Just Some Thoughts

Time is unimaginably short today; so, I'll just post a couple of quick thoughts.  One solace though, I'll make a complete write up of my experience once I'm done here.

Here's something that Gurudev gave us to chew on during our morning session with him:  If I ask you to cover all of Florida with leather, you cannot do it.  You simply can not do it because there is not enough leather for you to buy to cover it all!  So what?!  Just put leather shoes on your feet and then everywhere you go is leather covered.  Now it is easy to cover the whole world in leather!  The same is true if you try to paint everything red, you cannot do it.  Instead just put on rose colored lenses, do you see?

Namasté

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Note for the Day

Jai Bhagwan!

The stiffness is setting in nicely now, two hours of practice plus extended holding of poses during classes will do that—everyone is experiencing stiffness today.  I learned today that we will each be receiving full audio recordings of all the sessions!  To say I'm excited about this would be a major understatement!  Oh, I just breezed through the homework to be done between going home and coming back in September...it's going to be a busy busy summer!  Tomorrow night is a free night beginning at dinner; so, I'll write a bit more tomorrow.  Until then!

Namasté

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Best Laid Plans

Jai Bhagwan

My intention was to write a long expose today; however, I've been taking pictures and studying—I'm a bit behind on the reading, there's a lot of reading—and chatting with my wife some on a very very very slow connection.  That being the case, we'll all have to be content with continued short excerpts until I return home.

Namasté

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Drinking From the Firehose

Jai Bhagwan!

Yoga is union.  We often consider this to mean just the unification of body, mind and spirit; all three working in unison and harmony.  This is union but it is precisely not Yoga.  Consider the United States of America.  There are 50 individual states and these individual states come together as one union but they are still 50 individual states.  Consider now a tray of ice cubes.  If we dump that tray of ice cubes into a bowl, they now form a bowl of ice cubes just like the 50 United States.  Wait for a time, however, and the ice cubes are transformed into a truly unifed puddle of water.  This is true Yoga, when thought and action become inseperable, body and mind become one but there is even more, one and many become all.

Is was this second consideration that happened to me yesterday.  We had begun some simply meditation exercises:  Begin by focusing on a single point in the room and then allow the vision to expand to see everything within the field of vision.  As I did this, suddenly the details of the entire room rushed toward me.  For a brief instant I paniced thinking that the corners of the room were going to flatten me.  We repeated this exercise with the intent to go outside and see if we could maintain this medatative awareness.  I could not make it outside because I couldn't be found in the room.  I existed in the room, I was the room but I was nowhere to be found within the room.  After 15 minutes of this, Kamini called everyone back to the room and I regained enough sense of self to function within the room again.  After the session ended, I spoke with Kamini about my experience and how I could now understand the danger of becoming addicted to bliss, that state of being everywhere and nowhere at once.  I also asked her how to be able to not become lost in this state, for some that is their goal but I have no desire to become a sentient vegetable, I enjoy being a husband, father, son . . . me, far too much.  She explained that it is a matter of practice and learning to reverse the process used to enter this state in the first place.  It's like riding a bike for the first time without training wheels, exhilirating and, at the same time, terrifying to realize the road is flying by at such a high speed.

So, what good is this state of mind?  I have not slept since 3:20 AM yesterday and I still have so much energy that I feel like I could stay awake another 24 hours with no ill effect.  I have used meditation to help me organize my thoughts when dealing with situation before, I can see how this could become the ultimate think tank when presented with any situation that requires great study and thought.  To these ends, I have been trying to practice willfully returning to this state and willfully leaving it.  Entering this frame of mind has been disconcertingly easy for me.  I say disconcerting because the level of energy that is has created within me is unstilling.  I spoke with the Ayurveda man here, Jyotindir (John Mundahl—no, I do not think he was the inspiration for Mungdal but I could be wrong) and his recommendation was that I avoid the dance tonight—Rasa dancing and that I walk barefoot through the grass and practice headstand and plow.  The moment my feet touched the sand, I felt the level of energy in my body slow, still incredibly potent but no longer racing around and around and around.  That being said, I just cracked a huge yawn, so I will go publish this and call it a night.

Namasté

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Satsang

Jai Bhagwan!

