Yoga

I had an interesting experience the other day: I was within the field of consciousness if only for a minute.

I had my feet up as it happened. I looked at my feet and said, “What nice feet.” I wasn’t actually just complimenting my feet. I was the self as it is upon waking and before cognition. I was the me that is still me in my few visits to past lives. I was the me that is still me in my one surprising preview of a future life. I was my eternal self, the “seer in my own nature” (I.3)

Many if not most of you have been in this sort of being at least for a little while.

The Yoga Sutras say

yogaz citta vRtti nirodhaH

Yoga is the process of ending of the definitions/limitations of the field of consciousness. (I.2)

and the Yoga Sutras give 10 recipes for how to clarify the field of consciousness which is citta (and yes one basically is dreamwork).

I think I just stumbled upon the truth of one of them, from Chapter one, sUtra 35, that goes like this:

viSayavatI vA pravRttir utpannA manasaH sthiti-nibandhanI

Or, a cognition which has arisen, related to a sensory object, holding the steadiness of mind (clarifies citta). (I.35)

There are no accidents, but how to make this happen again? The ten ways, from Yoga Sutras I.33-I.39:

being in the realization of friendship with regard to the experiences of :

— happiness

— compassion with pain

— elation with virtue

— neutrality with non-virtue

also

–holding in or out of breath

– [what I said above] holding cognition of a sensory object with a steadiness of mind

–cognition which is sorrowless or luminous

–cognition of an object which transcends attachment

–having as supporting object the knowledge of dreams or sleep

–whatever desired way of meditation

I love this series of passages. They are pretty succinct all in all, wouldn’t you say? And I really appreciate the thought of the last one: “whatever desired way of meditation”. It feels very welcoming and supportive.

I guess I am only in chapter one in my journey to realizing yoga, (pitta alert!) but it was a great experience.

Why not work with the advice of the ten ways to being in this state all the time? What’s the danger?

I’ll tell ya what it is for me: attachment.

Attachment is holding on to prior happiness. (II.7)

Dislike is attachment to prior pain. (II.8)

That’s all there is to it. Sigh.

He who is freed from attachment,
liberated, whose mind is established
in wisdom, who acts for the sake of
yagya, his action is entirely
dissolved. (BhagavAd GItA, 23)

[Dr. Lad seems to embody the above paragraph to me.]

Renay

I remember growing up in the 70’s. I would watch “60 Minutes” Sunday nights with my dear grandparents and have some quality time with them.

A younger Dan Rather somberly intoned not once but a few times on the emergent cultural manifestations of “cults” taking over the young people.

Kool-Aid people, EST, the Hare Krishnas, Osho followers, and Transcendental Meditation were all grouped together. I remember specifically the “proof” that these were scary terrible sects. Something about not being able to go to the bathroom.

As a glad initiate now into Transcendental Meditation, and able to go to the bathroom whenever I want to, I kind of laugh at these memories of the show although it affected me at the time. I am now friends with a number of people who were lucky enough to be in the movement in the 70’s.

Also interesting to me is how the word “brain-washing” came up on the TV segments again and again. (Are there any youtube videos of these early shows? I couldn’t find them with a cursory search.))

You know what? The funniest thing is that I do feel like my brain is literally washed when I meditate, not in the old 60 Minutes sense, but like fresh laundry on a sunny morning.

It’s considered hygienic to wash your body of dirt and impurities. Why not wash and rinse your mind of unneeded stresses, even addictions (I am told), and hopefully, ultimately, of old vasanas and samskaras?

What are we collectively afraid of here? I’m just curious. Are there some attachments to the cultural significations of some of these impurities?

Renay

A wonderful talk by a neuroscientist on her own personal awakening, unfortunately as the result of a stroke, but still very compelling, expansive, and ultimately yogically encouraging.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

http://www.buzzfeed.com/buth/dr-jill-bolte-taylor

Renay

In Ayurvedic school, after giving a clinical assessment of a patient, I was told by Dr. Lad to drink more milk. Surprised, I said “I’ll try.”

My good friend, who is a far more advanced yogini than I am, said “Don’t try. Do.”

