Yoga is a funny thing. It’s everywhere. Even when I try to
push it away I find myself in the midst of it. That’s Yoga not yoga, in case
you’re wondering.
I started dancing Tango thinking the sultry sounds, high
heels and seductive outfits are about as far away from Yoga as one can get.
Instead I discovered that unless one is completely willing and able to transcend
ones ego, this dance turns from sexy elegance limited only by a limitless
imagination to a clunky clashing of conflicts bound by personal issues. It is precisely, the union of two as one, in
surrender, non-judgment, respect and interdependence that creates this magical
experience. In the moment of such
intimacy one is necked despite the garbs and the two are one kosmic unit of
bliss in midst of a rounda populated by
glittering bling and the smiling faces of fellow dancers. That’s what brings
people to the dance….even though, realistically speaking this only happens…like
once in a great while… because it take two to tango.
Occasionally, I’d find myself wondering about my garden
picking whatever the plants are willing to share with me, hearing a bird in the
tree, or admiring my unlikely watermelon plants, which this year have decided
to be very likely. I notice that it’s not me that’s walking around the garden.
It’s just the walking and I am just there for the ride and the mind is clear
enough to hear the mood of the plants and taste the fragrance of the flowers.
Who know Yoga happened in the garden while pouring smelly organic slushy on my
tomatoes.
Once on an airplane, I decided to practice Metta using the
other passengers as subjects for the practice. Those unsuspected accomplices were
rather put off at my big smile at the end of the ride when I felt like I was
leaving great friends behind, saying good bye to all, and the look on their
faces was betraying at least an annoyance and at most a serious concern for my
sanity. Oh well, at least I had a great time.
Recently, I decided I need to shift my focus and read
something that had nothing to do with anything and definitely nothing to do
with Yoga. I picked up a book called American
Gods by Neil Gaiman. I am a fan. A clever story teller that only makes
sense to folks who know enough about mythology, culture and humans to get his
drift, he became a favorite of mine when he published the Sandman series. His spinning of tales usually has the effect of
opening circuitry in my brain that usually collect dust. I generally end up walking around seeing
things, I mean, more things than I usually see, which could be a pretty alarming
situation. It also, with my re-opened circuits, gets my brain making
interesting associations, dreaming things up and finding sense in strange
places. It’s like drugs, but legal. It’s like him and I are totally on the same
other-worldly brain wave, but we never met each other. It’s like this world is
layered with levels of reality that most of us don’t bother to notice, even
those of us who make mindfulness a committed practice for life. After all, you
can only be mindful of things you notice. What are you going to do about the things
you don’t?
So, this time I noticed
a meditation practice in which I got into my missing for a month without a word
brother’s head (don’t ask) and wanted him to call, and then I got a phone call
8 hour later from my mother who told me he had called a few hour earlier and
that he was fine.
I noticed some strange dreams that had nothing to do with
life and a lot to do with death and ducks and flying and somehow I woke up feeling
awesome thinking to myself “What’s hot yoga? It’s regular yoga with me in it?”
Ha. Really?
I also noticed how much time I spend with my computer. It’s
like it’s an extension of me. I don’t think I can write my name in manuscript
anymore without spelling it wrong. When my mind sees the computer it bows down
and gets productive. It kind of makes me wonder, who owns whom?
I was pretty proud of not having cable and not succumbing to
media frenzy and bombardment. But then again, I have a cell phone which pretty
much grows out of my hand now as I do things with it I never thought phones
would ever do – checking my e-mails, Facebook, the weather, using the alarm
clock, the GPS and maps, restaurant reviews, internet, and slew of other
activities which used to be designated for when I was “at the office.” The
thing I do the least with this phone is what it was originally meant to do –
call and talk to people. Actually talk to people. Perhaps, talk to friends for
hours. Or talk to relatives I haven’t seen since before they invented wireless.
