Category: Choice

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About the Body: Being Present

Our bodies are fields of vibration.  It’s obvious right? Even though it feels woo.  My teeth are denser than my muscles…that means that they are at a lower vibration.  They are more solid. 

An exercise we can use to experience this directly is to focus internally from the densest to the subtle-est. Bones and muscles,  tendons and ligaments, internal organs and the fascial tissue that weaves it all together, and then the boundary of the skin, then feeling the air on the skin.  You can experiment with this yourself. Don’t hesitate to use your imagination to connect with the various parts of the body. 

This simple exercise is priceless in terms of becoming aware of our bodies in time and space.  Often we aren’t in our bodies! We are thinking about past and future…using the imaginal mind to unfurl stories and memories which exist only in our minds.  – when we open our eyes they aren’t here any more, or they don’t exist yet. 

If you’ve ever attended a Vipassana meditation retreat you may have done a simpler more diffuse body scan to begin your meditation practice.

Bringing our attention, focus and awareness back into our bodies is an essential part of the transformation power of yoga.  As we learn to be present to the body in this spacious non-judgmental way, the emotional wounds the body carries can be healed.  The power of this cannot be overestimated.  Carrying a body full of memory interferes with our capacity to fill our present moments with newness- the fullness of our love our creativity. 

Was this useful for you?  I hope so.  If it was I encourage your to sign up for my newsletter.  Once a week or so …its yoga information and inspiration based.  No sales, but I do share songs I love that might be fun additions to you practice.

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The Fruits of Yoga: Awakening into the Experience of Infinity

About the body

II.47 Patanjali Yoga Sutra Steadiness and ease of posture is to be achieved through persistent slight effort and through the concentration of the mind upon the infinit

II.48 Patanjali Yoga Sutra When this is attained the pairs of opposites no longer limit.

(translation of Sutras by Alice Bailey)

One of the techniques from the classical practices which is really powerful in uniting the two opposites is something called moola bandha.  Moolah is “root” and Banda is lock,  and the experience of moola bandha or root lock can be activated by several different approaches.

On the physical level a very simple way to begin to activate this root lock is to engage in lift the space between the anus and the genitals. Bring your attention to the area and attempt to draw it up and in toward your navel.  Now hold that for your entire practice while breathing at the same time.  For me, to be honest, I have the best luck with this if I work with it in seated forward bends and standing postures.  Some yogi’s can perform this to an extent they levitate the body.  In my opinion working with it on both levels is useful, and working with it simply is safer. 

On and energetic level what moolah bandha does is move the energy in an energy center called the mooladhara chakra(the root chakra) which energizes the entire pelvic girdle. To directly experience our energy requires patience and the cultivation of a subtler level of attention.  But for some, this is easier.  Just know that if you keep practicing consistently and well you will have tangible experiences of this kind of energy and be able to learn to manage it.  As a matter of fact we all feel our energy all the time.  Some examples are the experiences of sexual desire or butterflies in the stomach. When we’re focused on identification with our sexual identity,  our financial identity our tribal identity and our identity as a body (as opposed to as a spiritual being) the energy of this center moves out into the material world. We may notice this as an experience of deep fatigue. The energy also moves outward if we seek our answers outside of ourselves, rather than listening within.

 When we work with Moola Bandha this way of looking at ourselves and looking for answers shifts. We begin to wake up to a different way of understanding our lives –  what are we creating, how we participate in the larger community of the universe, what is our personal path of love and what is our authentic expression. When we start asking these kinds of questions, looking in these directions for the answers to the questions that arise in our lives Moola Bandha is activated on an energetic level. When it’s activated on an energetic level it often spontaneously arises on a physical level as well.  The trick is to keep the state of mind as you re-engage the external world.

 A powerful way to support the physical practice of moola bandha is to shift our attention towards these universal considerations while we practice.  Our attention will work harmoniously with the physical contraction of the space between the anus and the genitals.  By working these two aspects together we activate a powerfully gentle form of transformation. How do we shift our attention while we are in our practice? Shouldn’t our attention during our practice be on our practice?  I encourage you to ask those questions when you are on your mat in your personal practice. There are as many approaches to this integration as there are people practicing yoga.  Some people meditate before practice. Some people chant before practice. Some pray.   Some extend the benefit of their practice to others or take a moment to envision that somehow as the practice transforms them  – that the world around them will transform into a peaceful world where beings are happy and free.  The possibilities are endless hence Patanjali’s statement about the limits.     The important thing is to consider incorporating these kinds of techniques into your practice on a physical level.  In actual practice an effective moola bandha will show up in a lightness – a freedom of movement,  a steadiness of the mind,  and a stability in the grounding of the posture. It may also show up as a different understanding of yourself in the practice and this I will leave you to discover on your own!

