November 23rd 2003
"Inspiring Mantra: Go Further"
How the universe falls apart when you can't do Ashtanga.
I sometimes wonder whether I'm becoming reliant on this extraordinary practice to keep me happy and healthy (perhaps I've just replaced all my old crutches with new Ashtanga ones). This is how you start to think when for a while, you can't do those things that support and nourish you, those outer structures that we create and build our daily lives upon.
We usually cling to these crutches as a way of defining who we are; crutches come in the form of relationships, job positions, physical activities, mortgages, social circles, hobbies: those things we choose to engage in or with, that allow us to define our constructed Self, to make our personalities more concrete, to feed our sense of self importance and uniqueness.
Not quite so for a yogi.
When you become self realized and therefore God realized, everything changes. You suddenly can see that everyone and everything is God manifested in form. Each one of us is a beautiful and divine manifestation of the infinite and loving source. And in this realization your sense of self just dissolves, you become a nobodi. A nobodi who is WIDE AWAKE.
"The enlightened are in no way superior to the unenlightened, they are merely awake"
And the real work of a yogi has little to do with asana; the real work is to retain this enlightened awareness and realize when it's being lost in the midst of urban life. Your practice is to stay awake.
Ashtanga
The Ashtanga practice has a powerful effect on my inner life. It's an uplifting practice that can move the consciousness beyond the ego. Iyengar yoga is very grounding, but it keeps me on the ground, looking deeply inside and listening to my own trivial stories. I sometimes find it heavy and internal, like therapy. Ashtanga on the other hand seems to lift me above that; it allows me to dance through life on a breeze with a soft inner drishti and an open loving heart. Therapy no longer needed thanks.
"Practice and all is coming"
But when not doing regular Ashtanga I float back down to earth and join my fellow mortals in their daily struggles to just get by. Union with Divine Consciousness begins to elude me.
Enter the REAL YOGA PRACTICE:
"Yoga is the restriction (nirodha) of the fluctuations of the mind (citta)", (Patanjali, 1:4)
I can observe that silly voice immediately now when it starts whispering:
No Ashtanga for a week! aaaaarrrrggghhhhh
My body will weaken and I'll have to struggle for weeks to get back on track
I may lose the momentum for practicing
I might get LAZY and soft
I won't be fit to teach yoga if I'm not practicing daily
I may become self centred
I may become - oh my god - mediocre
My wellspring of love might dry up
And so the list goes on and on - all trivial self centred ego based thoughts caused by the fluctuations of the mind. Observing when we get caught up in these self centred, negative thoughts has to be followed by action to bring one's mind and heart back to it's true centre.
A specific meditation may be what's needed here to still the mind and refocus it to one's divine motivation. Not just watching the breath or a mandala or your bodily sensations, that's kindergarten preparation for concentrating and focusing on opening of the heart center, so that the all consuming loving presence that we really are can emerge and overwhelm and inspire all that we do.
Next week will be a new start (new moon tomorrow) and maybe there'll be another injury or trauma to test my equanimity, my loving acceptance of exactly what is happening right now.
"Through contentment (samtosha) unexcelled joy is gained"(Patanjali 2:42)
I think it was Erich Shiffmann who said "the feeling of stillness is peace, and the feeling of peace is joy" And Eckhart Tolle in his book 'Stillness Speaks' describes joy as
"VIBRANTLY ALIVE PEACE"
This is how it feels to be truly connected, in love with life, in love with oneself, in love with love, in love with God.
Minor Injuries
Lately I seem to have been plagued by one minor injury after another: broken toe, strained hip tendon and then a most annoying blister appeared on my right palm after a frenzied hour of gardening last Sunday. That was pretty funny actually because there was no way in hell that I could do Dog Pose and all because of a little blister, so again I missed almost a week of Ashtanga. When I finally psyched myself back to Mysore class last Thursday, it was quite comical as I had my hand bandaged to protect and cushion the blister. It looked like a real serious injury and I very humbly had to admit it was just a little blister. Half way through the sequence the bandage fell off (trying to get my bandaged hand through my lotus leg in Garbha Pindasana), and then the bandaid that was underneath started flapping around wildly until I finally threw caution to the wind, ripped it off and finished the practice palm naked.
