Inner Yoga

 

The firm control of the senses and the mind is the yoga of concentration (dharana).  One must be ever watchful for this yoga is difficult to acquire and easy to lose.  – Katha Upanishad

 

Most yoga classes seem to focus primarily on asanas – the physical postures of yoga.  The practice of asanas is truly valuable, it promotes flexibility, mobility, circulation and overall physical and psychological balance.  It is an essential aspect of yoga, one of eight aspects or “limbs” of yoga.  If we only practices asanas, we are missing out on other equally essential aspects of yoga.

Yoga is a methodology of self-transformation.  However it is not a matter of making ourselves into something we are not but of clearing away the stuff that keeps us from knowing, living and expressing our authentic being.  Asana works with the physical body and its energy (prana.) The body is the physical, outer vehicle of the soul.  Pranayama, or breath practice, compliments asana by bringing the life energy into balance.  In Satyananda’s integral yoga asana and pranayama are always practiced together along with some form of meditation practice.  This is because it is necessary for the outer vehicle (karana), i.e. body, and the inner vehicle (antarkarana), i.e. mind, to function in an optimum state of balance and harmony for the essential Self (atman) to manifest through them. 

The Yoga Sutras outline eight aspects or limbs of yoga: 1. Yama (self-restraint), 2. Niyama (fixed rules) http://mindful-yoga.blogspot.com/2012/08/finding-moksha-through-yama-and-niyama.html 3. Asana (posture 4. Pranayama (breath control) 5. Pratyahara (sensory withdrawal) 6. Dharana (concentration) 7. Dhyana (meditation) 8. Samadhi (transcendental consciousness).  Of these the first four limbs are known as the “outer limbs” (bahirangas).  This is external yoga which helps to prepare our vehicle for the next four which are known as the internal limbs (antarangas).  The outer limbs of yoga are important preparation for the inner. However we might want to avoid being stuck on the superficial level.

The inner limbs of yoga are what it’s all about.  I like to joke with my students who are struggling with asanas by pointing out that working with the body is easy when compared to working with the mind.  In truth, working with the body is working with the mind.  Our Western notion that they are separate is not part of yoga.  Working with the body helps us to understand “it” as the vehicle of our awareness.  “The aim of yoga is the complete cessation of the mind. The body is like a container, or pot. The mind is like water. The slightest movement of the pot disturbs the stillness of the water. Therefore unless the body remains, through practice, in a state of rest, the mind within can never reach a state of tranquility. The tranquil mind, through yogic practice, reaches the state of non-mind, which is the supreme state of samadhi, or total God Consciousness.”  (Shudhaanandaa Brahmachari)

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the ultimate state of consciousness according to yoga.  It is a state of complete ego-transcendence and nondual awareness.  It is a state unfathomable to our ordinary ego minds.  At the same time it is a state of contact with absolute reality beneath the mirage of name and form.  This may be hard to understand and one might ask, “Why would one desire this Samadhi?”  It is because it is freedom; freedom from suffering on all levels: physical, psychological and spiritual.

Because we are immersed in ego consciousness, i.e. duality, we either tend not to recognize how miserable we are or we simply accept it as inevitable.  Ego consciousness locks us into suffering.  As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche explains, “We must recognize ego for what it is—a pain identity. We have a constant dialogue of pain talking to pain, which is what usually guides us or drives us, sometimes driving us crazy. And no matter how smart or sophisticated, ego only operates within the logic of pain, and therefore produces more pain. Perhaps it is time to discover there is something other than ego to turn toward and to trust.” 

Spiritual evolution begins with what yoga refers to as pratyahara, disconnecting from the appearances of the senses. It is about turning inwards to investigate our inner being. Instead of paying attention to what we see, hear, touch, taste or smell meditation entails being aware of the inner dimensions of our beings.  The sense are like doors which we learn to close in order to find inner peace and quiet.  Ultimately meditation leads us into awareness of the ultimate subjective essence of our beings, the experiencer apart from any particular experience.

When one begins to introvert awareness one encounters the mind.  Actually we encounter what is often referred to as the “monkey mind.”  The monkey mind jumps from one thought to the next constantly.  It is completely addicted to the sensory world and its various dramas.  It is also beset with underlying unconscious traumas and desires.  The monkey mind is completely concerned with security and pleasure.  It is present in all of us and can be an obstacle to meditation.

We also encounter the verbal autonomic mind, which Carlos Castaneda refers to as the “inner dialogue.”  “The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.” Our internal dialogue is really just a somewhat sophisticated instrument of our monkey minds.  It is a symbolic map of reality that we take to be reality itself, forgetting that reality itself is always a mystery.  In this regard the shaman, yogi and mystic are all quite similar.