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Awakening Inner Authority

Teacher and student- the heart of yoga

Balancing on your own two arms – it’s a heart thing💖

In the newsletter this month we’ve been focusing on the relationship between teacher and student. By understanding the ideal dynamic of that relationship in classical practice we can enhance our capacity to learn yoga well on our own or with outer teachers. 

When looking to external sources for guidance, information, understanding – there is a transfer of authority involved in the learning. We learn by imbuing a source with authority. To learn we must be willing to consider that the external source has valid and relevant understanding of what we want to learn, and we must be willing to try on, sincerely, what they have to offer- to be open to it.  At this time scientists and doctors are held up as the pinnacle of valid authority-in other cultures in other times shamans and mystics are revered authorities. For some, journalists are valid authority. Judges are authorities in our culture.   

From the yoga perspective authority is not inherent in any of those people. Others confer that authority on them.  True authority exists on a whole other level – in the realm of inner wisdom that we all have access to. Scientific findings are replaced, legal decisions are over turned, medical advice is found to be wrong.  From the yoga perspective relative authorities like these can be useful but the truest of authorities is the limitless consciousness that we can access by looking within ourselves – beyond intellect, beyond knowledge in the deep silence.

Regardless of your reasons for practicing yoga it’s likely your mind has quieted down through the practice – revealing glimpses of peace and stillness.  This inner fount of silence and peace is also the source of ultimate authority.  It’s not your personality, it’s not your intellect-it’s the place inside you where your true potential resides waiting to be revealed. The more we choose to connect with it the more that silent wisdom self pervades our point of view.

So how do we access this fount consistently? Asana (postural) practice is a big part of this – by staying peaceful in an uncomfortable position we train ourselves to access this peaceful place at will.  There are layers to this….first we just stay an extra breath and then another and then another. Next we practice staying focused on the breath rather than  discomfort.  Once we have mastered that we can bring ease into the posture by softening gripping resistance.  Then in that space of wisdom and peace we can mindfully press more deeply into our alignment or our depth in the posture with wisdom. Press forward with wisdom.

As you practice nurturing this peace within while on your mat, it might be worthwhile to practice accessing that quiet space within when challenged to make a choice.  Test the wisdom.  This process of testing the wisdom born of silence can be helpful in making a relationship with our inner authority.  We begin to recognize the difference between acting from our fear or our wisdom, and our faith in this subtle deeper wisdom grows.  We begin to reclaim the authority that we may have given away to the world around us.

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Yoga, Freedom and Moving into Sovereignty

The focus this moon month in the newsletter is freedom or in Sanskrit, Mukti.  Mukti translates as “liberation”,  freedom, and it’s important to understand that freedom in the sense of yoga is different than freedom in of our day-to-day life – although they are related. We may think that having tons of money would be freedom or rebelling against social conventions would be freedom. Freedom is not inherent in those experiences.  Ask anyone who has very large amounts of money or who has lived in the counterculture for a long time and in their story you will hear of the oppressions that still remain.  In yoga  freedom is something that we develop inside ourselves as we cease identifying with the fluctuations (vritti’s) of our mind. That’s the  second sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. The fluctuations of our mind frequently take the form of how we think of ourselves, how we think of others and how we think of the world we live in. These mental constructs can become rigid and block our ability to be open and spacious and, well, liberated.  The freedom of the yogi comes in the form of an inner sovereignty which allows us to become the masters of our own minds and to use that freedom to choose the path of love over and over again.

Yoga is a discipline that leads to freedom The practices of yoga involve experiencing certain kinds of restraint and under those conditions finding the freedom there. When the  restraint is lifted you have a different understanding of who you are. Restraint comes in the form of tying yourself in a knot in an awkward posture and remaining peaceful.  Restraint can mean  being willing to suspend our immediate desires in order to allow a higher state of wisdom consciousness to guide our actions.

When we tie ourselves in a knot in a posture we stir up the deep resistances we have to living.  The knots are knots within our consciousness and so the goal is that to breathe, to be present to what’s happening and not fight with it. Consider this first level of freedom one that you could find contentment even when circumstances around you are not to your liking.  That’s a tremendous amount of freedom. Sometimes for whatever reason it’s not the best idea to change a circumstance. Even though it’s uncomfortable, it’s better to be strong. This capacity is honed in the practice of asana.  Accept the limitation, breathe be still and allow your inner guidance to direct you step by step to moving beyond the limitation into a deeper expression of the posture.

