The lotus blossoms from the mud

I recently had the opportunity to study the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with Kausthub Desikachar in Wellington. Early in my yoga career, I was profoundly affected by his father's (TVK Desikachar) simple and brilliant work, The Heart of Yoga. This book is a beautiful introduction to the history, practice, and philosophy of yoga as taught by Krisnamacharya. Kausthub is Desikachar's son, grandson of Krishnamacharya, and an insightful, provocative, and jovial teacher of yoga in his own right. The workshop was a wonderful meeting of many passionate practitioners and teachers in New Zealand.

There were many insights that I took home but one in particular keeps resonating with my own experience of life: Yoga is a practice of choosing how best to respond. Often, we are not able to control the people, circumstances, situations, or even the emotions that arise to shape and affect our lives. However, through faith and continued practice, we CAN learn to see clearly with an open mind and heart-- actively choosing HOW best to respond to what arises.

According to the Sutras, yoga is a self-empowering process where we are given the option (and responsibility!) to take charge of our own happiness or suffering. In this model, as Kausthub offered, "life does not happen by chance, it happens by our own choice."

It is easy to suffer from the martyr syndrome, with the insistent "Why Me?" arising in the midst of crisis. I often struggle when I imagine or visualize the "perfect" practice and "perfect" life that I would like to have but look instead at the messiness, imperfection, and inconvenient emotions (indecision, anger, sadness) which might be the reality of my day.

What do you do when situations that arise in your daily life make the living of a spiritually connected life seem a far away dream?

My favorite sutra has always been 1.20 (here without proper Sanskrit pronunciation marks): shraddaviryasmrtisamadhiprajnapurvaka itaresam. According to Desikachar, this translates as, "Through faith, which will give sufficient energy to achieve success against all odds, direction will be maintained. The realization of the goal of Yoga is only a matter of time."

This sutra tells me that the "stuff" of our daily life is not at opposition with our yoga practice. In fact, this "stuff" of our lives becomes our practice! On the mat, we practice virtues like compassion in seated forward bends, courage in urdhva dhanurasana, trust in supta baddha konasana. BUT how more powerful to find the means to practice these same virtues in the midst of LIFE! In trying times with children, conflicts with the boss, or when faced with hurt or betrayal by a loved one.

Pema Chodron writes, "There isn't anything except your own life that can be used as ground for your spiritual practice. Spiritual practice IS your life, twenty-four hours a day."

The beautiful lotus blossoms out from the mud! Beauty arises up and out of the earth with such shape and fragrance and colour that we do not even notice the dirt underneath. Thank you Kausthub for the beautiful metaphor and gentle reminder!

A Path with Heart

I once read that, "we teach best what we most need to know". How often this statement rings true for me this year! How often does it ring for most of us?

Lately life has thrown me quite a few ups and downs. I am besieged by indecision. My emotions have been as dependable and as certain as our local Christchurch weather! And although I try to keep "going with the flow", this practice brings challenges much deeper and more trying than the garden variety handstand!

Looking at a calendar that is already planned through mid-December, I wonder where my year has gone. And, for me, this simple feeling of overwhelm leads to paralysis! I'll admit I am one of those annoying people who sits undecided at a good Thai restaurant...With extensive options and each so tempting, how can you decide which dish is just right? How do I make a sure and definite decision without regret?

Reading Jack Kornfield recently reminds me of something that I often stress to my students. "In undertaking this life, what matters is simple: We must make certain that our path is connected with our heart...Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?"

Discovering what we really value involves opening ourselves up to our heart with an honest and a genuine willingness to listen. What we hear may fly in the face of accumulated notions of who we think we are and who we think we should be. This honest listening requires real courage and a tender compassion for our own experience of living this life. Again and again, I encourage my students and friends to seek this path and it is one that I also find challenging to walk!

Kornfield shares a story from Don Juan (visionary and teacher of Carlos Castenada): "Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone one question. The question is one that only a very old man asks...Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use."

May we all find the courage to choose and walk the path that truly touches and softens our heart.

Seize the Day!

As many of you know, I am hosting Desiree Rumbaugh (http://www.desireerumbaugh.com/) for an Anusara Weekend Workshop this December here in Christchurch. Desiree is a senior certified Anusara teacher and world renowned for her vibrant spirit and inspiring teachings! Her workshops and retreats aim at powerful personal transformation and self-expression, leading each student to celebrate their own greatness through the practice of yoga! If you've enjoyed your yoga journey thus far, I strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to study with a master yoga teacher.

In this weekend, you will experience the simplicity, strength, and fun of Anusara yoga. By aligning our body with nature and balancing effort and surrender in each pose, we consciously and steadily train our hearts and minds to help us have a more positive experience of each moment.

Find the full weekend schedule and link to more info on the sidebar to the right.

Freshness

In class last week, I kept returning to the theme of "beginners mind". For me, the season of Spring heralds not only a fresh beginning (and blessed end to the chill of winter) but also a fresh perspective. This sense of freshness is key I think to yoga as a lifelong practice. As a "yoga teacher", I am not immune to the feelings of stagnation, isolation, even boredom and depression that can arise when I sit on my mat and have to face the "stuff" inside. Not every day is instant inner peace... As I continue to practice yoga, an important and regular part of my practice is learning how to keep cultivating this freshness.

What do you think of when you hear the word fresh? For me, I immediately think of the lemon. Its clean, crisp scent. The light, playful taste that dances and zips across the tongue. How it lightens and transforms even the heaviest dish. I think also of the feel, smell, taste of the early morning air. Freshness has both a quality of spaciousness and also a clarity, or cleanness about it.

