Author: Mandala

Often times, when we are studying ayurveda we get caught up in the details and lose sight of the big picture. For example, as an ayurvedic educator, I receive lots of comments like “I’m not sure what constitutional type I am,” or “the diet list tells me not to eat carrots.”

So let’s review some of the guiding principles of ayurveda to give us a proper perspective. The first guiding principle is life itself. The word ayurveda can be translated as “the science of life” or “the science of the life force.” The life force is also known as prana. Anything we do that enhances or wakes up our life force is considered helpful. Anything we do that detracts from or depletes our life force is considered harmful.

To apply this principle, think of the life force as our energy level through the course of a day. The ideal is to have a steady arc of energy from morning to night without a lot of ups & downs. To enhance our energy level, consider the value of fresh air and fresh food (full of life-energy). Also consider the importance of sound sleep in restoring your energy reserves. In addition, yoga teaches us how to build up our energy reserves through deep relaxation, deep breathing, and meditation.

The second guiding principle is consciousness. Anything that enhances the quality of consciousness or awareness is helpful. The way to gauge our consciousness is to understand the three gunas. Activities or foods that leave us feeling mentally dull or sleepy are called tamasic. Anything that creates agitation in the mind is called rajasic. And anything that leaves the mind calm and clear is termed sattvic. These distinctions are easy to make during meditation practice. If we fall asleep during meditation we are tamasic. If our mind races we are rajasic. But if our mind is calm and collected during meditation we are experiencing the joy of sattva. The key point is that the everyday choices we make have a direct effect on our consciousness.

The third guiding principle is love or compassion. This means to be loving and gentle with ourselves and with others. Or, as Hippocrates said, “First, do no harm.” The first principle of yoga is ahimsa, or non-harming. So we can strive to be gentle, non-harming, compassionate and loving according to our capacity. But don’t confuse this with weakness or timidity. On the contrary, harshness and violence are the signs of weakness.

Now that we have reviewed some of the guiding principles, let’s return to the comment “I’m not sure what constitutional type I am.” The answer probably doesn’t matter for now. Stay focused on the fact that you are a unique expression of the life force endowed with consciousness and the capacity to love. Then simply look at a few of the pairs of opposites. Are you suffering from too much heat or cold? Then apply things that have the opposite quality. Are you showing symptoms of dryness or dampness? Where are you on the scale from completely dried out on one extreme to completely damp and congested on the other? Is your world moving too fast or too slow? If it is too slow, perhaps you are stuck in a rut. So change up your routines, do something different, take a risk. If you are suffering from an extreme, move in the opposite direction. But don’t move too far! Sometimes people get so enthusiastic with their success they go all the way to the opposite extreme. Remember, be gentle and loving with yourself and maintain your self-awareness. Not too much and not too little. This simple approach often yields better results than trying to pigeonhole what is your type.

The main point is to understand that our health is dynamic and subject to change. It is more important to develop a sense of our own inner process and to be self-correcting of our habits than it is to follow some constitutional guideline or prescription by rote.

But “the diet list tells me not to eat carrots,” you say. You have seen that carrots are not recommended for hot (pitta) constitutions. Why is that? It’s not because they themselves are hot. It is only because they can have an effect on skin coloration, which is one of the functions of pitta. In the big picture, vegetables in general are excellent for reducing excess heat. A more important question is how will the carrots be prepared? Fried carrots can definitely aggravate pitta (heat) conditions, while fresh, organic carrot juice prepared lovingly will definitely help clear up heat conditions. Notice the carrots are fresh (full of life-force) and organic (grown in a healthful, non-harming way). Juicing can help release the prana of the carrots and the juice is best drunk immediately. The key to a healing diet is fresh foods freshly prepared. The most important ingredient however is the love and compassion of the preparer. In fact, any food given with love can be healing.

To me, the beauty of ayurveda is that it provides such a broad context yet gives us clear guidelines on how to make choices. Is it supportive of the life force?  Is it conducive to self-awareness? Is it non-harming? Metaphorically, ayurveda is likened to the ocean or an endless forest full of life. So remember, when studying ayurveda, don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees.

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Editor’s note:

Gary Gran, CYT, DAy., is a certified yoga teacher and ayurvedic practitioner trained in the Himalayan tradition. He lives and practices in Evanston, Illinois, USA, with his wife Cynthia. Gary currently offers workshops and writes about yoga and ayurveda.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,”
The British Weekly, Ian Maclaren, 1897

Ahimsa is the primary conviction in yoga. It’s similar to the Golden Rule, communicated in virtually all religions: treat others the way you wish to be treated. This is so simple, yet so incredibly difficult.

For instance, some think it’s all right to act rudely and disrespectfully on the Internet. Others are brusque and condescending toward store clerks, believing they will never see them again — as if there are no repercussions! Ahimsa is the very reason many people in the world eat a vegetarian diet: to not harm another life in order to sustain one’s own.

