Bikram and Ethical Yoga

By God’s grace one is born as a human being. Try to make the best of this opportunity.

~ Sri Anandamayi Ma

There is a story I heard somewhere of a spiritual hermit who lived in the woods far from the mental contagion of human society.  He lived out in a forest and even went so far as to build a shelter in a tree where he could meditate without being interrupted.  Nonetheless local people discovered him, learned of his wisdom and would come out from time to time to ask him questions about life.  Eventually the local governor heard of his existence and decided that he needed to impress his subjects by going through the motions of consulting this crazy person. 

He arrived on site accompanied by his retinue and proceeded to address the holy hermit.  He called up, “I have heard of your great wisdom and have come to seek your guidance.”

After a pause the hermit answered, “What is your question?”

The governor was nonplussed.  He was used receiving information without questioning, following the rules as modeled by his peers and most basically, never questioning anything.  He had to think for a minute.  Finally he replied, “How can I find enlightenment?”

The hermit replied, “Be kind and do no harm.” 

The governor replied, “That’s it?  That is the extent of your wisdom?  I was taught that as a child.”

“Easy to say,” replied the hermit, “but hard to practice.”

Yoga is essentially a spiritual discipline.  It is not a religious discipline although it can be incorporated to the benefit of any religious tradition.  It is a holistic and integrative discipline, something hard to grasp with our fragmented modern/post-modern minds.  It is a discipline to help us disconnect from the false conditioning of our lives and to reconnect with our authentic being.  Religion is basically a form of conditioning.  Yoga is about spiritual practice and spiritual evolution.  It is experiential rather than dogmatic.

Having said this, it is somewhat disheartening to look around at the state of yoga education which is currently popular in the West.  A recent article in Elephant Journal article addresses the fact that many so-called yoga instructors do not meditate. (http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/03/why-yogis-dont-meditate/)  From my understanding of the yoga tradition as I have studied and practiced it both at home and in India, the idea of a “yogi” who does not meditate is an oxymoron.  An instructor who is not personally familiar with some form of meditation practice is not a yoga instructor.  He or she might be a teacher of calisthenics but not yoga.

The physical practices of yoga, i.e. asana, are a small subset of what is all about.  There are various definitions of yoga throughout the literature.  For example Patanjali states, “Yoga means bringing the patterns of mind into a state of stillness.”  In a similar vein, Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita states, “Yoga means complete mental equanimity.”  Another definition found throughout the traditional literature is that yoga means the union of the individual self and the Universal Self.  All three definitions point to the same thing: a transcendence of the conceptual ego and the realization of a deeper dimension of being; or more simply put “inner peace.”

This may or may not bring us to the peculiar case of Mr. Choudhury.  To be honest I have never been a fan of his style of yoga.  I have had friends who tried out or were even fond of his “hot Yoga.”  From my training at the Bihar School of Yoga, it seemed to make no sense.  It seemed to be about a particular sequence of asanas (postures) without any regard to individual needs, superficial in that in only focuses on the body and perhaps, um “stinky.”  My greatest reservation was that it did not seem to be connected to the greater, spiritual dimension of yoga (in which case, as noted above, it is not yoga.)

My concerns have been recently confirmed by a series of lawsuits brought against Bikram Choudhury. (http://blogs.yogajournal.com/yogabuzz/2013/07/will-bikram-yoga-survive.html)  Overall it appears that his yoga concession is a travesty of the yoga tradition.  If the charges are true, he is guilty of sexual harassment and rape.  Beyond the criminal scope the reports are that he is racist, misogynistic and homophopic.  He definitely does not seem to exemplify the loving openness and self-discipline that is the heart of yoga. 

Of course it is easy to judge and judgment is a characteristic of limited ego-identification.  On the other hand we need to use discernment and discrimination in a wise way to avoid the snake oil sellers on the path.  The Universal Being uses us all at times as teachers and as students.  An errant guru may impart as much wisdom as a “good” one.  The teaching is always relevant to where we are in terms of our own psycho-spiritual development.

Science and Mysticism

Mainstream science says that the universe is made of matter and energy.  We are saying that it is made of matter, energy and consciousness. – Edgar Mitchell

All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is a dream, and we’re the imagination of ourselves. – Bill Hicks

I remember a conversation that took place with a student of one of my yoga classes in the early eighties.  I had recently returned from a three-month stint at the ashram in India.  I was babbling on about the importance of “consciousness” and she stopped me to ask, “Consciousness of what?”  I don’t remember exactly how I replied because it seemed so obvious to me that I was talking about awareness itself regardless of any particular object.

