Yoga and the Inner Sea of Chi

Posted on November 2, 2016 by admin

Notes from the Boston classes: October 2016, and more …

As we sail, swim and float through the inner sea of chi, we discover how to use yoga poses and explorations to transform dense, confused dysfunctional energy to a more integrated, coherent subtle energy. We can then use the subtle energy to strengthen and heal the psyche/soul and refine our emerging adventures in the imaginal realm.

Sounds easy, but it is not. Most of the dysfunctional energy, expressed both personally and culturally, is not going away easily and we need to develop a strong sense of the ‘discomfort resilience’ mentioned in the previous post. To be immersed in the world of form, the feminine path of awakening, requires to hold a vast spaciousness to contain the suffering within and without that we will feel deeply. The current election insanity makes that very clear. Old patterns, deeply embedded in the cultural DNA, are also resilient.

Some very well known spiritual guidance is available to us on this journey. Patanjali describes the transformation of dense to subtle energy on the personal level in his second sutra on asana seen below. The whole of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is devoted to the transformation on the personal and societal level.

II-47 pra-yatna shaithilyaananta sam-aa-pattibhyaam
With the release of effort and absorption in the limitless (posture is mastered).

There are two parts to Patanjali’s observation about refining asana practice. Both imply that the inherent tendency of the body, of aliveness, is toward harmony. In part one, as balance is restored through yoga practice, there is more ‘just allowing’ of what is natural to emerge from within and less imposing from without. Effort here implies an addition of energy that is not quite aligned with the forces and currents of the moment. We need to be able to distinguish when our energetic actions are aligned, and when they are not. This requires listening, sensing and feeling as many layers of the body flow as possible. The fluid body is our link between structure and flow. Then action can be effortless. Taoists use the term wu wei, literally meaning no effort.

Patanjali’s second observation also comes right from Taoism. When the organism is whole and aligned in gravity, the whole cosmos is present in support. This is ananta, the serpent-couch of Vishnu, the sustainer of the cosmos, the sustainer of the pose. Our path is absorption in ananta, resting in the Tao, living fully alive.

From the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 37, Nameless Simplicity (Stephen Mitchell translation)

The Tao never does anything
Yet through it all things are done

If powerful men and women could center themselves in it,
the whole world would be transformed
by itself, in its natural rhythms.
People would be content
with their simple, everyday lives,
in harmony, and free of desire.

When there is no desire
all things are at peace.

We have a long way to go…

My Definitions:
Dense energy is out of phase with the inherent coherent flow of life in the body/mind/cosmos. It manifests as unnecessary effort, strain or contraction in the tissues and sense organs and accumulates over time creating the dense energy body. It can also be felt as unhealthy emotions, dysfunctional belief systems and other forms of stored trauma wired into the system.

Subtle energy is in harmony with the deepest expressions of health and coherence, the Tao, within and without, and in the body can be felt as subtle energy currents, waves and tidal flows.

Imaginal Realms: Emergent expressions of fundamental aliveness that connect the deeper levels of embodied cellular intelligence, through the dream process, to levels of reality outside the normal constraints of space and time. A major shift in human consciousness is taking place here.

The Process:
In a yoga pose, sequence or full practice, the main point is to awaken, and deeply refine our sensitivities so we can feel when we are in balance, and when we are not. The fluid body, the inner sea of chi, is where we travel, feel, sense, notice and align ourselves to the deeper realms of cosmic intelligence. This in turn will help us enliven and balance all levels of our energy so that when we go out into the world, we can bring some level of maturity, equanimity, kindness and creativity into our relationships. Same with our journeys into the realms beyond time and space. How might we go about this?

Cosmic Orientation and the Seven Sacred Directions

The seven sacred directions give us a 3 dimensional model or map, with 3 axes and a center point, to help monitor and modulate our journey through the sea of chi. As our attention flows through the 3 dimensional space, we open the polarity of the axes through the center point, so that the energy and information flows both ways. We can then let attention come back to the center, the heart, and dissolve into infinite spacious awareness where the deepest healing takes place.

1st direction. Open your heart. It always begins and ends in the heart. It is almost a cliche, but the primary practice/orientation is to awaken and open our hearts and establish a stable base there. Over and over, 24/7/365.24…. Feel your heart by touching your sternum, breathing into the chest, or any other way that allows you to make embodied connection with your physical heart. Be there. Stay there.

2nd direction. Open to Mother Earth also known as grounding or awakening the yin energy. Feel a line of energy/love growing down from your heart, through your root chakra deep into Mother Earth. Establish your connection to the underworld. Stabilize this. Patanjali calls this sthira, the stability of Mother Earth and gravity.

3rd direction: Open to Father Sky. From your heart center, open through your crown chakra to the sky and heavenly realms. Feel the lightness and spaciousness, the sukham of the sky. Connect back through your heart down to Mother Earth and return from Mother up to the heavens. Feel the open channel connecting Father, Mother and You, in the holy trinity.

You have now opened your primary axis/chakra line, head to tail, heaven to earth, 7th to 1st chakras. We will return to this also, again and again, every moment, every pose. It is where we connect most deeply with the cosmic axis of ananta in sitting and standing.