This kind of yoga training reveals discernment – the capacity to understand if our impulses are coming from our authentic heart desires or our desire to control. It’s a powerful means of developing aligned autonomous inspired choice making. Sovereignty. It is a gift of the yoga practice born of moment by moment alignment with self and that is the freedom. Rather than having others dictate who we are or who we become  or what actions we take in our lives we are free to take action in alignment with our highest best interest.  Yoga will take us to a healthy and beautiful body of all different kinds of shapes and sizes but this is the heart of the yoga  – this sovereignty and the freedom that emerges through practice.

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The Elements of Sadhana: Santosha- Contentment

In the newsletters we’ve been talking about creating a sadhana – a conscious spiritual practice of yoga, a discipline of yoga as conscious spiritual practice. This past week I introduced the mahavratam or great vows outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. These vows aren’t something that Patanjali devised – he compiled them from studying with the esteemed yoga masters of the day (which was some time a few  thousand years ago no precise date is known).  There are ten of them. They are often considered to be moral imperatives. In practice I’ve found it more useful and more authentic  – I get better results – if I let that idea of morality go and open up to practicing them whenever and however I can, trusting that they are actually learning devices for me.  Through practicing them I open to understanding who I am and who everyone else is.  As I open to understanding I make better  choices. The ten mahavratam are: nonviolence, non stealing,  adherence to truth, continence, non- hoarding, cleanliness, contentment, austerity, self- reflection and devotion. In the newsletter I briefly talked about the practice of saucha or cleanliness. Today I’d like to speak a little bit about contentment, or santosha. 

One thing to consider when practicing these – they’re also called yamas and niyamas, restraints and observances – is that we are always creating. We are creative beings – extensions of the divine, which is the creative energy of the universe, the supreme creative energy of the universe. This is an underlying paradigm of the yoga practice.  The yoga practice will reveal that we a specks of divine creative consciousness – and we can live from that truth. This is co-creating, which is yoga – to be yoked to the divine. The restraints and observances clear the palette of our consciousness, enabling creativity which is unbridled by our past. 

 With yoga the idea is that creating in alignment  with the infinite divine opens the doorway to limitless possibilities- and that wisdom, that intelligence – will create richer more satisfying possibilities than our personalities with their cravings and conditioned attunement to lack. If we choose it, these practices deepen our understanding of the elements of a good life.  This is partly why I encourage you to set aside the idea that they are imposed morality.  Practiced lovingly, they open the way to a delicious abundant live.  Less is more. 

With the practice of santosha or contentment this connection between our behaviors our beliefs our thoughts in the world that we experience is made very clear. 

Perhaps in your life you have met those or perhaps you’ve been in this space yourself ( I know I have been) where you feel a need to complain about everything. I’ve seen a real uptick in this during the COVID situation. 

 I think we can all agree there is much to be addressed in the world., but right now we have to accept what’s happened and what is happening and learn to work with it. Shaking our fists at a perceived enemy is unlikely to change the world…changing ourselves is likely to change the world, not only because we engage those conversations differently. 

But let’s think back to the before time – before COVID – and remember those days in offices or classrooms or social gatherings where we or our friends or neighbors or our family would lapse into days where we complained and complained and complained. Surely we’ve all known in ourselves or others that momentum that complaining develops – once you start complaining there just seems to be more to complain about. The yogis understood this very deeply through their meditations , analysis and self reflection. The practice of contentment is to practice contentment under all circumstances that’s a key of these mahavratam – under all circumstances.   So in any moment (the grandeur of universality demands we operate one moment at a time) when faced with complaining, we choose contentment.  It’s like putting down a heavy object.  “I just don’t want to carry the weight of my complaints, so I’m a gonna put this down, right here.”  It’ll be okay.  Once we’ve entered a quieter state of mind, wise action can emerge more clearly. 

What does that mean – in the yoga practice – to work a difficult situation? Perhaps it is to rest in the understanding that you’ve participated in the creation of it and take responsibility for the fact that you’re there. You skip the blame (of yourself and others) you skip the victim story and nurture and invite the ability to see the situation differently.  Liberation arises when we realize there is no one to blame.  The practice of contentment opens our minds so that we are able to see that. To be honest, in content I perceive that there is nothing to complain about.  It’s all perfect.  But to deeply know that feeling we have to practice.  

