How old is Yoga? Reply to Waylon Lewis.

By Ramesh Bjonnes from www.Elephantjournal.com

Waylon Lewis asked an intriguing question in one of his blogs: How old is yoga?  A little more than half a dozen decades older than Waylon Lewis, responds one of the experts, Nick Rosen, over at Yogadork. There is undoubtedly some truth to that quick and concise historical assessment. But only if one equates the practice of yoga with the practice of asanas, the physical exercises most people today associate with yoga. It is true, Waylon, modern yoga—as taught by Krishnamacarya and later by B.K.S. Iyengar, who imported it to the West—is indeed a mixture of Western gymnastics, wrestling and Indian Hatha Yoga. This is true. This has been documented.

If you think of yoga as these forms of practices, which today have morphed into numerous other yoga styles, including Power Yoga and Bikram Yoga, yoga is indeed no more than 90-100 years old. Not much older than one of Bikram’s Roll Royces. But let’s not conflate yoga to the level of the body only. As the Einstein of consciousness, Ken Wilber, would say, that’s flatland science. That’s conflating reality to one dimension only: the physical. And, Waylon, that does not work in the world of yoga.

As you know, in yoga, we divide reality up in at least three dimensions: body, mind, spirit. And, says Boulder’s Einstein, Mr. Wilber, we need to understand each of these levels on their own terms. Not conflate them all to the level of the body. Hence, yoga does not equal asanas only. So, to understand the history of yoga, we need to understand that yoga is more than the physical exercises exported to the West by B.K.S Iyengar et al. Luckily, more and more yoga students today understand that. And Iyengar certainly understood it. Iyengar certainly knows and respect the fact that he has borrowed from a tradition that is thousands of years older than Waylon Lewis.

So here goes:

The most recent record of authentic Hatha Yoga scriptures from India in existence is the Gheranda Samhita, which was written in the 17^th century. This book describes 32 of the most common asanas used today. This book builds upon another book, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, from the 15^th century (there are also versions of this book hundreds of years older), which list a dozen yoga postures. So, Waylon, we already know—by using only measurable and scientific methods acceptable to the Western flatland mindset—that yoga is at least 500 years older than you are!

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika mentions in its introduction that these exercises were developed by Shiva and that there were 84 in all. Other written sources, such as the Shiva Samhita, say the same thing. Shiva is the original founder of Yoga. That is why in India, Shiva is called the King of Yoga, and that is why you see posters of this dreadlocked hippie everywhere. This is no coincidence. If we want to trace the history of yoga, we must follow the smoke, including the smoke from the sadhu hashish pipes, leading us back to this one sadhu king named Shiva. Because, if we want to know yoga and its origins, that’s our man.

But before we go tracking down Shiva, we need to visit with some other yogis, the Tantric yogis of the Middle Ages. From about 400 AD to about 1400 AD, India experienced a spiritual renaissance of Tantric dimensions. This is the period when all the books on Tantra were written, including the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

So, if we want to understand the roots of yoga, we cannot leave out Tantra. Why? Because everything we associate with yoga (asanas, kundalini, chakras, pranayama, mantra, and so on) have been developed by Tantric yogis. Even Patanjali (200 BC) acknowledged that and many other important teachers acknowledge that Patanjali’s Asthanga Yoga System built upon Tantra and Samkhya. That is why Ashtanga Yoga is also called Raja Yoga. Kriya Yoga or also Kundalini Yoga. Hence, also the Tantric saying: a true yogi combines Hatha Yoga with Raja Yoga to create body-mind-spirit balance. In modern language: combine the heat of Bikram with the upward coil of Kundalini and you’re getting closer to the real deal!

So, Waylon, now we have established that yoga is at least 2200 years old. Because, even Western academics acknowledge that the Yoga Sutras are that old, give or take a few hundred years. And, we have also clearly established that yoga is more than asanas, the physical flatland stuff, because Asthanga Yoga is divided into eight limbs, and only one of them deals with asanas.

Let’s move another few hundred years backwards into history. Some say that the Samkhya philosophy was written about 500 years before Christ, some say it was developed around 1500 BCE. This is very likely so, because all of yoga history and its philosophy existed for a long time as oral tradition before being written down. Interestingly, this philosophy, which is the foundation of Ayurveda and also, to some extent, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, was also called Kapilasa Tantra after its founder Kapila.

Another word for Tantra is Shaivism. And Samkhya is a Shaiva philosophy. In other words, Samkhya is basically a Tantric yoga philosophy. Hence, there is also a deep interrelationship between Ayurveda and Tantra. In South India this Tantric medicine is called Siddha medicine. Moreover, many traditional Ayurvedic doctors in India will say that Shiva also developed Ayurveda. In other words, both yoga and Ayurveda can be traced back through oral history to this dreadlocked sage.

And, if you want to read this oral history, read the Puranas. The Shiva Puranas in particular concludes that yoga and Tantra come from the same ancient source.

