Category Archives: Yoga History

When The Real Party Begins

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I’ve been reading Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice, by Mark Singleton, and it is nothing short of mind-blowing. It’s clear Mark has done extensive research and found substantial evidence to show that the physical yoga practice as we know it today is not exclusively “Indian”, and not all of it came printed on a leaf from 5,000 years ago.

This newfound knowledge challenges me in a number of ways, such as the concept of “real yoga” or “traditional yoga”. I learned that the physical aspect of yoga is a synthesis of numerous Movement practices. As Mark wrote:

The history of modern physical culture overlaps and intersects with the histories of para-religious, “unchurched” spirituality; Western esotericism; medicine, health, and hygiene; chiropractic, osteopathy, and bodywork; body-centered psychotherapy; the modern revival of Hinduism; and the sociopolitical demands of the emergent modern Indian nation (to name but a few).

(He’s an academic researcher, if you can’t tell :) )

I’m reminded of works like Reggie Ray’s Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realizations in the Body, and realized that humans have always had a complex relationship with our physical selves. We seek pleasure with it and we mortify it in hope of finding paradise. We glorify it and we detest it, sometimes in the same breath.

With the way most of us live now, attached to a chair and a desk or a wheel, the body is paying a prize. Naturally, physical fitness is the first thing that needs some TLC. You can’t get to Bliss without going through the physical layer, the Annamaya kosha. I suspect this is why yoga has gotten so bodily focused, certainly to extreme degrees in some cases, but hey, it goes back to that addiction thing.

I had always been vaguely aware that a part of a yogasana practice is the innovation of the practitioner, and teacher. How could a craft that’s mainly experiential not be influenced by the people who must experience it intimately in their own body first? Now I know for sure, that for yoga to work, it cannot be packaged and frozen in time. It cannot be merely recited and regurgitated. Its context must be understood.

The tradition of yoga is to adapt and evolve.

And so, with the understanding that yogasana is influenced by a multitude of factors, like people, culture, sociopolitical trends, etc, I’m reminded of a postcard I bought at a coffee shop.

Let me explain.

I used to frequent Cherry Street Coffee House in downtown Seattle, and one day, I met Ali, the owner. He exuded this other-worldly vibe that I couldn’t quite pinpoint, but I was mesmerized. Shortly thereafter, I saw a collection of postcards made by Ali, and I understood. When I read cards like this, and this, I smiled. Here is a man that doesn’t need no stinkin’ yoga! He already understands what it’s all about.

My favorite Ali card of all, the one that I bought many moons ago and have carried it with me to all corners of the world as I moved east, west, north, and south, is one that says: “The party begins when what you want for yourself you want for everyone else. It doesn’t matter which book you are reading.” I see this portrayed by an image of Egyptian Christians protecting their Muslim countrymen while they pray. This image has gotten 1300+ comments on Reddit, including this one:

“I was there! they placed newspapers and towels on the floor so we wouldn’t pray on the hot asphalt, I love Egyptian Christians and although I am Muslim I would die defending any one of them.” – Reddit user sayyeddy.

Egyptian Christians protecting their Muslim countrymen while they pray during protests in Egypt. Image via Reddit http://imgur.com/NhC4m.

Egyptian Christians protecting their Muslim countrymen while they pray during protests in Egypt. Image via Reddit http://imgur.com/NhC4m.

And with credit to Ali, I say, “The party begins when what you want for yourself, you want for everyone else. It doesn’t matter which yoga style you’re practicing.”

Ali Ghambari reminding me of the Big Picture.

Ali Ghambari reminding me of the Big Picture.

Revisiting the Definition of Yoga, Part I

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C’est le Devoir

I’m doing an 800-hr correspondence course with Georg and Brenda Feuerstein’s Traditional Yoga Studies. Among the reading materials (like a study binder the size of a small child) is the book The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice.

I’m reading a part where Georg is talking about the etymology and connotations of yoga. Among the ever-popular definitions of “to yoke” and “union”, yoga also means “conjunction of stars,” “grammatical rule,” “endeavor”, “occupation,” “team,” “means,” “aggregate,”, etc.

I was immediately drawn to the meaning “endeavor”. I like that definition a lot, which dictionary.com defines as “to exert oneself to do or effect something; make an effort; strive.” It’s from the Middle English endeveren, from the phrase putten in devoir to make an effort, assume responsibility; and Ancient French se mettre en deveir.

If you’ve ever studied French, you may have dreaded the word devoir, but there’s no other way to learn something like 52 ways to conjugate all those verbs.

