Dear Jenni – YSP I: 49

His knowledge is no longer based on memory or inference. It is spontaneous, direct, and at both a level and intensity that is beyond the ordinary.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:49 – Desikachar translation

This knowledge is not based on memory. It is beyond that which has been attained from external sources.

www.pantjalisutras.com

Dear Jenni:

Egads, woman, we’re on the home stretch of Chapter 1. Who would have guessed we’d go this far this fast??

And it’s in these last sutras that we’re getting to the heart of the matter. Why do we go through all this daily grind of stuff – asana, pranayama, pratyahara, etc, etc? The short answer is that we do it because it works. We do it because our brains work that much better when we do this stuff.

A few columns ago, I wrote about how our brains and minds are the survival tool of our species. We don’t have sharp claws, or long pointy teeth. We don’t run so well, but by the Jiminy, we’re a pack of thinking monkeys if there ever was such a thing. The success of our species depended on our ability to think with others of our species so we could combine our efforts and resources. Without it, we’d have perished long before we migrated off the Serengeti plains.

Language, the ability to communicate with one another was instrumental in our development. Each of us is not required to reinvent the wheel. We learn from our ancestors. Right now, that’s exactly what you and I are doing. We’re studying out of an ancient text, in order to have a roadmap for our own journeys inward to Source. This kind of learning is all very rational and logical. We learn A and then we work on B – one sutra a week, so to speak.

For the record, I’d like to say that I love logic. I excelled at formal logic in university. I like reason and I like rationality. I like little inconveniences like facts and proof and evidence to show up in my transactions with the Universe. Alas, the Universe didn’t get that memo because all too often, what the Universe downloads onto my brain is sadly lacking in facts, rationality or reason. It comes in the form of ‘intuition’. I don’t know why I know it; I just know it. It drives me absolutely bats but I’ve also learned to trust it.

I have no explanation for that phenomenon that the psychologists call “intuition”. My dictionary defines it as “understanding without apparent effort, quick and ready insight seemingly independent of previous experiences or empirical knowledge.” And that’s what we’re talking about in this sutra – that clear and absolute understanding of a person, a situation, a process, that is whole, nuanced, complete and developed within a millisecond. There are no great building blocks of knowledge. It’s not like math where you had to learn the rules of adding and then you learned the rules of multiplying, which lead to the rules of division, then fractions. I have NO idea where this stuff comes from. I just know it when I feel it. For me, I feel it in the back of my neck (the old ’spidey sense’ a-tingling) or in my hands.

Intuition is a clear and powerful tool. It does come with one major downfall. You need to be clear in your head to use it. If I let myself wander around in flights of fancy, without doing the hard and consistent work needed to clean up the Kleshas, then I’m likely to do more harm than good. I need to be able to separate true knowledge from Source from the myriad of wishful thinking, biases, attachments and aversions, all simmered to a gummy soup of ignorance and fear. Without the clarifying work of practice, ‘intuition’ can get turned into just another means of deluding ourselves.

For those of you following both sides of the conversation, Jenni’s post is here.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni – YSP 1:46

All these processes of directing the mind involve an object of inquiry.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:46 – Desikachar translation

Well, Jenni, I’ve struggled with this sutra for nearly two weeks. I see you’ve managed to keep to our timetable. I’ve decided that the biggest problem with these sutras studies has been my attitude towards it. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself feeling very frustrated with these concepts and ideas. Grappling with them has not been the proverbial walk in the park. This, of course, was exceedingly annoying to my ego. What do you mean, after nearly 12 whole months as a student of deeper yoga studies, I’m not fully conversant in the philosophical and conceptual intricacies of a dead foreign language? Vote me as the ‘dummy of the year’ then.