Sweating
It ended up being a great session: the hottest, sweatiest practice I've ever done. Summer's just arrived and since I only started Ashtanga last Autumn I haven't experienced an Ashtanga summer. Shocked and bemused to see great POOLS of sweat. But wow, UNREAL slide throughs from Down Dog to Dandasana, reminiscent of the childlike thrill of sliding down a slippery dip. My mat metamorphosed into a super duper slippery dip. I just sort of slipped and slid through the practice with an oily ease. No push, just a gentle persistent engagement, fuelled by a slippery momentum and a happy happy body. Almost got Marichyasana D that morning - getting so close, it's getting exciting.
The only downside of the sweatpool on the mat was the fear of slipping when landing in the drop backs from Samasthitih to Urdhva Dhanurasana, so not wanting to invite another injury into my life, I waited for the teacher to come around and hold me for a few instructional slow drop backs instead. But it was exhale to lift, arch and dropback, inhale to rise, eight times without pausing - not slow at all. And so I'm blaming those dropbacks and the heat for forgetting to do Sirsasana (Headstand) that morning.
Next Mysore class will be Monday morning, and my old faithful orange surf towel will be accompanying me to practice. I look forward to feeling her softness as I sweat through another practice and emerge disheveled, crimson faced, exhausted and BEAMING!
Sigh - after a one week break it's like falling in love all over again.
Email contact: nobodhishome@yahoo.com.au
________________________________________________________________________
Friday evening 14th November 2003
Its a hot Friday evening. I should be cleaning up the house after a full week of 9-5 work, 6am Mysore classes, and teaching yoga 2 nights this week, but instead I'm just putting my feet up and finally creating the blog that I've been meaning to do for weeks (since okrgr pulled the plug on my weekly entertainment!). The mess can wait until I get home from surfing tomorrow afternoon, or maybe it can wait til Sunday.
I treat myself to a led Iyengar class 6-8am every Friday morning with my favourite teacher. He's one of our city's most senior teachers and his school is the only one in my city that is strictly authentic in its Iyengar method (most schools seem to mix styles with their different teachers bringing different flavours to the classes). It's a fairly small class on Friday mornings, usually between 5-10 people, and most of them are yoga teachers.
He usually starts the class with handstands (including free balancing) and elbow balances (Pinca Mayurasana). Great breakthrough this morning when I FINALLY jumped up into Handstand with both feet together - that's a milestone for me. Then he put us through a good 40 minutes of regular standing poses (including Ardha Chandrasana and Virabhadrasana 3), nothing fancy (last week we did Ardha Chandrasana 4 times on each side - it was fascinating to watch the mind reacting each time he said "and again..." eg. WHAT Another One?...WHAT Another One? You've gotta be joking!). After the standing poses, a 10 minute Sirsasana including a variation that I'm starting to enjoy where you bend the knees dropping the feet to the buttocks (knees stretch up to the ceiling) then twist the torso and hold - I don't know if it has an official name as I couldn't find it in Light On Yoga, maybe something like Parsva Virasana Sirsasana (????just made that up!!!). This class is soooooo nice to come back to each week since I took up a serious Ashtanga Vinyasa practice 6 months ago. It's like coming home. But I do have to quieten my Ujjiya breathing a bit simply out of respect for the teacher and the rest of the class. But my yoga just doesn't seem to have integrity if I'm not engaging a deep sonorous breath all the way from mula bandha. The Iyengis just don't know what they're missing!
After the headstand variations we did some backbending: Dhanurasana, Ustrasana dropping back to Kapotasana, 3 x Urdhva Dhanurasana then 3 x Viparitta Dandasana, then Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana (I'm still using a strap around the ankle but I can almost reach the foot to the head - well it feels like it anyway - maybe I'm really miles off - your judgement gets a little cloudy when you're in over your head). Then straight into Hanumanasana and just a twisting version of Janu Sirsasana without the forward bend. By that time we were all grateful for 10 minutes in Ardha Halasana over a chair and Paschimottanassana (head to bolster which we deserved).
