yogalila

2.17 drastrdrsyayoh samyogah heyahetuh

Iyengar:  The cause of pain is the association or identification of the seer (atma) with the seen (prakrti) and the remedy lies in their dissociation. 

Taimni:  The cause of that which is to be avoided is the union of the Seer and the Seen. 

Carrera:  The cause of that avoidable pain is the union of the Seer (Purusha) and the Seen (Prakriti). 

I struggle with this sutra and Carrera sums it up why.  It is paradoxical that this sutra explains that the union of the Seer and the Seen is the cause of our human suffering.  “..Isn’t union –yoga – what we are seeking?”.   But Carrera clarifies that union also can mean correlation or connection.  And the false connection, he says, of mistaking the mind with the Seer, causes our suffering.  If we believe we are only our mind, then “we tend to make choices that serve its whims, fears, and habits”.  We look to the outside world for comfort.  The root of this behavior is avidya or ignorance. 

Iyengar discusses the concept of intelligence, which he says is the “vehicle closest to the soul”.  If intelligence is undiscriminating, we suffer, but if it discriminates, it can mingle with seer.  Intelligence, he says, oscillates between the head and the heart; this oscillation stops through understanding, which he explains is mediation.  The ego dissolves and allows the Self (Purusha) to shine in its own glory. 

Taimni adds in his discussion that yoking of the Seer and Seen is a form of bondage and that yoking always causes bondage. 

The next two sutras go into the “the Seen” more deeply.

2.16 heyam duhkham anagatam

Iyengar:  The pains which are yet to come can be and are to be avoided.

Taimni:  The misery which is not yet come can and is to be avoided.

Carrera:  Pain that is not yet come is avoidable.

Finally!  A Sutra where the translations almost agree!

Iyengar syas that nothing can be done to alleviate past pain (it has already been experienced) but yoga can alleviate current pain and prevent future pain from occurring.  He says that Patanjali is describing yoga as a “healing art, science, and philosophy, by which we build up robust health in body, and mind, and construct a defensive strength with which to deflect or counteract afflictions that are as yet unperceived afflictions.”

Taimni asks can we avoid the misery that seems part of being human?  He points out that most religions accept this misery as a given and focus on blissful life after death.  He says that yogic philosophy allows one to rise above “the illusions and miseries of life…here and now while we are still living in the physical body.”  He says we either choose enlightenment now or in some future life, because we keep coming back until we achieve it. 

Carrera says the “choices we make in life determine our experiences of happiness or suffering”. 

Fear of Flying Upside Down:

Two yoginis discuss their voyage to Adho Mukha Vrksasana.

Bonnie Golden and Sharon Frost, a conversation.

There is plenty of advice available about the physical preparation about getting into handstand, let's talk about the self-talk issues, the mind and handstand.

Can you explain the mind journey?

Sharon:  The mental part is complicated, especially since not all of the relevant content is available to the conscious mind.  My teacher, Jonathan Fitzgordon, has referred to handstand as the most aggressive/violent pose in yoga.  The change in orientation is so sudden and complete.  There's no real transition time. I often seem to have a total mental/physical disconnect when it comes to that inversion transition.  Everything is fine until it's time to make that switch from feet-on-floor.  And some of this has got to be primitive nervous system fight-or-flight.

Bonnie:  Yes, I agree it is truly a fast moving pose.  Other  inversions allow us to have forearm (pincha mayarasana) or head and forearm (sirsasana) contact with the floor, and somehow the upside down piece isn't so mentally daunting. If you set aside the physical readiness aspects of handstand (arm and core strength, etc.), the mind journey is absolutely my greatest challenge.  For several years my teacher, Chris Coniaris has said to me “it's all there Bonnie!”. Meaning physically, all of the pieces of the pose are in place and ready to be integrated.  I know that intellectually and it gives me some confidence, but then…! 
 
What mind “games” have stifled your pose?