And interestingly enough, it was the beating of my skull against this sutra that more or less snapped me out of it. Yesterday I was feeling guilty over being a week behind in this project of ours, so I picked up my books and papers and headed out to a local coffee shop. If nothing else, at least it would minimize the distractions associated with being at home. I would have to work. It was an interesting exercise. I didn’t manage to get much done because I was the very portrait of distraction. I’d get up and walk around the bookstore part of the shop. I’d go back to my chair and try to read. I’d write a sentence and get up to wander again. I managed to talk myself into buying a book. I got my hair cut in another part of the mall. I came back to my studies. I bought shoes. I came back to my studies and scribbled a few more lines. This went on for the best part of the afternoon. I’m sure I walked 10 kilometers in my attempts to avoid tackling this ‘incomprehensible’ sutra.

Finally I steeled myself into doing some actual work instead of expending all my energy to avoid it. As I was grumbling into my coffee cup about “why the heck is Chapter one, aka Mission Impossible, at the front of the book… grumble, grumble, grouse, grouse… I started to tear apart the sutra.

The words “an object of inquiry” seized my mind. Up until now, I’ve been very frustrated that I’ve not had a mind as transparent as a diamond, or anything even in that neighbourhood. I was bashing my ego up against the rock of a theoretical standard. I had to ask myself, “What kind of yoga teacher would I be if I demanded that my students fully take every posture, completely, in its fullest expression, the very first time they tried it? Or even the 90^th time that they tried it?” Answer: I’d be a very poor excuse of a yoga teacher. We understand that people start at one level and proceed, intelligently, progressively and persistently in their own evolution of their practice.

So why am I treating the training of the mind through meditation as something different than the training of the body through asana work? What’s with the ‘el-perfecto’ standards? If I’m not 100%, I’m useless? What’s with this? Where did that come from?

And there we have it – an object of inquiry. In order to direct the mind, I needed to select an object of inquiry. It could have been a mantra sound, a philosophical meditation, a prayer, a word, an icon. In my case, directing my mind towards the origins of my lousy attitude towards the Sutra studies turned out to be perfectly functional in directing my mind. And there we have it – still not clear as a diamond but my mind certainly has a fully appreciation of its own make up, which is nicely segueing into our next Sutra adventure.

Namaste and thanks for reading.

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:45

Subtlety of the object is limitless, except that it must manifest itself.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:45 – Bouanchaud translation

Except that the mind cannot comprehend the very source of perception within us, its objects can be unlimited.

Desikachar translation

Egads, there’s late and there’s LATE and considering that the next installment of this column is due tomorrow, I’m thinking it’s now or never for my ramblings on YSP 1:45.

And here it is …. (drum roll please)… I haven’t got a danged clue what it means.

The fact is all this mind stuff is just a bit beyond me. I’m more or less lost at the “source of perception’ bit. The mind cannot see itself? Is that the point they’re getting at here? I’m thinking that it really doesn’t help that the two sentences above are allegedly translations of the same piece of Sanskrit.

I know all this stuff is dealing with subtle realms – so subtle that mere mortals can’t fathom it. I’m finding this very frustrating, Jenni. It also makes me feel like a bit of an idiot because technically, I’m a native English speaker. I’m supposed to understand the meaning of sentences written in grammatically correct English. And yes, dammit, that’s Ego talking.

Okay, let’s tear this sutra apart word by freaking syllable… Subtle means elusive, difficult to detect or grasp by the mind and analyze. The word manifest (as a verb) means, among other things, to reveal its presence or make an appearance. Except: exclude. Must: a necessary or essential thing – in short, a requirement.

I think we’re firmly back in the realm of “the mind can’t see itself”. Do you ever get the idea that Bouanchaud is reluctant to use clear language? I get all the words. I just don’t get what they mean when they’re all stuck together in that order.

Sigh… I dread my advanced training session coming up in August. We’re tackling Chapter 1 of the Sutras and it’s sutras like this that make me want to jab pencils into my eyeballs. I fear that seven days of non-stop beating what few neurons I have left against the brick wall of Chapter 1 should be sufficient to render me completely and absolutely simple.

