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.

Today, not Everyday

I am often asked if I practice everyday. I generally try to evade this question because once you say you do something everyday your ego is prone to get behind the wheel and steer you away from whatever discipline you've acquired. Here's the mind's sneaky process:

You've decided that you are going to start practicing everyday. As your mind starts contemplating this, you realize that this means you won't have a day off to rest. Then your mind starts thinking of times that you would have a day off. Let's see, there's moon days, so that's two days a month you don't have to practice. And 'female days', so there's another three days a month you get to take off. But what if your 'female days' coincide with a moon day? Then you're getting jipped on a rest day! And your body needs rest, right? So maybe instead of doing a daily practice you should only do it four or five days a week. And here we are, WAY off track and we haven't even started yet.

So how do you get past this viscous cycle? By living purely in the present. Don't tell yourself you're going to practice everyday. Everyday is in the future. When you wake up in the morning tell yourself you're going to practice today. You're going to practice now. Take your practice, and everything else you do, a single day at a time. That is where you will cultivate discipline.

Neti Kriya - Nasal Cleansing

Neti is one of the most well known kriyas as the popularity of the first part of this nasal cleansing technique has taken off. Neti is used to clean the nose, nasal passages, and sinuses removing foreign matter, preventing colds, and keeping the olfactory nerve healthy.


Jala Neti - Water Cleansing
Add a teaspoon of sea salt to a glass of lukewarm water and stir well. Using a neti pot (lota), pour the water into your nostril tilting your head to the side and slightly forward. Allow the water to pour out your other nostril. Be sure to breath through your mouth. Repeat on the other side.

Jala Neti may be practiced daily.



Sutra Neti - Thread Cleansing
Dip a catheter into lukewarm salt water. Insert the catheter into the nostril. When you feel it on the back of the tongue, slowly and carefully draw the catheter out through the mouth using the index finger and thumb. Repeat on the other nostril. (I often have a hard time getting a grip on the catheter once it's in the back of my throat. This happened today while I was trying to do pictures, so this is just the beginning step. I'll try for a better pic in a few days!)

Sutra Neti can be practiced twice weekly.
Do not do sutra neti if you have an upper respiratory infection as it may cause it to spread.

Joy In Any State

He who with proper regularity eats, relaxes, works, sleeps, and remains awake will find yoga the destroyer of suffering. Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, Verse 17

I'm not sure if it's just my personality type, or if this is common among other people, but I have a tendency to become absorbed by things that are new and exciting to me. I will work tirelessly at whatever this new fascination is until I ultimately burn myself out. This verse of the Bhagavad Gita points out that the beginner yogi should not try to remain in meditation (including meditation in asana) and thus ignore the performance of good outward actions. Don't forget - yoga isn't just about balancing your body on your mat, it's about balancing your life and thus settling the movements of the mind.

He who, in a balanced way, tries to be both human and divine will automatically find that he experiences equal joy whether he is in the state of human activity or in the state of deep meditation. -Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda


(This passage from the Gita has many layers of interpretation, this is the outermost, that most related to the outer kosha...which I promise we will get to soon!)

The Garden

A man planted a flower seed in his garden. He looked after it, steadfastly weeding and watering the soil around it. A robust plant appeared - but, for years, no flower. He thought of destroying the plant, but finally decided: "My business is to look after the plant; it is for God to produce the flower. I will keep myself busy in tending the plant and not in concentration on my flowerless labors." Years passed; he contented himself with the care of the plant and forgot all about the flower. One sunny morning, when a breeze was gently blowing, he smelled a strangely attractive fragrance. He ran to his plant and stood speechless in joy - there in front of him was the gorgeous flower! The aromatic beauty had always been present in the plant, a hidden potential awaiting the right moment of blossoming made possible by his labor of love.

The yogi should similarly keep himself busy nurturing his plant of self-realization; if he is not impatient, he will find (one day when God in His infinite wisdom deems it proper) the amaranthine flower of eternal freedom.