Ahimsa means non-injury or to cause no harm to another being. In yoga it is the greatest dharma, or duty, and all other convictions require ahimsa in spirit. It is not only refraining from causing injury, but also deliberately cultivating good will and kindness toward one self and others.

A transgression occurs if one knows that an act could be harmful, but one does it anyway, what modern psychology calls cognitive dissonance. According to the Yoga Sutras, injury toward another person is injury toward oneself and this deliberate action creates obstacles. It begins with the mind. Yogis harness the mind so that it does not stray from concentration. As humans, we have the capacity of mind to be greedy, jealous, and angry, to manipulate, to love, etc. Striving to reduce these emotions provides a means to freedom for our selves and benefits others. Rather than unleashing harm in word or deed, remove it first from the mind. Underneath the coverings, we are all one.

 “Isn’t it a pity? Isn’t it a shame?
How we break each other’s hearts; we cause each other pain.”
Isn’t It a Pity? George Harrison

Ahimsa toward oneself is often overlooked. Kindness and compassion toward our own person allows freedom and opens space in the mind for creativity. Begin with consciously not causing harm toward oneself in thought. Catch yourself so you do not even think judgmentally or callously about yourself. Then learn to cultivate kindness toward yourself inwardly, then outwardly. Soon you will interact with others more peacefully and stir less suffering and it will become easier to practice ahimsa toward others.

Mind control was also given to Moses in the Tenth Commandment. That dictum requires eliminating the desire for objects that belong to others. Here, wanting is the harmful thought we are ordered to curb. Negative thoughts can be very powerful. People can and do pick up untoward thoughts from others! We are obligated to correct these habits if we wish to grow spiritually.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that all we do begins first with a thought. All words and all deeds begin in the mind. It teaches that training the mind to create inner strength allows proficient living and generates good karma. It teaches that whatever our perceptions or misperceptions, we can modify them with wise discrimination. A yogi’s firm decision is to seek liberation from worldly traps, and these lead her to do the things required in life, such as employment, care of others and housework, skillfully and competently without cutting corners, and always going the extra step, offering assistance and working for the benefit of others.

Ayurveda teaches us everything that exists in the microcosm has its counterpart in the macrocosm – its reflection. Your outer life is a reflection of your inner life. For example, if you are judgmental on the outside toward another person, what is it inside yourself that you are really judging? Do you have the courage to look inside honestly, scrutinize the iniquity and tear it from your heart?

“It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of
Compassion and tolerance.”
Ocean of Wisdom, The 14th Dalai Lama

If I find someone has perceived my words as painful, I take it as an opportunity to ponder what I said to them. Why or how did I hurt them? I have learned to smile more and have found that this softens everything I say. And it helps if I do not comment unnecessarily. I try to be in the moment rather than interrupt people with what I want to say. Listening is a virtue.

“If you smile at me, I will understand, ‘cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language.”
Wooden Ships, Crosby, Stills & Nash

If someone doesn’t see your perspective, don’t press it. Release competition. Decide not to argue. Try purging pet peeves, removing anger, and relinquishing road rage from the mind before reactions occur. Separate what you want from what you truly need. Honor the differences between you and others and move on. Do some selfless service; it purifies the mind.

Never forget kindness begins with you. Take care of yourself: eat well, exercise, play, rest, and forgive yourself. Learn from your mistakes. Relax the body and relax attitudes. Quiet the mind by practicing meditation regularly. Cultivate patience. Think kindly. Allow for the simultaneous existence of others and try to acknowledge the divinity in everyone.

“Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
Anne Herbert

Questions for contemplation:

• Do I insist on my way and need to be right?

• Do I offer reassurances? Support? Compassion?

• What do I judge about myself?

• Where can I practice gentleness?

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Editor’s Note:

Cynthia Gran began to study yoga in 1978. She lives with her kalyana mitra in Evanston, Illinois, USA, where she loves to cook, garden, and continuously pursue personal development.

Swami Rama used to say “We live in two worlds.”  He was referring to the outer world and the inner world. And he would say that the inner world is vaster than the outer world.

So what are we to make of these statements? The first point is that many of us tend to pour most of our life force, and sometimes our entire identities, into the outer world at the expense of our inner life. Perhaps I love the Internet, and you spend most of your time socializing. Or perhaps you prefer spending time with family, and I am a work-a-holic. We say “I am a scientist”, or “I am a mother,“ or “I am a Democrat.” We tend to identify with our outer roles and preoccupations. Swami Rama is reminding us that the inner world remains largely unexplored because our life force has been flowing to the external world.

Ayurveda, the sister science of yoga, tells us that everything that exists in the outer world has a counterpart in the inner world. This is a slightly different take on the teaching mentioned above. Here we are advised to reflect on the relationship between our inner world and our outer life. In ayurveda, we study three different orientations of the life force, known as the three doshas, vata, pitta, and kapha. Each dosha is said to represent the combination of an active element and a supporting element. The active elements for vata, pitta, and kapha are air, fire, and water respectively. The supporting elements are space, water, and earth. We can study the elements in the outer world of nature in order to gain insight into our inner world and our health.

