Please Excuse Me While I Have a Conversation with my Piriformis

"The human being is a continuum- there are no tangible frontiers between the... body, mind, and soul."
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My first yogasana teacher, Denise, used to say, "you may come to yoga class for the yoga-booty, but you come back for something else." There are, undoubtedly, physical benefits from the practice of yogasana, and pranyama (breath control), but what has been glossed over in the States, is the fundamental principles and original intention of these practices. Yoga is, at its core, preparation for meditation; a means for paving the way for introspection and spiritual connection. It is an assumption in the yogic tradition that physical health will be attained along the way to spiritual elevation- they are different stops along the same path, but stopping at the physical benefits is cutting yourself short of the possibility of greater awareness.

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In his book, Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar talks about developing "body intelligence," the capacity for sensitivity, for being aware of both the internal processes of the body and the mind. Every pore of the skin, and every cell in the body becomes an eye looking inward, a way to see yourself as you truly are. Developing this kind of inner awareness is quite contrary to our habitual way of being. People move numbly through the world, going "from bed to car to desk to car to couch to bed, but there is no awareness in their movement, no intelligence. There is no action. Action is movement with intelligence." Learning to live in this way, to be in the world and move with intelligence, we create the momentum of energy for transformation; and not just to transform your body into a stronger, or a leaner body, but to transform your mind from chaos to peace, and to transform our world from destruction and carelessness to deliberate and creative change for the better. This is how yoga can change your mind, and change the world. It is unfortunate that the larger context of a yoga practice (beyond the asanas and the breathing) has been largely ignored in the US and the physical form has taken undue importance. Yoga emphasizes the value of balance, "if you say you are your body, you are wrong. If you say you are not your body, you are also wrong. The truth is that although body is born, lives and dies, you cannot catch a glimpse of the divine except through the body." Both Buddhism and Yogic philosophy have a precept of non-attachment at their core. So we must honor the body, respect it, nourish it and listen to it (limits, and flaws and all), but not become so overly indulgent in the senses, and remain connected to the larger context of which we are a part (community, universe, spirit) so as to create a small distance from the dramas of our everyday lives that threaten to sweep us away and off the path of transformation and radical healing.

Using all the inner eyes of the cells and pores of the skin, we begin to develop a deeply accurate sense of where the body is in space even with the eyes closed (close your eyes and touch your nose with one finger, see how accurate you are). We use the internal sense of self to guide us (connected to the intrinsic muscles of the spine), not only physically, but also through the decisions we make in daily life (do you go for second helpings of the delicious meal you just ate despite being satisfyingly full, or do you respect your body?) Instead of looking at the person next to you in the hatha yoga class to see what the pose "is supposed to look like," you can develop a sense of how to move in your body, into your expression of the pose. You work to deepen the posture to push your limits, and expand your mind's horizons, not to make the pose or the body more beautiful. Though, those are nice perks. I hesitate to call someone a yogi if they do not recognize the importance of this internal looking.
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I remember a conversation with my father (an electrical engineer, firmly grounded in the Newtonian physical reality) where he challenged me with the question, "if you pass a flame from one torch to the next, is the first flame present in the 100th?" I stood my ground with a positive response, despite his pessimistic statistics claiming that there is only one in such-and-such a chance that any particle from the first flame will be found in the last. I couldn't argue with him in his language of Newtonian physics and math and resorted, unproductively, to my language of energy. The conversation ended with both of us significantly frustrated with the others' lack of insight.
I came across, recently, some writing by Tich Naht Hanh, a fairly well known Vietnamese Buddhist monk and author, and he used a similar metaphor to make the point that without the first flame, none of the other torches would be lit. In Ayurveda, the principle element of fire is responsible for our thoughts (think of the electrical impulses from one neuron to the  next, if you have trouble with thinking of the nature elements inside the body). If you think of lighting a torch as illuminating the mind, and passing the flame as transmitting knowledge, the way a good teacher does, you see how without your teacher's first teacher's first teacher, you could not have the flame of knowledge present in your mind. Take a breath, I know this seems convoluted, but it is actually quite simple. You are inseparable from the net of people around you, your environment, and your past. You are the culmination of all of your experiences, everyone you've known, loved and hated, and all of their experiences. I find that the best teachers, of yoga or otherwise, are the ones who recognize the importance of their context, but these are also the teachers who refuse to call themselves teachers because they have the humility and humbleness to know that their knowledge is only as good as all of their teachers and their teachers' teachers.