“People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons,
with tales. People imagine and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief,
that makes things happen.” - says Shadow, the main character of the book. In the context of the book, people created the
Gods by believing in them and sacrificing to them, which then gave the gods
power to exist….Kind of like “wherever your attention goes, the energy flow,”
which is one of the main educational warnings in yoga philosophy.
So, it got me thinking what do I believe in and where does my
energy flow, in other words what are my gods? I am pretty sure my computer is one
of them. The way I see it, we first decide that we need something, which in
most cases is nothing we need but something we really just want. However, if
you dress up your “want” with the garb of “need” than you have to go get it.
So, we start with something we want, than we go ahead and sacrifice something
to get it. The more we believe we need
it , the more we are willing to sacrifice for it. We sacrifice time, energy, resources,
dreams, and sometimes other people, to get what we want.
Think of TV – that’s a modern day God for a lot of people.
It keeps you company when you are alone. It entertains you. It educates you. It
passes the time. You throw money at it every month so that it will continue doing
those things for you. You devote time to it. You anticipate. You fall asleep to
it. You feature it prominently in your house (like an altar). You sacrifice
people to it – the people you don’t pay attention to because you are tuned in
to the tube, the relationships you don’t attend to because you are fulfilling
your diversion. You are sacrificing yourself to it, because you are sitting on
that couch staring at wild flowers, animals and wonderful places to visit on
the screen, instead of going out there and experiencing those things for real. It
defines your reality by offering you media packaged ways of thinking, so you
don’t have to think for yourself.
Relative reality was created out of Ultimate, formless, Consciousness because of a desire arising and then a thought that came along so
there you have it – the Universe! The desire to create, to manifest is inherent
in the design of this Universe. Thought was the energy that imagination rode
and continues to ride to bring about everything that we see and don’t see. At
least, that’s the model of reality we see in yoga philosophy. It’s a similar
kind of process described in other spiritual traditions, even though Ultimate
reality and Relative reality may have different names. I like Andrew Cohen’s “Being
and Becoming” because it tells you exactly what the shtick is – on one hand
there’s Being as in Ultimate Transcendental Reality, on the other hand there’s
Becoming, as in what the Ultimate Transcendental Realty is manifesting out of
itself. Simple enough, until you
consider that the Becoming part involves us humans. We are like little nucleuses
of Ultimate Reality expressions through which It becomes aware of itself and
through which It manifests Itself. Our thoughts are charges of potential that
make our individual and collective Relative reality as it is. Not only our
experience of it, personally, but our shared experience collectively. A nuclear
bomb is not just a personally devastating thing, it’s a human and nature
disaster of mega proportions.
Knowing stuff like that, Buddha proclaimed: "All that
we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an
evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him".
Shadows follow everyone, but the person directly under the
Sun….Rumi said it more poetically than my paraphrasing. Only direct sunlight
will diminish your shadow, he said. Our gods live in our shadows, feed off our
shadows and prosper there, the darker and the deeper our shadows the stronger
those gods.
Direct sunlight is the domain of Yoga. Not yoga. It’s the experience of Yoga. It’s the skill of
Yoga, for Yoga is skill in action, we are told in the Yoga Sutras and in the Baghavd
Gita.
What would I be empowering with my energy and thoughts if I had
no shadow and gods to feed? What would I be Becoming if I didn’t have god’s too
sacrifice to?
Sri Aurobindo calls it turia – the state of direct sun
overhead, followed by turia tita – the state of I am Being Becoming itself, the realization of the ultimate
God – Me, but unfortunately “I” am not there to realize it. So, “I” wake up
from it thinking “What’s hot yoga?” and feeling mighty great about everything
and not knowing why.
A few days later, I pick up the computer to write this and
realize it’s just a computer and I am grateful for all the imagination and
thought that manifested such an efficient tool with which my imagination can
transmit itself through the unseen layers of reality we call the Internet, and
reach the eyes of beings interconnected by wonder.