Note here that we have not mentioned anything about the Vedas yet. Many Western scholars claim that yoga originated in the Vedas. That is very unlikely. The oral tradition of the Vedas was upheld by the Vedic priests. The oral tradition of yoga was upheld by the yogis, the Shaivites, the Tantrics. You just don’t go to a Vedic priest to learn about yoga, especially if you are a woman.

The Vedic dogmas do not think highly of women. In Tantra, on the other hand, women could be teachers and gurus. No problem. Indeed, according to oral Tantric tradition it was Shiva and his wife Parvati who developed the Agamas and Nigamas, the teachings of Tantra. Hence, yoga’s earliest roots can also be traced straight back to a woman, to Parvati.

Around 1500 BCE, there lived a great man named Krishna. He introduced three forms of yoga: Bhakti Yoga (yoga of devotion), Karma Yoga (yoga of action) and Jinana Yoga (yoga of knowledge). Krishna’s teachings are outlined in one of the greatest spiritual books ever written, the Bhagavad-Gita. (It has now been proven that Krishna’s city Dvarka lays under the sea on the west coast of India; it dates back to 1500 BCE)

In the period after Krishna, many other yogic scriptures were developed: the Brahmanas and the various Upanishads. All these scriptures signify a blending of two cultures and traditions, the Vedic and the Tantric, the priest and the yogi.

These sophisticated spiritual scriptures are often termed the Fifth Veda. Many scholars in the West, I would say most, do not accurately distinguish the great difference between Tantra and Veda, and do not appreciate the great value Tantra has had in supplying the yogic practices, the spiritual technology that enabled the yogi sages to have inner experiences that in turn enabled them to develop such sublime philosophies as outlined in this period, as well as in the later tantric renaissance of the Middle Ages.

When we speak of Hinduism, we speak of the blending of Tantra and Veda. But we must also remember that Hinduism is a Western term, a recent term that is pretty meaningless when we trace the real spiritual history of ancient India.

A few thousand years before Krishna (1500 BCE) there was an early Dravidian and Tantric civilization in India, the Indus Valley civilization. It is this civilization that has produced the Pashupati seal of the horned yogi sitting in a certain bhanda (lock) with his heals pressed into the scrotum. Many mistake the position in this seal for the lotus position.

The Horned Yogi

This shows that the people of that period, as early as 4000 years before Christ, were intimately familiar with various yogic bhandas. Now, pay close attention: As mentioned earlier, Shiva had developed 84 yoga positions, many of which have been written down in various books, such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Some of these 84 positions were also bhandas (as seen above), which are often more sophisticated than the asanas, as their main goal is to awaken kundalini.

Hence, I venture to claim that this yogic seal proves that yoga asanas existed as far back as 6000 years ago. If these folks knew bhandas, they certainly also knew how to practice asanas. More importantly, they also knew how to meditate. Indeed, there is another statue from this period in which the person gazes at the tip of his nose. This meditation exercise is called dharana and is part of the much later Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali.

So, what about Shiva? Did he vanish in a cloud of hashish smoke? It is indeed unfortunate that many Shiva followers today, the sadhus, do little else but smoke hashish all day long. Because, in spite of all the legends and the stories, it is unlikely that was how the prehistoric Shiva spent his time.

When I was in India, I learned from my Tantric teachers that Shiva, just like Buddha and Krishna, was a historical personality who lived around 7000 years ago. And if that is true, we know that yoga is a lot older than Waylon Lewis. The same teachers told me that Shiva lived during the first Vedic Aryan invasion to India, 5000 years before Christ. The genetic science of Dr. Spencer Wells and his famous Genome Project has now proven that is a fact.

Indeed, the history of yoga is very long. The history of its motherland, India, is also very long. Yoga did not come from the Rigveda, nor any of the other four Vedas. Yoga came from the tradition of Tantra, the tradition of Shiva and Parvati, the tradition of Shaivism.

After thousands of years of comingling between these two mighty spiritual rivers, the Veda and the Tantra, the yoga of the Gita, the yoga of Samkhya and the yoga of Patanjali develops. Hence all of the yoga technology of asanas and pranayama and mantra meditation we know today can be traced back to prehistoric Tantra, and most of its philosophy comes form the Upanishads and the Gita, also called the Fifth Veda, as well as the various books we call Tantras.

So, Waylon, if you think of yoga as asanas taught in a Power Yoga class, many aspects of that kind of yoga is not that old. However, even some basic Power Yoga exercises have their roots in the ancient practice of Tantra. Moreover, as you know, yoga is so much more than asanas. And when we include the whole shebang that is yoga—the whole body-mind-spirit aspect of it, then we realize that yoga is very old. Some say as old as that dreadlocked king they call Shiva. That ancient king, not of modern Pop Yoga; that king of  ancient Tantra Yoga.

By Brett Sculthorp

Susan Reinhardt’s Jan. 24 column “The Benefits of Yoga Outweigh the Risks” is typical of the imbalanced perspective of yoga that needs to be rectified by yoga professionals through clearer marketing and communication and better interviewing with/education of journalists.