On the yoga mat, we can practice finding freshness every time we fully open to the breath--as it is--without expectation, without judgement. With each exhale, we release whatever isn't serving us so that the inhale arises naturally and easily, full of new possibility and potential. We can maintain our clarity, our intention to be present by connecting to our foundation and then softly engaging and hugging to our core. In each pose, we return to the breath, and as we move into and between each posture, we find the place where we feel a sense of spaciousness and freedom. Why choose to be anywhere else?

At the start OR end of your yoga practice, if you find your energy and spirits are still dragging, try lying for 5 to 10 minutes in a heart-opening, supported savasana. Fold a firm blanket in half and then half again, lengthwise. Sitting in front of the long end of your blanket, lay down on your back so that your whole spine is slightly lifted and supported all the way up to the back of the head. If you feel discomfort in the neck or shoulders, add another blanket to lift and support the head. Allow your arms and legs to fall open to the sides and the body to soften and sink into the earth with each exhalation. Without forcing or changing the breath, feel the inhalation expanding your side ribs, spreading and lifting your collarbones, and moving across fronts of the shoulders. Enjoy the feeling of lift and vastness in the heart, each exhale softening the body and mind more and more into your present moment.

Sacred Pause

I need to recover a rhythm in my heart that
moves my body first and my mind second;
that allows my soul to catch up with me.

I need to take a sacred pause,
as if I were a sun-warmed rock
in the centre of a rushing river.

Dawna Markova

Anusara: Awake and Celebrate!

When prospective students call me, the first thing they usually ask is what kind of yoga do you "do"? More specifically, they often want to know how I differentiate what I do from other teachers and other styles of yoga. I always struggle with how best or how well this question can be answered.

Hatha Yoga is the physical practice of yoga postures (asanas) and almost every yoga class being taught in the Western world (Anusara, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Bikram, etc.) IS a form of Hatha Yoga. In fact, most of the modern gurus who continue to inspire and inform the development of yoga today--BKS Iyengar, Sri Pattabis Jois, TVK Desikachar, AG Mohan--all had origins with the same teacher and same lineage, Sri Krishnamacharya.

With so many types of hatha yoga out there, it is easy to become confused about what kind is "best" or "true" or most "genuine". Just as we recognize there are many different religions and spiritual paths to best suit the cultural, geographical, and psychological natures of particular people, there are also many paths and approaches to yoga that will appeal differently to you.

"The best yoga practice can be defined as the one that WORKS." (Donna Farhi) For YOU--your unique structure, mind, heart.

I practice and teach hatha yoga that is guided and inspired by study with my yoga teacher John Friend (founder of Anusara yoga) and many other senior teachers in the Anusara tradition. I continue to study and teach this method because it resonates deep in my heart. At the same time, my practice also incorporates the work and wisdom of other brilliant teachers (of yoga and life) including Donna Farhi, TVK Desikachar, Judith Lasiter, and Chogyum Trungpa Rinpoche.

"Anusara is a hatha-yoga system that is based on a Tantric philosophy that sees the world as an embodiment of supreme consciousness, and that the essence of that is truly auspicious. There's an absolute goodness in the essence of all things and all people...The practice of Anusara helps us to gain a recognition, a deep understanding and a remembrance of this truth.

And so this practice is about awakening. Through our practice of yoga we learn skillful means of participating in and living our lives fully to bring greater happiness, greater health, and more beauty into the world."
John Friend

My intention is to teach yoga in a way that is dynamic, playful, supportive and FUN! Moving with the natural breath, we use the Anusara Universal Principles of Alignment as a means to unfold and reveal an expression of the inner spirit. Each posture becomes an opportunity to soulfully celebrate the heart. Every student's abilities and limitations are deeply respected and honoured. With the support of the kula, or community, we play deeply on our yoga mats to discover what IS possible in the present moment.

Self Unbounded

I've recently started reading a new book on Ayurveda, the Indian system of health and healing, often called the sister science of Yoga.

In her book, Absolute Beauty, Pratima Raichur gives a definition of beauty as "the experience of seeing/feeling the Self unbounded." I found this definition immediately resonated with me and I began thinking of times I'd recently been in the presence of "beauty". Hearing soulful music at the Arts Festival, re-reading one of my favorite Gary Snyder poems, watching the sunset over the Southern Alps. What was it exactly that made these experiences beautiful? The composition of sound, colour, texture, or light? All no doubt play a part. However, what I remembered most strongly wasn't anything external but how being in the presence of beauty made me FEEL inside....

A feeling of being bigger than myself. More vast, more free...and connected somehow to the larger flow of life.

In yoga, the essence of the Self is always unbounded. Always completely free and already completely full. It is known in Sanskrit as satchitananda--truth, consciousness, and bliss. As my teacher John Friend says, "There is no work to be done, nothing to be accomplished other than the true joy of existence itself!"

Yet, how often do we feel this way about our Self? It seems that part of our experience of being human is that we FORGET. We get cloaked, we have bad days, we argue with our partner, we hate our job, we're tired of winter. But these experiences, this forgetting, is not necessarily a bad thing. Because they allow us the bliss of getting to remember the beauty again. So we see the sunset, and we read the poem, and we kiss the loved one and we think....Oh, yeah!

On the mat as we move through our postures, we taste sachitananda in those moments when we experience the Self, OUR Self, completly unbounded. We must release the striving to achieve a "perfect" pose and the need to compete with the person practicing next to us. We can choose to occupy the space of freedom, the place that both opens and soothes, where we remember and celebrate the bigness inside. We can choose to practice in a way that reveals and enhances the beauty that is already present within us.