Consciousness in and of itself is a hard concept for many of us to grasp.  Like any valid concept it points to something real beyond the word, beyond the symbol.  It refers us back to the immediacy of experience.  We have no experience, no knowledge, no thought nor emotion without being conscious of it.  Consciousness is a primary ingredient of any experience, even a scientific experiment. 

I just recently returned from the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) conference.  IONS takes the study of consciousness seriously and supports research based on this new paradigm of a conscious universe.  This includes Dean Radin’s research on parapsychology, Bruce Lipton’s on epigenetics, Lisa Rankin’s on a more holistic approach to medicine, J. Ivy’s use of poetry to open new awareness, new findings and theories in physics, as well as traditional wisdom as presented by Toltec teacher Don Miguel Ruiz and West African Priestess Luisah Teish.  The basic idea is that scientific methodology and the mystical methodologies of consciousness exploration can compliment each other.  The overall energy of the presenters and participants was so high that I kept slipping into states of meditative ecstasy. 

There are different ways of approaching the study of consciousness.  The yogic or mystical approach is the most direct.  Its methodology is to dissociate from mental and sensory objects to experience a state of transcendent oneness.  Unfortunately, this approach is so entirely beyond the scope of ordinary scientific endeavor that the two cannot be connected.  This might be best illustrated by the experience of Dr. Eben Alexander who had a spontaneous mystical experience facilitated by a seven-day, near death coma.  Dr. Alexander went into a reality of beauty, joy and unconditional love that completely overwhelmed his mind.  Because such experiences are beyond our usual realm of perception they are often relayed in terms that seem nonsensical.  They’re not so much nonsensical as non-sensory.  Materialist pundits such as Bill Maher have gone out of their way to mock certain elements of his description of his experience.  Mockery and demeaning however are simply the techniques of bullies who fear that their territory might be in threat. 

Another approach is that of Radin’s who does serious research on parapsychology, i.e. the effects of consciousness upon matter and energy.  Actually it goes beyond that to evidence the existence of a collective mind-energy which influences our experience.  There is serious evidence that telepathy (mind to mind communication across space and time), remote viewing, psychokinesis, etc. actually exist.  Unfortunately this area of research is underfunded and subject to ridicule from establishment bullies.  It seems to pose a serious threat to the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm. 

Yet another approach is neuro-psychological.  We can study the effect of spiritual practices on brain functioning and human behavior.  Multiple studies have shown the positive effects of meditation practices on brain functioning.  Unfortunately this leaves out the essential ingredient of consciousness.  True meditation is about recognizing and resting in consciousness itself.  However we can measure to a certain extent whether meditation practice has a positive effect on psychological development.  There is a great deal evidence to support this.  Meditation practice “catalyzes development” in the words of Roger Walsh MD.  It improves health, slows aging and supports cognitive functioning.  Unfortunately many people think that meditation is something difficult and foreign.  Meditation is really about enabling us to relax into our own essential being. 

Thinking can be difficult and even exhausting at times.  Meditation is simply disconnecting from thought in order to reset and reboot our mental and physical energy.  As Richard Miller, Ph.D. suggested, perhaps we should divest of this whole mystique of “meditation” and simply talk about “resting in being.”  Unfortunately, whatever words we choose there is an enormous room for misconception.  Being is so simple, so present, so easy to overlook that we often miss it in our everyday preoccupations.  

Love and Control

“Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it” ~ Rumi

“Love your fellow being as you love yourself.” – Jesus

Suppose I am in love with a beautiful person.  I think of her often and anticipate the opportunities to be with her.  She gives me such great pleasure when we are together, not just sexually but just in our togetherness; and in the feeling that I am loved and special in her eyes.  I love her because she allows me to love myself.  Hopefully I return the compliment.  But what happens when something inevitably goes awry?  Perhaps she is not as attentive as before.  Maybe she has ideas and opinions that I just can’t stand.  Maybe I suspect that she is attracted to someone else . . .

Just as suddenly and wonderfully the high came on it can be killed.  Then I am back to square one; trying to love myself.  If my self-loathing is so strong that I feel that I just can’t tolerate it, I might just try to manipulate her into some behavior that might “bring back that loving feeling.”  (Any Righteous Brothers fans?  Just in case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QaASwKbUGE.)  Truth is one has to love oneself before he or she can love another. 