Popularly yoga, or more specifically yoga postures or asanas, are propagated as a form of exercise and for some people, a sport with performance measures such as sweat, extreme stretching and a competitive environment. The word “yoga” and its holistic philosophy and practices have been narrowly defined, simplified for consumption, reduced to suit a western worldview. Materialistic science and culture has focused on gross anatomy and physiology and de-contextualized asana practice from spiritual development. Subtle anatomy, which includes nerve and glandular systems that are known as chakras, is the traditional orientation of this “innercise”. While there are musculo-skeletal benefits of asana, the neuro-endocrine system in particular is more important in terms of preparing the mind for spiritual practice – the original purpose of yoga postures.

As long as achievement on the mat is infused with group competitiveness, vanity and gross anatomical manipulation rather than the holistic needs of the individual, people will continue to get hurt. We need to bring yoga ethics, Yama and Niyama to the physical practice and understand that asanas should help balance or diminish the vritis (psychic tendencies) such as pride rather than exacerbate them.

There is no correlation between hyper-flexibility and/or physical strength and spiritual development – if there was, everyone in Cirque Du Soleil would be enlightened. Unless yoga professionals actively communicate a deeper message about what yoga is, it will be largely stay confined to the studio and gym and the modal attendance will be people of certain age range, socio-economic status, ethnicity, body type and gender. Further, such communication should be considered part of our service or seva. Without it, our broader ability to effect lasting and meaningful social change will be inhibited.

Yesterday, at the Enka Campus of AB Tech Community College the Land of Sky Regional Council hosted the first public meeting to establish working groups for GroWNC, Western North Carolina’s Livable Communities Initiative.It is a 3-year project to develop regional and local strategies for economic prosperity, quality growth, and sustainable development with a focus on Haywood, Transylvania, Henderson, Buncombe and Madison Counties.

The work groups were divided up into: “Economic Development”, “Energy”, “Housing”, “Land Use”, “Natural and Cultural Resources”, “Transportation” and “Health”.

(Interestingly, “Health” was actually only added after some public feedback about the process.)

Here’s the issue – the Health Work Group was not attended by yoga professionals (or any other Complementary and Alternative Medicine practitioner for that matter). Why? Because as a culture we tend to see yoga as being in a certain little box (usually labeled “studio or gym-based exercise”) and CAM is for individuals with money, not for struggling communities – there are not many yoga professionals engaged in local public policy processes, even though they may personally subscribe to concepts like sustainability, prevention or community empowerment, and work on these things from a bottom up, or grassroots perspective.

But yoga has much to offer individuals and communities on a policy level - from treatment of diseases, and mental health conditions through to health promotion and on from there to human flourishing.

Most local and regional planning is still focused on physical development – how well are people doing physically – Got enough to eat and a job? Got the blood pressure or diabetes under control? Sometimes mental health and cultural issues are mentioned at this level, but the paradigm is still largely materialistic.

The yoga worldview is centrally spiritual and yet even yoga professionals are challenged in taking this to the street – because we’re part of that materialistic paradigm and we’re still figuring out how to break out of it.

Spirituality as a factor in sustainability is a radical idea in public discourse but it is central for yogis – at least ideally.

Andrew Harvey’s Sacred Activism asks us to look more deeply into our spiritual process:

“A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic, and social institutions, a holy force – the power of wisdom and love in action – is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism.”

- Andrew Harvey

Harvey’s vision takes time – and requires psychology flexibility in order to expand out of typical ways of thinking and informing ourselves, to establish new networks, and to take on new roles in our communities.

The process at AB Tech yesterday didn’t require any new kinds of thinking about social problems – it was just business as usual. It appears that future meetings will be about choosing priority strategies based on nothing more creative than reorganizing existing data. No one embraced any progressive methods that could give us new power and perspectives. Einstein famously said, “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” I would suggest that yoga is a technology for that helps us to continually “see the world anew.”

In yoga we often talk about personal transformation and leading business thinkers like Peter Senge are also comfortable with such challenges but we have a dearth of people really striving for this on policy level who are demanding really meaningful change in these kinds of public processes. I hope this vacuum will eventually draw more of us out of the studios and gyms, out to do seva that radically juxtaposes the status quo – and eventually integrates yoga into public/community policy work.

When I think about opening up to something new I feel a sense of curiousity and wonder rather than a need to accomplish or achieve. Their zen perspective brings a balance to the western idea of resolving. While resolving is important and useful, opening offers a sense of spaciousness –  I can take control of certain aspects of my life by intending or resolving and also I can balance that effort by being open to what arises. Certainly our efforts are important. However approaching the New Year with a sense of opening reminds that while each of us is an integral part of the universe and we each have a vital role to play in it, we are not solely responsible for it, nor are we the sole controllers of it. Whew, that’s a relief.

One of the Japanese characters for their New Year’s greeting looks like this:

This means something like the coming together of the sun and the moon. Sounds familiar, huh? “Ha” plus “tha” – the sun and the moon coming together is also the meaning of “Hatha Yoga”.

