The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book Teaching Down Dogs New TricksTM written by Florida Yoga Institute’s Francesca Vanegas. The text below is protected by copyright law and may not be copied without express written permission from the author.
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What is yoga? Though I’ve been a student of yoga for many years, the answer to the question is still a mystery to me for the answer can be at once simple and complex depending on one’s curiosity and appetite for this ancient practice. Most of us in the west have heard of Hatha Yoga or the yoga of postures which develops a strong, healthy, and flexible body. Yogis revered their bodies and discovered that the body, if strong and vital, could be a portal to experiences such as feeling more deeply connected to the self and to spirit. Therefore, while a strong and healthy body is important, the postures aspect was understood to be a preparatory stage, an appetizer if you will, for richer experiences.
More than two thousand years ago in India, many groups of people practiced varying forms of yoga. Some tended to the sick and poor and called their practice karma yoga. Others meditated, prayed, or devoted themselves solely to the study of scriptures and each group called their practice the yoga of devotion or yoga of wisdom. Along came yoga scholar Patanjali, which means fallen angel, who studied the many sects and the different interpretations of yoga. Perhaps he asked himself “what exactly is yoga?” The product of his curiosity and research led to his opus the yoga sutras of Patanjali. Sutra means thread and his much translated and discussed work is composed of terse aphorisms. When one slightly tugs the thread, the sutra unravels a wisdom that continues to be studied and explored to this day.
Patanjali defined yoga as an eight step path. The eight steps can be woven into four main structures:
Yogis understood that to take the first step towards a spiritual journey we have to begin by cleaning house, that is, our mind and heart must feel reasonably peaceful. For example, how could we feel peaceful if we’ve killed, stolen, or lied? Practices of non-violence in action, speech, and thought are the predominant teachings of yoga. Once we have made peace with others, we direct that peace towards self. Like a caring grandfather Patanjali urges us to be clean, to study, do our homework, and to be content. Contentment teaches us that feel fully alive we are to say yes to life otherwise we are resisting life rather than being in its flow. As author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle vividly explains in his book A New Earth, nobody wants or likes to get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, at midnight, in the pouring rain. However, if this is what life is bringing us, to fight the moment wishing it to be different is to say “no” to life. Enlightenment is not some far-flung concept; rather it’s about changing the tire at midnight, in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain letting go of the internal fight.
In yoga, the body enables us to breathe, live, and participate in this world. Yogis heralded the understanding of the body being our temple and so we treat the body with great respect, care, and love. We give our body food of the highest vibration, sunlight, and fresh air. We move the body in a series of postures that activate the body’s ability to heal itself and help all our systems and organs function optimally at every level. Many studies now confirm what yogis have said for thousands of years: yoga enhances the quality and length of life. Thirty trillion cells make up our physical body. The yoga of carefully coordinated poses activates the body’s autonomic nervous system in such a way to either willfully accelerate or relax the body to renew and restore all of its functions. Yoga teachers are the most reliable witnesses of the transformative power of yoga as they observe the subtle and not so subtle shifts on the faces and gaits of students when they enter the studio and when they leave.
If it were not for the breath, we would not be alive. The Sanskrit word for breath is pranayama. It can signify either breath control or expansion and it is both for if we consciously expand it and deepen it we are in fact controlling it. Our breath is also a gateway to the voluntary and involuntary systems of the body. Many of us breathe unconsciously—as if on auto pilot; when we do this, our mind is in charge of breath function and habitual patterns of thought and action are reinforced. A shallow breath lowers our energy level, we can become easily agitated, emotional, and more responsive to our external environment. Instead, when we are conscious—awake and aware—of our breath we deepen it, make it more rhythmic. A full yogic breath fills every air sack of the lungs expanding our torso from the pelvis to well above the neck. This quality of breath raises our energy level or prana, the equivalent of chi. A student may well take the deepest breath he’s taken in years the first time he steps into a yoga class. Deep continuous breathing can also act as a portal to meaningful emotional experiences. For example, in backbends like bridge, cobra, or camel, as the breath rises to the heart it could touch some stuck energy and perhaps a lifetime of shielding could find freedom in a heartbeat. These healing events with breath are possible for all of us through a consistent yoga practice.
