Milan, 27/28 March 2010 – First YMT Meeting

LOOKING FOR THE INNER GURU

YOGA IN THE WEST BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY

 

 

The title of the first seminar of YMT - Yoga and Meditation Training (The Foundations of Yoga and Meditation, The Guru and the Inner Process of Knowledge) was at the same time, a proposal and a provocation to bypass some dichotomies connected with practice. Among the foundations to which the title refers and some general indications (for instance, that Yoga is a spiritual discipline and therefore it’s not bounded to the physical, mental and emotional sphere), there is for sure the principle of the Guru. It is said that you cannot learn Yoga from books: even if it is founded on intellectual basis, its learning comes beyond mere intellect, thus implying an emotional training in a particular relationship, between the Guru and his/her disciple. Here lies the provocation, at least to the eyes of a westerner who, nowadays, is more or less suspicious towards masters and mastery in general. The possibility to bypass such a prejudice was indicated in the subtitle, where there was the allusion to the “inner process of knowledge”. When imaging this first YMT Meeting,  we asked ourselves if there would have been other possibilities to translate this relationship, which is still specific of Indian culture, in western terms (or better, in terms that are more suitable for us hic et nunc, here and now, apart from considerations of space  –  east  versus  west  – and time – ancient versus modern). The inner aspect of the knowledge process can represent the way to build a bridge between different cultures, canceling the differences, without damaging the essence of Yoga. 

 

Two Cultures

In Milan we had representatives of the two cultures to which we belong, in a biographic and in an ideal sense: we are men from the West, like Professor Antonio Rigopoulos and Ph.D. Roberto Mola, and yet the guidance of our lives is set towards India, irthplace of Yoga, from where Pandit Hari Shankar Dabral comes.

Pandit Hari Shankar Dabral,  the Himalayan Yoga Meditation System

With Pandit Dabral we revisited the basis of the Yoga and Himalayan Meditation  system. This system emphasizes the multidimensionality of human constitution and insists on the importance of the gradual approach to any Yoga technique. The starting point – in a general sense – is the physical body, annamayakosha, the body which is made from food. The importance of the diet comes from here, because the mean appointed for the execution of postures – the physical body – could be coherent with the bases that introduce the discipline. Pandit Dabral made a quick excursus  of the first two yamas: ahimsā  (non-violence) and  satya  (truth), which are the basis of the whole Yoga practice. Once this fundamental step has been established steadily, the second one comes: the breath training through the prānāyāma techniques. Through them, it is possible to contact emotions, and therefore the first level of the mental ground.

For this reason, emotional purification is a necessary prerequisite to continue the journey of inner exploration. The philosophical and spiritual aspect of Pandit Dabral contribute have been introduced by some indications on the diaphragmatic respiration (by moving the stomach area and by keeping the thoracic area still) and on the correct position to be maintained by using the meditation cushion.

By describing  the word  “Guru”  (translated  in yogic  sense  as  “the one which disperses the darkness”), Panditji remarked about the power, the secrecy and the sense of sacred. By quoting on several occasions the Sanskrit tradition texts, and by telling some episodes of the eighteen years spent by Swāmī Rama’s side, Pandit Dabral  outlined clearly the borders of a discipline – Yoga – whose knowledge is transmitted from Master to disciple, and whose final aim is transformation.

Susi Stefanini, Hatha Yogic Fundamentals of Transformation

Susi Stefanini  proposed the  hatha-yogic fundamentals of the transformation process, through two sequences whose aim was to build a stable and comfortable meditative position.  The work progression had a starting part of releasing and empowering the different body parts that we use to take and to maintain the sitting position. Some activation techniques of the energetic body – prānamayakosha - let to knowledge the possibility to open from physical to pranic dimension through integration; the essential prerequisite lies in the relaxed alignment of the spine for the meditation practice. The sitting position, with its energetic and symbolic potential of concentration and senses retraction, is the final landing place of a series of physical and mental actions, in which Hatha Yoga reaches the top of its possibilities, and then transforms into Rāja-yoga, the royal path of meditation. In this process, breathing has a key role: the experience of diaphragmatic respiration in different positions (makarāsana, shavāsana and sitting position) has been the center of the sequence proposed during Saturday afternoon. Finally, on Sunday morning, the exercises proposed before had been combined in an awakening practice, that had integrated the different repetitions of the Sun Salutation (accompanied by the Sun itself, that had enlightened in a wonderful way the practice room on the 13th   floor of the hotel where the meeting took place), with a series of postures and  prānāyāma  techniques to awake and activate the pranic body. The silent listening of mantra SO-HAM has represented the gateway through a formal meditation in sitting position.