When the sun and the moon come together there is a new dawn, a new opening, a new awareness, and perhaps, ironically enough, a resolution.

I recently returned from Melbourne Australia where we spent the holidays visiting my husband’s family.

A somewhat precarious Warrior 3 on Cape Shank, Victoria.

Our trip took us on several plane rides with stopoffs in two other countries before we reached Australia. The yogis say that traveling burns one’s karma, which I guess is why the yogis of old often wandered around India – having new experiences and surviving through the kindness of strangers. All traveling, even to Ohio to visit your Aunt Bev, opens you to new ways of looking at things, to new perspectives and to different ways of being and living. It can open you to reflect on your own life and values.

So if you had a chance to go somewhere this past holiday or have a chance in the near future to move around a bit, I would encourage you to think about what it opens in you, what you can open to because of your travels, and what you are able to leave behind.

Happy New Year and Congratulations on your new opening.

I like to think of this as the time to process the gratitude and create its counterpart in generosity. Acknowledgment for what we receive becomes the foundation for what we can offer. And the process of transforming the gifts into the offering is where the magic, the beauty and the growth lie.

That creative space between reminds me of the kumbhaka – the space between the breath, where time stills and shifts take place. I hope you get to take some time this season to tap into the magic of stillness in order to make your offering even deeper and more meaningful.

After all these years, I’m still amazed by what 15 minutes on my mat does for me. How the unconscious tensions begin to unfurl, how my breath stretches out from its cramped quarters, how my mind calms.

Right now, as the world gets busier and more uncertain, taking the time to pause every day is essential – it’s a way to be here in the moment and enjoy the beauty of it all. So perhaps, rather than furiously flinging yourself towards January this year, you may want to consider breathing, right now, and enjoying the mystery of the pause between.

But she wasn’t. “We need people to help us get yoga out there, let’s kick it off with a convention.” she suggested.

So, on October 1, we’re going to meet at Community Yoga in Charlotte.

(The Charlotte convention center was unavailable on such short notice – but don’t worry, we’ll reserve it for next year!)

What we are serious about is changing public health through yoga.

We believe that yoga, which currently is only practiced by a small sector of the population, has the power to revolutionize the state of health and the quality of life of millions more people – of the whole culture. If nurses, teachers, behavioral health professionals and other health and human services industry folks can begin to understand how yoga can benefit them personally, and also benefit the people that they serve, we can begin to make a significant change in the health outcomes of our country.

And, unfortunately, there’s really no where to go except healthier.

I mentioned this in the Charlotte RYT200 training last weekend, and one of my students responded, “Yeah, the only sicker we could get is dead.”

What do we know about our dismal health outcomes?

• The U.S. spends twice as much on health care per capita ($7,129) than any other country. Source: National Center for Health Statistics
• 75% of all health care dollars are spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions including diabetes, obesity, heart disease, lung disease, high blood pressure, and cancer. Source: Health Affairs
• The United States ranks 43rd in lowest infant mortality rate, down from 12th in 1960 and 21st in 1990. Some of the other 42 nations that have a lower infant mortality rate than the US include Hong Kong, Slovenia, and Cuba. Source: CIA Factbook (2008)
• Life expectancy at birth in the US is an average of 78.14 years, which ranks 47th compared to other countries. Source: CIA Factbook (2008)
• About half of the bankruptcy filings in the United States are due to medical expenses. Source: Health Affairs Journal 2005

What do you we know that yoga can do?

Dr. Timothy McCall has compiled an evidence-based list of over 50 conditions benefited by yoga practice some of the highlights of these studies show that:

• Yoga mitigates stress, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and PTSD
• Yoga helps manage diabetes
• Yoga helps heart disease, high blood pressure and congestive heart failure
• Yoga help back pain, neck pain, chronic pain, arthritis, osteoporosis, scoliosis, carpal tunnel, balance problems, obesity, insomnia, infertility…whew - you can read the rest of the list and studies here.

Yoga  can be delivered affordably, in many different contexts beyond fitness centers or yoga studios, it can be adapted to meet the challenges of most conditions, and it is personally empowering. Plus there is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates its efficacy.

What do we know about the social forces that are driving the market for yoga?

• The current trend of healthcare is integrative medicine – NIH, SAMHSA and the IOM are all calling for integrative approaches to health and wellness. Yoga is the original integrative medicine, equally attending to the body, mind and spirit.
• The future of medicine is prevention. There is no better prevention strategy than a daily yoga practice.
• In June the White House released it’s National Prevention Strategy which included the need to expand preventative services in local communities. Let’s get yoga to the people.

That’s where you come in. As a yoga teacher or enthusiast, you have the power to share one of the most transformative tools available – a tool that can not only change each individual’s health, but can also change the health of families, communities and the entire society. The power is in the practice. And we want to help you access that power and bring yoga to the people that matter to you.