I’ll try to get the next column written in a timelier manner. I think the key is trying to develop some sort of rational and lucid commentary on stuff that is so evidently outside my realm of comprehension. Hang in there, Jenni. Chapter 2 is just around the bend. We’re six weeks away from more familiar realms.

Jenni published her comments a week ago and here they are.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:44

Such contemplation intuitively grasps subtle objects in their reality and beyond.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:44– Bouanchaud translation

Bouanchaud starts off his commentary on this sutra with the question “Am I more at home exploring concrete realities or metaphysical concepts? “

Put me firmly in the category of “I want to weigh it, measure it and catalogue it before I believe It.”, so the entire realm of metaphysics has the slightest flavor of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party to my sensibilities. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy most likely to cause my brain to bleed. Frankly, I suspect I avoid the subject because I’m not smart enough to figure it all out nor am I engaged enough to give a damn. What are the origins of the universe? What is its first cause? Are our actions casually connected by an unbroken chain of previous events or are we agents of free will? Do things change at all or is change continuous? What is the meaning of identity?

Just writing it down is enough to make blood vessels in my grey matter quiver and threaten to rupture under the strain of it all. Consequently, I have a lot of trouble wrapping my brain and my imagination around the “subtle” objects. How do I perceive that which I can’t see, can’t hear, can’t taste, and can’t feel? My problem is when I have a potential encounter with one of these ’subtle objects’, I strongly suspect it’s an overactive imagination at work as opposed to anything with any real substance to it.

Take for example my recent forays into Dr David Berceli’s Trauma Release Exercises. For the rest of you, Dr Berceli has put together a series of asanas that engage the psoas muscle and the anterior spinal muscles in order to cause them to tremour. This tremouring releases tension in the muscle tissue and reduces overall levels of stress in people. It’s used largely for post-traumatic stress disorder treatments. And assume that this paragraph is the world’s greatest short shrift to Dr Berceli’s work – it’s a back of the napkin sketch at best.

Now, getting back to topic, there can be a lot of emotional release for a person doing these exercises. Most yoga practitioners are probably familiar with the body’s capacity to release emotional memory. I cry every time I go into the bow position (Dhanurasana). Why? No flipping idea. I just do. The same sorts of things happen during these TRE exercises. In fact, I distinctly recall one practice session with the TRE exercise when I had this great sense of opening through my mid-chest and I had a great sense of compassion for all who were around me. I also visualize (through closed eyes) a beautiful shimmering translucent apple green light that filled my visual field. Opening of the heart chakra? Maybe. That would be one explanation that would fit within a yoga friendly model of reality.

My questions to myself are plentiful. While I can report the sensations that I had at the time (green colour, openness in the chest, emotional outpouring of compassion), I doubt myself when I start labeling that experience. First of all, I don’t know if chakras even exist. Their noted lack of any kind of physical concrete reality puts them a bit into the category of the Tooth Fairy for me.

I also had to study the theory of the chakra model when I was doing my yoga teacher’s training. I have an intellectual model inside my head of what the chakras are and what they look like and what colours are associated with them. My question is when I had this experience of the ‘heart chakra opening’, did it exist in and of itself or was it a product of my prior knowledge of the chakra model? In short, did I imagine it? Did I filter my interpretation of the sensations of my body through the construct of chakra theory? If I never heard of chakras before, would I have had the same sensations? The same interpretation?

All of this is very curious to me and at the same time makes my head hurt because there are no answers. I’m a statistical universe where n=1. There is no control group. There are no random selection protocols.

Which brings me to the next question: why do I doubt my own experience and sensations? Excellent question but one based on experience. After 46 years of stumbling around on this planet, I’ve see a lot of people delude themselves. I’ve spent a lot of time living under the spell of illusion. Humans have an uncanny knack of being able to construct their reality to a great extent. Depending on how I chose to interpret an event has a huge impact on how I perceive it. If someone I like makes a foolish decision, that’s unfortunate because she’s only human. If the exact same decision is made by someone I don’t like, that just proves they’re an idiot.