One of the ways that we can train ourselves in the vast practice of contentment is to practice on our yoga mats. One of the most obvious powerful and potent ways to do this is to be content with a posture even as you are working to transform it. Where I am is fine but I’d like to deepen it. I’d like to expand it; I’d like to move to the next expression of it. So the first part of that is to enjoy every posture just where you are with it. This is one of the reasons why the postures that we can’t do are so important. As I say this I realize that this is one of the biggest difficulties of a home practice is that we never bump into those postures that we don’t like. At the same time if the classes available around us are not suitable – to force ourselves to go into a class that is just full of difficulties makes no sense either.  So what can be a good idea in your practice is to add a small step towards a posture that you would like to attain someday. For me right now this is wheel urdva dhanurasana. 

 I had an accident last fall where my wrist was smashed. I’ve consciously decided to recover slowly. In my full practice days I would do three full or wheel postures every day.  Wow right?  To me that seems like wow.  I was never a born gymnast. That posture has intense ramifications on the wrist and feels remote to me but at a certain point I had an intuition a revelation that in fact I would be able to do it again in this lifetime So what I’m going to practice this moon month is to sit at the wall and take a camel posture and place my hands on the wall. A highly modified introduction to the movement that would lead to wheel. And I am content.. This is the beauty of modifications in yoga. What they do is – if you practice them fully,happily embracing what the modification has to offer you – it’s actually like working the full posture you develop the shape energetically on a deep level and it opens from the inside out. One day your’re ready and the full posture emerges – like a chuck busting out of an egg. 

So how do we learn about modifications if we’d like to incorporate them in our sadhana?  I highly recommend them even if you don’t have an injury. Spend some time in modified postures.  By working with the modifications you’ll learn some of the paradigms of postural yoga. We’re very fortunate to live in an opulent world where there’s all kinds of information about yoga on the Internet so I’m sure you can find some information about modifications there.  As far as books books go and even Internet the best school of yoga from which to learn about modifications is the Iyengar school so I encourage you to look into that when choosing postures to work in your sadana. 

Once you’ve practiced santosha on your mat for some time don’t be surprised if you  catch yourself practicing it in your life.  You don’t have to make a big trip out of doing all of these mahavratam.  Just know that they can extend to all circumstances, and they’re not limited.  Your contentment is not limited to certain circumstances.  You can start practicing them in certain circumstances until you feel confident to apply them in more challenging circumstances.  

OK that’s our blog post for today. As always it’s my sincere wish that this information be useful to you and that your practice will lead you to a blessed and wonderful life. 

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Experiencing Yoga:  Overcoming Obstacles within – without

This month in class – as we practice asana, we are holding space for the understanding of yoga as presented in the first pada or book of the timeless text Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. In this pada Patanjali lays out the arc of yoga – he spells out the origin and result of the practice as well as  some fundamentals of practice itself.  He also spells out the inner and outer obstacles.  This is important.  Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people in the world find well-being in yoga.  We all want that  well-being, but, well, maybe we just don’t feel like we can do yoga. My teacher once taught me that the hardest part of yoga was just getting to class. Do you have obstacles? What are they?  As a yogi, I confront those obstacles daily. As a yoga teacher, my life is filled with persons telling me why they can’t practice — at job interviews, at the bank, at the dinner table and in the grocery store.    Hey, maybe you just don’t want to! Nothing wrong with that!  But if you do want to, acknowledging the obstacles and being willing to engage them can be a powerful move forward towards actually becoming stable in your practice. It’s really important to note that Patanjali spells out both inner obstacles (our thoughtforms) and outer obstacles (i.e.not feeling well). Adopting a two pronged approach to address these two apparently separate dimensions of our being can be a powerful catapult into a strong practice.

For many of us, the outer obstacles seem to be the easiest to focus on in the beginning.  It seems that  if there was just a little less traffic we could get there.  But, from the perspective of yoga, the outer obstacles always have an inner corollary.  The outer obstacles Patanjali identifies are: illness, laziness, negligence, the attraction of pleasures, confusion about the practice, attachment to the way things are and a tendency to fall back on old habits.  The inner barriers to the experience of yoga are the various thoughtforms that we have been conditioned to believe are true and unchangeable (“I’m not athletic – never have been since I was a kid”).    The solution to the equation is yoga.  In the samadhi pada Patanjali describes the experience of yoga arising as we shift away from identification with our conditioned thoughtforms and engage with and identify with the ground of consciousness which is fresh and clear and unfettered. 