So, despite his best efforts to convince me to call him Swamiji, I am now off to China. Maybe I will have better luck in finding a "master," but for the meantime, I will humbly go forth, my Yoga Teacher certification in my back pocket; to continue to learn from my body, a student at heart.

The Priest has Scoliosis

**(First of all, let me apologize for my lack of writing; I have no excuse other than being overwhelmed by inner movement and the incredible book that I just finished.)**
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As you know, I am engaging in non-traditional higher education by means of Independent Contract work with my professor, much of the lessons I am learning are more of what the traditional higher education folks would call "experiential learning," (as if there is any other way to learn something, than by experiencing it). So, I'd like to introduce this blog post by asking you to do the same.
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Please, without looking, get a sense of how you are sitting, standing, or lying down. Please do not attempt to change it, just notice. Are your feet on the floor? Do you have more weight on one hip? Are you twisting, even a little? Is your neck at ease? Or are your shoulders reaching for your ears? Do you feel that your chest is open or collapsed? Are you furrowing your eyebrows? (I will admit that I just adjusted my own position while writing these questions) Try not to use your visual cues to judge the symmetry of your position: symmetry is not the ideal- comfort is. Now, wherever you are reading this, relax every muscle as much as you can from the top of your head to each toe. Focus on easy and complete breathing will be helpful here. Take your time, and let yourself just melt for a minute or two. I'll wait.

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Okay. Now, again without visual cues, sit yourself comfortably, with your spine lengthened up toward the sky without leaning on the back of your chair, chest open, shoulders relaxed. Breath deeply in to your ribcage- let it expand slightly, and exhale fully. Again get a sense of the tension in your body. Are your hip flexors tight (muscles at the top and front of your thighs, near the pelvis) to keep yourself sitting straight? Or are you using your superficial abdominal muscles? Can you tell where in your body the action of "sit straight" originated? Again, breathe steadily, and let go of your efforts to sit perfectly straight. Just be.

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 The human spine, the basis of our "axial skeleton" evolved from our ancestors to fill the demands of providing a central supportive structure for the individual body, while the upper extremities (i.e. shoulder girdle) originated in structures that were useful in dealing defensively with the outside environment: shoulder "blade." Rudolf Ballentine M.D. says in his (phenomenal) book Radical Healing, "you might say that this axial skeleton is for orienting you in relation to yourself, while the appendicular skeleton is for moving in relation to the world." Often implicated in the metaphors of our everyday lives, the spine, or "backbone," is held in place by the core muscles; the intrinsic muscles of the spine, and is directly connected to the diaphragm (the one we use to breathe). While we, in the US, tend to think of the "core muscles" as being those in the trunk region: the abdominal muscles and maybe the superficial muscles of the back. Those muscles are precisely not what I am referring to, though. Core muscles, in the case of relating most strongly to the spine, are those deep muscles that connect one vertebrae to the next (and the next). This is important because those intrinsic muscles of the spine are much less likely to be influenced by external tension cues than the superficial muscles are. As we said, these internal structures are geared most preferably to relate the body (bodies, really- but we'll get into that in a moment) to itself, while the external muscles handle the outside world. This is why I asked you if you could tell where the action of "sitting straight" originated from: from the external cue, or from your internal sense of being strong and steady and all of the associations we have with the"backbone."