What a marvelous day!  Morning sadhana was led by Kamini, Gurudev's daughter, and the focus was on maintaining meditative awareness during the entire practice.  I was immensely grateful to find that I could not almost slip in and out of meditative consciousness at will.  The reason I was grateful for this is that Jyotindir's suggestions last night worked wonders, I still woke up at 04:00 but I slept soundly and felt wonderful!  On the flip side, I was concerned that perhaps I had completely quashed my prana and so would be unable or at least find it very difficult to return to a state of deep meditation.  My fears were unfounded.  We chanted before we met with Gurudev, as we do everyday, but today's chanting was much more energetic than it has been.  The drums and the vibration of the voices drew me into the weave of the sounds and it wasn't long before I had again slipped into complete stillness while the waves of sound washed over me.  This happened again tonight as we met in Gurudev's monthly(?) satsang with the community.  Scottie led us in another chant and again I slipped into the ebb and flow of the sound.  It seems that I have an affinity for rhythm and sound; the waves on the lake, the motion of the ceiling fans—I find myself constantly swaying in time to their motion—the obvious beat of drums and chanting except with Gurudev.  When we chant with Gurudev, my attention is so concentrated on him that the rhythm must be very very fast for me to be pulled into the sounds rather than to be drawn to him.

Now, I know that if I were reading what I have written the past couple of days, I would think to myself, Oh dear, he's been drinking the kool-aid and has gone off the deep end.  I really haven't, I promise.  By the way, our Internet connection was blown out by a lightning storm Thursday through the day and it wasn't restored last night and it's too late for me to publish tonight—it's after 22:00 which means it's time for daily silence and I need to stay in my room.  The experiences I've had are very real and the community guests tonight saw some of this first hand.  Gurudev led the group through a simple posture and chant and the energy in the room was almost overpowering.  Then he did a demonstration of one of the pranayamas that he uses for his private practice.  I felt a burst of energy that left me litterally rocking in place like a buoy on the sea.  There were probably 20 or so first time guests and every one of them expressed having seen a physical change in Gurudev—he seemed much younger—others felt the energy that radiated from him and others said that the whole scene took on a two dimensional appearance.  The one theme that ran through every comment, however, was that the whole room filled with a deep and abiding sense of peace and love.  Does it all mesh 100% with every point of LDS doctrine?  No but there is only one source of peace and love.  By their fruits, ye shall know them.

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Graduation

Jai Bhagwan!

Yesterday was our graduation ceremony.  It is somewhat of a misnomer as we are not yet graduated but it was the end of the current training session.  The ceremony was steeped in Indian tradition with chanting, offering respect to and receiving a blessing from Gurudev, everyone dressed in white or celebration colors.  Looking at some of the photos, it would be easy to arch an eyebrow and ask, Did they all drink the kool-aid?  On the one hand, yes, we all drank the kool-aid—we swam in it actually—and on the other hand, we most definitely did not.  I say that we did drink the kool-aid because the people who arrived 11 days ago are not the same people who left yesterday and today.  In many ways, we were a mess of caterpillars that came together and left as butterflies.  Some still need to let their wings dry a bit more before taking flight and others are soaring high but there was definitely not a single caterpillar left.  Because of that transformation, we all have a very deep and abiding love for Gurudev and the marvelous staff at AYI.  When I get home, I will post some pictures from the graduation.  You'll see pictures of people with looks serene joy on their faces, pictures of students kneeling at Gurudev's feet and others of him giving his blessing to each student.  Please don't mistake these images as worshipping Gurudev but recognize the absolute enjoyment of the moment and the great love and respect being shown by students to their teacher and to each other.

There is only one other place I have ever felt such incredible love and harmony among strangers and friends, only one other place have I had such clarity of purpose and communion with God and that one other place is in a temple Celestial Room.  During this time, I have gained a much better understanding of the nature of God, a clearer view of how all these other people walking around this planet with me are and how I can help bring peace to the world one person at a time.

Tomorrow I will write a summary of what I have experienced, learned and discovered.  I will share what has changed as a result of this training and how I hope to incorporate my training into my current classes and into future classes.  Until then, Jai Bhagwan!

Door of my heart,
Open wide I keep for thee.
Door of my heart,
Open wide I keep for thee.

Wilt thou come, wilt thou come,
Wilt thou come unto me?
Wilt thou come, wilt thou come,
Wilt thou come unto me?

Will my days fly away
Without seeing thee my lord?
Will my days fly away
Without seeing thee my lord?

Night and day, night and day,
I look for thee night and day.
Night and day, night and day,
I look for thee night and day.