For example, ayurveda calls air the wind. You cannot see it directly but you can observe its effects. We can see leaves moving in the wind. Ayurveda tells us that wind represents the principles of movement and changeability. It’s not hard to see that the wind often changes direction and speed. We can also feel the wind touching our skin. Ayurveda says that air represents the sense of touch. Air is also considered to be light as opposed to heavy. Being light, air tends to move upwards and disperse in all directions. Air is also seen to be drying. We can see puddles of water quickly drying up on a windy day.

When we apply these observations to an individual, we call them an air type, known as vata. Vata types exhibit a lot of movement and changeability. Their mind and therefore their life force are constantly moving out to experience new things. They can be very talkative, like the wind rustling the leaves. There is a restless movement or spending of the life force out to the external world followed by tiredness. There is changeability in personal habits, energy level, and interests. They can have trouble gaining weight. The can be ungrounded. Ayurveda says the energy of the body moves up to the mind and out through the senses, in a real sense, leaving the body.

Vatas can be very sensitive in a touchy way. They are thin-skinned.  Perhaps they observe no clear boundary “between” the inner world and the outer world. The wind passes freely through both. The result can be a disorganized or unstable outer world and a disorganized and unstable inner world, as if they had left the window wide open during the storm.  You see, a most interesting question is where is the dividing line ‘between” the inner and outer worlds? It is possible a vata has no dividing line.

Our best advice to them is to slow down, learn to regulate the life-force, the prana, through slow, deep, even breathing, and periodically “close the window”, that is, withdraw or “rest” the senses, practicing deep relaxation. In addition, applying warm oil to the skin can create or strengthen the boundary between the inner and the outer worlds. Remember that air represents dryness, the sense of touch, thin skin, and lightness. This can result in very sensitive nerves close to the surface of the body. Warm oil soothes and protects the nerves, relieves dryness, and gives a feeling of protection and groundedness.

Next, vatas needs to clean up and organize the clutter around them and set a reasonable schedule. As they succeed in organizing their outer affairs, their inner life will also become more centered and grounded. This represents the application of opposites. If air tends to move up and disperse, the strategy is to center and ground.

Let’s consider kapha, which is a combination of water and earth. In nature, we can see water coming down in the form of rain, flowing downstream in a river, and collecting together in a lake or an ocean. Ayurveda tells us that water is heavy and tends to move downward. Also, water is said to be held or supported by earth.  In nature, we can also see water pushing or wearing against its boundaries such as the bank of a river or the shores of the lake. Too much water can wash out the structure of earth. Water then merges with the washed out particles of earth. As the water fills with earth it can become too thick and stagnant like mud or muck.

If we now consider a kapha person, one who has plenty of water and earth, we note the quality of heaviness in the form of weight.  Weight collects in the body, literally weighing a person downwards, and it then tends to push out to the sides filling out the physique. Too much weight can actually break down the structure of the body.

We see that kaphas tend to collect familiar things and hold on to them, creating attachments. This is said to be like water collecting particles of earth. Be careful not to become stagnant. If water becomes too thick and heavy with attachments it becomes harder and harder to move.

Kapha’s attachments tend towards familiar things like food, personal possessions, and, above all home, family, and tradition. Kaphas often becoming totally identified with their role in the family. I understand this trait to be related to water as the holder of memory. Here we see the memories and traditions of the family held together like the particles of earth being held in water.

Earth is said to create or represent boundaries. Kaphas tend to draw a strong boundary between “ours” and “theirs”.  Thus the outward world is that which is outside the family or the family role and is largely ignored, and the so-called inner world becomes family life and tradition.
Our advice to kapha is twofold. First, keep things moving, let go of objects, attachments, even your control of family members. Lighten up! Try something new without trying to make it into a possession, or part of your family. That is, see that things in the world can have their own identity and function without reference back to you. Remember that too much water, too much possessiveness, will tend to push out and test boundaries, gradually wearing down any resistance. Learn to respect healthy boundaries while opening yourself up to new possibilities.

Secondly, clean out your basement!  As you clean your basement, you are cleaning your mind. This is like periodically dredging the sludge and silt out of the bottom of the river-way so ships can continue to pass.

We observe fire and the light it provides in nature as being warm and intense. Fire is also fragile. In nature fire can be put out by all the other elements. Earth can smother fire. Water can drown it. Air can blow it out. Given the chance, however, fire will burn up or transform all things around it spreading into a great conflagration. Ayurveda says that fire moves upwards and spreads.

Fire-type persons, known as pitta, are those who exhibit signs of heat and intensity. Physically we note tendencies to excessive heat and inflammation. Externally, pittas tend to join together in different causes. For them it becomes us vs. them, not in a family sense as with kaphas, but in an ideological sense. Think of all the “isms” in the outer world: socialism, communism, militarism, feminism, and environmentalism, to name a few. It takes a cause or an “ism” to get pitta’s inner fires really burning. Fire needs an outlet, a single direction to pour its life force. If fire is blocked by the other elements, it is smothered. Given a cause, the fire-type moves with burning enthusiasm towards the goal, towards victory!