Join us October 1 at Community Yoga near Charlotte. We will strategize about how we can bring yoga to various underserved populations and share ideas about bridging the gap between the yoga world and traditional health care. You can  increase your knowledge base with two workshops: “Yoga for Cancer” and “Yoga for Trauma.” Some of the graduates from Subtle Yoga Trainings will be presenting how they’ve been bringing yoga to various populations.

We’d love you to join us and be part of the yoga solution! Let’s move forward together to share the healing power of yoga with the world.

For more info and to register, click here.

I’d like to begin with a little story – something that happened last week in my son’s first grade class. I’ve been teaching yoga to them on Tuesday afternoons about once a month. And when you teach children (and actually this is true for grown-ups too) one of the best things you can do is tell them stories. So all year I had been making up these little silly stories about animals taking journeys and the different positions they get into and sounds they make and doing that with the kids. But then I noticed that as more of them started to turn seven, they were getting a little bored and finding it a little baby-ish. So I needed to figure out a way to switch it up a little.

My son loves Star Wars and so does my husband and so do I really although it would be nice if there were more strong female characters in less revealing outfits. But the kids are into it. So I decided to start doing Star Wars yoga with them, at first we would assume different shapes, like we were fighting with light sabers or jumping over canyons or riding flying speeder bikes (I had to spend a bit of time getting ideas from Wookiepedia by the way).

But then I hit on something that really connected with the kids. I told them that we would divide the class in half and have a tree pose competition. Two of the kids from each team would try to hold tree pose as long as they could and whoever won got a point, then we’d revolve through the other kids and whichever team had the most points in the end won. But here’s the catch, the other team members would also have to participate while this contest was going on – and I was partly doing this to help them develop concentration skills but also to keep them quiet so we didn’t bother the other class that shares the room. And the way that they would participate is that it would be their job to hold up their hands and use the Force to keep their teammates from falling down out of tree pose.

It was a huge hit. We did that for a few weeks and then eventually we added a bit of Harry Potter so then they could either use their magic wands if they wanted to, or they could use the Force if they were more Star Wars inclined. So we had 16 little Jedi padawans or underaged wizard concentrating their teammates to victory.

I always did my best to make it a tie.

The point here is that there is an inherent understanding, an inherent urge, even in these little children, toward mysticism, toward seeking the mysterious of life, toward the realization of human potential.

What is behind the curtain of this reality? I want to embark on this journey, this adventure of the Jedi. And in my journeying, I want to use what I’ve learned, what I’ve mastered. I want to use the Force to create something for the good, for righteousness. I want to use it to heal myself and to set things right in the world. I want to move toward Oneness not just for myself, but for the benefit of all living beings.

So the question is: how do you embark on this spiritual journey? What is the process? And how do you take what you learn and then bring it back into the world in the form of self-expression to make a meaningful contribution with your life?

Much of the archetypal imagery in Star Wars comes from Eastern philosophies of course, zen and yoga or Tantra. Tantra means the journey, the process that stretches and expands us into liberation. Today I’m going to speak about how these ideas of tantra and yoga do that. And we will also practice the basic technique of the spiritual journey which is mantra meditation.

First I want to say that when I use the word “yoga” what I’m not confining that term to is lithe women in flow-y clothing doing dance-like exercises – although that can certainly be a part of yoga and many people find great health and peace through the exercises of asanas, but yoga is not confined to that definition. What I mean by yoga is the whole, philosophically sophisticated, extremely broad system, the core of which is meditation practice – what I would like to call the technology of mysticism.

First I’d like to frame the challenges at hand. And what I’m about to talk about is our thinking problems. Now the problem with even talking about this is that for human beings to talk about their thinking is kind of like fish talking about the water they swim in. It’s not something we typically have any awareness of. But the problem is that the water is really polluted, and that’s when us fish need to start paying attention.

So for the past 400 years or so in the west, our thinking structures were confined to the hubris of Western Scientific Reductionism that sees reality as distinct and separate. That sees life as physical. And in this closed scientific system, all knowing is derived from thinking and experiencing. We have come into being from the matter of the earth and we are ultimately separate beings. In this system spirituality is cut off from scientific knowing and really relegated to a lesser position, or even patronized as mythic and anachronistic. You get one hour on Sunday for it before brunch, the rest of the week, well, try to keep it under wraps, cause it doesn’t make you look very intelligent.

What this scientific worldview has provided us with is modern life. Lots of good things. And also lots of things that have caused monumental challenges and brought into question the future of our very existence. We are really good in the west at the technology of external, of material development. We’re great at it – it’s completely trashing the planet, but we’re really good at it.

I even have had a student say to me, oh meditation, yeah, I think I saw an ap for that. Meditation Aps – we even want to use technology for meditation, because that’s the way our thinking works. I heard that meditation is good for me, it will help me relax, be less stressed out, and have better concentration so there must be a way I can just buy it, right? I’m sure I’ve got enough in my iTunes account for a 2.99 meditation ap.