Then as usual I had to pack up and leave before Savasana so I could enjoy a quick espresso and get to work by 9am.
Its usually quite a rigorous class (we've been working a lot lately on dropbacks from Tadasana to Urdhva Dhanurasana and Handstand Dropbacks last week) but the teacher has a quiet gentleness that seems to instill a stillness into the practice - that is a real inspiration for me as a budding teacher. I think its because he doesnt give out much information in this class - its more like his own practice that he shares with us - he doesnt need to tell us how to work in the poses as most of us are teachers and know the alignment aspects. Classes where the teacher is constantly talking take you away from your inner experience and your inner teacher. Your mind is always outside DOING, instead of inside BEING. This class for me is always rich in conscious awareness.
The odd thing is that when I teach my Level 1 classes and consciously try to limit the instructions I give them, the pauses don't seem to be filled with students feeling their way in and around the poses - I get the feeling that they're waiting for me to say something. Hmmmm, there's something I have to work on there.
Getting late now, not much of a first post considering the richness of my life at the moment.
My love affair with the Ashtanga practice has become an incredible journey. My regular meditation practice has suffered though as I get up at 5am every morning Monday to Friday to practice yoga and my evenings are taken up with various commitments including teaching. So my meditation right now is how I approach each moment and how I can facilitate that awesome loving presence that has created us to move and act and find expression through me.
"WE ARE THAT WHICH WE SEEK" is my constant reminder of this.
Have to pack the surfboards on the car tonight. Saturday at long last and I'm heading off with the gurls at 6.30am tomorrow and YEEHAH summer's here at last...36 degrees tomorrow...our first hot day. Fingers crossed that there'll be at least a small wave to play with so I cam immerse myself in the flow and bathe in the infinite... and hang out with my beautiful friends.
Email : nobodhishome@yahoo.com.au
___________________________________________________________________________
"Inspiring Mantra: Go Further"
How the universe falls apart when you can't do Ashtanga.
I sometimes wonder whether I'm becoming reliant on this extraordinary practice to keep me happy and healthy (perhaps I've just replaced all my old crutches with new Ashtanga ones). This is how you start to think when for a while, you can't do those things that support and nourish you, those outer structures that we create and build our daily lives upon.
We usually cling to these crutches as a way of defining who we are; crutches come in the form of relationships, job positions, physical activities, mortgages, social circles, hobbies: those things we choose to engage in or with, that allow us to define our constructed Self, to make our personalities more concrete, to feed our sense of self importance and uniqueness.
Not quite so for a yogi.
When you become self realized and therefore God realized, everything changes. You suddenly can see that everyone and everything is God manifested in form. Each one of us is a beautiful and divine manifestation of the infinite and loving source. And in this realization your sense of self just dissolves, you become a nobodi. A nobodi who is WIDE AWAKE.
"The enlightened are in no way superior to the unenlightened, they are merely awake"
And the real work of a yogi has little to do with asana; the real work is to retain this enlightened awareness and realize when it's being lost in the midst of urban life. Your practice is to stay awake.
Ashtanga
The Ashtanga practice has a powerful effect on my inner life. It's an uplifting practice that can move the consciousness beyond the ego. Iyengar yoga is very grounding, but it keeps me on the ground, looking deeply inside and listening to my own trivial stories. I sometimes find it heavy and internal, like therapy. Ashtanga on the other hand seems to lift me above that; it allows me to dance through life on a breeze with a soft inner drishti and an open loving heart. Therapy no longer needed thanks.
"Practice and all is coming"
But when not doing regular Ashtanga I float back down to earth and join my fellow mortals in their daily struggles to just get by. Union with Divine Consciousness begins to elude me.