In fact, fire-types often wonder why others don’t join in with their enthusiasm. It is no doubt because they don’t always stop to observe the needs of others. Pittas are competitive and oriented toward success, often pushing others to the side. “What do you mean, you don’t agree?” says the fire-type. “If you’re not with me, you are against me!”

Our advice to fire-types is to moderate their views, to take other peoples’ needs and opinions into consideration. Granted this can be extremely frustrating for a pitta who is ready to take action. If they can manage, they will become excellent leaders of people and not blind fighters for a cause.

A helpful image from nature is a campfire. It is safely contained within a circle of stones, which represents and protects other peoples’ interests. At the same time, it is not smothered, and is free to burn in one direction, upwards, radiating light and warmth that others can enjoy.

Let’s review how we can learn from the outer world.

• We can take lessons from nature, like the lessons of air, water, and fire above.
• We can look at our surroundings, like the clutter in the room, to give us direction.
• We can observe the qualities of our relationships with others, remembering the old cliché, what bothers you most about others is really inside of yourself.
• We can look at our physical condition and general state of health to gather clues about our unconscious habits.

We begin to see that everything in the outer world has its counterpart in the inner world. If things go well at work, we feel good. If I receive criticism, I feel bad. We can see how the outer world affects our inner mood.  If we feel blocked by circumstances in the outer world, our inner fire suffers.

The truth may be that most of our vitality is still locked up inside of us like the power in the nucleus of an atom. This power lies in the recesses of the subconscious mind. The yoga tradition says that our mind is conditioned, our energy is asleep, and it is time to wake up!

If our life has fallen into a pattern like the vata-pitta-kapha scenarios we outlined above, we need to make some kind of shift. Usually our body acts like a messenger of the subconscious forces that lie within. If we are stuck in an unbalanced pattern, the body may become dysfunctional or ill in some way. Sometimes our inner conflicts manifest in some other aspect of our outer life like our relationships or our job. These are clear messages that we need to make a change.

This is popularly known as the body-mind connection. In this scenario, the body is seen as part of the “outer” world. It reflects conditions of the “inner” mental world. When we become physically sick, we can look for the “inner” meaning. An illness can point to a variety of emotional, mental, attitudinal, or habitual conditions. Until the underlying “inner” cause is addressed, the manifesting “outer” condition will persist.  We often attack the messenger, which is the body, and refute the message, which are the bodily symptoms, by suppressing or countering the symptoms directly.

Of course, sometimes it is not enough to make inner changes, for the process can work both ways. For example, someone who is tired all the time may need to change his or her job, or find a new hobby.  The fire is being smothered and needs a healthy outlet.

For now, begin to examine your own life and your so-called external relationships. See how you identify yourself by your external roles and how your inner life is easily affected by all the external ups and downs, gains and losses, praises and criticisms. Gradually you can learn not to let those ups and downs overly affect your inner life. Swami Rama would say that the true source of our strength and happiness lies within. As you develop your inner strength, you can truly become a citizen of both worlds, with a strong inner life supporting a strong outer life.

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Editor’s note: 

Gary Gran is a certified yoga teacher and ayurvedic practitioner trained in the Himalayan tradition. He lives and practices in Evanston, Illinois, USA, with his wife Cynthia. Gary currently offers workshops and writes about yoga and ayurveda.

“Why on earth are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear.”
— Instant Karma, John Lennon

During these lovely days of late spring my mind has turned to flowers. A beautiful garden brings joy to the heart and quiet to the mind.

One distinctive symbol of yoga is a flower, the lotus. Nelumbo nucifera, the most sacred plant in India, is richly symbolic and at the center of much lore.

The ancient Egyptians, Indians, Tibetans and others have depicted the lotus for thousands of years. It has many names in many languages, perhaps owing to its many uses in Ayurveda, (the science of longevity and sister science to yoga), Traditional Chinese Medicine and Japanese Macrobiotics. Its qualities are sweet, astringent and cooling, and it has many values in herbal medicine. All of its parts are edible and quite nutritious. Science has studied and continues to study it. And as is often the case in human history, a plant that is highly utilitarian becomes symbolic and the subject of allegory.

Unlike other flowers that live in water, the lotus symbolizes yoga by its flexibility. It grows in all types of soil: sand or clay, acid or alkaline. The lotus pose, or padmasana, is also symbolic of yoga. Many people associate the word yoga with the image of a person sitting with the knees folded in and both feet in the lap. The lotus flower is used in yoga as symbols of the various chakras, too.

In an ancient text, the Bhagavad Gita, the lotus is mentioned in a simile during a discourse between God and man on learning to live in the world while not allowing oneself to become attached to its objects.

“Offering actions to God and abandoning attachment, one is not tainted by sin, As the lotus leaf is untouched by water.”
— BG, 5:10

In yogic lore, the entire flowering lotus plant is compared with the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether. Each offers insight to the human condition and is associated with five corresponding states of mind as drawn from Ayurveda.