The yogis had a different perspective on reality. We can start with their model of beingness –The five koshas – or layers of self. They were first detailed in one of the earlier Upanishads: Taittiriya Upanishad and then again later in Mandukya Upanishad. In this model the Source of human existence is the atman – which is usually translated as soul or spirit, and importantly it is the part of ourselves that is (excuse my technology metaphor) plugged into Oneness. Out of Oneness comes the first layer of individual self – Bliss. Yes, bliss is the primary aspect of being from the yogic perspective and the cause of the other layers. Isn’t that nice? It is the first thing that we are. Bliss devolves to witness-ship or pure awareness out of which the mind and all its creativity, rationality and machinations, comes into being. Then the energy body comes out of the mind. The physical body, the last layer, devolves from the energy structure.

So from a yogic perspective our bodies are reflections of our energy and our minds and our being-ness comes from a single Source. You can see that this consideration of human being-ness is quite inverted from the western scientific model which takes us up from the material, not down from the spiritual.

Then there’s the idea of technology. One of the translations for the Sanskrit word Tantra is actually technology – again, that which stretches and expands us. In India there are these institutes of computer science and they actually have the word “tantra” in their names. Because it is the ancient word for technology. And in the ancient world, internal technology was the practice of yoga or tantra.

So what the west sees as technology is confined to the objective and scientific, but the Indian culture has long understood that technology also goes within to the subjective. The technology, the process or journey of the Jedi, the yogis called “tantra,” – which I use brazenly use interchangeably with “yoga” and, again, to define my terms here, it has little or nothing to do with California hot tubs.

When the 60s came along cracks began to appear in the Age of Reason paradigm. The forces of evolution or culture or life, pushed us beyond the limits of this thinking and what we have seen for the past 40 years or so is the wild fire spread of an understanding that this scientific paradigm is necessary, but insufficient.

It can’t take us on that inner journey that so many of us want, that the yogis would say is inherent to our very being, and that ultimately holds the key to our survival. And also in the past 40 years or so we’ve seen the massive rejection and/or transformation of traditional religions because knowing doesn’t want to be circumscribed by dogmas. The spiritual warrior wants to know through inner experience, through his or her own journey.

It is this spiritual journey, the quest of the spiritual warrior that we are currently being called to undertake. It is ultimately through the development of our consciousness, the development of our inner, more than our outer, technology, that we can pull us out of the messes we’re in personally, socially, environmentally.

In 1982, David Bohm, a physicist who was dancing on the edges of the scientific paradigm, had a shift. Through his research and understanding of Quantum physics, he saw that the cause of our global crisis is our thinking – specifically our insistence on seeing things as separate.

“The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that are confronting us today.”

So what does yoga offer to this conundrum?

The technology of yoga offers a complement to western technological development. Yoga is the technology of the internal, the technology of the subjective, the technology of movement toward Oneness, the technology of bliss, the technology of love.

And the yogis laid it out in various texts – specifically the Yoga Sutra. It starts with getting your ethical house in order and paying attention to your relationships and then proceeds to physical and then intuitional practices, which are the technology of internal development and expansion. And like external technology, if you want to learn it you have to study it. But it doesn’t come from books or anything else the senses can touch or the mind can rationalize, it comes from practice. Practice here equates with an internal study.

Yoga postures and breathing practices help to prepare the mind, and then the meditation practices, which differ slightly depending on lineage, essentially surround ways to corral the wayward thoughts of the mind and use that energy, that force, for leaping out of old thought structures and unveiling deeper awareness.

And this is why there is not a conflict between yoga and religion. If you use the word yoga really loosely, if I really expand the definition, then what I mean by yoga is the attempt to link the finite to the infinite. In this case, yoga is the mystical practice, the contemplative practice, of any religion. St. Theresa was essentially a yogi, certainly St. Francis. Hafiz was basically a yogi, so was Lao Tsu and the Buddha and Mohamed and Jesus.

Meditation, according to the tradition, has two essential elements: concentration and contemplation. And today we will do some simple yogic meditation using the technology of the secret word, mantra. Mantra means – that which liberates the mind and it has two functions – one to corral the thoughts and focus that energy – concentration, and the other to contemplate the beauty and essence of wholeness – contemplation. The yogis called these practices dharana and dhyana.

Mantras were traditionally kept unrevealed – they’re magic words that can unlock the secrets of the internal universe. If you’re interested in delving deeper into the tradition, I suggest finding a yogi to give you a mantra. If you just want to experiment with it and you want to keep it in the framework of your own belief system, then using the name of the deity you connect with or a very expansive ideal is useful. Today I would like to suggest that we use the word “Shanti” it simply means “peace.” And we’ll preface the practice with kirtan, which traditionally has been used to prepare the mind for silence, for the inward journey.

And what is the result of the practice – what is the product of this technology? The ultimate product is love. Being present, so you can feel love – through the people and animals around you, through the earth you see or touch, in the wind you feel on your face when you’re looking out over the mountains. And that in turn allows you to radiate love, to the people and animals and plants and mountains around you. It allows you to radiate love through your work, and through your desire to help all that are suffering and need to be rescued with the fearlessness of your heart and the surety of your lightsaber.