In ancient times, postures enabled yogis to sit and meditate for prolonged periods of time thanks to well lubricated and therefore cooperative joints. Postures were simply the prelude to meditation which Patanjali termed the heart of yoga. In the final path, our senses draw inward (we can do this simply by closing our eyes). We develop the ability to concentrate on a single point (such as the breath) and this prepares us for meditation. Meditation can be described as the practice of observing when the mind drifts away from a focal point (the breath) and gently bringing the mind back with compassion and perseverance. As the practice of yoga traveled west, Hatha Yoga took on greater importance and today most yoga classes in the western hemisphere are taught without meditation.
The Buddha, which means awakened one, devoted his life to helping people understand and become free of suffering. At age 35, the Buddha, whose birth name was Siddhartha Gautama, experienced a profound awakening in which he learned the mystery of life, birth, and death and spent the next 50 years teaching countless thousands a path of freedom from inner conflict. His teachings can be synthesized in a few sentences. He said there is suffering, that we cause our own suffering through inner conflict and that there is a way out of suffering.
When the Buddha talked about inner conflict, he referred to extreme states of craving and aversion. When we crave we have a very strong desire. When we feel aversion we experience hatred. So we spend all day mentally pushing away what we don’t want so as to get what we do want all without enjoying life as it unfolds moment by moment. If we plan a road trip from Miami to New York the craving mind can’t wait to get to New York. The aversive mind won’t be happy until it’s in New York. When we are in the craving and aversion loop, our mind is like the ball in a ping pong game, it constantly shifts back and forth 1,000 times a day from what we want to what we don’t want thereby reinforcing the habitual pattern.
What are the benefits of meditation and why should we do it? The Buddha taught us about equanimity which is the way station between craving and aversion. When we are equanimous, we look forward to New York and we also enjoy the cow pastures, the mountain ridges, and the glimpses of fellow travelers beside us. The practices of inward focus, concentration, and meditation modulate the erratic states of mind that we can experience. We no longer reinforce our own suffering. We feel more centered, more peaceful, quiet, and more in the flow of life.
The greatest benefit of meditation is that our peace and bliss is not defined, dependent on, or unfettered by the opinions of others or external circumstances. We no longer get pulled every which way by what is outside of ourselves. In his book The Way To Love, author Anthony de Mello gives a great example of this. If today someone calls you beautiful you are happy; tomorrow when someone calls you ugly you are unhappy. You are neither beautiful nor ugly. You are you. Ugly and beautiful are mental constructs based on value systems and cultural bias. The Buddha’s calling was to help us understand that peace and freedom is possible every day of our lives no matter our circumstances. Some extreme examples of this are Eli Weizel who found freedom in a concentration camp and Nelson Mandela who found resilience and freedom within a prison.
The word Yoga is derived from the word yuj which means to yoke or join together. A yoke was used to attach two oxen to till the soil with the understanding that each animal would work together more cohesively. If one ox was energetic and the other sluggish, the yoke would harmonize their energies. Yoga works very much the same way reconciling our extreme states of aversion and craving, harmonizing our inner conflicts, bringing clarity where there is confusion, and strengthening our ability to focus one pointedly in such a way our actions and thoughts feel organic rather than forced or willful.
When practicing yoga at the Florida Yoga Institute, we will remind you to be fully aware of three practices:
Many are first drawn to yoga to bring vitality to the body. Others seeking relief for a specific condition such tension, backache, or sciatica are drawn to yoga for its therapeutic benefits. Others are looking to feel better emotionally. Whatever your reason, yoga is a practice that can give us what we want and more. To understand yoga it must be experienced and practiced consistently and over time, beyond the physical benefits students will become aware of subtle changes in their approach to life. As we tone and relax the body, and educate the mind towards stillness, we can begin to glimpse a state of inner peace which is our true nature. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all seeking and gradually evolving into our true nature.