Beginning at its base, the lotus root is firmly planted in the mud, the earth element. Earth suggests stability and survival, literally holding it in place and nourishing it with minerals. Earth is the heaviest, coldest, darkest and most solid of the elements. We say someone is “stuck in the mud” when there is stubbornness.

The stem of the lotus plant rises through water. We associate fluidity with the instability of emotions, the stirring of feelings and the shifting tides of passion. This realm threatens to shake the plant loose, unearthing it from its safe place.

Continuing up the plant we find the leaf. It is living in the realm of fire and untouched by the ever-changing water of emotions. It is the effect of the element fire, i.e. the sun, which creates the green color via photosynthesis. Fire radiates both warmth and light. We say a person is “bright” or shows “the fire in the eyes” when they are cheerful.

The flower and its very large seedpod open to the element of air. In this realm, reaching skyward, there is less rudimentary attachment, less uncontrolled emotion and more exalted feelings such as nurturance, compassion and selflessness. The lotus scent derives here and is said to be heady or otherworldly.

It is the fifth element, ether, which bestows upon the lotus its spiritual quality of beauty. Ether is the lightest element and where a flower’s essence originates. From this realm a flower mysteriously reaches out beyond itself, allures bees and humans, and draws us toward it.

The lotus plant must have the first four elements to flourish. Yet, paradoxically, the most brilliant symbol is that the flower and leaves remain as it were, above it all; unaffected by the elements. Growing through mud, troubled waters, parching sun, and blowing air it rises and blooms beyond them. The true yogi learns to live like a lotus, both in the elements of the world, yet impervious to their impact.

Everyday people live in the world and strive for its pleasures and comforts. A chosen few live in monasteries, renouncing the world for the inner, spiritual realm. But, yoga teaches that we can both enjoy the world and give up our attachments to its charms. After all, you can’t take with you.

“How much better to get wisdom than gold; to get insight rather than silver?”
— Proverbs 16:16

Yoga does not promote escapism. It teaches us to learn to live as a lotus: in the mud, seeing the world for what it is, not allowing the misery, grief, etc. to affect us. We work to transform the challenges of each day, consciously releasing pain and suffering, learning to live in the world, yet remaining above it. Freedom is not elusive. It is here, now.

Questions helpful in this self-study:

• What am I attached to?
• Am I easily annoyed or swayed?
• Can I sway with the elements yet remain unmoved?
• Am I able to rise above an otherwise disturbing situation and remain calm?
• Do I offer abundant nurturing and nourishment to others?
• Am I brave enough to face my duties and my conflicts rather than escape from the world?
• Do I remain unshaken by emotions that emerge from my subconscious, releasing them in a constructive way as needed?

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Editor’s Note:

Cynthia Gran began to study yoga in 1978. She lives with her kalyana mitra in Evanston, Illinois, USA, where she loves to cook, garden, and continuously pursue personal development.

Both before and after being initiated by Swami Veda Bharati (who was then known as Dr. Usharbudh Arya) in 1988, I felt a strong desire to be in his presence.  I wanted to be around him, to hear what he had to say, and to be a focus of his attention.  Perhaps my wish to be near him was an attraction to the love and wisdom he emanated. I don’t know.  Whatever the reason, the desire was compelling.

I was not alone in this desire to be around Swami Veda Bharati.  People seemed to be attracted to him like moths, at night, are attracted to a light.

Over several years, I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with Swami Veda Bharati, and this was a treasure.  At the same time, doing so helped me realize that I didn’t attain lasting happiness nor did I gain what depth of wisdom and brilliance he had simply by being in his presence.  Rather, it became clear to me, that to advance on the meditation path, I needed to do my own internal work.

In recent years, I have not been able to see Swami Veda Bharati very often. Yet, I’ve done my best to continue practicing what he taught me, and something unexpected has happened.

Just a little, but more and more, I’ve been feeling an inner-connection. This connection is not so much with Swami Veda Bharati, the person, but rather with the stream of light and love to which he is also connected.

In my early days practicing yoga-meditation, I heard people talk about having an “inner-connection with the teacher,” and I wondered what that meant. Now I have an inkling, and I’m coming to understand that what I was after in my grasping after Swami Veda Bharati’s physical presence was actually something that was inside of me.

Attention to the subtlety of the breath gives an insight into contentment.

Sitting one day I felt very quietly contented within myself and as I sat there the word santosha came to mind and my thoughts started to elaborate on the word.  If you don’t mind I would like to share my thoughts on this with you.

When we start yoga there is a good chance it is postural yoga of one or another variety. With a bit of practice the penny drops and we learn to move our bodies according to the in and out breaths.  Beginners invariably admit confusion when they try to co-ordinate breath and movement. And some people don’t seem to ever get it. However, to progress in yoga postures it is necessary to develop stamina and that requires a good understanding of how to strengthen the breath. This consists of learning how to breathe more fully to sustain activity.