Once when my son Bhaerava was five, we were driving quickly through town, late for a playdate and Bhaerava was feeling concerned. But then in a stroke of insight he came up with a solution: “Mommy,” he said, “Can I use the Force to turn all the traffic lights green.”

“No,” I told him, “the Force is not for tricks, you can only use it to help other people.”

The practices of meditation give us the strength, fortitude and inner security necessary to combat the Dark side – within as well as without. Perhaps we’ll never be able to use a magical Force to change matter, but we certainly, through practice, will find that we can harness the energy of our minds and use it to transform our world.

I’d like to finish with a poem by Rabindrath Tagore, an artist and yogi with a western education who seemed to be able to reconcile the internal and external worldview.

Unity

The significance which is in
Unity is an eternal wonder.

We try to realise the essential unity of the world
with the conscious soul of man;
we learn to perceive the unity held together
by the one Eternal Spirit,
whose power creates the earth,
the sky, and the stars,
and at the same time irradiates our minds with
the light of a consciousness
that moves and exits in unbroken continuity with the outer world.

In 1992 I left my sister, my friends and my job as a newspaper reporter in San Francisco, stuffed a backpack with professional clothes and sensible shoes, and moved to Japan.

I was 26 and I wanted to see the world and wanted some space to figure things out. Although I didn’t speak Japanese at the time, I had a master’s degree in English and had heard that would be enough to land me a decent job. So with little money and lots of verve I landed in Tokyo, found a place to live, a gig teaching English to Hitachi employees and set out to learn to love slimy sashimi and slimier natto.

After a few months I got tired of the concrete jungle that is Tokyo and moved a 45 minute train ride out to the beautiful temple city of Kamakura – famous also for Daibutsu, the great bronze sculpture of the Buddha. I found a friendly obasan (“auntie”) who rented me the top floor of her rickety old wooden house just a minute from the beach and a few minutes from the big buddha. Fresh smelling tatami mats lined the two-roomed floor. I had a little kitchen and bathroom and a beautiful row of exterior glass doors which overlooked a little garden. Except that I was freezing most of the time, it was perfect.

In spring the cherry tree in the courtyard blossomed outside my window. And soon after I was invited by my students to participate in O Hanami – which translates as something like: Venerable Flower Viewing party.

Every spring in Japan for two weeks or so, this is what happens: after work or school, you bring food, drink and blankets (and warm clothes) and meet your friends under the cherry trees. Tokyo’s parks are blanketed with them and when sitting under them you are sheltered by a sublime pink canopy. In fact the whole country is full of cherry trees and if you are ambitious and time it right, you can travel from Kyushu in the south to the northern part of Honshu and even to Hokkaido, and have O Hanami parties for 6 weeks or more.

O Hanami—A party to enjoy the momentary, stark raving beauty of flowering trees.

You sit there under the trees and it starts to get dark and chilly and then the wind blows a bit and cascading cherry blossom petals decorate your hair and caress your face and for that moment, life is very fine. And you’re young and unattached and carefree. Drinking a little sake, eating sushi, enjoying the struggle of understanding a foreign language and culture, and laughing about little things with kind people.

I left Japan in 1994 but stayed in Asia studying yoga and traveling for almost two more years.

Then six years ago my husband and I finally purchased our first house (he’s was a wanderer too, so it took us a while to finally settle down in North Carolina). Our first spring here we decided to plant trees. My husband wanted fruit trees. I agreed, but saved the small space just outside my kitchen window for a decorative cherry—so that every spring, for two weeks, while washing the dishes, I could remember Japan and O Hanami and participate from afar in the present moment beauty fest.

Last Saturday the buds just started bursting on my kitchen window tree. And I am filled with a bittersweetness. Oh Japan, what happened to you! Taihen des ne! (so horrible). And what can I possibly do from so far away?

On the news I watched the horrific waves washing in, I heard a woman screaming to the people below her who were trying to get to high ground, “Isogu! Isogu!” Hurry up! Her shouting turned to shrieks as a figure was carried away. Surely it must have felt nothing less than apocalyptic.

And we are all left to make meaning. Which doesn’t mean trying to figure out why it happened – some right wing Japanese politician said the Japanese people are greedy and so god was punishing them. Appalling, yet even fundamentalist ideologues rant about tragedies to make meaning. The mistake is assuming that our limited infantile perspectives, our narrow, distorted understanding of reality could “know” a reason for such a tragedy, for any tragedy.

The original meaning of “apocalypse” is “to lift the veil” or “to reveal something hidden.” Not “we’re all going to hell.” What reality is revealed when your house, your family, your whole life is washed away in a monstrous wave? When suddenly the notion that everything is fine, everything is static, and that life is secure is ripped out of your arms and flushed out to sea or threatened by nuclear fallout?