My sense is that violence comes out of our inability to accept and love ourselves.  Instead we seek to control others so that they reflect some sort of facsimile of love.  To feel powerful and in control is not even close to feeling loved.  This is the tragic side of all of our real and fictional villains.  As soon as we move into control we have given into fear and have relinquished love.  Let God be in control, let Love be control. 

Love doesn’t differ between you and me.  In Love we all are One.  Ego tries to control out of fear.  God moves effortlessly and endlessly out of Love. 

The Transcendent Singularity

The human design process will achieve a kind of infinite velocity,

everything becomes linked with everything else and matter becomes mind.

-    Erik Davis (Techgnosis, 1998)

Matter is derived from mind, not mind from matter.

– Tibetan Book of the Dead

We are accelerating inexorably into a crisis point in our evolution.  Our capitalist-industrial culture has poisoned the very earth that we depend for our survival in a search for short-term profits.  Global weather patterns are changing dramatically.  Political and financial systems are falling apart.  The future of the human race doesn’t look too good.  As much as we might try to deny it our world is changing from under our feet.  Impermanence is not an abstract concept these days but a daily reality.

At the same time our technological growth is increasing at an exponential rate.  Scientific discoveries, new ideas and inventions are happening constantly and reshaping our world in ways that our old traditions just can’t keep up with.  This is where the idea of the singularity comes in.  Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil predict that at some point in the very near future that we will have developed machines that are superior to us in intelligence.  Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is open to interpretation.  The question of whether or not a machine can be conscious, or self-aware, is disputable as well.

The singularity is the scientific equivalent of the apocalypse.  It is the end of humanity and the beginning of the “transhuman” era.  By definition we cannot predict what will happen at this point.  As Kurzwel predicts, “By the 2030s, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate.”  The idea is that we will transcend our biology and merge with our machines.  This is really just a new techno version of our age-old impetus towards spiritual transcendence.  As Kurzwel eloquently explains:

“Evolution moves towards greater complexity, greater elegance, greater knowledge, greater intelligence, greater beauty, greater creativity, and greater levels of subtle attributes such as love. In every monotheistic tradition God is likewise described as all of these qualities, only without limitation: infinite knowledge, infinite intelligence, infinite beauty, infinite creativity, infinite love, and so on. Of course, even the accelerating growth of evolution never achieves an infinite level, but as it explodes exponentially it certainly moves rapidly in that direction. So evolution moves inexorably towards this conception of God, although never quite reaching this ideal. We can regard, therefore, the freeing of our thinking from the severe limitations of its biological form to be an essentially spiritual undertaking.” (The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Penguin Books (September 26, 2006)

Some would argue that the singularity is not just imminent; it has arrived.  Certainly the explosion of technologies such as the internet, cell phones and tablets, world-wide social media etc. have created a world that would be unrecognizable to my grandparents who grew up in an age before automobiles of telephones.  In a very real sense we are already merging with our machines.  It is a love affair, a merging through “bhakti.”  This was evidenced this morning at Starbucks where I looked up from my Kindle to see a pretty young woman gazing raptly into the screen of her smart phone. 

It is evident in perhaps a more sinister way in meta-data surveillance, location tracking and the increasing ability of both business and government to follow our activities and habits.  We may feel outrage and complain all we want but this is part of our brave new world as well.  We all have to be savvy protectors of our “personal identities” as they are revealed through our electronic footprints.  In a sense, like with all love affairs, there is an undercurrent of battle to maintain our personal autonomy. 

Yogis (consistent practitioners of yoga, not cartoon bears) have sought and reportedly found a similar transcendence of the human condition through Samadhi.  Samadhi is a state of consciousness in which one recognizes that one is not body nor mind but pure awareness, pure being.  Yoga is an inner technology of the mind, brain and nervous system.  While information technology holds the promise of “uploading” our souls onto some kind of transcendent mainframe, yoga teaches that there is a deep aspect of ourselves which is already immortal and transcendent.  It is known as the Atman, or Self.  “The knowing Self,” states the Katha Upanishad, “is not born; It does not die. It has not sprung from anything; nothing has sprung from It. Birthless, eternal, everlasting, and ancient, It is not killed when the body is killed.” 