Enter the REAL YOGA PRACTICE:
"Yoga is the restriction (nirodha) of the fluctuations of the mind (citta)", (Patanjali, 1:4)
I can observe that silly voice immediately now when it starts whispering:
No Ashtanga for a week! aaaaarrrrggghhhhh
My body will weaken and I'll have to struggle for weeks to get back on track
I may lose the momentum for practicing
I might get LAZY and soft
I won't be fit to teach yoga if I'm not practicing daily
I may become self centred
I may become - oh my god - mediocre
My wellspring of love might dry up
And so the list goes on and on - all trivial self centred ego based thoughts caused by the fluctuations of the mind. Observing when we get caught up in these self centred, negative thoughts has to be followed by action to bring one's mind and heart back to it's true centre.
A specific meditation may be what's needed here to still the mind and refocus it to one's divine motivation. Not just watching the breath or a mandala or your bodily sensations, that's kindergarten preparation for concentrating and focusing on opening of the heart center, so that the all consuming loving presence that we really are can emerge and overwhelm and inspire all that we do.
Next week will be a new start (new moon tomorrow) and maybe there'll be another injury or trauma to test my equanimity, my loving acceptance of exactly what is happening right now.
"Through contentment (samtosha) unexcelled joy is gained"(Patanjali 2:42)
I think it was Erich Shiffmann who said "the feeling of stillness is peace, and the feeling of peace is joy" And Eckhart Tolle in his book 'Stillness Speaks' describes joy as
"VIBRANTLY ALIVE PEACE"
This is how it feels to be truly connected, in love with life, in love with oneself, in love with love, in love with God.
Minor Injuries
Lately I seem to have been plagued by one minor injury after another: broken toe, strained hip tendon and then a most annoying blister appeared on my right palm after a frenzied hour of gardening last Sunday. That was pretty funny actually because there was no way in hell that I could do Dog Pose and all because of a little blister, so again I missed almost a week of Ashtanga. When I finally psyched myself back to Mysore class last Thursday, it was quite comical as I had my hand bandaged to protect and cushion the blister. It looked like a real serious injury and I very humbly had to admit it was just a little blister. Half way through the sequence the bandage fell off (trying to get my bandaged hand through my lotus leg in Garbha Pindasana), and then the bandaid that was underneath started flapping around wildly until I finally threw caution to the wind, ripped it off and finished the practice palm naked.
Sweating
It ended up being a great session: the hottest, sweatiest practice I've ever done. Summer's just arrived and since I only started Ashtanga last Autumn I haven't experienced an Ashtanga summer. Shocked and bemused to see great POOLS of sweat. But wow, UNREAL slide throughs from Down Dog to Dandasana, reminiscent of the childlike thrill of sliding down a slippery dip. My mat metamorphosed into a super duper slippery dip. I just sort of slipped and slid through the practice with an oily ease. No push, just a gentle persistent engagement, fuelled by a slippery momentum and a happy happy body. Almost got Marichyasana D that morning - getting so close, it's getting exciting.
The only downside of the sweatpool on the mat was the fear of slipping when landing in the drop backs from Samasthitih to Urdhva Dhanurasana, so not wanting to invite another injury into my life, I waited for the teacher to come around and hold me for a few instructional slow drop backs instead. But it was exhale to lift, arch and dropback, inhale to rise, eight times without pausing - not slow at all. And so I'm blaming those dropbacks and the heat for forgetting to do Sirsasana (Headstand) that morning.
Next Mysore class will be Monday morning, and my old faithful orange surf towel will be accompanying me to practice. I look forward to feeling her softness as I sweat through another practice and emerge disheveled, crimson faced, exhausted and BEAMING!
Sigh - after a one week break it's like falling in love all over again.
Email contact: nobodhishome@yahoo.com.au
________________________________________________________________________
Friday evening 14th November 2003
Its a hot Friday evening. I should be cleaning up the house after a full week of 9-5 work, 6am Mysore classes, and teaching yoga 2 nights this week, but instead I'm just putting my feet up and finally creating the blog that I've been meaning to do for weeks (since okrgr pulled the plug on my weekly entertainment!). The mess can wait until I get home from surfing tomorrow afternoon, or maybe it can wait til Sunday.
