by Jamie Shane
How funny that this very old non-yoga compulsion is actually an early manifestation of my current yogic practice. I don’t mean that I clean out my closets while standing on one leg, or sort through mismatched dishes while balanced on my head. But I do constantly seek to clear out the old—that which no longer serves—to make space for the new. This is very, very yoga. This is an external representation of the internal concept of prana-apana-agni at work.
Hut-What? Whoseit-whatsit-hummina? Prana, Apana, Agni. Lifeforce, Waste, and Fire.
This is a relationship of balance in the body that deals with one’s internal cleansing process. Prana enters the body through inhalation, bringing a cleansing energy that keeps us fresh and alive. It passes through the agni, or the digestive flame that resides around the core or the body. This flame then reaches down and burns off apana, or the body’s rubbish in the lower regions. As you exhale, the process is reversed. The apana is moved up and out of the body, making room for the prana to flow freely and liberally throughout your system. It is the ultimate cleanse.
And you do it every moment of every day. But only half-heartedly.
To really reap the benefits of this natural process, one must breathe with focus. Inhale completely, drawing the prana deep into the body, pushing that flame down. Without prana, we are stale. Without agni, we are stagnant. Let these deep, focused inhales be a conscious effort to clear out space in the body. Really work out that exhale, pumping the belly back at the bottom of the breath to completely void out your rubbish.
With too much apana, we are literally drowning in our own clutter. Waste is a natural product of living, but you certainly don’t want to keep it around. Exhaling lightly after inhaling deeply is like filling the corridors of your home with old newspapers—good for nothing but taking up space that could be better used. If we focus on our deep exhales, the deep inhales will take care of themselves. Prana wants to move in and stay in, and we want that, too. But if we never move the apana out there is never enough room.
If this relationship between prana and apana is out of balance, we are tired, cranky and out of sorts. But once you get them working together as they should, you can find the body’s natural rhythm which allows for peace, contentment and comfort. People who seem ‘centered’ are managing their prana, allowing it to circulate within the body so that it may constantly rejuvenate and refresh. Those who seem scattered often have a buildup of clutter that prevents this process. Which are you?
Your body is a very small living space for a very large creature. And it is so easy to keep it feeling spacious and comfortable but just cleaning it out. Inhale and exhale, darlin’. Inhale and exhale….
80
If you asked someone with only a passing knowledge of yoga to choose a posture that defined the physical practice of yoga, I believe they would probably choose the headstand. It is a ‘hallmark’ posture that is easily recognizable, portrayed in many commercials and TV moments. I forever hear the question, “You’re not going to make me stand on my head, are you?”
Well, no. I rarely teach the headstand for personal reasons. It wracks my nerves to manage a room full of people trying to find the tricky balance for lift off in a potentially dangerous situation. That’s my failing as a teacher and I freely admit it. I do, however, teach the Shoulderstand in every single class.
What’s the difference? Well, Shoulderstand is a balanced inversion with the shoulders and elbows as a platform. It has a wider base than headstand and can be managed by just about anybody. Shoulderstand is an easier way for people to become used to the idea of inversions and can demonstrate the benefits of going upside down with less fear. It is also a posture that fewer people ‘give up’ on.
I will not tell you how to get into the posture in this discussion. You need, need, need, someone present to help you navigate the waters of inversions. Additionally, there are many contra-indications to upside down postures. You are raising the feet above the heart and sending lots of blood to it. If you have heart conditions, or conditions of the uterus or eyes, reversing yourself will be harmful, not helpful. It behooves you to find a teacher that can help you find the path to this extremely beneficial pose.
So, now you are all wondering why it is so wonderful to invert if it is too dangerous to try on your own.
Think about it this way. For two-thirds of your life, your feet are below the heart. With the exception of when you sleep or lay down, the flow of blood is always traveling in the same direction. Down. And, don’t be fooled, it is work for the body to bring it back up. The veins of the lower body get tired just like anything else. If you don’t shake it up a bit, you can wear them out. And then you end up with varicose veins, spider veins and other vascular yuckys. Reversing the flow gives the vessels a break. It relieves the pressure.
In addition to the lower extremities, inversions also benefit the upper glands, brain and face. If all that blood from the legs comes down into the heart, and continues to abide by the dictates of gravity, where do you think it goes? Refreshed by the deep breath, it goes into the thyroid & pituitary glands which manage many important bodily functions. It goes to the eyes, the brain, the skin. It generally freshens up the areas above the heart, which also experience the strain of constantly challenging gravity.
In short, inversions like the Headstand or Shoulderstand give the body a much needed change. We have very little choice in how we move about the world. We do it on our feet and that’s that. But it is good to change our perspective now and again. For if you keep doing things in the same manner without ever once thinking about why, you are certain to lock yourself into a set of circumstances and lose the opportunity for growth or change.