4th and 5th directions: Right and Left. From the chakra line, expand sideways in both directions, right and left. This is the emergence of our bi-lateral symmetry, two sides of the brain all the way to our two hands and feet. For most cultures, the front body is associated with the east and the rising sun, which makes the right side the south, and the left the north. We all have dominant sides, from hands and feet to eyes and ears. Balance involves allowing right and left to communicate with each other, through the central axis/chakra line. Key postures accentuating this include anantasana, trikonasana, ardha chandrasana, and all twists.

6th and 7th directions: Front and Back, the most difficult to orient to. We use the navel and umbilicus as our entry into this line and embryological flexion/extension to explore its deeper dimensions. Backbends open the front line by releasing the endodermal/gut body, organs, from mouth to anus, from compression. Forward bends open and soothe the back body/ectodermal nervous system.

The Postures:

Sitting: Start in any comfortable seated position. Center your self in your heart, open the chakra line, right/left and front/back spaces. Track sensations in all directions with the help of the breath. Where is there ease of expanding/condensing? This is the subtle energy we want to nurture and expand. In what directions/locations are there sensations of dullness or collapse? Where are there sensations of tightness and over exertion? These are examples of dense energy we are looking to transform.

Dullness or collapse definitely is an unconscious habit coming from the past. The tension of over exertion may also be old, but it could also be coming from a belief that this is what is supposed to be happening in the pose. We are all programmed to over work and rarely recognize this. This is where the feeling of effortlessness has to be discovered. Our habit is to identify with the gross body, the muscles specifically in asana, and use them as the anchor of the posture. When sthira, the lightness and spaciousness become a key component of our attention and feeling, we can begin to work less from the dense energy of muscles and more from a subtle energy of deeper realms of the prana or chi.

This is not to imply that the muscles are not engaged. Just that the access to them comes from a more subtle and integrated aspect of the energy field. There is a Sanskrit word ‘rasa’, which roughly translates as taste or essence, and in spiritual practice refers to a ‘taste’ of enlightenment, like a drop of nectar from the gods. This rasa is felt in the body in the fluids as the source of aliveness and it is this sense that we are looking for to guide our travels through and with the body. So as you sit, taste the delight where you can find it and stay there, savoring it. When the attention goes to effort or collapse, reconnect with the rasa of the pose. In cranio-sacral practice, the cerebro-spinal fluid is referred to as liquid light and there is a strong possibility that this is the ‘rasa’. Whatever we call it, find it!!

Standing: In tadasana, notice how your legs continue the chakra line through the feet into Mother Earth. Also find your imaginal energy tail to further open and ground the 1st chakra. When your stability comes from a fluid energetic connection through the chakras into the gravity, the unnecessary tension can dissolve, somewhat. There will still be lines and more complex patterns of tension that will persist, but if you can find, feel and nurture the subtle energies that are liberated through the energetic alignment, they become your resource sustaining the pose, whatever it may be. Explore all you favorite standing poses this way.

Forward and Backbending: The subtle energies of flexion and extension come from our embryological origins. Digest this lovely animation to get a feel of the these motions. There is folding from head to tail, and also a folding or wrapping around from back to front along the sides of the body. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMnpxP6EeIY

We all tend to collapse the endodermal organs/front body in forward flexion, and overwork the large erector spinae muscles in back bending. Somewhere inside of you is the embryological field that allows these movements to be more and more effortless. Of course, even the embryological fields have distortions and other issues, but, none-the -less, the power of the subtlety is still very present. In time we can begin to heal the embryological field patterns as well.

Fun with a Taoist approach to the Breath: Looping Viloma Pranayama. In this variation, we balance yin and yang energies through in breath and out breath, and the action of the ribs and diaphragm, transforming dense energy into subtle energy. Remember, inhalation, the action of the prana vayu is an expansion centered in the chest and spreading all the way through the diaphragm into the skull and pelvis. Exhalation, the action of the apana vayu is a squeezing or condensing centered in the lower abdomen and acting from the pelvic floor to the the volume just below the diaphragm, and subtly including the intercostal muscles. Each is actually supported by and contains a seed of the other.

Over time, many people lose the support and balance of the vayus, as the chest collapses and the belly distends. The diaphram, ribs and spine all become tight and constricted. In this variation of viloma, we encourage the prana vayu/chest to sustain a sense of expansion and the apana vayu/abdominal wall to sustain a sense of condensing, during both inhalation and exhalation. Traditional viloma divides the inhalation and exhalation into smaller steps with pauses in between, like walking up and down stairs. The pauses are mini kumbhakas or retentions and prepare you for longer retentions as your practice matures. Three pauses is a commonly taught style, but you may have more or less as you feel your way through the practice. We will use the pauses a little differently.

Viloma I: inhalation with pauses. The tendency here will be to use dense energy to drive the in breath. We want to change this. Take a few minutes to relax and settle in to a comfortable breathing pattern, lying or sitting as you prefer. When ready to begin viloma, pause after the first third and notice. Am I tensing up anywhere, especially along the spine, bit also in the neck and shoulders, sense organs, pelvis or legs. If so, use the pause the relax the dense energy in as many of these places as possible. Soften the spine without collapsing the chest as the key to this. Increase the abdominal tone to help sustain the chest lifting.

