/* hello friends, my apologies – these posts somehow ended up in drafts when I thought I sent them. Call forth a study of awareness and one clearly meets their own unconsciousness!! They are best read before the new year posts. Thank you for reading!!*/
As the new year begins we will embark on a journey through a leisurely study of Sankhya philosophy as a tool to enrich our personal yoga practices. Sankhya is a philosophy rooted in India. It’s prevalent in the bhakti yogic text of the Bhagavad Gita. It’s foundational for the understanding of yoga’s sister discipline – the healing art of Ayurveda. When I attended teacher training – we had to learn it. But in practice I found it, limiting, laborious confusing, even as I understood on some deeper level that my assessment was off because I never gave it due attention.
So I’ve decided to spend time in my practice now exploring sankhya within my daily practice…and I thought you might enjoy being with me on that journey. It’s complex, and like our exploration of the koshas will unfold over months.
When working with the dimensions of the classical root teachings around yoga – I find it imperative to practice with a teaching – in order to really understand its relevance to the practice. The intellectual exercise alone is not sufficient.
For me that means not a simple one-time design of a sequence – but a dedicated period of time that I practice with it daily. A proverb from my teacher “through repetition, the magic is forced to rise”. This is true in all aspects of our practice.
Why would we want to deepen our practice by digging into the realms of philosophical thought and then trying to apply them on the mat?
Through the classical practices of yoga we yoke to the infinity of mind. From Patanjali Yoga Sutras:
तदसंख्येयवासनाभिश्चित्रमपि परार्थं संहत्यकारित्वात् ॥ ४.२४ ॥
tadasaṃkhyeyavāsanābhiścitramapi parārthaṃ saṃhatyakāritvāt || 4.24 ||
Yoga Sutra IV.24 The mindstuff itself reflects the infinity of the mind and acts as the unifying agent of the countless individual manifestations.
As we go through practicing Sankhya we will uncover the pivotal nature of the mind stuff and the higher mind. This sutra touches on that…As we get clear – our mind will not reflect our neurosis, our insecurities or our fears. Our mind will reflect the infinite state of consciousness. At the point that it reflects that it generates a perception or union rather than division. Of “one” rather than a multitude. In that state we become super high functioning.
What does that have to do with asana? What will be revealed in an intimate way is that your physical body is intimately interconnected with the infinity of mind. Yep. Think healing on a grand scale.
What does that high functioning unified state look like?
Good meditation
Staying calm and effective while in turbulent or painful conditions.
Finding creative solutions
Inspired action and direction.
Becoming true.
Transforming the body.
I like becoming true best. In the moment of yoga when we experience union we know who we are – not just spiritually but what we are here to do physically. And to keep this out of the abstract – let’s say it clarifies purpose, it renders understanding in our lives, it opens possibilities- to experience the truth of who we are in tangible direct ways.
It’s tempting to think we know who we are. But the identity – the truth of ourselves is ever expanding, constantly changing and beyond any cultural definitions. The world will always tell us who it wants us to be. Yoga will always draw forth who we can be. With discipline, understanding and wisdom yoga reveals a pathway through which those two apparently differing identities can be yoked together and cultivated as a pathway of personal growth and mastery.
The gift of approaching a study like Sankhya is that it becomes a tool through which we can tweak and adjust and fine tune our journey into and through this kind of dynamic expanding grounded Self-expression.
In the map of Sankhya we will discover the poles of higher consciousness (simplicity) and grounded physical experience (complexity). The fulcrum between the two is the mind. So we will discover – as Patanjali shares with us in the sutra above that what occurs in the mind reaches into the experiences of the most fundamental sensory and action-based functions – and also reaches into the depth of what is often called the “Self”
We can experiment with this. Meditate for 5-10 minutes before doing your self-practice. Observe your experience on the mat from a sensory perspective with and without meditating first. And then continue that. Maybe try it for a week, and then take a week off. Listen for a rhythm of your own which helps you explore what meditation does for your asana practice. It’s not unusual to have physical breakthroughs after deepening your meditation practice. For this exercise you would probably want to consider working with a classical form of meditation like Vipassana.
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Why practice? What’s the point of incorporating the teachings from the so-called source texts.
Not relevant.
I have heard this many times as a teacher and a student. That the classical teachings are not relevant. Before we set sail on the ship of sankhya, I thought it would be helpful to consider why “Not relevant” is not the answer. For this it’s helpful to revisit the folklore around the development of hatha yoga, and turn our vision towards how a so called “sacred text” can influence our practice in a significant way – a way worth the time it takes to incorporate such study into our practice.
Hatha Yoga was said to emerge among the untouchable caste in India sometime ago. The untouchable caste was not permitted to attend or be in association with those who were performing sacred rituals. They weren’t permitted anything at all of the spirit. They weren’t permitted to honor God in any way that was known or acceptable at the time. Humans do this. They exclude.
There is a lot of power in spirituality. To know and have a relationship with “God”. People with power like to restrict access to that to a selective group. And so, in India it is said that Lord Shiva (a a God who had some physical existence as well) taught Hatha yoga to the untouchables as a form of worship that could be secret, and that they could not be prevented from performing. Note: this is very rough explanation of a very complex historical, social phenomenon. It suffices for a paragraph, but I do encourage greater study.
The point I’d like to make is that Hatha Yoga was designed to connect people with sacred truth – which is beyond our intellects, beyond our brains, beyond our imaginations. It’s only found through revelation. Hatha Yoga is an equalizer. Anyone can practice in such a way that the doors to revelation can open. The importance of lineage – if you have heard of that – is that it ensures that the practice descends from teacher to student in such as way that the sacred opening is still available. It’s not obscured. Once again, it’s very likely that there are those out these who would like those doors to relevation to be obscured or want to claim the power of the practice for themselves. But staying true to the sacred truth – the essential truth ensures that you will be moving towards the truth.
What does that have to do with sacred texts? And by that, I mean texts that have some connection to those original sources. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, The Bhagavad Gita, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and so on.
By studying them yourself…it reinforces that your will move you in the direction of the truth. When we were told we had to study Sanskrit in my teacher training in 1999 – we questioned this. Isn’t it a dead language (well, I think it’s being resurrected by the worldwide yoga community)? There were a few points made in the conversation:
By reading these texts, we didn’t have to rely on anyone else’s interpretation.
Even if we didn’t study Sanskrit, we were told that we should read at least four different translations to experience the broad scope of meaning contained in the original worlds.
Sanskrit is said to be vibrational – it came into being when people were first trying to use the sounds of the voice to communicate. Because of that – the feeling behind the words can be experienced. It opens the door to a supra-verbal understanding of the human in the cosmos.
The texts open up different ways of seeing life and practice our place in the cosmos and the power that each and everyone of us has to transform ourselves and the world we live in. The study creates experiences in the mind reflective of what asana creates in the body. The body is also a reflection of what we access with the mind. They are deeply interwoven.
In practice – reading sacred texts, even in our first languages – is difficult. Because the truth contained in a true source text is so vast it’s like a holograph – it contains everything in each microscopic unit. At first we may not be able to read it at all, because on the surface no meaning comes through. As we practice – we gain clarity and the meaning of the texts becomes more accessible.
Natalie Ullmann 