A Spherical Life

When my sister first asked me if I wanted to do a cleanse with her clinic I was hesitant. My primary concern was whether I would still be able to do a full, hard asana practice. She assured me that with this particular cleanse I could still eat full meals so there should be no problem with strenuous physical activity. Still a little leery, I decided to give it a try. I could always stop if it was affecting my practice negatively. After the first couple days I was surprised to find that my practices were actually improving. I was more focused and my asanas became more steady.

A few days ago I read the following words shared by my Master:

...When attitudes become steady and contentment is established, the body is ready to perform posture. When attitudes are not purified by Yama and niyama, posture practice becomes violent. This leads to increase of desires, frustrations and mind becomes the master of you...

Following the cleanse, though much stricter than a "yogic diet," added an element of the niyama Saucha - purity, cleanliness - I believe I had been missing. As my body become cleaner, there were fewer fluctuations of my mind. Through this process, something became very clear to me. Yoga is a spherical life. My mind has been educated in a linear style - do this, this, and this, and that will happen. But our true selves do not exist linearly. It is simply the delusion of time that makes our ego cling to this fallacy. All parts of the Ashta Anga - Eight Limb - path of Yoga coexist all around us. As we bring those parts into ourselves, our sphere gets smaller and smaller. Just as a decrease in volume increases pressure and creates heat in thermodynamics (still an engineer, sorry), our inner heat - Tapas - increases the closer we draw in our sphere; both the physical heat raised in asana practice and the heat of our zealous pursuit of liberation. This process continues until we are fully absorbed by the sphere, until we ourselves become the sphere.

Practice, Practice, Practice does not mean practice asanas only. Abyasa literally translated is practice but the word practice is not complete. Abyasa in its complete form means uninterrupted, continuous without gaps, doing of something with complete attention and awareness. So, for those who take the meaning literally are going to end up in the abyss as the sutra has been understood incompletely. The whole life will be spent on practice the wrong technique. - Master Paalu

The Fire of Purification - and Day Twelve

I am sore. This has nothing to do with day 12 of the cleanse, which was another great day as far as all of that goes. My soreness has everything to do with the intensity of my practice. A couple weeks ago I tweaked my left rhomboid (back, between the shoulder blades) to the point that I needed to take a day off. No problem. These things happen on occasion. I have since been back at my regular practice schedule but the past few days that rhomboid and trapezius have become tighter and tighter. I've been rolling on a can of sunscreen (I have no tennis balls) trying to release the spasms, with some success, but I've been thinking more and more about taking another day off. Fortunately, I came across an article written by Kino MacGregor about pain in daily practice (you can find the article here) that set me straight.

In her article, Kino explains that when your intentions shift from a fitness oriented approach to yoga to a devotional one, your practice becomes an exercise in dedication and the mental, spiritual, and devotional determination to attain soul liberation.

"If you only practice when its convenient or when you feel good then yoga is more of a hobby than a lifestyle. But sincere spiritual practice has never been a leisurely activity if it is to produce the results of awakening. True spiritual practice is an unbroken commitment to do everything it takes to see the deepest truth there is. It is not something you can choose to look at only on Monday and Wednesday for an hour and pretend it does not exist for the rest of the week."

She goes on to explain that the pain your body feels through daily practice is the pain of purification. Experiencing this pain teaches you the mental strength and stability needed to stay through the uncomfortable healing phase. "Practicing six days a week accelerates the rate at which pains that purify weakness and stiffness arrive and therefore also accelerates the rate at which the purified result of more strength and flexibility both in the body and mind also arrive."

There are two important things for readers to understand about this. 1) Nobody is telling you to practice through an injury, that is not the kind of pain referred to here. 2) Beginners who aspire towards a devotional practice can and often should begin with three days a week, adding one day a week every 6 months until you are comfortable with practicing six days a week.

Kino's words came at just the right time for me. My practice today, though done through a sore body, was deeply introspective. I could feel my Self slowly overcoming the deep-set patterns of giving up in the presence of pain. It was a very small step towards awakening, but a step nonetheless.

The only way that the inner fire of purification works is if you learn to stay in it and not run away.