Since yogasanas (the postures) were designed originally as a preparation for meditation, they place particular emphasis on strengthening these core muscles relating to the spine. So what does the spine have to do with meditation? Despite daily reminders from Yogiji about the importance of keeping my spine straight during the hour of morning meditation, he's never given an actual reason for it. However, from what I know about energy work and from my recent readings in Ballentine's book as well as David Frawley's Yoga & Ayurveda and Dr. Vasant Lad's Introduction to Ayurveda, I can tell you this: the ancient yogis identified three nadis (both Hindi and Sanskrit for "river"), or energy channels in the body. One runs up from the base of the spine, along the left side of the spine to the ajna chakra, or the "third eye." Another runs up from the same origin, along the right side of the spine, and meets at ajna as well. The third nadi, representing and manifesting balance and optimal consciousness, runs directly along the spine, meeting the other two at the base of the spine and at ajna. In yogic philosophy, proper meditation allows the energy held at each chakra center (often referred to as Kundalini energy, and depicted as a serpent) to rise up along shushumna nadi (the central energy channel), and raise one's consciousness to eventually merge with Brahman, all-encompassing universal bliss.

Leaving aside the juxtaposition of the image of a serpent for this cosmic energy force with the Judeo-Christian image of a serpent as the representation of evil, you can see the connection between using the muscles most closely related to your internal sense of self and personal perspective aligned with the energy channels and flow of breath through diaphragmatic breathing results in a deep sense of relaxation and inner strength. What's more, is the practical application of integrating those intrinsic core muscles into your daily life. Ballentine says, "A sense of operating from this inner point also prompts you to look at the world from your own perspective, rather than relying on the opinions and suggestions of those around you," essentially, you develop your "backbone."

Furthermore, when thinking about the ability to assume a particular posture, whether that is to touch your toes, or to sit in meditation, or to stand on your head; what may seem like the extent of your body's capabilities may actually be a potent reflection of your emotional and mental states. Bear with me for a second, I know that sounded crazy. You, I'm sure, are familiar with the experience of standing a bit taller, straightening your spine when you needed a boost of courage- well, it's a two-way street. Imagine, if you can, a thin sweater covering each muscle, however small: creating a sort of honeycomb of sheaths with muscle tissue where the honey would be. This connective tissue is called fascia, and acts to provide stability: allowing a limited range of movement outside of habitual or customary positions of your muscles. However, because this system of support only supports habitual movements, it also therefore limits you by de facto to the positions you habitually enter, and thus acts to support only the mental and emotional states that those physical postures support. It's pretty hard to cry when you stand tall with your chest open, no?

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According to one of my college anatomy professors, 90% of cases of scoliosis is muscular, not structural (meaning- due to habitual movement and thought patterns, or even crooked/disconnected flow of energy along the chakras through the nadis). So when I see that both the priest, who does both the morning and evening puja, and Yogiji have scoliosis, I wonder what is going internally: mentally, energetically, and physically. What has been pulled out of alignment so drastically as to cause sciatic pain in Yogiji (the sciatic nerve is the largest in the body and runs from the sacrum down to the foot; impingement can cause terrible pain down the whole leg; often termed sciatica)? If I were to venture a guess, I might say the the incongruency of being a devoted meditation student of his Guruji and attempting to live the principles of yogic life while simultaneously smoking what I would consider excessive marijuana beyond the purpose of meditation, overeating, neglecting his asana practice and still preaching the precepts in his white yogi clothes has created such a disturbance in his energy flow that his spine has been pulled out of alignment and pinched his sciatic nerve- a sort of wake up call, to which he's been thus far deaf. But that's just my perspective. (It could also be attributed to some of the more physical traumas he's suffered- but this is a two way street and one could easily give rise to the other.)
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A poem by Brian Andreas:
Impossible yoga position but she likes to have goals that no one else
can imagine
so they'll shut up about how they understand
exactly what she's going through.
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Okay. that's it for now. I'll be posting again very soon. That's a promise.