Professor Antonio Rigopoulos, Infinite Virtues of the Spiritual Master

YMT had the honor and the pleasure to have as guest Professor Antonio Rigopoulos. He has recently translated (and has been the first one in Italy) the “Guru Gitā”, a text that celebrates the infinite virtues of the spiritual Master: there could have been no better academic contribute to the theme discussion of our meeting. With the intellectual refinement that marks his work and his books, the Lecturer of Ca’ Foscari warned against the abstract fascination that India has on the Western mind, which is always searching a mythic place of pure and unquestionable “spirituality”. By delineating the sacred relationship between the Master and his student in the traditional India (and this, for many aspects, is still valid for modern India), Professor Rigopoulos outlined some interesting comparisons between the figure of Jesus Christ and his teaching, and remarked on a fundamental point: in the brahmanic traditions, the Master is always recognized and honored as if he were a God. His power on the bhakta, the disciple, has no limits, is word is an unmistakable order. Traditionally, you are a disciple  –  shyshia  –  if you live in contact with the Guru, at his ashram, and if you can consider him an image of the Divine. Professor Rigopoulos remarked that, even today, in India the Guru is “bolte chālte dev” (God who speaks and walks). There have been many questions asked to Professor Rigopoulos after  his conference. People wanted to know what he thought about different questions about the role of the spiritual Master in the Indian culture. However, the main question was about the possibility for a westerner to establish a relationship with a qualified Guru. Even if, from a traditional point of view, it could seem tough to decline efficaciously such a relationship, Professor Rigopoulos added that nothing can be excluded on principle. After all, the ways of transmission always depend on the Guru’s will, and today we have so many possibilities to connect with the origins of knowledge; moreover, apprenticeship  –  in all forms  –  has its qualifying moment in the awakening of the inner Master, and therefore the final realization of Guru principle in everything.

Dr. Robert Mola

Remembering the personal vicissitude of C.G. Jung, who said that his Master was a centaur, Dr. Roberto Mola claimed that it is not necessary to have as reference a personified Master here and now. The Master has to transmit the discipline techniques, showing the way through moral  impeccability, but the path of emancipation is in charge of the disciple. At the end of a conference focused on the neurophysiological contributes to the comprehension of  māyā (translated currently as “illusion”), Dr Mola affirmed that in the West there is a tendency to project on the Master the image of Christ the Savior, and therefore to invest him of excessive power and responsibility.

The Necessity of a Master

It’s the power of māyā, its capability to veil the face of reality, transfiguring it, that makes necessary a figure of a guide who helps to cross – borrowing a recurring image in the  Upanishads  -  the troubled waters of the phenomenal world. As a Yoga practitioner, you realize, sooner or later, how a Master in person is necessary to carry on the path of self-knowledge. This statement seems to be in contrast with the conception of life of the modern western world. As a matter of fact, we tend to develop a more and more marked individualism, and the technique available seems destined to reduce the human nature of relationships. If mediation is the figure of our existence (at the point that all is mediated from computers, television, telephones and so on), there seem to be no space left for the immediacy of a human relationship, the one with a spiritual guide; this means, first, to come cross a living person who embodies a living tradition.  The books and the oral tradition tell us that there are many ways to transmit knowledge, that is to say to “initiate”. A Guru could initiate a disciple by whispering him a mantra, or touching  him, or through a single glance, in silence. It is said that initiation can take place  even at distance. Swāmī Veda Bhāratī said that a master can transmit his whole knowledge to a disciple who is far away, in a single night of meditation.

Therefore, distance does not represent a problem, and technology should not be a problem as well. The same force that has the power to push us towards the exterior, separation and  individualization (and, more often than ever, towards solitude), if used in a proper way, could represent a great way to cancel distances, to multiply the chances of knowledge and learning. The digital technology available can give life to mobile, easy manageable archives of texts and commentaries. In each occasion of meeting teachers and Masters, there are infinite possibilities to fix words and images through recorders and cameras (tools more and more powerful and small). Internet, social networks, email could represent further contributes to progress on the path of realization.

However, the necessity to have a Master is not eludible; a reference figure, who is at the same time a mirror and a living model of a possible and desirable transformation.  With such a figure you need to set up a true relationship, to “establish a karmic connection”, as a Tibetan lama would have said. And you should visit him now and then, take any chance to meet him, see him (to have the darshan, in a traditional sense), listen to him when he talks – and above all, when he is silent – meditate with the Master, through the Master, that is to say, to let the Master meditate for us when we meditate. The inner process of knowledge lies completely in the sincere willingness to start a spiritual journey with a guide, and to open new ways, imaging new sceneries, respectful towards traditions and yet fresh, among which wisdom could transmit from one hearth to the other. Maybe in its wholeness, maybe in just one night.

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Article translated from Italian into English by Raffaella Sevieri

Note: Daniele Belloni and Susi Stefanini are the leaders of an AHYMSIN affiliate, Spazio Shanti http://www.spazioshanti.com/

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