Arm balances – historically – have always been a big struggle for me.  It took seven years for me to do a handstand.  When I finally stood on my hands, it was a surprise.  My physical effort had been minimal; linking to some measure of illumined consciousness had been maximal.  It’s a story I lived many times in my years of practice.  Today, faith in myself and a willingness to let go and link up with a more illumined perspective is still essential to my practice.  If that linkage wobbles, so does my posture.  But what I saw in that moment of my first handstand was that I had held myself down with the belief that I could not support myself with my own two hands.  To be honest, that epitomizes much of my life journey and my journey through yoga.  It’s been a journey from dependence to independence. 

The first step is a little bit of willingness to see what our inner thought forms are.  We don’t have to worry about changing them.  A willingness to consider that they are there can go a long way towards dissolving them.  Patanjali identifies them as:

  • What we’ve learned intellectually from valid sources
  • What we’ve learned intellectually from invalid sources
  • Hearsay – what we’ve heard about, but have never experienced.
  • The arising of states of non-wakefulness (sleepiness)
  • Recall – drawing forth of past experiences (memory)

Because the obstacles can be so deeply embedded in our programming it does take a bit of faith to get on the mat at all.  But if we desire the sovereignty to deeply transform ourselves and our world that desire can propel us along in our practice until faith in the practice emerges.  It’s all in what you focus on.

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Compilation of Newsletters for the April Moon Month

Kundalini Image

Compilation of Newsletters for the April Moon Month

Arundhati, the Awakening of Creation

This word arose in my awareness this month as I took a glance at The Hatha Yoga Pradipika scribed by Swami Swatmarama.  The translation I read, issued by the Bihar School in India, contained commentary by Swami Muktibodandanda of the lineage of Swami Sivananda Saraswati.  While the  text is thought to have been scribed in the centuries after 6 AD, it claims it’s mystical roots in the primordial origins of the sacred knowledge of Hatha Yoga from the beginning of time.  Swami Muktabonananda mentions Arundhati as another name for  kundalini, the powerful feminine creative source, which resides dormant and resting in the terrain of the subtle energy body commonly associated with the cradle of the pelvic bowl.  Muktabodananda breaks the word Arundhati down into “arun” translated as “dawn” and “dhati” which he translates to mean to “generate” or “create”. The dawning of a new creation.   Arundhata, he adds, means unobstructed.  It’s a  powerful description of the potent and mysterious creative potential within each and every one of us, and a clue to tapping into the potential of our yoga practice.  Hatha Yoga in it’s essential expression is a discipline in the management and effective direction of this creative force, leading us to a place of full alignment with  and expression of our sacred potential in this world and beyond.

Folklore runneth over with tales of the power and pitfalls of awakening this goddess force.  The most famous teller of these tales is Gopi Krishna who wrote a book about the unexpected eruption of his kundalini force and the trials and tribulations of having the energy charge through his body.  Any time we encounter powerful expressions of feminine creative forces it’s good to consider that, historically, feminine power has been feared and this has resulted in a great deal of distortion of information related to these energies.  My experience in energy work while working with students and clients over the years is that the awakening of this force does not have to be violent or disruptive.  It does not require forceful action to ignite it (although you can try that if you want).  It’s part of human evolution that it organically awakens when we have certain experiences, some of which are the practices of yoga.  Yoga ignites it and supports in the management and direction of  the energy.  What is important is how well prepared you are and how well you are able to sustain a healthy environment for the unfolding of this energy.

When the energy is managed in a balanced and well directed manner, what unfolds is gentle awakenings and shifts in perspective and understanding.  The way this is cultivated, is through balance.  In the simplest sense, creating an environment in the body, mind and life which is neither aggressive nor passive (think easefully assertive), neither nurturing of depression nor anger (think peace), and vaster than self absorption (think relating) will create a habitat for a productive and rich unfolding. Nurturing  a balanced state allows the process to be one of healing, rather than a struggle to control.

When the energy is directed in an uplifting but grounded  fashion,  the creative process reflects a spiritually evolutionary journey, and an important one.  It’s the upliftment that leads us to a higher vision, the transcendence of a mundane understanding of the world we live in.  What is the use of this?  A well balanced cultivated transcendence nurtures an empowered and liberating perspective.  It opens us up to our capacity to choose.  In a gentle and non-reactive way, we learn, step by step, to function without feeling trapped in the confirmed of the opinions or perceptions of those around us.  WE are opened to align with our inner truth across the varying facets of our person — from our relationship to our body to our relationship with our higher power and everything in between (in realms of love, power, creativity).