I like the concept of doing your homework and striving for something. I mean, I don’t always *like* putting in the effort and doing the homework, or doing the work. But, since I’m on this path, where there’s bound to be traffic jam, uncourteous drivers, detours, potholes, and bad road signage, it’s a good reminder for myself that I am not here to only pick flowers on a red cushy carpet.

I also like that the dictionary defines endeavor as an attempt, an effort to strive for something. It does not say the End, the Destination. In his workshop this past weekend, Tias Little stressed many times over that there is no “there”. You do not simply “achieve” a pose. You might be *in* it, and by in, I mean, the observing, the noticing, the development of sensory skills.

The prefix en means “to cause to be in”. My interpretation is that there is a deliberate intention here. There’s awareness. That’s the se mettre part, the putting of oneself in it. There’s willingness.

C’est l’ Exploration

Last week, I started another Yoga for Newbies series, and in the very first class, a student asked straight up, “What is Yoga?” I was taken aback for 2 seconds, because that is a big question, but I’m glad she brought it up, because it’s that sense of inquiry that makes a yoga class … well, yoga. (Inquiry is really what yoga is about, but that’s another topic).

I gave the classical definition from everyone’s “starter yoga definition”: Patanjali’s, that yoga = citta vrtti nirodha. We were moments from savasana, and I said that one thing yoga helps us is how to deal with the chatter in our mind, the kind that, even if you don’t invite it, shows up anyway.

When I learned this definition for the first time, I thought this was it, that I had cracked the code, that I had discovered what yoga is. But no, time would eventually teach me about other mentions and interpretations of yoga in the Upanishad, and the Mahabharata, and people like Vyasa and Shankara. And I know it doesn’t end there. The exploration has just begun.

And of course, it is not really about who said what. It’s useful, for sure, to know intellectually, to be informed and educated, but the real deal doesn’t happen until I actually check it out for myself, in the “real” world, where traffic jams happen every day. As Tias Little said today: “It’s one thing to fill up notebooks with notes, it’s another to actualize the teaching.” The emphasis here is the verb *act*.

So, guys and girls, there’s another contribution to the question “What is Yoga.” Tune in next week for part II. In the mean time, what the heck is “grammatical rules?” I mean, really?

It’s Not About the Pose, It’s All About the Pose – Why Form Matters, and Why It Doesn’t

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As modern yoga seekers, we are often bombarded with a million pieces of information about yoga, sometimes some of them downright contrast with each other. In this post I want to talk about two seemingly opposing viewpoints: the importance and unimportance of the fourth branch of Patanjali’s Classical Yoga: the Asanas.

One thing that you may have heard is Yoga is not about the Asanas! Yoga is not exercise! Yoga is not about putting your legs behind your head! I myself often say, “Yoga is not about what you can do with your body, and it’s definitely, definitely, one hundred percently, not about what other people can do.”

“So, okay, got it,” you might think. “It’s not about looking like Gumby and twisting into a knot. I’m just going to free flow myself into all these groovy postures and shake to groovy music and all my chakras will line up and open, and lotus petals will grow out of my head while a snake will coil up my spine and light will pour out of my chest while I fling myself in a headstand, right? Yup, message received, it’s not about the poses.”

Then, if you take a class with me, you might wonder if it’s all about the poses. Do I have some kind of foot fetish, asking you to move your toes over to here, and your heels over there, and lift the arches of the feet just so? Do I have some major control freak issue? We spend class after class after class talking about very physical things like the tilt of the sacrum, the neutral spine, keeping the frontal ribs soft, the inner groins going into the pelvis…. um, say what?

Why the contradiction about the importance of the Asanas? Are they or are they not “yoga”?

It’s Not About The Pose – Yoga is Not the Asanas

Before we talk about what is and isn’t yoga, let’s back up and see what yoga might mean. For our purposes let’s rein it in to Patanjali’s Classical Yoga. Also known as Ashtanga Yoga, also known as the Eight Limbs of yoga, this particular definition of yoga is comprised of… yes, you guessed it, 8 branches. (Not to be confused with Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga as taught by Pattabhi Jois.)

Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Classical Yoga

  1. The Yamas are concerned with ways to deal with the external world, including: Ahimsa – non-violence; Satya – truthfulness; Asteya – non-stealing; Bramacharya or self-restrain, and Aparigraha or not being greedy.
  2. The Niyamas are about the relationship you have with yourself, including: Sauca – cleanliness; Santosha – contentment or humility; Tapas – discipline; Svadhyaya – the study of the sacred text and ultimately yourself; Isvarapranidhama - a sense of connectedness.
  3. The Asanas, the young, flashy part of the 8 limbs arrived fashionably late, at least later than some other limbs, but for good reasons. They came about as the ancient yogis came full circle with their bodies, flesh and bone. So, I can’t say *for sure*, but an informed guess is they were designed to enable those yogis to sit and meditate by releasing tension and stress. Thousands of books upon books have been written on this topic.
  4. Pranayama, literally, is the extending of the breath. There are books upon books on this topic. The general idea is the breathing exercises help to calm and focus the mind. Books upon books have been written on this topic.
  5. Pratyahara is translated as the withdrawal of the senses, and it’s often misunderstood as turning the world away, or tuning out. What it really means is you are aware but no longer distracted by outside events.
  6. Dharana is the concentration of the mind. Books upon books have been written on this topic.
  7. Dhyana is the meditation practice to observe the mind. Books upon books have been written on this topic.
  8. Samadhi is Enlightenment (yes, with a capital E), and not surprisingly the ultimate goal of Classical Yoga. Many books have been written on this topic, and many people have claimed that they have achieved Enlightenment. Many books on Enlightenment are also enjoying a very thick layer of dust on their owners’ bookshelves.

So, since Asana is part of this troupe, why isn’t it considered yoga?

Yoga is Not *Just* Asana

I can only speculate here, but I believe when someone says “Yoga isn’t Asana”, they actually really mean, “Yoga isn’t just Asana”. There is a much higher emphasis on the physical aspect of yoga, especially around here (here being North America), to the point where, if aliens from out of space landed in a certain yoga studio, they might make this association: Yoga = hot sweaty bendy young thin (mostly female) bodies.

For sure, any one of those branches can be used and abused and over-commercialized, but that’s not as likely or easily. There are no “Journey into Power, 30 days of Pranayama” studio contests. There are no Pratyahara competitions. There are no nude advertisements for Dhyana or Naked Dharana workshops. When was the last time someone said to you, “I need some new pants for meditation”? And let’s not even go to the Yamas and Niyamas, because quite frankly, those who call themselves yogis are the worst offenders of those precepts.

So, emphasizing the Asanas is much easier, especially in a culture like ours, where physical perfection is a multi-billion dollar industry. With easy access to food and a tendency towards a sedentary lifestyle, we are constantly concerned with losing weight, burning calories, and fitting in skinny jeans. And so, the Asanas, the Chosen Ones, get propelled up to a pedestal to represent Yoga.

Without the rest of the 7 limbs, the poses may merely promote physical idealization and obsession. This is not to say there is anything inherently *wrong* with a physical endeavor. Olympic athletes do this 24/7/365 for just one moment of glory, and their quests are inspiring and admirable. However, we can’t really call the Asanas as yoga anymore than we can call handlebars a bicycle. They’re part of a bicycle, certainly, but unless it’s a unicycle, a bicycle is most likely going to be pretty useless without handlebars.

It’s All About The Pose – Yoga is the Asanas

Now, having maybe put down the Asanas a little, we need to give them credit where credit is due. And specifically, give the human body credit where credit is due, which is an enormous amount.

Throughout our spiritual quest, and throughout all mankind’s spiritual quest, the one thing that has remained–and will remain–constant, is the vehicle that we use, that is, our body. (For clarity purposes I will define spiritual quest here as the ultimate knowledge of who we are, to “know thyself”, or as the Bard would say, “to thine own self be true”.)

In Defense of the Body

Our body is an amazing and marvelous machine that quietly works as efficiently as possible to make us us. To me, knowing how to operate and keep this machine well-oiled is the least we can do to help it out, and to continue on our quest of self-actualization. Yet, in our post industrial revolution world, we often live from the neck up. More often than not, we’re disconnected with the rest of the body.

This discrepancy is not exclusive to the North American culture at this particular time. In some meditation traditions, there is absolutely *no* emphasis on the body at all, with some viewing it as a hindrance to Enlightenment. It’s rare that a meditation master in any tradition talks about the seat, and *how* to sit. The body is largely forgotten and neglected. Moreover, the general society often tends to value those titled “information workers” more than those called “body workers”. William James had to gently remind his contemporaries, who were the least bit concerned about the whereabouts of their sitz bones, that we are both mind *and* body.

On the other hand, we have a giant obsession with what the body and its performance and appearance. We attempt, over and over again, to manipulate our flesh into whatever it is that we think it should be. We take pills, we drink nothing but lemonade, we purge, we binge, we run, we lift weight, we go to yoga, we stretch. With all the attention, you would think that we would know our body really well by now.