Jai Gurudev!

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Reluctant Reality

Jai Bhagwan!

I like food; in fact, you could say that I can't live without it.  Some of my favorite foods include Rindsrouladen (German beef rolls), medium rare steaks, hamburgers, chocolate, sugary things, cherry pies, cookies, Snickers, sugary things, cake, donuts, sugary things—did I say that already?  As one might expect, all the meals at AYI were vegetarian based—not completely vegetarian as eggs were part of many meals—which worried me some that such a change in my diet might cause . . . issues.  The reality is that I felt absolutely wonderful and I had no real digestive problems at all.  I cannot, however, say the same about my return home.  Yesterday, I grabbed a Snickers and some cookies from the vending machine upstairs . . . mmmm, chocolate.  Within five or ten minutes of having eaten the first cookie, I felt suddenly flushed and very hyperactive.  I could not focus on what I was doing.  The second cookie—no, I was not smart enough to eat only one—made matters worse and then the Snickers bar sent me right over the top.  About an hour later, I started to feel human again.  Then came a call from the front desk, there was extra food from the lunch meeting and I was welcome to scurry upstairs and grab a bite.  The beef literally melted in my mouth, the vegetables looked fantastic and the mashed potatoes looked just like heaven.  The potatoes were edible, the vegetables mushy and bland, and the meat tasted . . . unpleasant and sat in my stomach like a rock.  Thankfully, the breads were just as good as I remembered them.  I felt slightly better when others agreed that the vegetables were just awful but you'd think I had sprouted another head when I asked people about the meat and potatoes.

I went to Florida to improve my ability to teach Yoga, I did not expect to come back completely changed.  I knew what Yoga was about, I knew that it was more than exercise . . . that it was an internal, mental, spiritual discipline that simply used physical postures to help develop that discipline.  Clearly, however, I did not realize the true potential and power of Yoga.  I also did not recognize the subtle changes in myself nor the very profound impact of those oh so subtle changes.  Shanna, my wife, has always told me that I am very body conscious, I think the phrase unnaturally so fits in there somewhere.  That sense of being aware of what my body is doing has gone into overdrive; if I simply think about it for a moment, I can now feel the hairs on my toes.  I really couldn't say if eating Snickers and cookies and a good—sans those over-cooked vegies—beefy meal would have bothered me in the least previously but now, there's a GPS system hooked to my gut telling me exactly where that beefy meal is sitting.  On the flip side, I was pleasantly surprised to find rhubarb in the fridge yesterday morning and quite enjoyed chewing down a stalk or two.

So, what does it all mean?  Eric Walrabenstein, a co-director and instructor during the AYI training, put it rather well.  He said that for some, going to the movies, drinking a gallon of coke, eating a tub of popcorn and having the willies scared out of them watching Saw 43 might be a very stilling experience but for others it might be very distracting or disquieting.  It doesn't take long for those who do not find such entertainment and food stilling to simply stop going to Saw movies and/or consuming gallons of soda and popcorn.  The same is basically true of everything we do; if, we are aware of our own stillness or if the consequences of our actions are large enough to make us take notice.  I intentionally bought another package of cookies and another Snickers bar about three hours ago.  I'm stilling feeling an annoying buzz and I actually feel slightly nauseated at the thought of eating cookies or candy bars.

So, where do I go now?  Do I give up sweets and meats and all the past joys of life?  Not wholesale, no; however, Snickers and the cookies upstairs are off my list.  What about meat?  Let's just say that I am watching very carefully now.  I'm also looking at the Word of Wisdom in a very different light now, especially versus 12 & 13:

12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;
13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

Doctrine & Covenants 89:12-13

I am also looking much more closely at an Ayurvedic diet.  Jyotindra, John Mundahl, introduced us to Ayuveda during our training and my extremely limited experience with it to this point has been extremely positive.  Shanna has agreed to turning one day a week into an experiment on Ayurvedic diet.  I'll post the results of each week's experiment here.  Oh look!  A new subject icon!

Jai Bhagwan!

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Teaching You, Teaching Me

Jai Bhagwan!