OM

From Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra:  1.28-1.29:

Repeat the sound of Om and all is revealed.  This anchors one in inner consciousness and dissolves obstacles.

This month we are investigating the direction and management of or essential creative  force, known by many names, primarily kundalini, but this month I’m thinking of it as Arundhati.  This week we’ll begin by exploring the most simple and fundamental technique for managing this energy, and that is Om.

Om is vibrationally whole.  It contains within it every sound, and every possible vibration so it is the closest thing to totality that we can merge with materially.  When we focus on parts – this or that – then our creative force becomes divided. This can diminish clarity and inhibit the yogic process.

Om is beyond language.  Beyond language there is no limit – we can create something wholly new and not yet conceived of.  Beyond language we are not bound to create within that which already can be named.

The resonance of Om permeates all levels of our being – the physical, emotional, mental and  spiritual so it’s capacity to illuminate unity impacts all of the dimensions of who we are.

Practically, how does this mystical practice pan out?  Well, when you have a moment of conflict, within or without.  Stop and Om, inside or out and allow yourself to tune into the sound and feel, it will uplift the energy and pull into the center.  Before practice, it points us in the right direction.

The Straight Arrow

To begin with:  It’s said that no effort in yoga  is ever lost.  It stays with you forever – no matter how clumsy the attempt.

The bottom line? In it’s purest form, the Arundhati (another term for the primordial sacred energy kundalini) travels through the energy channels along the spine, easily piercing the tangles and moving upward directly toward illuminated consciousness.  The only thing that can create this experience is pure devotion.  One instant of pure devotion to a spiritual ideal, love, truth or God, can be sufficient.  In an instant Arundhati’s journey is complete and we experience the Truth of everything.  The purity of the devotion comes from an unadulterated desire to experience that spiritual ideal.

Unadulterated is one word which could reflect this, uninterrupted is another one.  That would mean never wavering into lack of faith or anger or delusion about the state of affairs in the universe – meaning that we have right relationship to both our spiritual lives and our material lives in an undivided way.  Holding the space for both of them as the waves of life press against us.

In the tales of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (ancient Indian epics which illuminate the principles of yoga), the heart of the stories revolve around archery, the greatness of the archers and the dedication to their craft.  The stories illuminate the rewards of accomplishment and the pitfalls which deter the practitioners as well.  Author Ramesh Menon, one translator of these epics, details the nature and the precision of a well-aimed arrow – the all-consuming focus and calculation required.  The target is determined,  and at the beginning of the arrow’s journey it is positioned in such a way that one would expect it to travel smoothly through varying conditions  towards it’s destination – the target.  To have such expertise and insight is phenomenal.

In a pure classical yoga practice there is only one target – the state of yoga.  If we aren’t aiming for that target, well that’s okay, the effect is never lost.  This is a spiritual principle, but you may have already observed it’s a physical one too.  You may have experienced  that when an asana aligns it’s more of a discovery than an accomplishment and after a break in practice you move back to the level of accomplishment more swiftly than the initial journey. The point is that all practice is sustainable on some level.

These detours of the straight line of Arundhati aren’t always errors.  Sometimes they are little side trips into discoveries and experiences which are helpful.  The yoga practice teaches us that just about any action or experience when offered with a sense of devotion, can serve to establish the right direction in the inner flow of our consciousness.

It’s All Good

We started the month speaking about the creative force Arundhati, most often known as kundalini.  We spoke of how this force can be violently awakened, or naturally awakened.  We’ve used spaciousness in the hips to gently open the channels surrounding the energy in it’s dormant state, and focused on our third eye centers to encourage the energy in an upward direction.  Is that it?  Is that Yoga?  Well, these are practices of yoga, but in the experience of “YOGA”, the state of union arises unites and ignites the central energy channel, the sushumna, from our roots to our crowns.  Then, there is union, there is yoga, there is bliss, there is understanding and wisdom.

So how do we do this?  Let’s take a simple decision.  Should I eat chocolate chips or carrots?  The mind flips from one to the other, “good” “bad” “black” “white” “sun” ‘moon” “right” “left”.  This movement of the mind is reflected in the channels of energy by movement from right to left, left to right.  We fluctuate.  Patanjali says that Yoga occurs when the fluctuations are no longer dominant.  Stop.  Breath.  Lift the pelvic floor. Focus on the 3rd eye center.  Center!!