You may actually feel that you are exhaling slightly. No problem. In the beginning, releasing tension will also release some air. As you become familiar with the practice, the release during the pause will just be of the dense energy. Repeat for two or more pauses, and then exhale evenly. If the exhaltion is strained, do a shorter cycle next time. It may feel like: inhale 1,2, 3, exhale 1, inhale 1,2,3, exhale 1, inhale 1,2,3, even exhalation, rest. Over time the expansion of the chest becomes more supported by abdominal tone. As the abdominal wall becomes stronger and more integrated, the diaphragm and chest open and soften more and more, allowing the in breath to be long and effortless.

Viloma II: Exhalation with pauses: Like Viloma I, only now the exhalation has pauses. The tendency here is to collapse the chest too quickly, cutting off the ability to complete a full exhalation. Use the pauses to recharge the prana vayu/chest, which may feel like a slight inhalation. Make sure the driving energy of exhalation is a squeezing of the abdominal cavity /apana vayu. Repeat for 2 or more cycles. It may feel like inhale, exhale 1,2, 3 inhale 1, 2, exhale 1,2,3, inhale 1,2, exhale 1,2 3 rest. Or whatever works for you.

Viloma II is my favorite because it totally changed my sense of the breath. As a beginner in pranayama, I could inhale faily easily, but my exhalations never felt complete. When I slowed the exhalation down in Viloma, and added a slight in breath on the pause, I finally felt that I could get the diaphragm and ribs to move together in harmony. The exhaltion/apana vayu began to support the inhalation/prana vayu and vice versa. From a Taoist perspective, the the seed of the yin supports the full expression of the yang and the seed of the yang supports the full expression of the yin.

A helpful exploration in structure: We had some fun awakening the clavicles, especially important in weight bearing poses like dog pose and hand balance, but also useful in all poses. First, achor the clavicle to the sternum at the sterno-clavicular joint. This is often unstable and unconscious. Use the fingers of one hand to hold this while you move the arm and sholder girdle around. Second, widen the clavicle out sidewasy toward the scapula without losing the anchored S-C joint. Feel the clavicle lengthening energetically in both directions. What ever else you do with the shouldrs and arms, do not lose this feeling. Start with climbing the wall and then go to dog pose and variations, hand stand, and any other poses you wish to explore.

Imaginal Practice:

1.Continue to develop your imaginal ‘sacred space’ / healing spa / refuge. Use all of your senses: what sounds do you hear? What are the scents and aromas wafting about? How does your body feel in the different areas of your healing garden?

2.Develop a relationship with a gatekeeper. This person/entity will protect you, your space, your friends, but will also challenge you to grow. Ganesha is a very popular gatekeeper in India and he can be very helpful to us yogis. As a master of wisdom and knowledge, and a remover of obstacles, Ganesha will be a great gatekeeper for you. Chant his root mantra to help alert him to your presence.

Om gam ganapataye namaha

One Practice

Posted on October 4, 2016 by admin

In two previous posts we covered three key sutras from Patanjali’s Samadhi Pada, and the three practices of Kriya Yoga introduced at the beginning of the Sadhana Pada. In this, the third and final post in this trinity of trinities, we will dive into Patanjali’s three sutras on asana or posture, II-46 – II-48.

But first I would like to emphasize the point that ultimately there is only one practice. We find many variations for differing situations and types of students, but they all bring us back to the primary spiritual goal; to stay centered in the heart, present to whatever arises moment to moment, expressing as much kindness to ourselves and others as possible. Easy to say the words, very, very difficult to live.

The heart is the seat of compassion and love. It is the link between the finite and the infinite, a portal from the world of time and space into the mystery of creation. It is the center of blessing and being blessed. But the heart is also almost always heavily armored and defended, as the painful memories of loss, shame, and the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that have befallen us are stored here. Thus, as Pema Chodron often mentions in her dharma talks, we are all far more familiar with the feeling of the heart closing down, than opening up.

“When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, “Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.”

Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.”

The openhearted state, known as bodhicitta, is the goal of practice. Why is this difficult? The price we pay for choosing to come into a human body is the survival instinct inherent to all life forms. Known as abhinivesha in Sanskrit, the fifth of the five klesas or afflictions suffered by the human heart, the instinctive fear of death has been updated and upgraded by human thought to cover fear of any and all unpleasant feelings and circumstances. (According to Patanjali in sutra II-2, the practice of Kriya Yoga awakens samadhi and helps attenuate these afflictions.) At a deep unconscious level it is easy to interpret feelings of discomfort as indication of a serious threat to our lives. Because the unpleasant and worse are a constant accompaniment to being alive, we have a major challenge. How do we survive these threats without closing down?