We “know” this inner self when the mind becomes quiet, when we detach ourselves from info-stream of the mind and senses.  According to the Yoga Sutras we are in a state of spiritual ignorance, or avidya, when we are identified with our personal identities.  The personal identity or ego is a temporary manifestation of that greater Self.  Ultimately it cannot be contained as “information.”  Instead it is the formless awareness that cognizes information.  The Self is separate from mind and body and so is separate from their technological extensions.  The yogi considers mind and body as instruments of the inner being.  So too our technologies are tools and toys for us as soul-beings.  The trick as always is to try to remember our true identity in the midst of chaos.

The transformation of our external and internal worlds of experience is a wild ride.  Hang onto your Self!

Here are some links to more information of the singularity concept:

http://io9.com/7-totally-unexpected-outcomes-that-could-follow-the-sin-512600550

http://www.finerminds.com/lifestyle/singularity-technology-superintelligence/

http://www.seriouswonder.com/zoltan-istvan-the-transhumanist-wager

Reality and Illusion

The ego mind paints its own picture onto reality and we then judge “good” or “bad” on the basis of this hallucination. Our ego mind cheats us by projecting its own hallucinated view of reality, in which we believe. – Lama Yeshe

The mind of an individual is a part of the cosmic universal mind. You must understand that your individual mind is part of the universal mind. The space in this room is an individual space, but it is also a part of a greater space. Because you have four walls around it, you call it your room space. Similarly, the individual mind is a concept and not a reality. – Swami Satyananda Saraswati

The idea that our reality is an illusion runs through many spiritual traditions and has cropped up again as people attempt to interpret quantum physics.  Absolute reality (and face it, what other kind of reality matters?) is not to be found in the circumstances that we seemingly find around us.  The sensory world albeit how indisputably real it seems is not it.  Instead it is the mind that constitutes our reality.  “It’s all in your mind?”  Actually, it is all in our mind. 

Our symbolic mind can be seen as a conceptual overlay of reality.  It is an attempt at describing, encoding and interpreting reality symbolically, whether linguistically, mathematically or otherwise.  This is a wonderful capacity but the problem is that we come to live in a world that is primarily conceptual.  We take the map to be the territory.  As one of my favorite writer-teachers, Robert Anton Wilson, said, “We all see only that which we are trained to see.”  We see our world through the eyes of our own experience based upon our cultural conditioning. 

Absolute reality is beyond concepts, beyond interpretation and more immediately present as the tip of your own nose.  True reality is not something that we need to seek but that which is already ever-present.  It is the unified field of consciousness underlying the illusory separateness of our experience.  Absolute reality is not involved in our space-time continuum.  However it is ever-present.  It is foremostly within us although it is also projected without.  It is immanent as well as transcendent.  Our primary problem is that we focus entirely on the manifest circumstances of our experience rather than resting in the reality of our unified being. 

Why Bother With Spiritual Practice?

"It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are."
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Sadhana means setting the mind right so the light of God is seen directly.

– Paramhamsa Satyananda Saraswati

I just had my 59^th birthday.  Big deal, I know.  However, I agree with the position that the purpose of this life is to awaken to our true identity, to experience a unified consciousness – “The” Unified Consciousness, aka “God.”  The reason is that I have had some “tastes” of that experience and I know that it makes all of our worldly concerns seem absolutely trivial.  I’m not talking about world hunger, war, poverty, disease, human trafficking or any of the other darkness in the world.  I’m talking about our ordinary ego-centric concerns for security, pleasure, personal control, romance, even “righteousness.” 

Aging can be used as a means of gaining some perspective on one’s body and one’s life.  Everything, even what we identify with as ourselves, is a temporary manifestation of something “greater.”  This body that I enjoy through the senses is a transient phenomenon.  In fact it is constantly changing.  We grow, develop, reach our prime and then decay.  But “that” is not really who we are.  Underlying the surface of phenomena is the timeless, non-spatial essence of our being; the inner witness.  Who this inner witness is, is not a question that can be answered through the ordinary workings of our minds.  It is not material, not mental or emotional but it is always here, right now. It is always present as the locus of experience.  This is the true essence of our being(s).

Sadhana, or “spiritual practice” is any means that works to help us enter into our deeper identity.  I practice and teach hatha yoga asana and pranayama, various meditation techniques and devotional song, kirtan.  Reading and contemplating spiritual texts can also be a form of sadhana.  These all work well, especially in combination.  But as I remind students, one’s practice must be regular and consistent.  Regular ongoing sadhana enables us to de-condition ourselves, release toxic emotional energy and false beliefs that we have accumulated as to who and what we are.  It is work that we must do on ourselves and there are no real shortcuts.  However, the work is not really all that painful or arduous; in fact it can and should be joyous, at least more often than not.