The yogis say that there is a way of knowing that is more sublime than the intellect  –  and that is surrender. Making meaning for me means only deepening this sentiment. That my petty ego does not control or fully understand the universe, that every moment is a gift, that the seconds of catching my husband’s smiling eyes or laughing with my son at the kitchen table are precious. That life is sacred and exquisitely, poignantly, fleeting.

So we try to make meaning. Maybe you teach a yoga class and try to inspire others to make meaning. To leave the question “why” out in the tsunami waters and bring the question of how to be present and compassionate into their hearts.

Right now my practice now is this: I will remember that every breath is a gift, and every molecule of that breath is quivering with the most powerfully loving force in the universe. Whatever I can do for those who suffer I will, and I will breathe in the pain of the world and offer my exhale, my being, however small or insignificant, for its healing.

Om shanti, shanti shanti

Cindy has brought wisdom, kindness and caring to the center – qualities which are radiated by the amazing students who have collectively created a community spirit here. Sarah is an integral part of the studio’s functioning and I have very much appreciated her clarity and focus.

I am still teaching a few weekly classes in Asheville. You can keep up with my schedule on my website, www.subtleyoga.com. The larger part of my attention has shifted towards trainings and workshops. My drishti has also turned toward community and public health. The anecdotes of my practice itself, plus a growing body of research about the wide spectrum of benefits of this phenomenal ancient practice stimulates my idealism. I envision the possibilities of yoga as a viable, cost-effective public health strategy. So I intend to spend a lot more time writing about and developing strategies for implementing that possibility.

Psychologist and yoga instructor Stephen Cope has said, “What if the practice of yoga and meditation were to become an integral component of daily life, as routine a part of our ecology-of-living as brushing our teeth” Only 17 million people in this country practice yoga, but there are more than 300 million people living here. Clearly there are a lot more people brushing their teeth than doing yoga.

But things can change. . . Yoga continues to change my life. I hope to be, in whatever way I can, an integral part of a larger change. How can we deliver yoga to underserved, disenfranchised populations? How can yoga become a part of school curriculum? How can yoga be an affordable part of Integrative Health Care? How can families and communities be inspired to support their health through yoga?

Beginning in September, I will conduct a yoga teacher training program for Behavioral Health professionals at the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) which is Asheville’s accredited provider of continuing education for health professionals and part of the state-wide AHEC system. This program is the first of its kind in the country and through this training, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers will be able to begin to share some of the benefits of yoga with their clients. I am also offering two Subtle Yoga Training and Personal Transformation Programs in the Charlotte area this year and plans are underway for the RYT500 training. I also will be traveling internationally (Europe and Canada) to share yoga and am conducting several webinars for www.yogatherapyweb.com. You can keep up with my blogs on my site or through www.elephantjournal.com.

I am filled with gratitude for the warmth, love and sweetness I have experienced at One Center Yoga and I look forward to seeing you all very soon.

In 2004 I realized I needed a different way to describe the kind of yoga I teach. Yes I could say that I teach hatha yoga and that I have integrated what I’ve learned from many different traditions. But that wasn’t really it. What interests me, the common link in all the styles, is the capacity of the practice to transport me into the subtle realm – where the ordinary touches the extraordinary. What I began to understand is that the kind of yoga I teach is not so much about techniques – it is about approach, understanding and experience.

The Subtle realm is the bridge between the mundane and the spiritual. It pertains to the Subtle body – the subtle anatomy. It pertains to the subtle aspect of the mind. It pertains to a subtle way of knowing about yoga and about life. The Subtle is a layer of self, related to the manomaya and vijanamaya koshas, where we can expand the way we know and the way we experience. It is the realm of ever-expanding awareness.The Subtle is a bridge, which means you walk on it, you move across it, you go through a process.

This is the kind of yoga I want to do and I want to teach, so I named it simply “Subtle Yoga.”

For a while I had a difficult time explaining what Subtle Yoga is. People would ask me, “is it gentle?” Maybe, sometimes. “It seems a lot like Vini yoga.” Yes, it can be. “Is it sort of like vinyasa?” Sort of.

I struggled with my descriptions.  I wanted to be able to confidently differentiate the techniques – which is how most people differentiate styles of yoga. And I wanted to be able to talk about outcomes, achieved states, tangible results.

But those things are not subtle, they are primarily in the realm of the mundane or the gross. Understanding, being, awareness – these are all about experience, not technique. The Subtle resides in  the realm of art, the places in the margins, the space between the breath or thoughts, the undercurrents, the subcontext. These things can’t necessarily be described, but they can be experienced and they can be transmitted.

Subtle Yoga is a journey. How do you get from one state to another? From an undesirable place of contraction or irritation, to a place of freedom and ease? How do you get from a place of un-consciousness to conscious awareness? How do you innercise if the only thing you’ve ever done before is exercise? Subtle Yoga is a system of tools that builds the bridge. The foundation of that bridge are the different practices the yogis have gifted us with – ethics, breathing, moving, meditating. You breathe, you move, you meditate and in that process you build for yourself a bridge and that bridge is the structure over which you move toward the sublime.