Two common strategies are described by the kleshas raga and dvesha. Raga is the constant seeking of pleasure, predominantly to mask the discomfort. Dvesha is the running away from the unpleasant, in any way possible. On first glance, who wouldn’t want to have pleasure and avoid pain? These drives are impelled by biology and are totally logical. But life experience offers a different take. Pleasure never lasts more than a short time and then it fades. So the human mind begins to crave more. We have to find ways to fill the emptiness. The same process occurs when the unpleasant keeps coming no matter how fast we run. There is no escape. So we turn on ourselves and others with blame, shame and anger.

But there is a solution. Pema Chodron my absolute favorite teacher on this subject, has a lovely term, discomfort resilience. What happens when we do not run away from the unpleasant and worse? What happens when we are just present to all of the sensations, thoughts, emotions and memories that are arising, even though the urge to avoid them is powerful? What happens when we let them just be, without getting lost in them, without denying them? Here are a few pithy observations from Pema:

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.”

“If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart…”

“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”

What does this have to do with asana? Everything! What is asana or posture? It refers to how we embody our understanding of life. To reduce asana to performing yoga postures on mat is to miss the power and depth that full embodiment offers. Once you are in a body, there is always some posture arising. The question for the practitioner is “am I embodying the wisdom of my heart moment to moment wherever I am, whatever I may be doing?” And if not, how can I rediscover and nurture this?

II – 46 Sthira sukham asanam. Posture is the balance of stability and exuberance.

In the Shambala teachings of Chogyam Trungpa, Pema’s root teacher, the fundamental energy of the heart, or basic goodness as he describes it, is known as lungta in Tibetan. Lung means wind and ta means horse. Trungpa talks about raising windhorse as a key practice as it is the life energy of bodihcitta.

“raising a wind of delight and power, and riding on or conquering that energy. … the personal experience of the wind comes as a feeling of being completely and powerfully in the present. The horse aspect is that, in spite of the power of this great wind, you also feel stability. You are never swayed by the confusion of life, never swayed by excitement or depression. You ride on the energy of your life. So windhorse is not purely movement and speed, but it includes practicality and discrimination. a natural sense of skill. This quality of lungta is like the four legs of a horse, which makes it stable and balanced. Of course, in this case, you are not riding an ordinary horse; you are riding a wind horse.”
(“Shambala, the Sacred Path of the Warrior”, pg 114)

Windhorse, lungta, is sthira sukham asanam. Stable as a horse, free and exuberant as the wind, grounded in the present, skillfully navigating your life journey. This is what posture means. On the mat, in our more traditional yoga postures, can we begin to raise windhorse, or basic goodness, the nectar that emerges for our hearts, and feel its presence? Can we discover how to nurture this bodhicitta, and circulate it around, so that when depression, anger, shame, self doubt, or self loathing arise, we have the antidote of heart energy ready and use it to rise up to face the moment. It is palpable, this energy. Our inner chemistry changes as we soften, yield, release and a lightness seeps into our body from the inside. From this state we can clearly see what is truly arising, how old habits and patterns relentlessly return and how they do not have to keep us contracted. We can see more deeply into their root causes and they become less scary, less absolute. Intense emotions like sadness and grief can be felt deeply and completely as we see they flow from the compassionate heart

The constrictions of the heart can be felt directly, immediately, as they are physiological as well as emotional. Tension can be stored in other organs and muscles as well. Various asanas can be utilized to help soften and open the tissues that have become stuck. When we become more grounded, connected to the heart of mother earth, at home in gravity there is much less tensing, contracting and gripping. When we expose our hearts in a backbend, if we are stable and grounded, we can be tender and soft, not aggressive. When our emotions are stirred by twisting or bending forward, we can find ways to help the energy flow more freely, like the wind. When we need cooling, forward bends can take us to a place of inner stillness. Asanas, hopefully, lead the body back to balance, openness, lightness and joyfulness. We recognize that sthira/stability refers to the stability of the open heart and sukham, or lightness and exuberance is the quality of energy that flows freely from the open heart.

II -47 Prayatna shaithilyananta samapattibhyam. By relaxing all effort and becoming absorbed into ananta (posture is mastered).

Our basic goodness is always present, effortlessly free and available. We work hard to repress it, but none the less, it remains present, awaiting us. This basic goodness, on a cosmic level is represented by Ananta, the multi-headed serpent who helps Vishnu keep the whole universe flowing. The cosmos is a macro-phase expression of our own true nature, the drashtuh svarupe Patanjali mentions in I-3. Bodhicitta contains within it the desire for all beings to awaken to their wholeness, their inherent Divinity, their basic goodness. By becoming one with Ananta, we are offering ourselves to this force of awakening that sits at the core of the universe. We then embody the bodhisattva tradition of participating in life for life as a whole, and not just our smaller minded egoic selves.

II – 48: Tato dvandvaanabhi-gatah: Then duality dissolves into wholeness.

Life is experienced as polarity. All of creation emerges and is sustained as the interplay of yin and yang, feminine and masculine, inward and outward movements of energy. The small self feels that duality means separation. There is me, and there is everything else. This is a rather unpleasant and threatening place to live from. ‘Other’ is dangerous, threatening, scary and we respond accordingly. But when we know, immediately and directly from our heart, that the duality of form is held together by the infinite wholeness, like Vishnu and Ananta, then our sense of separateness dissolves.