Completely reversing the very foundation of the body can provide shocking insights. It can be frightening at first. And then it can be vastly liberating. Inversions can show you that anything is possible if you look at it from the right angle.
And that angle might just be completely upside down.
81
I believe myself to be in a unique position in that my voice is heard. I have the right, as do we all, to speak about what matters to me. Unlike everybody else, however, I have been given a forum that allows me to share these opinions with as many people as I can. That gift, this arena, allows me to share my hopes that everyone can find their voice. And that, together, we can speak loudly and freely about that which matters to us.
I fear we are moving into a dangerous time where challenging opinions are frowned upon. Its not that we aren’t allowed to voice them, but I see a fair amount of social shushing going on. I don’t know when or how it happened, but it seems—to me, at least—as if we have become so tired of shouting for what we believe in, so tired of seeing our needs fall on deaf ears that we all just accepted that no one was listening and moved on. Somehow our fervor has fizzled into a quietly resigned resentment that we feel comfortable complaining about with friends, but not to our leaders. How did we all just agree to go to our rooms and play with our toys instead of standing up to fight the good fight?
The answer to that lies in knowing—really, deeply knowing—what it is that we want to talk about. There are many things going on that are worthy of discussion. But they lose their impact if they are not clearly defined and aligned with our truest hearts. It is precision and passion that win arguments, not simply the loudest voice. Connecting with your heart’s will is the only way to express a truth that will be heard. But, sometimes, we wear so many layers of helplessness, confusion or resistance over our hearts that we can’t express our will even when we want to.
An ancient remedy for opening the heart to express highest truth is Fish, or Matsyasana. A reclined backbend, it opens up the spaces of heart and throat, directing the tide of heart energy down into the throat and brain to draw a connection between the three. Fish, most simply, asks us to connect the heart to the voice so that we can most accurately express that which is deep within us.
From the back, bring the limbs tightly to the body—le
gs together, arms tight to the sides. Press the palms beneath the thighs. On an inhale, with the hips remaining to the earth, press into the elbows and arch the back up from the floor, dipping the head back to touch the crown down. (Not recommended for those with neck problems, do this from a chair)
Visualize a string around your heart being tugged to the ceiling.
Now. Feel that openness in the heart and throat. Open the eyes and experience your perspective. Breathe in your focus. This feeling is within you always; you must remember that. You must know that if something true is in your heart and mind, it can be clearly expressed. It is your right to speak about it. And if somebody disagrees, good for them to be able to do so! The flip side of speaking truth is hearing it. The ensuing debate will at least keep our connection alive. Only silence kills it.
The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Our lives begin to end the moment we become silent about the things that matter.”
What matters to you?
82
They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. I think this is true. Because, really, no matter how hard we try to conceal it, our basic nature lives in our eyes. You can tell the type of person you are dealing with simply by looking into their eyes. Kind, selfish, generally full of it—all of these things are printed on the surface of the eyes if you know how to look.
But I think there is more to the adage that sadly goes unsaid. The eyes are also the window to the mind. Entire courses are offered that teach police how to read the mind in the eyes. I’m certain even we civilians could pull a few ‘eye-language’ identifiers out of our hats. With a friend, one can easily transmit entire thoughts with a glance. With a lover, one look into the eyes can be like reading an entire novel. Our eyes are more than just an external view screen, they are an access point to the entire human system that allows us to see more than simply what we see.
Next to the heart, the eyes are one of the most important muscles in the human body. This is because they are so much more than just physical muscles. The heart is a seat for your awareness. It is a transitional point for cosmic energies and an operational center for many of our physical, emotional and spiritual activities. We are all familiar with the term ‘heartfelt’ and know exactly what that means. But if I said ‘eyefelt’ to you, I think most everybody would give me a look that read, “Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?”
So, how about if I used the term ‘intuition’ instead? The eyes, when used for more than just their simple physical function, are the base of one’s intuition. This is because they are closely affiliated with your third-eye seat (between the brows) and your pituitary gland. This is an important regulatory gland that, when properly activated with breath and meditation, promotes calmness, focus and intuition. Here at the third eye we have another operational center for many of our human experiences. Here lives a great opportunity to move beyond “seeing is believing” into “seeing within is believing”.
But, like anything else, this takes work. As children of the scientific and technologic age, we have been taught (with a sledgehammer) that one should only believe what one can see. The intuition has been dismissed as a non-sense even though, in reality, it is one of our most valuable, intrinsic, biologic gifts. To begin this work—to regain the intuition—one must put aside much of what was hammered into you and trust that the creator has more in store for us than just these five senses and just this one physical world. The world within has a landscape that is far richer than the most beautiful earthly sights. And this world can be accessed through the windows of our physical eyes.
After you close them.
This simple meditation will allow you a glimpse into the internal world. But know that it is just one door opening, and the more often you do it, the deeper you will go. So if this is your very first time with an experience like this, try to move beyond the sense of feeling ‘foolish’ and trust that the body recognizes what you are trying to do. Eventually, it will let you in.
