Practice, practice, practice. All is coming --Pattabhi Jois CHAPTER 1 find your practice A CALL TO ACTION SCHUYLER GRANT The unexamined life is not worth living. --Socrates This is the threshold. To plow through life, seeking pleasures, avoiding pain, rejecting dissonance, reveling in success, and cursing the vicissitudes of fortune. Or to pursue a life of inquiry, simultaneously nonattached and deeply immersed. To experience yourself as both the center of the universe and a dust mote on the filament of history. To choose to have a practice--a daily discipline of yoking your heart to your mind, your mind to your breath, your breath to your body, your body to the earth and the rest of humanity--is to pass this threshold into the examined, mindful life. The exact way in which you engage in that yoking (in Sanskrit, the yoga) will change.
Should change. The course of your relationships, your career, and your health will inevitably shift; the only constant is change. Likewise, your asana practice and other mind/body pursuits will, should shape-shift over a lifetime. Passion, depression, contentment, injury, exaltation, loss. Will you engage or will you deflect? Will you be immersed or consumed? Like anything substantial, to live a mindful life isn''t easy. It takes attention and skill. It takes beginning where you are, as you are now, yoking this larger intention to the present moment. It takes practice.
Let''s begin. SARAH HERRINGTON Sit tall Place hands mindfully open or at heart center Close your eyes The focus of this moment is resonance: OM. Like the ringing of a bell. Like an elliptical sound that begins and ends in full silence. While OM is often written with just two letters, it is said to be made of four sounds: A, U, M, and the silence afterward. Together these sounds invoke a sense of wholeness, and of cycles. When we sing OM, we touch each part of our mouth''s palate, from the front behind the teeth to the top peak, the inside of our mouth, to the depths of the throat, guttural. The sound moves in a wave this way, with a beginning, middle, and end, and then the after-effect: a feeling of shifted energy in the room, a vibration in the core of our chest.
OM is a sacred syllable that represents a very specific yet indescribable conception of the Absolute, of All. In the East, many prayers and powerful mantras start with OM. Here in the West, OM is often found at the beginning and end of a yoga class, opening the practice and sealing up the energy at the end like sonic bookends. Said to be the sound of the universe, OM reminds us of interdependence: We are connected to the universe, and it is expressing itself through us. We are connected to each other in the room, and beyond the room. When we chant OM, we consciously join our intentions and attentions and expand our thoughts universally. The vibration flows strongly through the body and penetrates the center, resonating deep within us the feeling of yoga, union, with all. Breathe into the space behind your chest Heart open Back strong Empty all of your air and take a deep breath OM Sing from your guts, your heart, your throat Sing from your spirit and your body Sit for a moment in quiet, be the fourth part, the full silence Feel the shift you''ve created with your own voice The arch and the circle, the ringing, the reminder, the calling toward home OM is the one eternal syllable of which all that exists is but the development.
The past, the present, and the future are all included in this one sound, and all that exists beyond the three forms of time is also implied in it. --Mundukya Upunishad YOGA AS.KS US TO ACT: THE EIGHT LIMBS It''s safe to say that as human beings wandering this planet, we share a common desire to be happy. Individually, what fulfills that desire is as unique as our fingerprints or the color of our eyes. But if we look at the grand unifiers, we see a universal longing to create meaning in our lives, the desire to be content and to be free from suffering. It''s what this book and the phrase "find your true north" are all about. Cultural conditioning suggests we can find relief through objects like new clothes, cars, or the latest device. Ironically, this way of thinking may translate to yoga as well.
We might be sure that once we nail that elusive posture all will be well. As most of us will agree, this is simply not the case. Learning to do a perfect-looking headstand doesn''t equal lasting contentment. There must be more. Contemplating this might be enough to take you on a lifelong journey. Fortunately, if that sort of heady pursuit is not your thing, the system of yoga has an eightfold path that provides experiential suggestions to help you find your way. This is a path we walk not just by considering and thinking about, but by doing. Yoga asks us to act.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a text roughly two thousand years old, presents this eightfold path as scaffolding for the hugely transformational endeavor of calming the mind and opening the core of the heart. The eight limbs are a blueprint for selfdiscovery and are intended to be studied and engaged with over a lifetime. KEVIN COURTNEY The Yamas These moral principles can be likened to the basic tenets in almost all spiritual traditions, as they provide the foundation for living a conscientious life, from one''s relationship to others to one''s relationship with self. AHIMSA: Nonviolence, compassion, kindness. SATYA: Truth, truthfulness, honesty. ASTEYA: Nonstealing. BRAHMACHARYA: Often translated as celibacy, it is more broadly defined as the conservation of vital energy in order to direct one''s attention toward divine pursuits and self-knowledge. APARIGRAHA: Nongreed, or nonhoarding.
The Niyamas The niyamas are observances that the yogi employs to refine the relationship with one''s internal world. SAUCHA: Cleanliness, inside and out. SANTOSA: The practice of being happy for no particular reason at all. TAPAS: Self-discipline, austerity; literally translated as "to burn." To purify through power and heat of intentional practices such as asana and pranayama. SVHADYAYA: Self-study. ISVARA PRANIDHANA: Surrender to the supreme, devotion to the divine, recognizing the divine essence in all beings. Asana In one aspect, it''s a preparatory practice that enables one to sit for extended periods in order to study and experience one''s internal state through meditation.
As the practitioner''s attention is drawn toward the physical sensations and energetic shifts that occur throughout the body, the ability to concentrate is refined, and the mind is made ready for a similar course of study on more subtle aspects of being. Pranayama Here, prana means life force, but also breath. Ayama can be interpreted as "with restraint," and also suggests length or expansion. Thus, pranayama is the practice of working with the breath to regulate, extend, or restrain it, in order to affect the flow of vital life force in one''s being. Pratyahara Unregulated, the senses of touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell, and the desires they produce, can control one''s actions, thoughts, and behaviors. Through the powerful push and pull of raga and duesha (attraction and repulsion), the impact of the senses, like a wild horse, can lead an unstudied individual to follow every whim and visceral impulse with abandon. It is thus imperative to retrain one''s mind to gain control over these aspects, if one wishes to lead a steady and conscientious life. The ability to witness stimuli, and the feelings they produce, without feeling the need to act or respond to them, tones the yogi''s mind.
Dharana An initial step toward meditation, the practitioner simply fixes attention on a single point or experience, such as the body, breath, an object, or mantra. An example is candle gazing. The practitioner''s focus steadies on the flame while taking notice of all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise. The intention of dharana is to build the muscle of focus and objective observation. Dhyana Dhyana can be understood when we consider that to concentrate the mind initially takes effort (dharana). Sustained concentration, cultivated with consistent practice and sincere effort, eventually transitions into an effortless flow. It''s as if a type of inwardly directed momentum takes over and all effort falls away. This is dhyana.
Samadhi Samadhi is absorption in the experience of supreme consciousness, and is the direct result of continued practice in the meditative state. As one becomes absorbed in the object or experience one focuses on, an experience of beingness is achieved. Eventually, even that original object falls away, and one feels that beingness expand to all things, allowing the practitioner to merge with the heart of consciousness itself. This ecstatic state is beyond the confines of language or regular mental understanding, and so it is often described as neti neti: not this, not this. Thirty-Day Challenge The practices and philosophies presented in the eight limbs are not meant for us blindly to accept as truth. The teachings are intended to be put into practice, chewed on.