The next step as we climb the tree of yoga is dharana.  Dharana means focus, concentration and mental discipline.  Many claim that concentration is difficult.  The reality however is that we are always concentrating on one thing or another.  Dharana means taking control of the automatic movements and fixations of our minds.  This is actually the most important task we can undertake in our lives.  Dharana means mastering attention.  Attention-energy is our most essential power.  It is the basis of our experience, of our “reality.”  At the same time our essential power has been subject to unconscious conditioning which has enslaved our souls. 

Dharana or concentration is an essential discipline for the mind. Ordinarily, our minds are dissipated and beset with worries, fears, regrets or fantasies. Dharana helps us to reclaim the creative power of the mind. Remember: your thoughts create your reality.  "The firm control of the senses and the mind is the yoga of concentration. One must be ever watchful for this yoga is difficult to acquire and easy to lose." Says the Katha Upanishad.

It is so important for us to gain control over our attentional patterns.  Our world of experience is created out of them.  They are the basis for the neural circuits in our brains.  They determine our perceptions, emotional responses and behavior.  As young children we live in a dream world.  Are brains operate at a theta brain wave frequency which is both very creative and very open to suggestion.  It is during these early years that we are programmed by our culture into perceiving and believing in our consensus reality.  As Don Miguel Ruiz writes:

“Attention is the ability we have to discriminate and to focus only on that which we want to perceive.  We can perceive millions of thing simultaneously, but using our attention, we can hold whatever we want to perceive in the foreground of our mind.  The adults around us hooked our attention and put information in our minds through repetition.  That is the way we learned everything we know.

By using our attention we learned a whole reality, a whole dream.  We learned how to behave in society; what to believe and what not to believe; what is acceptable and what is not acceptable; what is good and what is bad; what is beautiful and what is ugly; what is right and what is wrong.  It was all there already – all that knowledge, all those rules and concepts about how to behave in the world.”  (The Four Agreements)

The problem is that underneath this veneer of a world and ego self, there is our soul.  There is a dreamer behind the dream.  Yoga is a means of awakening both within the dream and beyond it.  As Swami Sivananda Radha put it, “Yoga is a process of dehypnotizing and waking up.”  As we awaken it is just like lucid dreaming.  We develop the ability to “manifest.”  However as we further awaken we start to lose interest in dream realities and more prone to rest in the peace and bliss of our own true being.  We realize that within everyone we meet there is a luminous divine being who is lost in this dream.  Awakening and liberating ourselves and others becomes the issue of paramount importance. 

The next limb on the tree of yoga is dhyana, or effortless meditation.  Dhyana arises out of dharana.  In other words, meditation is not something we practice but a state of consciousness.  It develops with proficiency of concentration.  Focusing on one thing enables us to bring the mind into a state of quiet and stillness.  With the arising of dhyana we are able to abide in that stillness for longer periods of time.  Dhyana is actually the initial stage of awakening.  It is a wonderful state of peace in which the world and its concerns fall into the distant background.  It is a taste of moksha, or liberation; freedom from stress, pain, disease, striving or avoiding. 

The final branch on the tree of yoga is Samadhi.  The Sanskrit term, Samadhi, means “to be established in a state of perfect equilibrium.”  Again this is not a practice so much as a state of consciousness.  It arises out of going deep into dhyana.  There are various stages of Samadhi but they can be reduced to two primary categories: “savikalpa” and “nirvikalpa.”  Savikalpa Samadhi is based on the inner union of the meditator and the object of meditation.  It implies an attachment to either a “gross” sensory object of attention or a subtle mental “object.”  As long as there is dependency on an object there is a tendency to fall back into ordinary, dualistic consciousness. 

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is something else.  In this state all sense of a separate ego is transcended.  One’s individual consciousness is merged completely with Universal Being, Sat-Chit-Ananda.  As Swami Sivananda explained,

“Nirvikalpa Samadhi is pure absolute consciousness.  It is Christ consciousness.  Here there are no names and forms, no sound or color, neither matter nor energy.  Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”  The Kingdom of God is not a place but a state of consciousness.  It is non-dual consciousness wherein the mind, senses and intellect cease functioning.  It is the realm of intuition.” 

It is a common misinterpretation to assume that the goal of yoga is to escape from this world completely.  The problem is that on our lower level of consciousness we can’t understand what Samadhi entails.  It is complete connection with our Source energy.  Realized beings become very powerful agents for consciousness evolution in this world, if that is what they are called to do.  Seeking Samadhi is not selfish as much as self-purification.  As Ram Dass says, “The only thing we have to offer to others is our own state of being.”  Samadhi allows us access to a state of absolute, unconditional love.  I can think of nothing better than to be in and live in that state.