Close those eyes and breathe very, very slowly and deeply. Focus intently on the space between your brows until you feel it grow warm or heavy. If thoughts intrude just gently set them to the side. Once the body and mind have settled into the understanding that this will happen, simply roll the eyes up as if you could look at this third eye point. Stay here and continue to breathe. Something will unfold for you.
And then you will see.
83
My first experience with meditation came at Yogi Hari’s Ashram where I attended my teacher training. Simply put, it was not a pleasant experience. Succinctly put, I hated it. I don’t think I have ever come up against such an intense wall of frustration in my entire life, before or since.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t do it again in a heartbeat.
Yogi Hari sat us all down at his knee and told everyone to think of a symbol—something easy like a cross, something that had value to us. He then gave us all instructions to close our eyes and focus on just that symbol, nothing else, just that one symbol. That was the sum total of his instruction, essentially sit tight, shut up and focus. So the room got quiet and we all sat, presumably meditating on our symbols. (Presumably being the operative, here…desperately might be more apt.) After a few interminable minutes, he recalled our attention and began to ask questions. Of me. Crapola.
“What other things came to your mind while you were concentrating?” Nothing, yogiji. “How long did you hold the symbol in your mind?” Maybe a minute, yogiji. “You are wrong,” he said. “You maybe had that symbol in your mind for only a few seconds.” I remember thinking, what do you know you mean, old man? You’re not in my head and how dare you tell me—the owner of said head—what happens there! And if you can’t tell me how to fix it, don’t criticize me about it! One, of course, says nothing like this out loud. It simply isn’t done.
So with this golden attitude, he instructs us to simply do it again only better. Great. Thanks a bunch Master Yogi. By then I was even more frustrated that I couldn’t speak my mind, that I had been embarrassed in front of the class and that I had no more clearer instruction than when I started. And that made the act of meditating nearly impossible to approach, let alone achieve. I was sunk before I even began.
What I know now is that there is no better way; Meditation and asana come through personal patience and perseverance. And frustration is the iceberg that endangers everybody’s practice of it. The plain fact of the matter is that your mind is your mind. It functions in a unique and personal manner. I can teach you many things about your body and your mind. I can show you many things about the process of yoga that will lead you to a successful meditative state or a successful asana. But what I cannot do is tell you to do a, b, then c in precisely this manner and voila the result is yoga. As nice as it would be to believe, the process of coming to meditation is not like a mathematics problem. It is a bit more like archaeology--brush, brush, dig. If you don’t cultivate the patience for this kind of exploration, frustration will loom and you will be sunk.
Come to think of it, kids, this is just life, now isn’t it? We aren’t given a handbook upon emergence into the world and our guides are just that—guides. Ultimately, we all simply dig our way through life, patiently figuring it out as we unfold towards the sun. Those who constantly search for concise directions will most likely never find their way because there is no one way. Just like learning to meditate, we all have to find our own method for living. Patiently and purposefully. Getting frustrated about a lack of supposed progress or concise direction won’t get you anywhere any faster. Getting ticked that nobody is telling you how won’t help either.
Seems yogiji knew what he was about after all.
84
As I was pondering this week’s subject, an old childhood memory surfaced. I was, and many of you may be surprised here, a very fat little kid. Other children used to make terrible fun of me, even going as far as to make “BOOM” sounds when I walked by. Awful, right?
My strongest weapon those days was an
old, familiar, playground rhyme. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” At the time I felt very proud of my ability to be so ‘mature’ in the face of ignorant bullying. That rhyme became a deeply held shield that carried me through many a dark day.
Today I know what an enormous pile of poo-huckey that sentiment is.
Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words…words can crush you. Words are the most powerful, awful and wonderful weapons we as humans own. Words have the ability to eviscerate or to elevate. Words are how we express the deepest of our emotions, and mean words, ignorant words, or hateful words are more deadly to the human spirit than guns are to the human body.
Conversely, loving words, thoughtful words, and healing words can turn the course of a life. A well placed sentiment, a kind bon mot, can bring someone out of the darkest depths. Something as simple as a ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ can bring a smile to anybody’s face. Something as deep as ‘I love you’ can turn the tide of despair. What we say has more effect on others than practically anything else we do. What we say to ourselves is even more powerful still. The vibration of these words lasts longer and goes deeper than we can ever imagine.
In yoga, we are given an additional lexicon of loving words called mantra. We are taught powerful words that elevate us to a higher vibration, that allow us to heal on a deep, personal, spiritual level. Saying them, singing them, even repeating them silently, is enough to bring peace to a riotous mind or serenity to a bruised heart. A well placed mantra can even soothe the ornery beast. But ask some people to join you and you may find yourself standing quite alone, as if you had suddenly started spurting satanic verse.