Bonnie:  …Then when it comes to execute the pose, some old samskaras are often highlighted.  In my case they are fear based.  Partly from a couple of specific incidents of an unsafe assist, head bumping on the wall, falling, etc.  My mind games have included negative messages such as “you can get there, but you'll pay a price!  It takes time, but those messages are definitely fading. 

Sharon:  Feeling your failure before you start doesn't help either.  I think that's what I often do.  Definitely there is a self-sabotage that's going on - some part of me is saying “no way are we going to get there” - the “what the hell do you think you're doing” response.  Quiet panic. Is that a mind game?  Or is that a mind serious.

On the other hand, I'm a bit of a contrarian and positive self-talk isn't very effective for me.  I have to be careful to maintain my credibility with myself.:D  It's a balance (sorry).

What have you done mentally, to help yourself, encourage yourself with this pose?

Sharon:  I have a photo my husband took of me in handstand on a balcony in Barcelona during the time I was just beginning to get handstand.  In those days I would give myself 10 kick-ups and if I wasn't upside down, so okay, I wasn't upside down.  That Barcelona handstand (in the midst of a lot of kicking) was my first on foreign soil and it was delicious.  I have another photo of the ecstatic me just after that moment.  I keep some scanner prints of those photos near my mat.

I guess staying in touch with the joy of being in that position and the joy of just having done it is something that's important to stay in touch with. 

And a physical manifestation of a mental intention always helps: a “hoowah” on the exhale can be very beneficial. 

Bonnie:  I employ internal coach-y self-talk.  Reminding myself of my strength, hearing the encouraging words of my teacher whether or not he is physically present, and mental images of admirable yoginis from my classes and their smooth moves.  Recently, my most effective teaching strategy has been videotaping myself.  I sometimes tell myself that I'm making a tape for my students and I need to show them how it's done!  I have a dated video collection of my progress that I regularly review to inspire, see my errors, and view evidence that I still have it in me to achieve this pose.  Yes, the visuals are very powerful for both of us Sharon! 

How old were you when you realized that the yoga handstand pose was available to you?

Bonnie: I was 50 when I realized that it wasn't out of the question for me to practice this pose. I did headstands and cartwheels as a child and was fairly athletic, but I didn't do handstands. 

Sharon:  I was 59.  I was giving myself until 61 (as I recall) and I turned out to be precocious.  As a kid I could never do headstand, handstand or even cartwheels.  And I've always had a fear of high places.

How many years of trying before you succeeded?

Sharon: About 3 years of trying every day. 

Bonnie:  I haven't been as consistent with my home handstand practice.  It's been on and off.  In March of '09 I restarted the quest in earnest and made handstand my svadyaya project.  I've made a great deal of progress since then; but the pose will always be in the journey stage.

What physical practices and what media or articles have helped you in your journey?

Bonnie:  I recall that doing the L-shaped practice at the wall, and then the next step of raising one leg at a time was very exhilarating the first time I gingerly elevated that leg. The Yoga Journal DVD with Natasha Rizopolous was great as I began my practice.  I've viewed various videos on YouTube.  Also the Yoga Journal article about the writers handstand journey was quite inspiring.  The author worked with different teachers and in particular Judith Lasater's (whom I've trained with) words hit home about practicing everyday if you really want this pose.  In addition, the encouragement of Yogalila friends and my Tucson teacher Chris, as well as work with Tias Little in Santa Fe during my teacher training have all been significant in the journey.

As a counselor and teacher of adults, I'm applying behavior modification  techniques with myself.  I started with a bolster against the wall, then a pillow, next a smaller pillow, a flat pillow; and finally a piece of cardboard all to help my head feel safe going up.  And now I kick up sans pillow pretty regularly, and even did so twice in class.  That's the ultimate goal, to kick up without any props, everytime. 