I treat myself to a led Iyengar class 6-8am every Friday morning with my favourite teacher. He's one of our city's most senior teachers and his school is the only one in my city that is strictly authentic in its Iyengar method (most schools seem to mix styles with their different teachers bringing different flavours to the classes). It's a fairly small class on Friday mornings, usually between 5-10 people, and most of them are yoga teachers.
He usually starts the class with handstands (including free balancing) and elbow balances (Pinca Mayurasana). Great breakthrough this morning when I FINALLY jumped up into Handstand with both feet together - that's a milestone for me. Then he put us through a good 40 minutes of regular standing poses (including Ardha Chandrasana and Virabhadrasana 3), nothing fancy (last week we did Ardha Chandrasana 4 times on each side - it was fascinating to watch the mind reacting each time he said "and again..." eg. WHAT Another One?...WHAT Another One? You've gotta be joking!). After the standing poses, a 10 minute Sirsasana including a variation that I'm starting to enjoy where you bend the knees dropping the feet to the buttocks (knees stretch up to the ceiling) then twist the torso and hold - I don't know if it has an official name as I couldn't find it in Light On Yoga, maybe something like Parsva Virasana Sirsasana (????just made that up!!!). This class is soooooo nice to come back to each week since I took up a serious Ashtanga Vinyasa practice 6 months ago. It's like coming home. But I do have to quieten my Ujjiya breathing a bit simply out of respect for the teacher and the rest of the class. But my yoga just doesn't seem to have integrity if I'm not engaging a deep sonorous breath all the way from mula bandha. The Iyengis just don't know what they're missing!
After the headstand variations we did some backbending: Dhanurasana, Ustrasana dropping back to Kapotasana, 3 x Urdhva Dhanurasana then 3 x Viparitta Dandasana, then Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana (I'm still using a strap around the ankle but I can almost reach the foot to the head - well it feels like it anyway - maybe I'm really miles off - your judgement gets a little cloudy when you're in over your head). Then straight into Hanumanasana and just a twisting version of Janu Sirsasana without the forward bend. By that time we were all grateful for 10 minutes in Ardha Halasana over a chair and Paschimottanassana (head to bolster which we deserved).
Then as usual I had to pack up and leave before Savasana so I could enjoy a quick espresso and get to work by 9am.
Its usually quite a rigorous class (we've been working a lot lately on dropbacks from Tadasana to Urdhva Dhanurasana and Handstand Dropbacks last week) but the teacher has a quiet gentleness that seems to instill a stillness into the practice - that is a real inspiration for me as a budding teacher. I think its because he doesnt give out much information in this class - its more like his own practice that he shares with us - he doesnt need to tell us how to work in the poses as most of us are teachers and know the alignment aspects. Classes where the teacher is constantly talking take you away from your inner experience and your inner teacher. Your mind is always outside DOING, instead of inside BEING. This class for me is always rich in conscious awareness.
The odd thing is that when I teach my Level 1 classes and consciously try to limit the instructions I give them, the pauses don't seem to be filled with students feeling their way in and around the poses - I get the feeling that they're waiting for me to say something. Hmmmm, there's something I have to work on there.
Getting late now, not much of a first post considering the richness of my life at the moment.
My love affair with the Ashtanga practice has become an incredible journey. My regular meditation practice has suffered though as I get up at 5am every morning Monday to Friday to practice yoga and my evenings are taken up with various commitments including teaching. So my meditation right now is how I approach each moment and how I can facilitate that awesome loving presence that has created us to move and act and find expression through me.
"WE ARE THAT WHICH WE SEEK" is my constant reminder of this.
Have to pack the surfboards on the car tonight. Saturday at long last and I'm heading off with the gurls at 6.30am tomorrow and YEEHAH summer's here at last...36 degrees tomorrow...our first hot day. Fingers crossed that there'll be at least a small wave to play with so I cam immerse myself in the flow and bathe in the infinite... and hang out with my beautiful friends.
Email : nobodhishome@yahoo.com.au
___________________________________________________________________________
