a center for
personal and planetary
awakening

Mystic River Yoga
214 Crosby St.

Arlington, MA 02474

781 643 0117
info@MysticRiverYoga.com

Introduction

12 Principles of Awakening

Spiritual Foundation

Scientific Foundation

Embodying the Practice

Collective Awakening

                   Yoga of Embodiment:

    Introduction to the Beginning Course

               What is a Spiritual Practice ?

        1st, 2nd and 3rd Person Perspectives

          Building a Foundation of Perception

  Finding Balance in Structure and Movement                Cultivating Discipline (Tapas)

                Goals, Obstacles and Resources

    Our first themes introduce the basic principles of awakening and begin with developing an understanding of the nature of spiritual practice, which as we will see, ultimately emerges as the awakening process. As our vehicle is yoga, our embodied enquiry into the fullness of the human experience will begin with the physical or structural layer and our goal is to more fully inhabit this level through all three perspectives. To fully inhabit the physical body is to have conscious connection, conscious access to our weight, our bones, our limbs and to be comfortable and more free in our  movements through space. Most student's introduction to yoga comes through the physical dimensions of the yoga poses but it is important to recognize early on that a spiritual practice involves far more than performing asanas. Our primary question is 'what is the nature of the student'? Who is enquiring into this practice? Who is this being who will be doing the poses? As we will each of us has 3 primary dimensions or modes of experiencing the world. They are called 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives, just as grammar describes them, and involve highly complex and dynamic internal states of consciousness. We will examine these three perspectives in all three courses, beginning, intermediate and advanced, each from the point of view of a different layer of embodiment.

                1st, 2nd and 3rd Person Perspectives

   We begin with our 1st person subjective "I",  or our self-sense. This is the mental landscape of "I-me-mine". I want that! What about me? That is mine! For most humans, the terrible twos live on forever in hidden and sometimes not so subtle ways. What is this all about? Although we will dive much more deeply into the "origins and implications of this I-me-mine realm " in the susequent two courses, we at least need to have the "I" out on the table for discussion at the beginning of our practice. And the cold cruel reality of my life, if I am honest, is that I am always the center of my universe, and that universe happens to be the only one that I know. But, I can use this wisely. I want to feel better. I want to learn how to relax, I want be stronger and more flexible. I want to awaken. I can use these thoughts as an impetus to begin a practice. 'I thoughts' can also seriously interfere with the ability of the yoga poses to be psychologically and emotionally transformative. If we are not alert and discriminating, the poses can become vehicles to perpetuate the dysfunctional mind states that in yoga we are looking to resolve. (See Yoga Sutras Studies)

   As I examine my inner world carefully, I find that in addition to me, there is the vast category of 'everything else, everything that is 'not me'. We will develop sense of '"I" and everything' else further in the advanced course, but here we can divide 'everything else' into two more categories based on how "I" choose to relate. One mode of realting is opening and embracing and inclusive. I 'let you in' and you become part of my 'we' experience. This is called the second person perspective, where you and I form a new field of emotionally dynamic energy together. Neuroscientist Dan Siegel has written extensively on how this relational or attachment process begins in utero and continues intensely through infancy and childhood, having a huge affect on how the mind of the child develops. (See our Neuroscience section). Dan Goleman's book. "Emotional Intelligence" surveys the terrain of relational energies and mind states that are representative of the second person perspective.

     I take on the third person persepctive when I see or obcerve something or someone in whom I am not in 'we" relationship. This is the fundamental perspective of science with a neutral or objective observer and the object being studied. The third person perspective can evoke strong positive emotions, like when seeing a beautiful sunset or flower. It can also evoke strong negative emotions as when dealing with an enemy that evokes fear and loathing.

             Building a Foundation of Perception

  Yoga as a spiritual practice, and even yoga as a fancy workout begins with the subjective I.