We are still differentiated and unique. In fact when our hearts are open, we are liberated to allow our uniqueness to fully blossom. And our innate intelligence still recognizes that there are very real threats to our existence and we need to act accordingly to stay safe. But these challenges need not harden our hearts.

As humans, we have a long way to go in this realm. Many generations of habits, fear and misunderstanding are programmed into our behavior, and these patterns are being played out across the planet every day. But transformation begins now, with us and just one practice. Find that vulnerable tenderness of your heart and nurture it. First toward your self and then expand slowly to encompass the whole. Take that to your mat and into your life. Smile,

More Patanjali Studies

Posted on July 7, 2016 by admin

In the next three posts I will present a trinity of trinities for your contemplation and life practice. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are treasure trove of wisdom for aspiring and awakening students in yoga and here is a way to help organize his genius into immediately applicable practices. This post is the first and begins with the three sutras that compose the core of Patanjali’s brilliance.

Trinity #1

The first trinity, and the most important, appears in the Samadhi Pada: After the 1st sutra officially and formally introduces the program, the next three delineate the whole yoga process. When these are deeply internalized, you are on your way to living an awakened life. All spiritual practices ultimately return here and the rest of the Patanjali’s sutras always refer back to these three.

I-2 yogash citta vrtti nirodhah:
Yoga is the resolution of the (dysfunctional) mind states.

I-3 tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam:
Then the identity of the Self (I am) with pure Awareness becomes stable.

I-4 vrtti sarupyam itaratra:
(At other times, i.e., in dysfunctional mind states) mind activity is mistaken for the Self.

These three as a whole have a universality as we can see by imagining some alternative presentations of the teaching. A Buddhist might say:

Yoga is the cessation of suffering. Then the realization of Buddha-Nature remains as a stable presence. When there is suffering, it is because of ignorance and attachment to transient phenomena, including the notion of a self.

Modern spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle might translate it this way:

Yoga is the transformation of the energy of the ‘pain body’ into Presence. Then Presence remains unbroken and undisturbed as your life story unfolds. In the absence of Presence, there is an identity with the ‘pain body’ and suffering arises.

A Vedic perspective would be:

Yoga is a dispelling of ignorance about the True Nature of the Self. Then inadequacy vanishes and the knowing that ‘I am Wholeness’, Atman is Brahman, remains stable. Ignorance is caused by identifying with smallness and limitation.

Summary of these sutras

First, there are practices and disciplines. Many yogic practices mentioned in the Yoga Sutras, but they all involve variations of citta vrtti nirodhah, processes that transform the energies being consumed by dysfunctional mind activity into mental health and spiritual insight.

Secondly, there is a goal: the goal is spiritual awakening. Patanjali’s uses ‘yoga’ in sutra I-2 to mean: Integral Spiritual Awakening, Enlightenment, the ‘End of Suffering’, Liberation, Self-Realization, Moksha, Drashtuh Svarupe Avasthanam, etc. This is a universal goal in all spiritual practices. As we will see, this goal is not an ending, but the beginning of living an awakened life. Yoga also is an umbrella term for the practices of transformation leading to and sustaining awakening.

Thirdly, there are obstacles that are preventing this realization that must be recognized and studied. These are all based on the mistaken notion that the ‘I am” or self sense we all have is somehow separate from the whole, leading to feelings of inadequacy and the suffering that ensues. We create ego structures and strategies to help us survive and function in the world, but the underlying confusion about “who I really am” keeps creating suffering for ourselves and others. Spiritual awakening is the realization that “I am Wholeness”, ‘aham purna‘, and, simultaneously, I am an individual expression of this wholeness living in the world, with desires and needs, skills and challenges, looking to grow, evolve and participate in the awakening of our home planet, Mother Earth, and the Cosmos. The Bhagavad Gita expresses this perfectly. We are both Krishna and Arjuna, both unbounded Divinity and a human being trying to make sense of our place in the world.

Quick Overview of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

Patanjali offers us 196 sutras, spiritually pithy statements on spiritual awakening, with layers of meaning needing to be unfolded. These are divided into 4 chapters or ‘padas‘, the four feet. The first chapter, known as the Samadhi Pada, is addressed to mature students who have attained a certain level of maturity and mental and emotional tranquility, and the practices offered here are more advanced. In chapter 2, the Sadhana Pada, Patanjali goes back to the beginning for newer students to give background and preliminary practices he calls kriya yoga and ashtanga yoga, and some lessons on the Sankya model of reality. We will look at Kriya Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga in detail in the next two posts. The Vibhuti Pada, chapter 3, adds some esoteric explorations and practices, while the Kaivalya Pada, chapter 4, goes into deeper Sankhya metaphysics.

Only 1 sutra, I-3, describes the nature of an integral spiritual awakening. The other 195 describe the obstacles and practices as well as the principles of the Sankhya Philosophical School that articulate the model of reality of Patanjali’s teaching. Sankhya is a dualistic model of reality which helps new students to spiritual practice clearly differentiate two perspectives from which we can experience reality. This is a crucial skill that begins spiritual practice..