See what I mean? The metaphysics stuff always gives me indigestion. What is the nature of reality? Did my heart chakra open or not? I’m reminded of that scene in the opening of A Christmas Carol when Scrooge meets the ghost of Jacob Marley.

‘You don’t believe in me,’ observed the Ghost.

‘I don’t,’ said Scrooge.

‘What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Scrooge.

‘Why do you doubt your senses?’

‘Because,’ said Scrooge, ‘a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’

Like Scrooge, I doubt my senses because I appreciate the role imagination and wishful thinking play in our construction of reality. So in truth, these “subtle objects” that Bouanchaud speaks of make my head ache. What is real and what is imagination? How much of perception is a mental construct? These are all questions for which I have no answers.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:43

When the mind is well purified, the knowledge of the object in concentration shines alone, devoid of the distinction of name and quality.

Yoga Sutra of Patanjali 1:43 unknown translation.

How often do any of us look at something in and of itself? Just it and nothing else? I’d wager not very often because we’re usually looking at the world around us with the ‘value added’ option on full strength.

I look out the window as I’m typing this and I see the sunshine. I like the sunshine. It reminds me of summer. And I see the ice in the river. I don’t like ice. It reminds me of cold and I don’t like it when I’m cold. It reminds me of when I was biking in the rain and I got so cold. What was the word for that? Oh yeah, post-exercise hypothermia. I got that from Rev Cathcart, he lives over on Canada St. He has a big tree by his house. And I see the trees. Soon there will be pollen and I’ll have difficulties breathing. I wonder what the pollen season will be like this year. And the river’s coming up fast. I wonder if it’ll flood like it did last year. I hope Ralph is all right. Ralph’s a nice guy. He’s sure been helpful to me the past couple of month. He’s got quite the sense of humour…

That’s my mind at work in the world. No ‘clear as a diamond” stuff going on here, that’s for dang sure. Reviewing objects in my surrounding, my mind is a non-stop commentator on the relative value of each thing in terms of its emotional content and its relationships with other things around me. I add history (memory) and future (imaginations), like and dislike, without being conscious of what I’m doing as I scan my environment. It’s an automatic process.

It can also blind me. One of the fantastic things about being human is we can extrapolate information from one event and project it to another similar event down the road. It’s called learning. It’s called generalization. We’re good at it. In fact, we’re so good at it, we often don’t realize we’re doing it at all. And I think stripped down to its most essential, yoga does something very valuable for us. It brings the unconscious short cuts of the mind into consciousness.

When I bring the focus of my mind onto a single object and sustain that focus, eventually the chatter of associations and relationships, of memory and ideas, fades away. All the fluttering of the mind as it works from the particular to the general and back again, from the real to the abstract and back again, drop away until there is nothing left but the object and the perception of the object. The “value added” option has been turned off.

It’s a skill we need to practice on a regular basis. For most of us, we don’t go through our lives thinking in this clear manner. Frankly, I don’t know if it’s even possible or for that matter, desirable. But I do know that when we get in the regular sustained habit of turning off the ‘value added option’, then we see turning it on for what it is – it’s what we’re adding to perception. My likes, dislikes, fears, prejudices, prior conditioning, emotional associations stand out for what they are. They are something I am ADDING to the situation. They don’t exist in the object itself.

And right there, in that consciousness of the moment, I have the opportunity to accept or discard the stuff I’ve added. When I can label it – that’s just my fear of spiders at work – then I can evaluate the new situation on its own merits. If I can’t see through my added stuff, then my mind and my decision making process is held hostage by my unconscious mind.

Yoga brings my mind’s workings to a more conscious level, giving me a chance to choose my reaction and that, my friend, is very liberating.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:42

However, this [mind as clear as a diamond] does not happen spontaneously. It is gradual.