Sharon:  Although most of the work I've done on handstand has been on my home mat, the most important instruction I've gotten has been from my teachers: Jonathan Fitzgordon and Marissa Nielsen-Pincus and, before them, Jackie Prete.  (Marissa has such a lovely floaty handstand.  Sometimes I pretend to be her.  And sometimes it works!)  I do like Betsey Downings new handstand practice, available for download at hanumanasana.

What do you think happens to you when you lose handstand now?  And how do you work toward getting it back?  Is that a different process from getting up into the pose for the first time? 

Sharon:  This is the cycle I'm on:  I have it, start to lose it, start to get it back, etc. etc.  I almost never lose it completely but that's happened as well.  When my handstand starts failing I look for other ways of doing the pose and ways of taking the pressure off.  It doesn't work to give handstand a break.  I've tried that and that approach allows the fear and lack of confidence to build.

A note of puzzlement: We've been spending July/August in Buenos Aires and my handstands here, this year, have been among the lightest and most effortless of my life. I have no idea why.  These things are very mysterious after all.  

Bonnie: You are right on the money about the risk of giving handstand a break and thus losing steam.  The thing is, life happens.  My children are home from school, I'm working and writing quite a bit as well as traveling.  Those are the facts of life!  But it is also a fact that when I start up again it's not back to square one anymore. That is quite encouraging.

In fact the other night, I achieved my second in-class handstand (I call it “public handstand”) without a physical assist, although Chris was verbally supportive, which means a lot. 

How do you know each other-how have you helped each other?

Sharon:  We've known each other online through some yoga forums for quite a while and we've been lucky enough to have a couple of face-to-face get-togethers.  I think we've built up some trust over that time and that's allowed our conversation to turn on explorations of our fear, frustration and various blocks.  I know some people don't like to investigate this area, feeling perhaps that it may just enable the fear, frustrations, blocks to take root even more.  I think we've learned to have the conversation without magical thinking and/or self-indulgence.  There's some power in that. 

Bonnie:  I agree, trust has been positively key in sharing our handstand journeys.  It really helps me to know you're out there, working the handstand path I'm working.

Sharon: And a sad note for me:  by the time I return from Buenos Aires, in September, my home yoga studio will have closed its doors - I'll never do another handstand there.  My handstand will have to move on -- again.

2.15 parinama tapa samskara duhkaih gunavrtti virodhat ca duhkham eva sarvam vivekinah

Iyengar:  The wise man knows that owing to fluctuations, the qualities of nature, and subliminal impressions, even pleasant experiences are tinged with sorrow, and he keeps aloof from them. 

Taimni:  To the people who have developed discrimination all is misery on account of the pains resulting form change, anxiety and tendencies, as also on account of the conflicts between the function of the Gunas and the Vrttis (of the mind).

Carrera:  To one of discrimination, everything is painful indeed, due to its consequences: the anxiety and fear over losing what is gained; the resulting impressions left in the mind to create renewed cravings; and the conflict among the activities of the gunas, which control the mind.

In Iyengar’s translation, he discusses the association between pleasure and pain.  He says “all pleasure leads to pain”.  One to always use an analogy or metaphor, he says “the eyelids, being very sensitive, resist extraneous light or matter immediately and protect the eyes by shutting”.  He says our intellect can become just as sensitive to discriminate between the pleasant and the unpleasant.

Taimni explores the thought that many of us have when reading this sutra: so if we lead a virtuous life, will everything be pleasurable?  Taimni says this is impossible because all experiences are tinged with pain.  He mentions three conditions in his translation.  Change and eventually death are inevitable and we often fear change.  Yoga he says helps us “discern something which is abiding, which transcends change and gives us an eternal foothold”.  Anxiety is the second condition.  Happiness is associated with anxiety because we have fear of losing the things that enable us to be happy.  Samskara is the final condition which means impression.  All experiences we have leave an impression.

Amazingly, he says that all life is full of misery and happiness is an illusion. 