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda in his commentary on Chapter VI, verses 20-23 of The Bhagavad Gita.

The End of the World

I'm sorry. I can't resist talking about the whole "the world is going to end" buzz of 2012.

Vedic texts divide time into four ages. The Satya Yuga, or Golden Age, is a time of high morals and spirituality, and is the longest age. The Treta Yuga, or Silver Age, brings a decline in spirituality with increased intellect and decreased intuition. In the  Dwapara Yuga, or Bronze Age, demoniacal-type beings begin to be born. And in the Kali Yuga, the Iron Age, unrighteousness prevails. Kali Yuga is the shortest age. Like the four seasons, these four cycles continuously revolve. At the end of the Kali Yuga there is mass destruction of the old and the Golden Age is once more ushered in. By calculation, we are now approximately 5,000-10,000 years into the Kali Yuga.

The last episode of a  fascinating mini-series documentary called The Pyramid Code discusses the correlation between the Mayan long count calendar (the one ending December 21, 2012) and the Vedantic Ages. (It's 45 minutes long and WELL worth watching!!!) In this film, they discuss our current position in the cycle of darkness (Kali Yuga) and align the end of the Mayan long count calendar with the turning point of maximum darkness; the moment at which we begin to come out of unrighteousness and see the opportunity to open ourselves to the divine.

The narrator questions what our world would be like if we held super-consciousness as our highest value instead of material wealth. And so I will continue the question: Would it be so bad if the world as we know it did end in December of this year?

Aliens and Spiders

Pretty much every day strange thoughts pop into my head at even stranger times. I've learned two things about these thoughts; 1) to never say them out loud when they come into my head - people will give me weird looks, and 2) if I ignore them, they are usually gone as fast as they appeared. Today, however, was a bit different. I was standing in line at Dunkin Donuts (no breakfast food in my house.....what? that's a legitimate excuse) and when the girl at the register asked what I would like the first thing to come to mind was this quote from Men In Black (is this a nerd alert? I feel like it may be...), "1500 years ago, everybody knew that the earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."  Fortunately, lesson 1 of 'Stephanie's Pop-up Thoughts' kicked in and I did not say this in the place of, "black coffee, please."  However, this thought didn't leave me. All day long.

I seriously love this quote. And no, not because I think there are aliens among us. I love this quote because it points out an incredibly simple yet profoundly difficult aspect of yoga - transcending the mind. As the great eighteenth century philosopher, Kent, noted, there is a point beyond which our intellect cannot penetrate. "What is the purpose of life? Who am I? Where will I go? Is physical death the end of everything? It can be seen as foolish to search for truth with an instrument as limited as the intellect, to attempt to measure the unknown depth of eternal questions with a finite instrument." The same goes for that which we all take for granted, like what we see around us. Yoga teaches us that this world we see is not real.

When we transcend the mind, the intellect, we discover our Soul within us. In yoga philosophy we talk about the soul being veiled by sheaths, or koshas. I will get into these koshas at another time. For now I would like to share a couple analogies I learned to help explain the unreality of the physical world:

The Spider and the Web
The pure consciousness (Brahman or Siva) is the spider that projects mind and matter, which are the web. The spider is now the subject, and the web is the object. Before the web was projected, it was one with the spider, symbolizing the universe in causal or unmanifest state. When the web is withdrawn by the spider into itself, then there is no subject-object, but a union of the two, known as yoga. The spider is both the efficient cause (the life principle within the spider), and the material cause (its body). The spider's body provides the material from which its web is formed. But, there could be no web without the energy that is necessary to spin the web.

The Movie Screen
The screen is unaffected by the movie projected on it. One sees fires, floods, disasters of all sorts on the screen. Yet the screen remains unaffected by the apparent activity upon it. So, also, the pure consciousness is unaffected by creation, which is projected from itself by its active power of Maya (the cosmic drama, the "world").

Confused?  Don't worry. We'll keep discussing this! And yes, all of this came from one little movie quote. =)