In the wider yogic understanding this use of the breath is at a gross level.  Breath awareness can be developed to more subtle levels and there comes a point when the breath is no longer trapped in external attention to the body and instead opens the attention to the internal mind-space.

Mind-space – what is that?

Let’s start from the perspective of doing postures. With a subtle understanding of postures you will recognise that when you move one limb there is a corresponding movement elsewhere in the body taking account of first movement so balance is maintained. Some teachers describe this in terms of spirals: that the muscular movement in the body operates in shapes akin to spirals.  That subtlety of understanding is fine so long as the attention is only for how the body moves.  But if you consider it more deeply then the question arises – what moves the muscles for the sake of balance? It’s the nervous system of course.

The nervous system works through the body largely unconsciously to maintain a sense of balance. And what is the nervous system? It is the mind through the body. In fact if it wasn’t for the mind and its extension through the body as the nervous system we wouldn’t know we have a body.  When we think we are moving an arm we are really moving the mind.

As we develop this awareness of mind we can learn to manipulate the body merely by concentration.  So, for example, in parvsa virhabdrasana we want to move the front knee so it tracks over the foot but stiff thigh muscles and stiff hips can defeat this intention.  We haul the knee into place or learn to rotate the thigh.  More subtly the same can be done by pressing the big toe down into the ground.  Then the thigh rotates externally, the knee tracks happily over the foot, the hip joints open provided the back leg doesn’t rotate inwards overly much and in addition the spine elongates in a further response.  More subtle yet: instead of pressing the big toe down to gain the effect and impress the teacher with a posture well done, just concentrate on the big toe and the muscles will shift in response, in exactly the same way as when you deliberately press down on the big toe or adjust the upper thigh but more quietly because there is harmony between the body, the nervous system and the will.  Then you will be so engaged in the awareness of the posture you won’t even be thinking about the teacher.

If this integration is recognised throughout the body and it is waiting there to be recognised, then the pervasion of the mind through the body becomes apparent.  It’s another step to recognise the mind-space; that we can rest in a simple whole mental sense, for that is what we actually do. It just seems that the external is other than mind.  Indeed it’s not a case of external or internal, it’s simply mind and in itself it is nether internal or external.  The brain is internal within the skull, the mind is not the physical brain so in reaching this state of awareness the mind is realised as possessing neither inside nor outside.  Space comes nearest to a description – so we have mind-space.

As we know, mind is intimately connected with and to the breath.  By paying closer attention to the mind it becomes apparent just how profound that influence is.  In an external example postures are difficult to maintain if concentration and breath are not settled.

It is even more difficult to meditate if the breath is not smooth. Where the attention is drawn increasingly to the mind as cause then stillness becomes indispensable.  This requires a good sitting position.  It is then that further practice and investigation of the breath begins as a preliminary to meditation practice or as part of it.  In either case the focus is in learning deeper and deeper relaxation within the mind-space.

The grace and kindness of breath

As the sitting posture is perfected there is less and less need to consider the body’s position as its steadiness gives rest to the nervous system.  Intentionality as in postural yoga is not required for there is no movement, one posture and that’s it.  The only movement is in the muscles connected with the flow of the breath.  Gradually quiescence informs these muscles too and mind and breath and body enter a state of kindness and grace.

There is the scientific recognition that the muscles move to create a vacuum in the lungs and the air rushes into the lungs and subsequently muscular movement pushes it out again.  So there is a holistic relationship between respiration and the atmosphere and by implication with the entire Earth and by further implication yet, with the entire Universe.  That’s all very well and rational.  But there is a deeper apprehension which is summed up by Swami Rama:

Manifest energy has three aspects: neutral, centripetal (towards the centre) and centrifugal (away from the centre)… Nutrition and oxygen are taken into the body by the centripetal currents; carbon dioxide and other wastes are expelled by the centrifugal currents.  The vital force is the foundation and origin of all manifestations of the physical energy, and must not be mistaken for the functions of the brain, heart or any other part of the body that it creates: by doing so, we would confuse the creative force with that which is created. ¹

In a quiet state we become aware of the breath flowing through the body: even, smooth, subtle and unhindered.  We watch the breath given and taken, given and taken, on and on.  Prana flows.  The very root of body and mind together depends on the breath and when it is apprehended in such a state of yogic silence contentment reigns and bliss is pervasive.  This is a state of being which can deepen through recognition.  It is the unveiling of our deeper nature and it comes with a deep sense of contentment.

The Niyama – Santosha

This state of pervading contentment provides insight into the second Niyama – Santosha – santosad anuttamah sukha labhah. (YS II.42)

Twelve translations are available of this sutra allon one page in Salvatore Zambito’s book The Unadorned Thread of Yoga.’²  The various translations differ in the words they use for the state of contentment: unexcelled mental comfort; bliss; superlative happiness; unexcelled joy; unexcelled attainment of happiness and so on.  You get the idea.