Yoga Sutra of Patanjali 1:42 – Desikachar translation

Well, Jenni, I’ve finally thrown in the towel with the Bouanchaud translation. I have no idea what the purpose of that translation was meant to be but I’m thinking elucidating the sutras to an English language speaking population wasn’t it. Perhaps it works better in French, the language it was originally written in. I suspect that whoever translated it into English either didn’t understand anything about yoga and didn’t care to because frankly, the translations too often make no damn sense at all. So, I’m switching over to the Desikachar translation at the back of The Heart of Yoga.

On to the sutra!!! Like you, Jenni, I find this a particularly encouraging bit of wisdom. I’m one of these people who want enlightenment and I want it now. Chop, chop..what are we waiting for?? Patience has never been my long suit. But here’s the good news for us impatient folk: it’s a process and it’s gradual.

This is something I can believe in. I’m still new enough to the serious yoga practice that I can remember what my mind was like in the past. I’m nowhere near having the mind as “clear as a diamond” stage but I have noted pretty profound movements in that general direction. A couple of months ago when I was in an interview with my boss, he commented that I’m “not nearly as reactive as I used to be”. No kidding – I haven’t filleted anyone with my tongue in ages. I don’t lose my temper nearly as often. I’m calmer. I’m more reflective. Frankly, I’m a hell of a lot easier to work with and I’m a million time easier to live with.

As I turn my focus inward, I’m starting to appreciate how our thoughts and our understanding is clouded by our prejudices, especially when we delude ourselves that we have none. Our perceptions are shaped by our memories and our past. I haven’t mastered any of this but I’m coming to this with a heightened sense of awareness as to what the issues are for me.

How often do we stop and analyze our assumptions to see if they’re still valid and relevant to the issue at hand? It’s not something I do a regular basis and I suspect that’s true for many of us. It’s food for thought. How many of our current short hand, formulaic “thinking” processes no longer serve their original purpose. Looking at that might give us all a fresh perspective on our own minds.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:41

As fluctuations subside, the contemplative mind becomes transparent like a gem, and reflects the object, whether it is that which perceives, the instrument of perception, or the object perceived.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:41 – Bouanchaud translation

Clear thinking… have you ever wondered how much better this planet would work if everyone, or at least a working majority of people, could think properly? Imagine what it would be like to have conversations about matters of social policy and economics between people who could perceive the situations, the factors, the variable, the effects and the consequences without distortion, fear mongering or the posturing of ideology? Okay, maybe not even my imagination is good enough to figure out what that would look like, but what I can imagine, would be pretty damn good.

I’ve spent the last three days training new dispatchers for our 9-1-1 centre. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to teach them to be flexible in their thinking, expect the unexpected, and overall open themselves to the experience at hand. One of the things I’ve learned over the years in my job is “Don’t borrow trouble”. I usually have enough work issues to deal with – bar brawl, domestic, motor vehicle accident, motor vehicle accident, motor vehicle accident, another fight – without me going looking for me. I’m trying to teach them to avoid the ‘what if catastrophizing” that’s all about the mind building stories about what might be or what could happen.

One of the things I’m trying to teach them is that thinking clearly is a job skill, like any other, that they need to hone. We need minds that are free of the distortions and prejudices of the ego-narrative. And the more we practice it, the better at it we become.

Yoga – it’s not about the ability to put your ankles behind your ears. It’s about enhancing your life on an everyday basis but refining a tool we need more than ever as a society: minds capable of clear and transparent thought. Don’t do it for yourself – do it for your country!!!

Have a lovely week. Jenni’s already clocked in on this discussion here.

Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:39

Choosing meditation according to one’s affinities also brings mental stability.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:39 – Bouanchaud translation

What shorthand is to words, symbols are to ideas. This is especially true of religious concepts.

Elsie Sechrist – 1909-1992 – American psychic

How time flies when you’re philosophizing… Has it really been 12 weeks since we discussed the role of Ohm in yoga culture? At the time, I argued that “Ohm” wasn’t appropriate for me because it leaves me unmoved. It matters not how many greatly learned people tell me it’s the sacred syllable and/or the sound God makes. It moves me not. This comes across a littler harsher than I intend but for me, it’s just noise. Sacred noise to a great hunk of the planet’s population but in the end, it does me no good at all.