The first perspective, known in Sankhya as Prakriti , is the relative world, or what we ‘see’. Also known as creation, the world of form, manifestation etc, it is dynamic, constantly changing, mutating and transforming. This is the world studied by science with atoms and galaxies and thoughts and neurons and ideas and beliefs. Forms appear, stay around for a awhile and then disappear. They are all unconscious, limited and ultimately unstable. The Buddhists call this the world of impermanence, in Vedanta, ‘what arises in awareness’. In our inner world, these are the citta vrttis. But this is also where our unique embodied presence engages with the world.

The complementary perspective, Purusha or Drashtuh in Sankhya, is the Seer, the Absolute, Pure Consciousness. This is unchanging, unbounded, unlimited Awareness mentioned in I-3, tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam. The Sanskrit term Viveka describes the ability to discriminate Awareness from what is arising in awareness, Purusha from Prakriti. Cultivating this practice is essential for spiritual growth.

Sankha’s dualism is useful for beginners because most probably have never even noticed these two perspectives, especially the unchanging Absolute or Seer, because we always notice the Seen, the world we perceive. Because this is an inherently unstable place, our poor egos, temporary forms themselves, seek stability and permanence by creating a self sense through mental structures in the form of ideas, ideologies and beliefs that are also unstable. This unending chase is known as suffering, confusion, or spiritual ignorance. These mental patterns are the citta vrttis that need nirodhah.

When we look inward, developing the first stages of witnessing consciousness as we will discuss further along, we begin to see the instability and impermanence of thought, but also begin to notice that there is an unchanging awareness that sees. And this Seer remains even as the forms disappear. Awareness and what arises in awareness are different. Awareness is unchanging as what arises comes and goes. Eventually the ‘I am” recognizes that this unchanging Awareness is “I am” and the depth of peace and knowing that dawns in this awakening is beyond comprehension.

Sankhya, a very masculine school, states that the goal is for Purusha to not only differentiate, but separate from Prakriti in what is called Kaivalya, aloneness. This leads to poor Shiva, sitting alone on his mountain top, in absolute silence and stillness, terrified of the feminine. In Non-Dual school like Vedanta, masculine and feminine meet as wholeness in an integral spiritual awakening. We are infinite stillness and wholeness, and, paradoxically and simultaneously, unique beings learning and growing. This is spiritual maturity. But Sankhya is great at differentiating the pieces of the puzzle, so we use it wisely.

The Bhagavad Gita, based on Non Dual Vedanta, devotes most of its verses to the nature of being awakened and is a perfect complement to Patanjali. These two spiritual gifts from India go hand in hand and should be studied together as we humans are paradoxically and simultaneously whole and confused.

These Three Sutras in Depth

I – 2: Practice

I-2 yogash citta vrtti nirodhah:
Yoga is the resolution of the (dysfunctional) mind states.

In I-2, Patanjali begins his description of ‘yoga’ with three words, citta, vrtti and nirodhah. Many students and teachers stop at this one sutra, believing these three words give the complete definition of yoga, but it does not. Only when I-2, I-3 and I-4 are studied together does clarity come.

Citta is the term for the mind field, in its largest, most general sense, as opposed to manas, ahamkara and buddhi, words which refer to specific functions of mind. The mind is a busy place with multiple skills and and many layers of activity and sensitivity in its functioning and yoga is an inquiry into its functioning. ( see the Neuroscience section for more info.) We might also call citta a quantum field, where the individual mind field is an emergent expression of the universal mind, the quantum field of the whole. It is a place of infinite possibility waiting to be activated by the creative urge, but also expressing itself from the impulses of karma and habit. This is the field where we work our yoga alchemy, nurturing what is inherently healthy and weeding out the unhealthy.

Vrtti comes from the Sanskrit root vrt meaning to move, to turn over. The same root appears in the English words revolve and revolution. So we can see citta vrtti as the turning over of the mind, or in more modern terminology, mind activity or organized bundles of mind activity known as mind states emerging from the quantum field. Vritti refers to the energetic nature of mind. It is always moving. For those interested in the neuroscience of mind states and mind activity, read Dan Siegels’ “The Developing Mind”. It is one of the more extraordinary books of our time.

A common mis-translation of vrtti is ‘thought’. Vrtti refers to all mental activity, mental processes, and mental states, not just thinking and thoughts. Thoughts are vrttis, but so are perceptions, emotions, memory and imagination. Patanjali explains this further in sutras I-5, – I-11.

Nirodhah implies restraining, eliminating, dissolving, resolving, but not stopping or resisting. Citta vritti nirodhah describes a specific type of transformation that resolves some aspects of mind activity, but not necessarily all mind activity. The word ‘all’ is consciously left out this sutra because many of the following sutras involve using specific metal states and activities, also known as yoga, to help dissolve the unwanted ones. This is explained by Vyassa is his commentary found accompanying many translations of the Sutras, and in the modern principle of neuroplasticity. James Austin, in “Zen Brain Reflections” offers “No-mind does not mean a coma. It means that no self-centered thoughts interrupt the flow.” Yoga is not about having a blank or empty mind, but as we will see, being able to recognize and stabilize our connection to the absolute stillness that is the source of all creation while still being in the world. Creation need not be negated to find stillness, just differentiated.