It took me awhile, but now I think I get it.

My understanding finally coalesced after reading a quote by Osho:

All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact:

Be – don’t try to become.

Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained.

Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.

Brilliant.

Don’t try. Do.

Herein is the meaning of sankalpa.

I know this sounds incredible, but I am here to tell you today that I can bend spoons and forks and knives, all stainless steel so far.

I learned how from a show on Coast to Coast AM, a late night radio show. That night Maureen Caudill was speaking.

She talked at length about her own experiences as a cognitive computer science specialist, who went “Suddenly Psychic“. (Yes, I later bought the book.)

I was so impressed with her tone, her delivery, I actually listened to the whole show. It was my first time I stayed for it. Usually I’m turned off, or maybe a little confused, by all the discussion of UFO’s and so on.

I’m glad I did this time. It changed my life.

After talking about healing her cat, the second hour was devoted to step by step instructions on how to bend spoons.

They worked perfectly.

Basically, if you know a little Chi Gong, you will find this easy.

Using light pressure, pass your chi through the spoon for at least 5 minutes. This is the tough part.

You will find a moment when the thing feels like it just melted a little bit. That is your opportunity. With that light pressure, bend the spoon, or the tines of the fork, or whatever.

Having high psychical energy is pretty necessary. Eating chocolate helps.

You can still find the .mp3’s of that show on the Coast to Coast web site.

I found this whole thing to be incredibly empowering, telling us all that the military technological engineering oriented world is only so much of the picture.

For example, I gave a spirally twisted spoon to a techie friend for Christmas. He couldn’t unspiral it.

He announced that his engineering education was now for nought and that he should “go to a cave to meditate.” “Everyone should do that”, says my sister. Indeed, I think a lot can be said for it.

I would be happy too to levitate. That would make me feel good and inspire the same feelings, but on a larger scale, of course.

Yeah, I want to do these things to reach others, to say you CAN do the scary, the improbable, the incredibly transformative. YOU have incredible energy. There is no denying it after having done this.

It’s my triple Scorpio ascendant, I guess.

But the secret is not to get egotistical. Then all your insight and power drains out of you. This is what I understand happened to Uri Geller.

A friend of mine can do it even better than I do. She makes the tines into spirals. Cool.

Another friend told me, “Renay, what would I do with a bent spoon?”

Sure, it’s just a trick in a way. There’s no reason to do it unless you want to make jewelry or something, or with levitation, to cross the street without pushing the button for the light. But it teaches us that we are not drones of any sort, or as my friend said, it might make us want to meditate more. It might inspire our lazy selves to vibrate higher. Hence, despite objections by some, I think it qualifies as beginner’s yoga, but I may well be wrong yet again.

*Here are the sobering comments of Vasistha’s Yoga (page 313) about flying (and probably by extension, bending spoons):

Flying in the sky and other powers are natural to some beings, O Raama. The extroardinary qualities and faculties which are observed in this world are natural to those beings - not to the sages of self-knowledge. Supernatural faculties (like flying in the air) are developed even by those who are devoid of self-knowledge or liberation, by the utilisation of certain substances or by certain practices. All this does not interest the man of self-knowledge who is utterly content in himself. They who, in pursuit of pleasures, acquire these powers tainted by ignorance, are surely full of ignorance; the sages of self-knowledge do not adopt such a course.

Whether one is a knower of truth or ignorant of it, powers like flying in the air accrue to one who engages himself in some practices. But the sage of self-knowledge has no desire to acquire these. These practices bestow their fruit on anyone, for such is their nature. Poison kills all, wine intoxicates all, even so these practices bring about the ability to fly, etc., but they who have attained the supreme self-knowledge are not interested in these, O Raama. They are gained only by those who are full of desires; but the sage is free from the least desire of anything. Self-knowledge is the greatest gain; how does the sage of self-knowledge entertain any desire for anything else? …

Fair enough. In so far as this post stimulates discourse (within myself at the very least) and hence a real part of yoga, I’m glad I did the trick, but honestly and without artifice. The whole thing has been educational for myself and others. Let it be that.

Renay