Why Proper Form Matters

The great paradox in the current popular yoga scene is that we are very interested in our body and its form, but  we have a disproportionate interest in its function, which is both a requirement and result of proper form. In packed classes of popular yoga styles, we are asked to follow the Nike slogan of “just do it”, do it fast, do it like how your neighbor is doing it, and don’t ask any questions, or, don’t question anything.

I would like to propose an alternative: we consider both form and function. When we think first about the intention of the posture and how our body functions, we lessen the desire to look like something or someone. At the same time, if we pay attention to proper form, that is, the position of our tissues and joints, there’s a high chance that we enables certain function(s) in the body as well. At the very least, we avoid bringing on unnecessary injuries to the body.

The Asanas, Mindfulness, and Meditation

Another thing I’d like to put out there is doing the Asanas can help cultivate our Mindfulness. When we think about our own body, we go inward. When we think about the whereabouts of the sternum and collar bones, and notice what happens when we lift your toes up or slide the shoulder blades down, we not only become intimately aware of our body but we also train to be a curious observer. Then, each movement, each posture, can be compared to a moving meditation.

Practicing this way, over time, we start to tune in to the body off the mat and outside of the studio. We notice, after sitting at the computer for a couple ours, that our neck has shortened and the lumbar spine has protruded out. We are hurrying to finish our lunch to get back to work and realize that we are actually already full. We start to observe sensations, we start to observe our breath, our mind. And with luck, we will bring a certain sense of stability and ease from the yoga postures to other postures in life: when we’re in traffic and someone cuts us off, when we’re interviewing for a job we really want and we’re feeling anxious, when someone we love is getting on our nerves, etc.

The yoga is not in the poses, it’s in the residual they leave. – Judith Hanson Lasater

Kiss My Asana

To say that Asana *is* yoga is to only use the handlebars to travel on this path. To say that the Asana is *not* yoga is to downplay the importance of the handlebars. In an interview on NPR about his book, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, Robert Richardson said, “There’s no real place where you can say the mind stops and the body begins, they are so interconnected.” To overly favor one at the expense of the other is to separate what isn’t.

Once, while studying that famous Dharma Mittra yoga chart, I noticed a small print at the bottom of the poster, saying: “I am not this body, I am not this mind”, and thought to myself, “What a load of crock!” (Yes, true story! I was young and unimpressionable.) My thinking was quite shallow, “How could someone twist himself in all these poses and then say he is not this body?” I thought that it was this fellow Dharma Mittra who said that, and it wasn’t until later that I found out it was Krishna who spoke those words, “I am not this body” in the Bhagavad Gita.

I have now come to understand what that really means, but it has taken a long long time. What do you mean I am not this tall and this size and this skin color? What do you mean I am not my thoughts and feelings? I can touch my toes, yes, today, now. Tomorrow is another day. No matter what happens, I always need to remember, “I am not this body”. In the meantime, I will keep working on staying in headstand in the middle of the room for 10 minutes (which really feels more like 10 million years).

Even kitties have to work on spreading their paws

Even kitties have to work on spreading their paws

Yoga, or Transformation

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Lately, it seems like the whole world is going stir-crazy on the commercialization of yoga, or debating what it is and what it’s not, and if it’s lost its soul. I have taken refuge in going back in time, as far as possible, and for some reason found some solace in reading what people who have come before us–people who probably didn’t even practice yoga (as we know it), or consider themselves yogis–have to say about this nebulous thing called yoga.

These are the first and last sentences of Yoga, or, Transformation - a comparative statement of the various religious dogmas concerning the soul and its destiny, and of Akkadian, Hindu, Taoist, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Christian, Mohammedan, Japanese and other magic, by William J. Flagg. Published in 1898 in New York.

An enquiry such as this book attempts, into the nature and destiny of the soul of man, must needs begin with at least a brief review of the theories respecting it which have been offered by the various great religions of the world, of which the oldest of all, so old that it may truly be called the mother of the others, is yet so new also that we now most commonly know it by the name of “modern spiritualism.”

Thus the possibility of improving method by simply intensifying sensation to a degree from which the practicer’s attention will not be able to escape, and where perfect and absolute concentration will be assured, is great enough to permit the conjecture that by this way of the senses alone yoga methods may at some age in the future attain such perfection that all will be allured to practice them, and that too in the thorough way that has heretofore distinguished only two or three in a century of even the thorough-going Hindu sages, and the whole race of man become yogis.

Can you imagine Mr. Flagg telling his friends the title of the book he’s working on, and the reaction he gets? And how beautiful is this writing by Lord Tennyson, that Mr. Flagg put it in on his cover page:

This has often come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently till, all at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the consiousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words, where death was almost a laughable impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life.

Apparently you can still buy a copy of this book from Amazon, or, you can read it for free on Google Books.