Maybe the first time or the millionth time you do this the creative energy moves fully into the central channel and you move out of duality.  If you are all in, roots to crown, mind and heart, you move out of duality.  “Carrots good, chocolate chips good.  It’s all good”.  This is the union of the sun and the moon.  Opposites and fluctuations between apparent opposites no longer exist.  Any choice made from that point of view is beyond duality.  There is no wrong choice.  We become the Om itself.  Yogis absorbed in this Om state experience profound healing.  We are yoked to the cosmos within and without on a sublime level.  Don’t forge…Om is a technique which will get you there, as well, it’s the journey and the destination.

On a practical level we step into the flow.  Everyone experiences this state of union organically from time to time.  The practices of yoga allow us to cultivate them intentionally.

Compilation of Newsletters for the April Moon Month

Arundhati, the Awakening of Creation

This word arose in my awareness this month as I took a glance at The Hatha Yoga Pradipika scribed by Swami Swatmarama.  The translation I read, issued by the Bihar School in India, contained commentary by Swami Muktibodandanda of the lineage of Swami Sivananda Saraswati.  While the  text is thought to have been scribed in the centuries after 6 AD, it claims it’s mystical roots in the primordial origins of the sacred knowledge of Hatha Yoga from the beginning of time.  Swami Muktabonananda mentions Arundhati as another name for  kundalini, the powerful feminine creative source, which resides dormant and resting in the terrain of the subtle energy body commonly associated with the cradle of the pelvic bowl.  Muktabodananda breaks the word Arundhati down into “arun” translated as “dawn” and “dhati” which he translates to mean to “generate” or “create”. The dawning of a new creation.   Arundhata, he adds, means unobstructed.  It’s a  powerful description of the potent and mysterious creative potential within each and every one of us, and a clue to tapping into the potential of our yoga practice.  Hatha Yoga in it’s essential expression is a discipline in the management and effective direction of this creative force, leading us to a place of full alignment with  and expression of our sacred potential in this world and beyond.

Folklore runneth over with tales of the power and pitfalls of awakening this goddess force.  The most famous teller of these tales is Gopi Krishna who wrote a book about the unexpected eruption of his kundalini force and the trials and tribulations of having the energy charge through his body.  Any time we encounter powerful expressions of feminine creative forces it’s good to consider that, historically, feminine power has been feared and this has resulted in a great deal of distortion of information related to these energies.  My experience in energy work while working with students and clients over the years is that the awakening of this force does not have to be violent or disruptive.  It does not require forceful action to ignite it (although you can try that if you want).  It’s part of human evolution that it organically awakens when we have certain experiences, some of which are the practices of yoga.  Yoga ignites it and supports in the management and direction of  the energy.  What is important is how well prepared you are and how well you are able to sustain a healthy environment for the unfolding of this energy.

When the energy is managed in a balanced and well directed manner, what unfolds is gentle awakenings and shifts in perspective and understanding.  The way this is cultivated, is through balance.  In the simplest sense, creating an environment in the body, mind and life which is neither aggressive nor passive (think easefully assertive), neither nurturing of depression nor anger (think peace), and vaster than self absorption (think relating) will create a habitat for a productive and rich unfolding. Nurturing  a balanced state allows the process to be one of healing, rather than a struggle to control.

When the energy is directed in an uplifting but grounded  fashion,  the creative process reflects a spiritually evolutionary journey, and an important one.  It’s the upliftment that leads us to a higher vision, the transcendence of a mundane understanding of the world we live in.  What is the use of this?  A well balanced cultivated transcendence nurtures an empowered and liberating perspective.  It opens us up to our capacity to choose.  In a gentle and non-reactive way, we learn, step by step, to function without feeling trapped in the confirmed of the opinions or perceptions of those around us.  WE are opened to align with our inner truth across the varying facets of our person — from our relationship to our body to our relationship with our higher power and everything in between (in realms of love, power, creativity).

OM

From Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra:  1.28-1.29:

Repeat the sound of Om and all is revealed.  This anchors one in inner consciousness and dissolves obstacles.

This month we are investigating the direction and management of or essential creative  force, known by many names, primarily kundalini, but this month I’m thinking of it as Arundhati.  This week we’ll begin by exploring the most simple and fundamental technique for managing this energy, and that is Om.

Om is vibrationally whole.  It contains within it every sound, and every possible vibration so it is the closest thing to totality that we can merge with materially.  When we focus on parts – this or that – then our creative force becomes divided. This can diminish clarity and inhibit the yogic process.

