyasana d becomes the source of a medial meniscus tear. Likewise in an effort to stand up from back bends, students often injure their backs. The result of trying to master asanas is often a long-standing injury from repetitive strain. As Pattabhi Jois used to say, “Health will result from good yoga, ill-health will result from bad yoga.” Clearly, this is bad yoga.

The myth generated amongst practitioners of this method that if we push through pain, we are likely to have a breakthrough known amongst so-called ‘aficionados’of this method as an “opening.” When someone says “opening” they mean the ability to complete a posture that they could not previously complete because something opened up or let go. Most so-called ‘openings’ that I have seen over the years are repetitive strain injuries caused by a blatant disregard for the body’s signals that what they’re doing is painful. I have to admit that I stand in contrast to most so-called ‘traditional’ practitioners when I admit that, generally speaking, I don’t believe in openings. I have wanted to over the years. There have been many, many times when I have told myself and my students that the pain they’re experiencing is just an opening, but I have seen enough ‘openings’ to know that the idea is wishful thinking.

The first time I visited Mysore, in 1993, I saw a friend from New Zealand get injured in janu sirsasana c. His visit to Mysore was shortened from a three-month stay to one-month because his lateral collateral ligament had been totally ruptured. What struck me about that particular incident was that my friend had been complaining of pain in his knee. Various prominent practitioners and member of the community had advised him to keep pushing forward, that he would eventually have a breakthrough. Essentially, he was discouraged from recognizing his own pain receptors telling him that his knee was in danger.

Ashtanga is a rigorous practice and injuries do take place sometimes that are deleterious, but to overlay the problem with a false statement, like “oh, it’s just an opening” is like putting ice cream on top of crap and saying that the whole thing is ice cream, so eat it up. That’s the problem when we disregard our own common sense in place of tradition. I am not saying that it isn’t useful to look at the experience of pain and injury as an opportunity to grow or develop in a inner way. Our injuries can be some of our best teachers. What I am saying is that pain is usually an indicator that there is something wrong. It is the body’s intelligence speaking. In all the years I have been practicing and teaching, I have rarely seen the notion of breakthroughs pan out

Tradition

We all want certainty. We somehow think that if we align ourselves with a lineage that is thousands of years old, that its wisdom will keep us warm on a cold night. After all, if we look at our modern lives in reference to more traditional cultures, we can see that in many ways we are lonelier, more isolated, and have a greater propensity toward feelings of meaninglessness . I think it’s natural to want to align oneself with the  old and great traditions in order to feel a part of something greater.

Unfortunately, more often than not, we see individuals clinging to traditions that are foreign or “other” who may in some sense find a connection but often are, likewise, cut-off from themselves. One of our students told me that when she discovered yoga and its teachings, that she was so enamored by the truth of the words that she heard and the practice, that she decided to park her old, lonely self at the door in order to embrace the teachings fully. Through our discussions together, she discovered that what she had done is cut herself off from sides of herself, wisdom and intelligence that had been cultivated for years before her introduction to the practice. And by parking her lonely self at the door, she cut off from those sides of herself that needed tending to. Since making that decision, she felt very satisfied when reading about, discussing, or practicing yoga, but her parked problems kept nagging her. Eventually through probing, she came to discover that the true test of the practice was to use them on those parts of herself that felt lonely and isolated as a way to discover the their actual power.

When I started yoga, I remember there being a sort of strict division between Ashtanga and Iyengar practitioners. Somehow for the Iyengar yogis, we had it all wrong. We lacked alignment and precision, and every one of us was prone to injury. And we thought they had it all wrong. Their practice was totally boring, static, and mental. As Ashtanga has become increasingly popular in the last few years, I have seen this division between practitioners within the method itself that is similar, either you’re traditional or you aren’t. This idea of being ‘traditional’ is a new creation. It simply didn’t exist until recently. Not that the method wasn’t exact. Indeed, it was, but because the room in Mysore was so small, each individual was tended to in a unique way. Many of Guruji’s old students, including myself, will tell you that he would tell one person one thing about a particular asana or about the method as a whole and then absolutely contradict himself with someone else.