The word resolved (nirodhah) is the ‘clue word’ here and carefully chosen to indicate the alchemical transmutation of the mental energies through yogic practices. No longer crystallized out as stuckness or aimlessly going in circles, the psychic energy of unhealthy patterns is channeled back into the on-going flow of the moment in an more integrated mind. The old forms dissolve, like a wave dissolving back into the ocean.

Suppression or repression, as we have come to understand in modern psychotherapy, is a strategy that ultimately strengthens the unhealthy energy patterns. The terms ‘spiritual by-pass” or pre-mature transcendence’ describe the modern attempts to avoid dealing with our own painful memories which are the roots of suffering. As the modern world reminds us over and over, it is possible to be a charismatic, spiritually powerful person and still be emotionally dysfunctional.

We should not be afraid of our emotioinal pain. Jack Kornfeld quotes Ajahn Chah; “If you haven’t cried deeply an number of times, your meditation hasn’t really begun” (Path With Heart, pg 42). As we will see, those painful energies can be transformed and used for awakening the yogic mind, and we may need help from psychotherapy to get started safely. And we can always do simple meditation.

For the average person, there is a seemingly non-stop dialogue on going in the mind, commenting, comparing, criticizing and often just babbling, often accompanied by emotional upheavals. Beginners in yoga and meditation struggle with attempts to stop this process, but the mind seems to have a mind of its own. It is easy to become totally lost inside the mind. Who am I? How can I find myself? We seek something stable to grasp onto amidst the teeming flow of ideas sensations emotions. We often settle for a false stability by holding onto a conglomeration of likes, dislikes and desires and call this ‘Me’. But we eventually see that these are unstable. There may actually be several ‘me’s inside the mind, often in conflict. We meet the citta vrittis that need some nirodhah.

The first step in meditation is recognizing the ability to just notice the mind activity, like you would observe a conversation between two people. You may notice many different voices contributing to your inner dialogue, but as a witness to it, as awareness itself, you no longer need to resist it. This witnessing mind doesn’t criticize or praise, like or dislike. It just sees what is, objectively. In sutras, I-5 through I-11 Patanjali describes various types of mind activity. This witnessing awareness is silent, open. As the witness becomes stronger and more stable, the ‘monkey mind’ loses much of its fuel and may occasionally just stop, leaving bare awareness or stillness. The witness can also be the last refuge of the ego, so we have to stay alert.

This is the first stage of nirodha. As we look more deeply into the neuroscience of mind activity, we see this as an alchemical transformation of the patterns of energy. Witnessing helps us to stop feeding our neuroses. To see an unhealthy thought from a witnessing perspective, and to consciously choose to not further feed this idea with energy is a form of inhibition very different form repression. Also, in neurobiology we discover that mind, for survival purposes, is inherently biased toward fear and anxiety, so it requires a serious effort to overcome this.

“Science is now revealing how the flow of thoughts actually sculpt the brain.” (Buddha’s Brain”, back cover). Modern neurobiology refers to this process directing energy flow into patterns of health and wholeness as integration and the capacity for change and growth as neuroplasticity. We could thus call yoga the science of integration. “Neural integration is fundamental to self-organization, and indeed to the capacity of the brain to create a sense of self. As we will see in sutra I-33, loving kindness, compassion, friendliness and equanimity are specific types of mind activity that promote deep healing and further unfolding of the infinite possibilities of human potential.

Next Patanjali describes what happens when the energies of suffering have been transmuted.

I – 3: Realization

I – 3, Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam:
Then the identity of the Self (I am) with pure Awareness becomes stable.

Tada, then, in the fruition of this practice, with the accomplishment of the practices of yoga, when the negative or self-destructive energies have been transformed, drashtuh, the Seer, Awareness, “I am”, Purusha; svarupe: the truth of, the true nature of; avasthanam: stable abiding.

With the fruition of the yoga practices, the yogi realizes ‘I am Light and Love’ and remains grounded in her own infinite wisdom and compassion, while continuing to be a vibrant presence in the world. The key word here is stable, from the Sanskrit root stha. In verse 2-54 of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna to describe a person with ‘stable wisdom” sthitaprajna and throughout the rest of the second chapter, the key one in the Gita, Krishna goes on to explain that Awakening or Self-knowledge goes hand in hand with mastery of the mind, and this is the yoga of the Gita. The Hsin Hsin Ming, or “Verses on the Faith Mind” attributed to the 6th century Chinese Zen master Seng Ts’an, also offers an eloquent and beautiful unfolding of this key sutra.

This deep spacious unbounded openness remains present as life unfolds through space and time. Luminous emptiness is a lovely term used by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa. There are many more Sanskrit and English words that are used interchangably to point to this ‘beyond words’ we awaken to. Purusha is the term Patanjali will use the most and he will contrast this with Prakriti, creation, the world of form. There is no fear, no resistance; only open spacious silence from which one can listen deeply to the emerging moment.