Om is beyond language.  Beyond language there is no limit – we can create something wholly new and not yet conceived of.  Beyond language we are not bound to create within that which already can be named.

The resonance of Om permeates all levels of our being – the physical, emotional, mental and  spiritual so it’s capacity to illuminate unity impacts all of the dimensions of who we are.

Practically, how does this mystical practice pan out?  Well, when you have a moment of conflict, within or without.  Stop and Om, inside or out and allow yourself to tune into the sound and feel, it will uplift the energy and pull into the center.  Before practice, it points us in the right direction.

The Straight Arrow

To begin with:  It’s said that no effort in yoga  is ever lost.  It stays with you forever – no matter how clumsy the attempt.

The bottom line? In it’s purest form, the Arundhati (another term for the primordial sacred energy kundalini) travels through the energy channels along the spine, easily piercing the tangles and moving upward directly toward illuminated consciousness.  The only thing that can create this experience is pure devotion.  One instant of pure devotion to a spiritual ideal, love, truth or God, can be sufficient.  In an instant Arundhati’s journey is complete and we experience the Truth of everything.  The purity of the devotion comes from an unadulterated desire to experience that spiritual ideal.

Unadulterated is one word which could reflect this, uninterrupted is another one.  That would mean never wavering into lack of faith or anger or delusion about the state of affairs in the universe – meaning that we have right relationship to both our spiritual lives and our material lives in an undivided way.  Holding the space for both of them as the waves of life press against us.

In the tales of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (ancient Indian epics which illuminate the principles of yoga), the heart of the stories revolve around archery, the greatness of the archers and the dedication to their craft.  The stories illuminate the rewards of accomplishment and the pitfalls which deter the practitioners as well.  Author Ramesh Menon, one translator of these epics, details the nature and the precision of a well-aimed arrow – the all-consuming focus and calculation required.  The target is determined,  and at the beginning of the arrow’s journey it is positioned in such a way that one would expect it to travel smoothly through varying conditions  towards it’s destination – the target.  To have such expertise and insight is phenomenal.

In a pure classical yoga practice there is only one target – the state of yoga.  If we aren’t aiming for that target, well that’s okay, the effect is never lost.  This is a spiritual principle, but you may have already observed it’s a physical one too.  You may have experienced  that when an asana aligns it’s more of a discovery than an accomplishment and after a break in practice you move back to the level of accomplishment more swiftly than the initial journey. The point is that all practice is sustainable on some level.

These detours of the straight line of Arundhati aren’t always errors.  Sometimes they are little side trips into discoveries and experiences which are helpful.  The yoga practice teaches us that just about any action or experience when offered with a sense of devotion, can serve to establish the right direction in the inner flow of our consciousness.

It’s All Good

We started the month speaking about the creative force Arundhati, most often known as kundalini.  We spoke of how this force can be violently awakened, or naturally awakened.  We’ve used spaciousness in the hips to gently open the channels surrounding the energy in it’s dormant state, and focused on our third eye centers to encourage the energy in an upward direction.  Is that it?  Is that Yoga?  Well, these are practices of yoga, but in the experience of “YOGA”, the state of union arises unites and ignites the central energy channel, the sushumna, from our roots to our crowns.  Then, there is union, there is yoga, there is bliss, there is understanding and wisdom.

So how do we do this?  Let’s take a simple decision.  Should I eat chocolate chips or carrots?  The mind flips from one to the other, “good” “bad” “black” “white” “sun” ‘moon” “right” “left”.  This movement of the mind is reflected in the channels of energy by movement from right to left, left to right.  We fluctuate.  Patanjali says that Yoga occurs when the fluctuations are no longer dominant.  Stop.  Breath.  Lift the pelvic floor. Focus on the 3rd eye center.  Center!!

Maybe the first time or the millionth time you do this the creative energy moves fully into the central channel and you move out of duality.  If you are all in, roots to crown, mind and heart, you move out of duality.  “Carrots good, chocolate chips good.  It’s all good”.  This is the union of the sun and the moon.  Opposites and fluctuations between apparent opposites no longer exist.  Any choice made from that point of view is beyond duality.  There is no wrong choice.  We become the Om itself.  Yogis absorbed in this Om state experience profound healing.  We are yoked to the cosmos within and without on a sublime level.  Don’t forge…Om is a technique which will get you there, as well, it’s the journey and the destination.

On a practical level we step into the flow.  Everyone experiences this state of union organically from time to time.  The practices of yoga allow us to cultivate them intentionally.

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