The final condition he mentions is the Guna-Vrttis-Virodha – the opposition or conflict of the three Gunas.  These three Gunas are is constant balance of flux (recall the Gunas are svattva, rajas, and tamas)

Carrera comes to the rescue saying that this sutra does not reject the joys of life.  “The insight that ‘everything is painful’ comes to those chose concerns (ambitions, focus, and objectives) have risen above the search for transitory pleasure and avoidance of pain.”

He makes the analogy with a traveler that travels to exotic locales but at some point longs for home.  This is like the yoga practitioner on a long journey but nothing is more inviting than what is inside. 

A New Road -A Secret Gate

Still round the corner there may wait a new road, or a secret gate.  J.R.R. Tolkien

 

 All you have to do is a quick google search on “yoga and fear” and you’ll learn that yoga is the path to overcoming the fear of cancer, falling, death, insecurities, and the irrational fears that stem from childhood.  Social workers and therapists, beware.  Your (our) jobs are in jeopardy.  If people find out about this yoga thing, we’re going to be on the bread lines.

Needless to say, it hasn’t worked out quite that way for me –yet, anyway.  Much of my new life makes me afraid, but I’m trying to learn to embrace that fear rather than conquer it.  Nothing in my old life made me afraid, exactly –or if I was afraid I had stomped down on it pretty hard and did not allow myself to feel it.  So, on a day to day basis, it wasn’t the emotion driving me.  Despair, defeat, feeling unlovable, the need to put on a good public face…. those were much more the top-level emotions in that life.  Nor is the fear I feel these days the terror I felt in the first many months of having my life abruptly rearranged for me.  No, this fear is instructive, for the most part.

At first I couldn’t do yoga at all without having a little panic attack.  There was lots of crying and the feeling of not being able to breathe.  How tiresome to be next to such a person in a yoga class!  So yoga was exclusively at home.  Then I stopped crying (quite so much) but I still couldn’t really do anything.  My body had become unresponsive to my requests.  Annoying.  So I lied to my own subconscious.  We do this all the time, without paying much attention, but this time I did it on purpose.

I told my subconscious that I believe I can have a body that joyously works –that does what it’s supposed to do.  I can have a body that moves through a whole range of motion –a body that is both strong and flexible.   And I’m not afraid of my body’s apparent insistence that I am limited.  As much as I want to be able to do yoga again, even more than that I want to question limitations.   Limits are real, but I’m tired of accepting them just because someone says they’re so  (Cue the music from Wicked!).  Believe me when I tell you that none of these statements is true in the higher-order-functioning part of my brain.  Frequently, I think and say quite the opposite.  But when I feel fear rising up with that slimy “you’re not good enough” feeling, I try to figure out if it's a truth or just a thought.  Even if it's just a thought, it can sit in the room with me, but I try to quiet its insistence on attention.

Which all sounds wonderful and like a perfect commercial for yoga conquering fear.  But I have a really racket-y subconscious, apparently; much like the rest of me, it's not noted for being obedient.  In spite of being able (sometimes) to turn fear into something constructive and instructive, I’m still not wild about it.  Fear is a kind of measure that we’re facing something monumental.  It may not appear to be monumental to anyone else, but in these matters other people’s opinions don’t matter.  Even little fears can hold us still.  Tragically, though, waiting doesn’t make fear go away.  You either live with it and stop where you are (a perfectly valid choice, I might add) or you stare it down and make it go away.   Why would reclaiming my own body make me afraid, I wonder.

I think it's that I know that yoga is going to take me through a secret gate to a new place -and I'm really nervous about where that is and what that means.  I can't say more just yet about what's on the other side of that gate, but I sense its presence.  I guess I'll just keep looking at it, until the day when walking through it is easy and right.

