Strong threads to help repair a community torn by grief

Yoga has been my saving grace through many crises in life:  the pain and stresses around my divorce, losses from a con artist, and my mother’s death just to name a few.  For many years, I associated the daily asana practice to helping me move the negative energy generated by these events out of my body and mind.  And while that is true, as my practice deepens and my understanding of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali grows with the help of yoga teachers like Kquvien DeWeese, I know there is more happening. These pithy 196 sutras or threads were developed to clearly articulate how yoga can help us strengthen the fabric of our human experience. 

On the inside cover before the foreward of BKS Iyengar’s Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, it states:

“The Sutras were the earliest –and are still the most profound and enlightening –study of the human psyche.  In them, Patanjali describes the enigma of human existence.  He shows how, through yoga practice, we can transform ourselves, gain mastery over the mind and emotions, overcome obstacles to our spiritual evolution.  In this way we attain the goal of yoga:  Kaivalya, liberation from the bondage of worldly desires and actions, and union with the Divine.”

Even after over 2500 years since Patanjali first distilled the practice of yoga into these succinct aphorisms, the guidance is as applicable today as it was then.  The human predicament has changed very little. 

Recently, the shock of the death of a friend's son in our community has been devastating to everyone in it, whether they knew him well or not.  It demonstrates that while we can argue detachment with our TVs, computers, ipads, and smart phones – we are still deeply connected to the lives of those around us.

The late biologist Lewis Thomas in his book, The Lives of a Cell was able to poetically describe our complex interdependence.  The book though written in the 70s was prophetic in terms of anticipating the likes of Facebook, which unites us in virtual communities all over the world.  The impact of a single tragedy is not just a news story anymore.  It becomes a part of the tapestry of human existence and it is held together by common experience beyond the borders of close neighbors and friends. Princeton University's Global Consciousness Study is a wonderful way to witness this first hand:  http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

In my community, while student arranged vigils and school assemblies have been incredibly beautiful ways to give voice to the grief of this great loss and promote the healing process, I can’t help but be concerned about the group thought that lingers.  It is all too easy for us to get attached to the pain and its story --like I mentioned in a previous blog (though it addressed it from more of a physical pain perspective).  Kquvien furthered the lesson with reference to our attachments to mental and emotional pain in class the other day.  We focused on a few of the following Sutras of Patanlaji (written here in Sanskrit with English Transliteration by BKS Iyengar), specific to techniques that can help stabilize our mind so we can begin to find peace:

1.33 maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhka punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatah chitta prasadanam

Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favourably disposed, serene and benevolent.

1.34 prachchhardana vidharanabhyam va pranayama

Or, by maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of soft and steady exhalation and during passive retention after exhalation.

1.35 vishayavati va pravritti utpanna manasah sthiti nibandhani

Or, by contemplating an object that helps to maintain steadiness of mind and consciousness.

1.36 vishoka va jyotishmati

Or, inner stability is gained by contemplating a luminous, sorrowless, effulgent light.

1.37 vita raga vishayam va chittam

Or, contemplating on enlightened sages who are free from desires and attachments, calm and tranquil, or by contemplating divine objects.

1.38 svapna nidra jnana alambanam va

Or, by recollecting and contemplating the experiences of dream-filled or dreamless sleep during a watchful, waking state.

1.39 yatha abhimata dhyanat va

Or, by contemplating or concentrating on whatever object or principle one may like, or towards which one has a predisposition, the mind becomes stable and tranquil.

The entire purpose of yoga according to Patanjali is Citta Vrtti Nirodha, stilling the fluctuations of the mind.  Basically, the door to freedom on earth is through our ability to control our thoughts. Therapist can be a great aid in helping us uncover the layers of thought processes, but we must realize we have the power to control where our thoughts take us day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute.  We are all capable of attaching to unhealthy thoughts or spiraling into negativity and hopelessness in troubled times just as we are capable of getting caught up in great joy, expectation, and desire. 