The commentary by Swami Satchitananda describes contentment:  Contentment means just to be as we are without going to outside things for our happiness.  If something comes, we let it come.  If not, it doesn’t matter.  Contentment means neither to like nor dislike.³

This transcendence of liking and disliking is further emphasised by Swami Nityamuktananda Saraswati’s commentary to II.42:

Contentment means not only to know what is enough, it also involves neither liking nor disliking what’s on offer by the world. What the world offers simply has no impact on us anymore, as a result of practising santosha…There is no disturbance in the mind, everything is received as a gift of Divine Grace.  Unfulfilled desire causes unhappiness; contentment is the joy of renunciation – of not ‘needing’.⁴

Vyasa says pithily:

Contentment is the absence of the desire to take any more means than are present.⁵

In Scotland, at least before the rise of consumerism and burgeoning personal debt it was considered wise to learn to be content with ‘one’s lot’ or as Harold Macmillan said ‘You have never had it so good’.  But santosha is not just concerned with identification and contentment with one’s lot in the world.  Ultimately it is probably not even a practice in the sense of a yogic practice.  It is a state of being, of being content in being, not with anything we identify with intellectually or wilfully but with the process of the flow of life itself.  Fundamentally that is ‘one’s lot’ and it is there whatever we think and however we behave, just as the sea ebbs and flows, just as the universe contracts and expands.  And in the silence of meditation, if the breath comes to rest then there is the silence of consciousness from which and in which all movement comes into being.  That is something like the ultimate mind-space.

What are the conditions for knowing santosha?

The first condition is: Find a good teacher.

The second condition is: Pay close attention to your practice.

The third condition is: Don’t believe a word you think.  It has nothing to do with ideas.

So following the sense of the third condition what you have just read is just ideas, so go instead to the insight your own breath may give to the deeper nature.

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It is the Guru’s (Swami Veda) instruction that lead me to the path to HYT and today I strongly believe that I did not choose the Himalayan Tradition by a game of chance. I truly experienced this maxim of the sages: when the student is ready, the Guru appears. Now I really understand the deep meaning of the sentence of Swamiji when he answered to my first e-mail correspondence: This is all the game of samskaras. I have no doubt that I was bound to meet him and be in the tradition and consequently to HYT. Planned from previous birth? May be.

May I share one of my many small insights or an incident prior to my meeting with Guru?

On 20 May 2007, I hosted a dinner at home to welcome a very special friend, the great Indian ghazal singer, late Jagjit Sing. On that evening, my friend Suzanne offered me the book Living with the Himalayan Masters. She had known Swami Rama very well. Afterwards, while reading the book, I yelled out: I have been searching for such a guru since 30 years!!  But he was no more in the body, and I was so disappointed. A few months after, I accompanied Suzanne to a prayer during 5 days (Durga Puja) where she was to introduce me to a young Guru who impressed her with his great powers. After meeting the guru, I was not convinced. But something very strange happened during the five days, after the prayers: during the chanting of Aarti in the praise of the deity Maa Durga, there was this sentence “…. Jai Durgé Khappar wali, téré hi guna gayé Bharati, Mayaa hum sab utaarein téri aarti…” and exactly at the chanting of this specific word Bharati I was getting a terrible blow of current in my back, exactly in region of my spine between the Anahata chakra, travelling upward to Vishishuddhi chakra till my whole neck and body was thrilled. I was so surprised, and I told Suzanne how strange I was feeling. Every time same thing was happening and I was trying to guess what was happening to me and why?  And I found no answer. It was a powerful blow of current I was enduring every time the word Bharati was being chanted. Now when I look back, I see the clear insight of my connection to my Guru of Bharati lineage and whom I met three years later in 2010. Swami ji one day told that the connection was established when he came to Mauritius in 1969 when I was kid of 10 years.

It was a slow progression towards my goal to meet the Guru lineage. It started even one year before receiving Living with Himalayan Masters. In 2006, I was in France and I chose one book from the shelf of my friend Shakti – The Himalayan Masters, A Living Tradition by Pandit R. Tigunait. I read it in the aeroplane. Back in Mauritius I was casually trying to follow by myself the relaxation of 31 points by reading from the book at page 162. As suggested in the book about a mantra, I was trying to adopt this mantra: “Om mane padmé hum” by myself inspired from the writings of Eknath Easwaran whose books I was used to read.

However, when time came, I met Swami Veda Bharati in March 2010, and I was initiated in the tradition. And he immediately instructed me to follow the TTP program on spot. I had no choice than to follow the Guru’s adesh (order) though I was not prepared for that. The Guru knew what he was doing.