Ironically, all of us have tasted the infinite self without necessarily recognizing so. We have all had moments of total inner peace, of the dropping away of conflict and struggle and resting in the ever-present joy, light and love. Because there is no meta-recognition here, that is, we don’t ‘know that we know’ it is not technically yoga. And these states are certainly not stable. But we can use these experiences as guideposts to help us relax and see yoga practice not as a struggle to acquire something ‘other’, but the opportunity to rest in this moment as it ‘infinitely and amazingly’ is.

Also, there can be spontaneous revelatory awakening, known as kensho or satori in Japanese Zen, where delusion drops away and the Self as unbounded luminous awareness shines forth, and bingo, there is recognition or jnanam, knowing. This is often preceded by some type of spiritual practice, but not always. But usually this awakening is unstable and eventually the previous confusions return. This is why we continue to practice. Even what appears to be stable awakening can have surprise visitors from the unconscious. Steady practice keeps us ready for all comers. 13th century Sufi poet and mystic Rumi offers deep spiritual insight to this.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

I – 4: Obstacles

I-4 vrtti sarupyam itaratra:
(At other times, i.e., in dysfunctional mind states) mind activity is mistaken for the Self.

(At other times, that is, when not in the state of yoga), the negative mental patterns and the dysfunctional mind states, based on a self sense of limitation and separation, self predominate. A dysfunctional mind state inhibits rather than promotes or sustains healthy growth, learning, integration, and well being, because its root premise is false. The self is identifying with fear, anxiety and all the other thoughts and emotions that are pushing and pulling the mind in different directions. The drashtuh svarupe with its innate tranquility of the mind is not seen or recognized. This is the opposite state to yoga, known as suffering or dukha. The dysfunction can be mild moderate or intense, active, latent or dissolved. When active and intense, violence can often arise, to oneself or others. When mild or moderate there is still suffering and unhappiness. In the collective awakening, social groups and communities can express this dysfunctionality and pull others along into the suffering.

As mentioned previously, spiritual beginners can practice this sutra through what in meditation is called ‘witnessing mind’ where we recognize a ‘meta’ level of cognition. Not only are there thoughts, but I can be a witness to them. I can be a witness to all my sensations, feelings and emotions as well. Thus, if I can witness them, then they cannot be ‘me’. Therefore I do not have to ‘identify’ with them by adding an I, my, me or mine. Also, I can develop self restraint so I do not react unconsciously when I am triggered. The witness allows a pause, some choices about what actions I may take and helps change the direction of energy flow to health and insight.

If I can witness them from my heart and keep it open, especially the challenging and unpleasant ones, as Rumi describes above, then stability will come. This is a non dual heart centered practice where ultimately there is no ‘other’, only wholeness, at every level and layer of reality.

The process of identifying with the mind activity is often deeply engrained as mental habit. We build a personality out of what “I like” and what “I don’t like” and most of the time we are entangled in this battle between my likes and dislikes. Over time we realize the witness is not another needy’ me’ but an infinitely vast awareness with no boundaries or limitations. This is Purusha, or drashtuh svarupe. As anyone who practices knows, there are layers and levels of confused indentification lurking in the individual and collective unconscious, so the work never ends. Staying awake is much more challenging than waking up in the first place, especially in the modern world where we are processing the karma of the human species.

When I first discover that I can be deeply grounded in both the luminous emptiness, and the turbulent and chaotic world of form, I get my first taste of spiritual freedom. I can be in the crazy modern world, moving through it, making choices, decisions and acting, like Arjuna in the Gita, and still remain rooted in timeless presence. It is not one or the other but the integration of both. This is a major challenge and the razor’s edge of a dynamic spiritual life.

Modern spiritual teacher Adyashanti has produced an extraordinary cd, “The Phases of Awakening” where he unfolds several of the key stages and transitions that are often experienced on the journey of spiritual awakening that is described by Patanjali in these three sutras. As we are all unique individuals, there are an infinite number of ways in which the process evolves, but, none the less, there is also much commonality across time and culture. I highly recommend this for all on the amazing journey of awakening.

P.S.

I am going out on a limb here and giving Patanjali credit for a non-dual, integral spiritual vision of wholeness because the practices he articulates can take you there. The Sutras are based on the dualistic Sankhya school which states that the completion of the yogic journey is Kaivalya or the isolation of Purusha, pure awareness from Prakriti, creation, and remaining there. This is the point of view of the masculine spiritual lineage dominant at the time. Purusha, or Shiva, is whole when resting alone, atop his mountain, in absolute stillness. His wife Parvati, as prakriti, the feminine, knows better. Wholeness requires both the masculine and feminine. Awakened living is actively participating in creation moment to moment, at as many layers as you can access. Is recognizing and resting in absolute stillness required? Absolutely. It is a skill to be developed and integrated. But it is not the end of spiritual development. This comes when you come out of your cave and down from the mountain, bringing this awareness to live in the world. These three sutras express this very clearly.