Easeful Backbends

Workshop Report by Yogalilan Ann (aka hounddog)
August 1 & 2, 2009
Mary Paffard and Maggie Norton: Safety and Ease in Backbends
Ann Dyer: Ease in Backbends continued, and Chanting 101
Yoga Mendocino, Ukiah, California

I had pretty much decided I wasn’t going to go to this year’s summer intensive at YOMO. The full weekend with Marta Mahou from Madrid was sounding too rigorously Iyengar and I just didn’t want to be gone for two nights or do only part of the workshop. So when an email came saying Marta had canceled and would be replaced by Mary Paffard and Maggie Norton and an expanded offering from Ann Dyer I decided it sounded more what I was geared for and I decided to go for it.

Mary and Maggie started the Saturday morning with a three hour partner session for backbends. My shyness and discomfort in partner work needs a shift, so I welcomed this opportunity and cast my usual apprehension aside. With only 14 students Mary and Maggie were able to work with virtually every duo or trio in every pose, really making sure both the pose doer and the assistant were guided skillfully. Maggie opened by reading a beautiful Rumi poem “Birdwings” to set the tone. Mary warmed us up with a bouncy sun salutation, rhythmically bending the joints through the moves….imagine doing a sun sal on a train. It was quite fun and certainly got everyone smiling.

The partner and trio work were designed to give the pose doer gentle guidance rather than mind-blowing revelations, and as such took on a somewhat luxurious feeling rather than causing me my usual anxiety. It was a very nurturing atmosphere, but not at all cloyingly so. In twos we did revolved triangle, elbow balance, and thigh stretch at the wall all with a belly assist. Also in pairs we did camel with the partner’s feet pressing opposite directions on the back (this was excellent) as well as down dog with partner pressing her head into the thoracic as she rotated the upper arms out; and bridge with a mat folded in to fourths the long way in place of the usual strap on the scapulas. In threes we did supine mountain releasing rib cage and scapulas with downward pressure. We also did wheel with those same folded mats under the blades held by one partner and under the pelvis by the other. The blades person pulled in her direction and the pelvis person pulled in hers and then they rocked the pose doer hammock style. It was a very comfortable wheel. The grand finale was Mary assisting anyone who wanted into a handstand into eka pada wheel at the wall stunt. First you did a wheel with toes at the wall, Mary marking where your hands were. Then you turned around to go up into handstand at your wheel’s distance from the wall. Mary leveled your pelvis as you came over, pressing one foot into the wall and walking the other one down so you ended up in eka pada with top leg on the wall. Then you brought the down foot back up and pushed off as Mary guided you back up and over to your feet.

Mary and Maggie complement each other wonderfully. They both revel in the subtle, yet don’t lose the fun. Maggie exudes compassion and Mary’s a little tough. Both are funny, experimental and they really listen and observe keenly. A lot of my partner baggage fell away during those three hours. The group of students were almost all teachers or trainees under Mary and Maggie’s tutelage, so they practice the same patience and care exhibited by their mentors. What a treat.

Ann Dyer’s afternoon session was a more easeful practice, and was mostly focused on the role of the lats in backbends. She opened her session by having us lie in savasana while she sang a raga. Her voice is beyond my powers of description. Ethereal, sweet, profound, heartfelt just don’t quite measure up, but it is all these rolled into one and more. The sound lingered in the room vibrationally as we began asana practice. We did some bolster work and some dog work showing how to extend the lats at their opposite ends: the upper arm and the low back. We did partner work in bow where the partner pressed the sacrum down and broadened it, leaning in from the pose doer’s head, facilitating the most pain free bow I’ve ever done. Everyone’s sternum was lifting off the floor with so much freedom.

Ann is a wonderful teacher. Tall and statuesque with a calming presence she has a vaguely Erich Schiffman quality to her physically. She is a little sharp, betraying her Iyengar underpinnings, but is also very verbal and articulate, as well as funny. During her more active backbending practice the next day as she had us all probing for some subtle shift in our hind ends to ease entry into backbends she put the perplexed roomful into laughter as she announced we were “bifurcating the buttocks”. The session explored the roll of the hamstrings in lengthening the thighs and lifting the pelvis without clamping down through the glutes. The detail and subtlety of the work (she called it tedious a couple times, but I find it fascinating) reminded me of Mary Lou Weprin.