I did not go through the conventional way to HYT, which is doing the first year course of TTP and then go through initiation if qualified. All happened the other way round and so quickly that I was myself taken aback. I just wanted to get the knowledge of meditation and deepen my sadhana with the help of Guru as if he could do some magic for me. No sooner than I met the Guru, than he initiated me to the Tradition, the next day and he pushed into the big sea for meditation with the teachers of TTP and the mentor as lifebelt to guide me to swim. It is amazingly wonderful and today I take great pleasure to learn through a proper channel of the HYT. I get the opportunity to learn Yoga Sadhana firstly through the retreats of TTP at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama (SRSG), then at home through personal practice and continued study with the backup treasures concealed in the books of Swami Rama and Swami Veda; and at the same time to deepen my knowledge to acquire some level of spirituality which was my initial goal for meeting the Guru. I feel I am blessed to be in the Tradition.

To be a student in the HYT is a blessing as one gets the opportunity to learn at the retreats and get knowledge of the Gurus through the guidance of the teachers with great experience. After the retreats, the student, that is myself, I get the opportunity to continue my studies with the help of the books and other materials under the guidance of a mentor. I am well empowered by HYT with the help of the latest technologies like the websites, blogs and other materials made available.

As student, I have be a good disciple with disciplines to receive all the knowledge and strengthen my being with my own personal practice experiences to become a perfect medium so that I can be able to share the knowledge of the gurus with people. The student, including myself, not only has to learn and practice the techniques but he/she has to incorporate the learning that he/she has acquired in his own every-day life. I as a student should live with awareness and with the inspirations of the philosophy of life that I have acquired from the wisdom of yoga science.

I think it is the blessing and the will of the Guru that bestows the adhikara upon the student when he/she has acquired the experiential knowledge through the retreats and through the personal practice in his/her everyday life. Of course the student must have a strong will to share the knowledge with others.

I am linked with the lineage, and it is my duty to share the knowledge and wisdom of the great tradition with people to help them get out of some ignorance and help them alleviate their self-created miseries. It is out of compassion that I would like to teach, because we can never have a true vision of man if we do not have love for humanity. It is the noble function of love to understand limitations and transcend them. I believe that we must look at man as human beings not as machines. At the same time, it gives me an opportunity to learn further from the experience of teaching which makes me feel that I am being useful.
One of the traditional reasons for teaching is to keep the flow of the wisdom of the great Rishis through the Guru-sheeshya parampara to remove to some extent the veil of ignorance of the people and make them aware of the Truth which they can attain in this life.

In today’s world of so much uncertainties created by man where hatred, conflict and wars are killing thousands of human beings, where natural disasters, economic/social/moral crisis are making people feel more and more insecure, it is very crucial to show the way of sharing and understanding through the wisdom of yoga meditation in view of restoring harmony, love and peace among people for their own well-being. Humanity is suffering from the ego-born differences. Yoga science is a path through which we can bring harmony in human life.

To be a teacher within the HYT is firstly to be a perfect medium to transmit the knowledge of the great sages of the parampara. The teacher has to acquire the experiential knowledge of yoga science and incorporate the basic techniques and disciplines into his own life so that he can transmit the knowledge to others with conviction. The teacher has to keep in mind that he/she is not a Guru as he/she has not a self-realisation or enlightenment. It is the Guru who teaches through the teacher.  He is bound to remain in the decorum of the tradition.

For my first experience of teaching practice, I was quite worried because I always thought that I should learn more, I should master the techniques of Hatha Yoga and then I will be able to teach. But as I had to teach according to the assignments, I was somehow hesitant, and I prepared notes in case I would need to refresh my memory which I took with me. In the class, I silently paid homage to Guru parampara. Then I welcomed the students, and I started with an introduction to the Himalayan Tradition Then I asked the students to lie down in Makarasana for centering. At this point, I was a bit hesitant for approximately one minute because I was thinking that maybe I would not have enough time as I had to free the hall in one hour and at the same time I did not want to consult the notes because I felt it would disrupt the class flow. Then without thinking further, I just started teaching with the centering in Makarasana, and afterwards the flow just came so naturally and so beautifully that I forgot that I had any notebook in my bag. I took one hour fifteen minutes, and I ended in time with 10 minutes of meditation. I think without the presence of the Guru lineage, the teaching would not have been what it was. All the students felt so good at the end of the session. For me, the presence of Guru Lineage in my teaching practice is indescribable.

I understand that I may have the adhikara to teach because I have learnt and practiced with confidence the basic techniques of yoga sadhana and I have incorporated the use of these techniques and its fundamentals in my own personal life. The use of the basic techniques in my daily life gives me confidence in myself, and when I teach the same thing to others, I do it with conviction without having recourse to prepared notes. Being aware of all the benefits I derive from the yoga science in my personal life, I have a strong desire to share the knowledge with others. By the teaching, I’ve got more confidence in myself. I feel the knowledge sometimes unfolds while teaching. I feel peaceful when I see a glow in the students’ face after the yoga session and when they say that they feel serene and happy. I thank the Guru Lineage who has chosen me as a medium to transmit their knowledge of the yoga science to others. I surrender to the Guru Parampara every time with – Om tat sat brahmaarpanamastu.

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Editor’s note: 

Sarojini Bissessur-Asgarally is a student in HYT-TTP (Himalayan Yoga Tradition – Teacher Training Program), and is from Mauritius.