I’m not picking on Ohm specifically either. The seed syllables of the chakras: lam, vam, ram, yam, ham, Ohm and AH are equally noise. In short, all these sounds make about as much sense to me as Ava Maria (Hail Mary) or the expression “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti” (In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) means to the average Hindu. I’m not arguing one is better than the other because that would be just incredibly stupid. The point I’m making is that culture counts. I believe we are all hardwired to experience the state of Yoga. I think that’s part of our essential human heritage. It’s our birthright, encoded into our DNA and made manifest in the structures of our wonderful brains. It’s not that any of us are lacking this capacity to reach a state of Yoga but many of us (most of us?) have lost our ability to access it in a regular fashion. It’s there but it’s sometimes behind a locked door. And I believe that not all the keys are the same between people or between cultures.

Gregorian chant moves me to tears. As I type this, I’m listening to a recording by Anonymous 4 of Agnus Dei (Lamb of God). It fills my mind and my spirit with peace that allows my mind to tease out what words I want to bring to this blog. It leads me into mindfulness. And for those of you who haven’t figured it out already, YES, I went to Catholic schools as a child.

It’s in this sutra that I find the heart of the matter and here it is: “according to one’s affinities”. Culture counts. Personality counts. Bouanchaud makes the point that icons, mantra, etc are a provisional focus for the mind. Jenni makes good points about the use of focal points or dristis as an often used technique to still the mind. There’s dozens of them in yoga. The key point is to remember that the symbol isn’t the thing we seek – it’s just a shorthand expression of a state of heart that doesn’t respond well to the limitations of linear language. It just needs to be a symbol that reverberates inside our right cerebral hemisphere.

To me, this is an opportunity to explore. Personally, I didn’t know western liturgical music had such a powerful emotional impact on me until I studied yoga. But it was soothing and helped me let go of the workings of the ego-complex. The key point is for me to keep it as a symbol and not allow my mind to become overly attached to it. I’m all right so long as I remember that the symbol is not the concept. I suspect the concept is universal; the symbols are all part of the fascinating jostling wonderfulness of humanity.

Thanks for reading and Namaste

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1:38

Mental stability also flows from the consciousness in dream and deep sleep.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:38 – Bouanchaud translation

Sleep, sweet sleep. It’s the bane of the shift work. We orient our entire culture around it. Whenever you hear two people greeting each other with “How didja sleep?”, chances are they’re shift workers.

So after 25 years of shift work, I know declare myself to be an unwilling expert on the subject of ‘not enough’ and all manner of sleep disruptions and nocturnal chaos. The idea that yoga should help me sleep is certainly good news; however, in my experiences, there are no number of asanas that will overcome chronic caffeine abuse.

As always, Bouanchaud asks a series of questions around this sutra:

“Do I sleep too much, or too little or well or badly?”

Put me squarely in the “too little, badly” category. I swear a week of good solid rest would probably kill me from the mere shock of the experience. And this ain’t braggin’, folks. I know in this culture there seems to be a whole status thing surrounding how little you sleep. I’m still waiting for the glamorous part of feeling like you’ve been hit by a light truck all the time to kick in. I would love to get more sleep.

Bouanchaud tells us that the deep and dreamless sleep is when we’re in contact with God. The batteries of us are recharged, not only by the physical rest and repair of the body tissues, but we are revitalized by this spiritual encounter. Now that gives one pause to think. Considering how much face time I’ve missed with God over the last quarter century, my cynicism becomes a whole lot more comprehensible.

I know there’s a lot of stock put in dream interpretations in some quarters. Personally, I’m just jealous that some people have dreams worth interpreting. Personally, I think dreams are our mind’s equivalent of taking out the garbage. I don’t believe that they’re meant to have meaning or be particularly insightful. Maybe some people have more profound dreams that what I can muster. Jenni has more useful dreams than I’ve experienced.