This idea that somehow the method is monolithic, ancient, perfect, and precise is something we wish were true but isn’t. Pattabhi Jois said that he received the teachings exactly as he taught them from his teacher, Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who learned the method from his teacher, Rama Mohan Brahmachari, and so on. The idea is that at no time was the system tainted, but, instead, it was passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years in pristine form. The system is linked to a source text no longer in existence called the Yoga Korunta, which was supposedly written by a sage named Vamana Rishi and was imparted from Rama Mohan Brahmachari to Krishnamacharya. At some point the text was written on palm leaves, which were in the safe keeping of Pattabhi Jois, as the legend goes, but somehow insects destroyed the text. All of this description creates the myth that somehow the practice has some profound history and its transmission has been untainted from time immemorial.

But in purusing the notion of tradition a bit further, I came across The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace by N.E. Sjoman. Sjoman makes the following compelling argument: the yoga system taught by Krishnamacharya comes from a merging of gymnastics with yoga. The author drew his conclusions by mining the royal library in Mysore, where Krishnamacharya taught during the time he taught Pattabhi Jois. Krishnamacharya was appointed to the Mysore Palace in the early 1930s to teach yoga to the Arasu boys, the maternal relatives of the royal family. Through the patronage of Nalvadi Krishanarja Woodeyar, he opened a yoga shala or yoga school which continued until 1950. The author makes a very compelling argument that Krishnamacharya not only developed the Ashtanga system as taught by Pattabhi Jois during his tenure in Mysore, but that he drew on elements of gymnastics and Indian wrestling.

So, not only is it a misnomer that somehow the system has been perfectly sustained for thousands of years, it is easily argued that the system was created in the 1930s to some degree or another and has sources outside of the yoga tradition. And in the bit of history we have of Ashtanga from the vantage of point of long-time Western practitioners, one can see that the system has been changed to one degree or another since 1973. Postures have been added and subtracted. The length or duration of holding postures has been changed. Even sequences have been changed. Third series today is only a fraction of the old Advanced A series and its sequencing has changed somewhat. Students who completed first were moved on to second without the barrier of getting up from backbends. Pranayama was taught after completing primary series initially. Then eventually, it was taught after completing intermediate series. Now, supposedly, it is taught after completing Third series. To say that the practice has sanctity through historicity just is not true. It is a living, changing phenomena.

The New Tradition

And as the method is being passed to the next generation of practitioners, it continues to mold and change. So to say that there is a ‘traditional’ way to practice doesn’t actually mean that there is this vast history that supports it. Instead, what traditional means is what is currently being taught in Mysore at the given moment. Pattabhi Jois’ family, essentially determines the ‘traditional’ nature of things. And as the torch has been passed on to his Jois’ grandson, Sharath, he currently determines what, in fact, is traditional.

The notion of standing up from backbends in order to progress to intermediate series was created by Sharath. This is just one so-called ‘tradition’ that has recently been added to the practice in order to manage the influx of students coming to Mysore. So many people show up in Mysore today that it is increasingly impossible for the teacher to give much individual instruction. In order to counter this, every Friday and Sunday, led classes are given. Led classes, generally did not exist before Pattabhi Jois moved from his yoga shala in Lakshmipuram to his shala in Gokulam. In addition, more focus is being played on backbends than ever before. Essentially the tradition is going through another metamorphosis and is being influenced by the influx of people attracted to the power of yoga.

That being said, tradition is based upon agreement. When that agreement lacks discrimination the risk of damage can be great. I write this because the practice and community have meant so much to me. I hate to see Ashtanga Yoga go in this direction. What lead me to the practice, in the first place, was the fact that individuality was honored. Each of us who maintains the practice has a stake in maintaining its authenticity and longevity. My personal stake is that as Ashtanga continue to develop that it continues to honor the individual rather continuing to evolve  into a one-size-fits-all method in the name of tradition.