Saturday, February 5, 2011

Por el Amor de Dosa!

Things I’ve been meaning to write up in this blog lately have taken the form of lists these days (a result of chanting and memorizing so many lists of declensions of Sanskrit nouns, I’m suspecting), but I might disappoint my two readers out there if I write up list after list of things I’ve been reflecting on (and I’ve got quite a few lists in my head right now). So, although one of you (or approx. 50% of my readership) may find this not as stimulating reading as the bits I write when I’m traveling in search of tigers, the other reader out there (which in some parts could be considered majority) may be interested in hearing more on yoga. Technically, this is part of an email I wrote to a friend in response to his question about how I deal with the disparity of working on understanding the internal universe inside one, going deep into one’s self, and then reconciling this with the external universe of daily life in a typical, mundane context. I’ll just paste the email and hope that this serves to help non-practitioners understand what part of yoga is about, and if you find it too boring, just go back to your facebook page and see if anyone’s put a “like” next to your latest post.
In India you get to work on a lot of issues, internal issues and also dealing externally with things not working out how you'd like (on a very regular basis). And yes, the yoga goes very deep and you get pretty crazy things happening subconsciously and unconsciously in dreams.
I can say that what you're talking about, working through things internally and then having to face a different external reality, is what yoga is all about. It's not about twisting your body into a strange pose or balancing everything on your hands, a sweaty mess involving as much physical exhertion as some Olympic sports. This is what is looks like on the surface (or from outside) but when you do a regular daily practice and you move deeper (and into stranger poses) you stir up a lot of psychological junk/mental stuff that in the past manifested into a physical reaction in your body, or has settled and accumulated somewhere in your body (or mind). And dealing with resolving these things on the mat and then off happens every day, not just when you're in India, or after being in India and then returning to "normal" life. Life experiences always have physical repercussions in the body/mind, as any body worker knows. Much of yoga is just dealing with and accepting things that are released (or re-released) into energetic and psychic streams after postures or practice. I had a big thing this past summer; I was going so deep into hip-openings (dvi pada sirsasana and yoga nidrasana, etc), releasing things that are so internal in your body and so deeply-rooted. What a mess it was (and so godawful painful in practice for weeks, virtually unable to do yoga, although I could ride the bike, swim and run for an hour with no pain at all). After I wrote it all out on 30 pieces of paper and did 108 sun salutations for Guruji (we did a ceremony on his birthday) it all mysteriously and thankfully left, all the strife and turmoil and horrible misery. But it was bad for a time.
And yes, sometimes the mess and goo comes out in small doses; maybe for you that's happening, when you start to practice or take it up again. You do some yoga and you think you're doing the right thing and you feel worse and crappy later and then think, “why? yoga is supposed to make me more stable, etc, not weepy or aggressive or sore....” But as you eliminate past disturbances from your system (anything from trauma to treatments with antibiotics), the junk has to go somewhere when leaving you (maybe negative thoughts, pain, inexplicable sadness, a bad reaction you can't control, maybe strange pussing white sores on your arms and legs which stay there for a month at a time, no joke, but it'll come out, one way or another). Anyway, what I'm saying is that the disparity between apparent/experiential realities has to be worked through all the time, whether you practice once in a while or day in and day out for 20 years. Of course there are escape mechanisms to avoid this or the roughness of dealing with the disparity (drinking, smoking, any addictive behavior), but yoga (or any meditation practice) is exactly working through and dealing with the disparity of what we perceive as reality and what we almost never even perceive as reality but sometimes may get a glimpse of in short moments which we work to extend into longer glimpses through a meditative practice. Of course, really, in the end, there's no disparity between external and internal, because the internal system is a reflection (or maybe microcosm) of the external and working to incorporate this realization into living can help you make peace with the "disparity". Some of yoga philosophy is about this. It’s bedtime now, but if anyone is interested in any more information or further reading, please send a comment and I can provide more details or put you in the right direction.

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