Last night was my first opportunity to teach since returning from Florida.  When I finally returned home, Shanna asked me how class went—she went to a Relief Society Enrichment meeting last night instead of class, which made me very happy—I told her that it was incredible and so it was.  I arrived about 45 minutes early to give myself time to practice briefly by myself and to re-center myself as a teacher as well as a student.  Soon it was time to bring the sound system and extra mats from upstairs and begin class.  I talked a bit more than I normally would, sharing some of my experience and explaining that while things would not change too radically that I would be making definite shifts in my teaching.  As I said this last piece, I felt that oh so welcome and familiar feeling of a puzzle piece shifting into place in my mind.  The Amrit Yoga script is quite succinct so that the instuctions needing to be given provide as little distruption as possible and this is the same method I use when teaching.  I give as few directions as possible but I also give possible modifications, encourage all my students to explore the modifications and give general encouragement.  The puzzle piece that slipped into place assured me that my students would have little problem embracing the minor modifications to my teaching that I would be making.

We began with four part warm-up breath and then moved into surya namaskar.  We took plenty of time to allow each part of the sequence to really sink in and integrate.  I'm sure I felt a sigh of relief when we didn't repeat surya namaskar with my typical prolonged holding, little did they realize that I would simply be building that same holding into every posture we did.  I could hear the changes in breath as we held each posture and so reminded them to breathe.  I could feel their struggle to hold yoga mudra and so encouraged them to listen to their bodies to remain safe—my first rule in class is that no one hurt themselves—and if they were still safe to accept the powerful sensations in their arms and trust that the pose would last only as long as it should.  This continued through the entire class:  Hold.  Breathe.  Relax.  Experience.  I honestly did not feel that my teaching style had shifted much but rather the focus of what I was teaching had shifted to a subtler level.  Apparently I was mistaken.

After class, a number of my regular students came up to talk with me.  The first—one of my students that has been with me the longest—said that she had never felt my presence so strongly in the room and how sorry she was that she had come in later and missed my sharing about my experience.  Another group wanted me to know that they would be leaving on vacation for two weeks, they wanted to be sure I knew they loved the new style of teaching and weren't skipping out of my classes.

This same attraction continued after class, I stopped by my mother-in-law's home to pick up some laundry—our dryer's heating element failed while I was away.  I've never hidden my practice of Yoga but last night she wanted to know about my class, wanted to know if Yoga could help her scoliosis and if she could come to my class even with her injured leg.  She isn't allowed to put any stress on the outside of her right foot or leg so the ligaments—superior and inferior fibular retinaculum actually—can heal and reattach.  As a result, she sits in a recliner all day and that is aggravating her scoliosis.  Taking all that into consideration, I told her to not come to my class but that I would work with her on some poses she can do sitting in a chair.  I have wanted to help her and even mentioned that Yoga can help reduce scoliosis related pain and slow or sometimes even reverse its progress.  The interest, however, has simply not been there, not even when I mentioned that the exercises her doctor had given her were all mainly Yoga postures.  Last night was different.  Clearly her need had changed but I had no intention of trying to convince her to give Yoga a try.  It seems that I really didn't need to try and convince her, all I had to do was be me and let things happen as they should happen.

It is not only on the mat where one must learn to breathe, relax and let go.

Jai Bhagwan!

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.

Practice and Teach

Jai Bhagwan!

Ah, I very cleverly forgot to mention a few ah ha moments from last night.  The first is that without realizing it, I can now step my foot forward from ashva-sanchalasana without having to tent my fingers and I can almost grip my own fingers in gomukasana.  My shoulders and hence my chest and heart are all slowly starting to open.  The real breakthrough, however, was realizing one very good reason why it is important to teach rather than to practice with one's students.  The obvious reason is that it allows one the time to help students with their alignments but I found one on a completely different level last night:  Awareness.  Since last Tuesday with Gurudev, I have been able to slip into somewhat profound states of medidation fairly easily and I found myself doing this more and more as class progressed last night.  At times, I was completely entranced by what was happening with my body to the point that twice I had to remind myself that I was teaching and needed to be present externally rather than focusing inward so concertedly.  After the second time, I intentionally remained focus on the students in the room rather than trying to focus on the shared sensations of practicing together.

On a side note, it looks like we're heading over to my cousin's for a bar-b-que tonight.  I am happy to go on the one hand because I am quite close to this cousin but on the other, my tummy is already letting me know that it's skeptical of my discretion when it comes to choosing foods to eat that won't quickly turn into a regret fest.

Jai Bhagwan!

This is my sadhana journal/blog.  Visit my blog at Shanta Yoga for my thoughts and views on Yoga both on and off the mat.