The afternoon was Ann’s “Chanting 101” workshop and it was everything I had hoped for. I have long shied away from kirtans because of my aversion to crowds of blissed out people, and from formal chanting because of my sense that I couldn’t possibly do justice to such a sophisticated practice. Ann made kirtan joyful but mindful and chanting accessible. She introduced Indian classical music with words and sound, speaking of it as devotional rather than performance oriented. Something to be felt within the body rather than projected away from it. She taught us how to breathe into the “pubic belly” to deepen the sound and the feeling of it. We did an exercise showing how each vowel sound has a resonance with a different chakra. She talked about om a lot, as a sound practice and philosophically. We explored its beginning (Brahma), middle (Vishnu) and end (Shiva). We did the Gayatri Mantra and Jai Jai Bhavani Mata (a Shiva chant).

She interspersed instruction with relaxed story telling, threads of sound from her own amazing instrument, and openly answering questions. When someone is so passionate and knowledgeable about what they’re teaching it is truly inspirational, and when it happens to be music it is also so moving on our very most primal level. The session crescendoed with kirtan. Now that I know that kirtan evolved as chanting for the masses about a thousand years ago when chanting had formerly been restricted to male Brahmins I have a new “power to the people” tude about it. I’m not rushing out to buy every Krishna Das album, but I have new found and complete respect for the practice. We did a couple kirtans, and then Ann got us into doing one part while she accompanied with another, and then divided the room so one section was doing one part as the second group did the other. I have truly not felt that kind of pure joy since I was little kid singing unselfconsciously in grade school music class, one of my favorite early school experiences (and one that was ruined in an instant by a teacher once telling me to “just mouth the words”). When the class was over Ann genuinely complimented the group saying that we were especially open and receptive to the practices. I have to think it was all the easeful backbends, taught in such a liberating and decompressed way by three excellent teachers that made us such open-hearted music students.

The weekend was a brilliant synthesis of asana and sound, making real for me once again the way yoga illuminates connection, insists on presence, and tunes one in to the omnipresent and all encompassing vibration of life.

August blog focus: fear and yoga

My first teacher used to quote her guru as saying “there are only two true emotions, love and fear”.  I am still not quite sure if I believe fear is truly the antithesis of love, but I would agree that if the true self is revealed by love, then fear is the obstacle that obscures our authenticity.  Yoga is the practice of authenticity in action: if so, then how can our practice change our relationship to the things that we fear? If that which we fear is inescapable and inevitable, then can our practice at least alter our perception of it, and thus lessen its hold over us?

The things we fear are varied: we fear the perceived betrayal of the body through growing old, through falling, through infirmity and disease. We fear the loss of control and security, as children grow up and parents age, and our careers or relationship take unexpected turns. We fear everything from global pandemics to ghoulies, ghosties, and long-legged beasties – truly, both individually and in the collective unconscious, our fears are too numerous to name.

What, then, can yoga do for us?  Perhaps we find a way through breath, in difficult situations; or in challenging poses, courage that we then take into the outer world. Perhaps we can find joy in movement, and capability we did not know existed within ourselves, giving us new confidence to confront our fears.

We might also think about the fact that while yoga may help us confront fear, it can also raise fears of its own. Many first time students in savasana cannot close their eyes or uncross their arms, in the suddenly undefended position of the pose. I have listened to a fellow student at a yoga nidra workshop talk of the void encountered in the depth of meditation and relaxation, and the fear at its edge. And inversions in particular are famous (or infamous) for creating both fear and courage.

Share with us your thoughts on fear and yoga, and read along as fellow yogalilans contribute their posts.