The mind is a muscle and though it is well accepted to workout like crazy to build our external physique or build our intellect, we neglect to spend time mastering our thoughts. However, it is an exercise worth committing to  --- not only for ourselves as individuals, but also for the many roles we play in our community:  parent, partner, relative, child, sibling, student, teacher, employee, boss, leader, neighbor, and friend. Each one of us is a thread sewn into the fabric of humanity that holds us all together – so we have to be strong.  

Learning to help folks stay upwardly and outwardly mobile: Teacher Training at Stillwater Yoga, Atlanta

Iyengar Teacher Training at Stillwater Yoga in Atlanta is a reservoir not only for new insights and teaching enhancements, but also for learning more about moving vertically and horizontally in the practice of yoga. Stillwater Yoga owner, Kathleen Pringle points out that our vertical expansion is about knowledge and our horizontal expansion is about wisdom. While most of the basic elements of the training are similar, the nuances are as unique as the group of student teachers who attend.   

Our February training this year addressed how to effectively assimilate the vast amounts of information we get from various sources. As many Iyengar students and teachers know the Iyengars are constantly enhancing and clarifying teaching techniques. In addition, there are hundreds of workshops and resources that interpret what the Iyengars’ are doing. Kathleen emphasized the imperative of understanding the basis of any new information or technique. If you think about it, the applications go far beyond the yoga mat.

In yoga, we are often in workshops where someone with an impairment of some kind becomes the impetus for the teacher to introduce a particular new action.  If we isolate the new action from the impairment and incorporate it into our students practice, we are acting on one of the nine obstacles that block our progress known as alabdha bhamikatva or “missing the point” as highlighted in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 1:30 below: 

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1:30 

Vyādhi (sickness), Styāna (lack of mental disposition for work), Samsaya (doubt, indecision), Pramāda (indifference or insensibility), Ālasya (laziness), Avirati (desire), Bharānti Darśana (false knowledge, illusion), Alabdha Bhūmikatva (missing the point, inability to hold on to what is achieved), Anavasthitattva (instability in holding on to concentration which has been attained after long practice)

Students without the impairment may not need the new action in their practice at all.  In fact, in some cases the action could have negative consequences. Therefore, it is important to take extreme care with how we receive new information, so that when we share it, we are doing so with full awareness of why the action is being introduced.

Our April training addressed the issues around how students respond to questions.  As you know, we are all students no matter how advanced our practice and we all experience the same obstacles.  What is wonderful about being in the teacher-training environment is that we can pause to witness ourselves in others and learn. 

Often when a teacher is faced with a student with an injury or pain the teacher asks certain clarifying questions:  Where is the injury or pain?   How long does the pain last?  What is interesting is that the responses very rarely answer the question.  Instead, people tend to attach the pain or injury to a story and want to tell the story, so the question doesn’t get answered.   

Kathleen helped us understand how to separate the pain or injury from the story.  In doing so, we can isolate the specific impairment so we can apply a more accurate modification.  At the same time, we encourage the student to loosen their attachment to the story around the pain or injury. Thereby strengthening their consciousness by getting them to the root of problem, which is the only place real healing can happen.  

Of course, Kathleen Pringle can quickly identify when a student needs help in this manner. After she helped someone in our training, it occurred to me look at myself and discover just how many stories I have that are keeping me from healing or moving forward.  If you take a moment to think about it, I’ll bet you can find you have a few of your own.

Teacher Training at Stillwater is a community event.  It takes wonderful peers willing to make mistakes, ask the hard questions, and put themselves out there so we all learn.  It takes the efforts of experienced teachers like Nancy Mau and Kquvien DeWeese, who volunteer their time and expertise to share with us and show us the magnificent results of many years of teacher trainings and trips to Pune. It also takes our incredible Stillwater patrons who come to learn and are open to having student teachers bring their nerves and growing skills to the front of the room. Most of all it takes a veteran Iyengar Yogi like Kathleen Pringle, who puts up with all of our “stuff” to help us see our obstacles, improve our skills, and find our voice, so we can share this amazing practice with you.  

Thank you all.  Namaste.