Then again, according to Bouanchaud’s take on tall this, once the mind is pacified, dreams will well up from the deep levels of the inner being. This makes for an excellent explanation as to why none of this rings true in my realm of experience. Having a pacified mind is not something I’m accused of possessing on any kind of regular basis.

I did laugh aloud at Bouanchaud’s closing remarks to the commentary: “Don’t we say: “The night brings counsel?”" Its proof positive that Bernard Bouanchaud and I travel in different social circles. In my universe, the night brings many things. Counsel perhaps, right along with drunken bar brawls and all manner of despair.

Something for us all to sleep on. Thanks for reading and Namaste,

Kate

Dear Jenni: YSP 1: 37

Turning to a being whose mind is released from passions is also calming.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:37 – Bouanchaud translation.

Dear Jenni:

How serendipitous it is for me that we should be tackling this sutra on this weekend. I have spent the last three days in the delightful company of a most remarkable man. From him, I’ve learned insights on healing and wholeness that I had imagined were years in the future for me. I’ve been taking a four-day trauma recovery workshop from Dr. David Berceli. Dr Berceli is a warm and genuine human being who has designed a stress management program that works from the deepest core of our physical self. Christine – he’s from Arizona. By all means, check this guy out.

Now I have no idea if Dr Bereli is a yoga practitioner or not but I’m sure of this much, he’s one mensch of a yogi. Like yoga, his exercises work with the body, allowing the body to open up and free itself of its inner restrictions. There is so much healing energy in this work; I’m at loss to describe it all. His “Stress Release Exercises” all have their roots in yoga asana but this weekend, I’ve come to the postures from a slightly different direction. The exercises in this program are selected to fatigue the muscles and set up tremors in the muscles that move energy through the body along the spine and affect the function of the emotional brain.

This morning, during the exercise series, I had such a clear sensation of an opening in the heart chakra and a flood of loving kindness for the greater world around me. As I was going through the process, my mind kept settling on the image of the Weeping Buddha and my spirit settled into an unarticulated Tonglen meditation. I breathed in the anguish of the world yet breath left me in peace. So much sukha, Jenni, so much sukha.

In the past six weeks, we’ve explored the sutras and their advice for calming the ‘fluctuations of the mind”. This weekend, I found myself taking guidance from a man who radiates from a peace-filled centre of compassion, curiosity and loving kindness. And as this sutra suggests, I found that presence calming. All this brings me to the subject of this week’s sutra: the choosing of a guide, mentor or teacher. How do we choose helpful and productive role models in a marketplace where spirituality is hawked like pearls made from paste?

Bouanchaud ends his commentary this week with an interesting perspective. “To free ourselves from excessive passion, we can concentrate on a being free of passion. First we must redirect this passion towards a free being, a mediator. This is a delicate choice. This being must have resolved his own problems and be above suspicion.”

How do we know who is the correct person to follow? Damned if I know. I’m as lost as the rest of you. The only truly solid advice I can give anyone is “Don’t follow me unless you REALLY like confusion.” How does one know if a teacher or guide is “above suspicion’? The history of spiritual quests is littered with tales of charlatans and ego maniacs who preyed upon the trust of others.

It comes to me that the answer lays in listening to the body-self. When I still the ego narrative and return to the inner wisdom of the body, I will find the level of trust I need to make those kinds of decisions. As I write this, my mind keeps returning to the passage in the Book of Matthew (Matthews 7: 17-19)

¹⁷A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned. ²⁰You can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.

I chose my own teacher by this method. By stilling the ego mind and following my guts, I undertook to study yoga with Kathryn. This weekend, I did the same with this different perspective on “energy medicine”. What I received in return was a message of peace and healing and loving generosity of spirit. All of this can only be described as “good fruit”, which would make Dr Berceli a “good tree”.

Namaste my friends and thanks for reading,

Kate