With ongoing practice the inner peace which is cultivated begins to grow.  However, it must be nurtured to some extent.  I have found myself withdrawing from “normal” situations and relationships because they do not serve it.  Why stay attached to people and things that distract me from bliss?  Of course the attachment is within me, the reaction is my own and no one and nothing is to blame.  However, loud music, violent media, judgmental conversations, one-upmanship, gossip, etc. simply do not serve spiritual practice; at least not for me.  Any and all situations and relationships reflect where I am attached or not.  As Ram Das wisely puts it, “What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”  When we recognize and release our attachments we can evolve further.

In the Dhammapada, Buddha states, “Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind.”  Sadhana is a means of purifying one’s mind.  It is a means of bringing negative mental patterns to light and letting them go, as well as cultivating and reinforcing positive ones.  When we let go of our mental baggage we open space for the light of God.  It is not a matter of judging whether something is “good” or “bad,” but of letting go and trusting the “goodness” of our own essential nature.  When we truly surrender in our practice we give up any and all expectations, desires, fantasies, ideologies in order to enter into “reality.” 

Growing older allows me to let go of attachments, although I am hardly “liberated.”  It also reminds that life is short and that it is necessary to focus on what is essential.  Sadhana connects me with that even if I can’t truly define what that is. 

Freedom and Immortality

"Our divine perfection – not registered by the physical eye but only by the heart’s knowing – is who we truly are. Our mortal imperfections – registered by the physical senses – are not who we truly are. Yet we keep trying, in love, to find each other’s perfection within the world of imperfection. And it simply is not there." ~ Marianne Williamson

Liberation, bondage, what are they to me? What do I care for freedom? For I have known God, the infinite Self, the witness of all things. ~ The Heart of Awareness

We can characterize the spiritual path as it is stated in the Upanishads as the movement from the unreal to the real, from darkness into the light and from death to immortality.  It involves a growing awareness that we are not these bodies, not our temporary personalities even, but something deeper, more essential and ultimately beyond measurement, quantification or definition.  We are beings of consciousness, which is essentially unlimited by either space or time.

It is the dawning recognition that this world of dire circumstances is basically ephemeral.  It has no substance beyond the belief we are willing to invest in it; the projection of our collective hopes and fears.  Although many would argue that this is a retreat from the very real problems of the world, it really means empowering ourselves.  By waking up to who we truly are and seeing our circumstances for what they truly are we are in a position to make whatever changes we deem necessary. 

Imagine being locked in a prison in a dream.  While dreaming, you search here and there looking for a way out.  Maybe you even give up.  But what if you start to awaken and realize that you are dreaming?  Everything changes.  The circumstances by which you were victimized no longer have any power because you recognize that they were only in your mind.  You can turn the prison into a pumpkin pie with ice cream.

I liked the film “Inception.”  Many people made fun of its underlying premises because they were not terribly logical; dreams within dreams where one could be killed, etc.  Of course the nature of dreams is that they don’t make sense to the rational mind.  The rational mind wants to analyze everything for some kind of linear causal connection.  If we pay attention “reality” is often more like a dream than a linear sequence of events.  You think of someone you haven’t seen for a years and then suddenly meet them unexpectedly.  C. G. Jung described these kinds of phenomena as synchronicity.  Just as when we start to recognize the linear inconsistencies in a dream and awaken, synchronicities remind us that this supposed waking world is also a dream.

The problem with dreams is that they are pretty much always based on previous experience.  They reveal our samskaras, our collected mental patterns.  Occasionally perhaps we might have a truly prophetic dream in which the gods speak to us.  However, mostly not.  True awakening means transcending the three conditioned states of waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep.  It is the recognition that we are not part of the system at all.  We are always absolutely free and immortal.  As Deepak Chopra, MD puts it, “We are not victims of aging, sickness and death.  These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change.  The seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.”

Meditation is a primary means of disengaging from the dream, from unreality, and being real, letting go of the darkness and revealing the inner light and realizing that there is no birth and no death.  Our very nature, swarupe, is freedom and bliss.  Practice and realize this.  Then keep on practicing until you are established in that realization.