Yoga’s Present Moment

Yoga’s Present Moment – an Experience of Love

Be in the present moment, experience your breath, watch your thoughts without judgment. These are instructions often given in yoga classes. The opportunity to “be in the present moment” is often touted as one of the benefits of taking yoga. But what does this really mean?

Yoga is a vast, varied and extremely old practice. Some claim that Shiva is the father of yoga and gave the first teachings of how to approach the deepest part of the self. He purportedly lived 7,000 years ago. This means that there have been 7,000 years for diversification of the tradition. The last 100 years have seen the tradition move to the west and with this has come greater and more accelerated changes and transformations.

But, “be in the present moment” is a powerful, timeless directive, the origin of which can be traced back to Shiva’s teachings. In the Agama Shastra, (which deals with the teachings of Shiva), Shiva instructs his students to “live in the present” and gives a variety of methods through which to do this. Throughout the centuries, these teachings have been practiced by yogis in order to move towards spiritual liberation.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra (about 200 C.E.) is perhaps the best example of yoga’s instruction to live in the present. Patanjali defined yoga as “the cessation of the fluxuations of the mind.” Certainly, when this is achieved, the practitioner has come into the present moment. Patanjali was heavily influenced by Buddhist thought which was on the rise in around the time he was teaching and composing the Sutras. In Mahayana Buddhism, the instruction to live in the present is at the core of many of the teachings. It is an interesting coincidence that the popularity of the hatha yoga practice in this century, in the west, has increased in tandem with the rising interest in Buddhism. Many hatha yoga teachers whose primary form of yoga is a’sana practice, also openly subscribe to Buddhist teachings.

Patanjali’s work was a great treatise on the cosmologic order of the universe, the human being’s role in that order, and the nature of the mind. Patanjali wrote that the ultimate goal of the practice of yoga was to remove the veils of the ego and abide solely in the nature of the Purusa – or cosmic consciousness, in other words, God. So the practice of Patanjali yoga is not only to be in the present, but to understand that present as the abode of the Divine.

The wide variety of Tantric and vedic writings on yoga which have contributed to this great tradition are centered around this teaching.

In tantric yoga philosophy, moving towards a state of non-judgmental existence in the present moment is achieved within the foundation of a deep understanding of the nature of the universe. According to tantra, the entire universe is composed of the fabric of Divine Love or prema. Because the matrix of reality is prema, the experience of being in the present moment is the experience of waking up to the blissful reality of the universe.

In other words, the present moment isn’t a quiet reflection of the ego – it is an ecstatic merging of self into a super-conscious, rarified, vibrational field of Love. Yogis throughout the ages have tried to describe this state and use the Sanskrit word samadhi to encapsulate its essence, but it is truly only accessible through experience. Most people have spontaneously or randomly approached samadhi at one time or another in their lives – while staring at the ocean or gazing out at mountains or in a deep state of communion with the divine. Yoga, in its many forms, provides the technology, developed and honed over centuries of time, to consciously cultivate a regular experience of samadhi, generally through meditation practices.

And when you are not sitting and meditating, how can you encourage this cultivation? To completely remember who you are is to experience ecstasy. In tantra, the practice of being in the present moment is called Madhu vidya which means “sweet knowledge.” This is the practice of remembering the intrinsic sweetness of life – that every thing, every situation, person, place, and moment, is an expression of, is sheltered by, is actually composed of the loving force of the cosmos.

Krishna laid this out for Arjuna in the Bhagavad Giita with a mantra that is still very popular today:

Brahma’r pan’am’

Brahma Havih

Brahma’ gnao

Brahman’a’ Hutam’

Brahmeva Tena Gantavyam

Brahma Karma Sama’dhina’

This act of offering is Brahma (divine consciousness).

That which is offered is Brahma.

The fire which consumes the offering is Brahma.

Brahma is the one who offers.

Brahma alone is the goal of the one who is offering.

And after completing our work,

we will become one with Brahma.

According to tantra, when it feels like love is not the dominant force in a situation, when we are faced with challenges and heartache, we are reminded to gently but firmly guide our egos back to madhu vidya, to that sweet remembrance, which can help us see our situation as either a learning experience, a karmic payback, or an opportunity for growth. Maintaining a positive attitude even in the midst of adversity is certainly difficult. The practice of madhu vidya offers a direct route back to the Divine source in order to diffuse suffering.

To experiment with the practice of madhu vidya notice when you encounter a difficult moment in your day. Stop, breathe, remember who you are. Remembering that the moment, the situation, your body and the breath that you watch pass in and out of your lungs, are all manifestations of the powerful loving force of the universe.

Kristine Kaoverii Weber MA, LMBT, e-RYT, has been a student of yoga since 1989 and a teacher for the past 11 years. She is the director of the Subtle Yoga Teacher Training program and the co-director of the Ananda Marga Yoga Teacher Training program. She teaches Chakra Yoga, meditation and yoga philosophy workshops around the southeast and in California. She lives in Asheville, NC and is the author of Healing Self-Massage (Sterling, 2005). Please visit her website at subtleyoga.com.