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

     Awakening: Embodying the Practice

            The Practice and Teaching of Hatha Yoga       

                to Facilitate the Awakening Process

           integrating posture, circulation and breathing

     to facilitate the further evolution of the nervous system       

                      Introduction

                        On the Nature of Practice

   Early on in my very first class with B.K.S. Iyengar, in early 1982, the Lion of Pune appeared in front of me as I was trembling in trikonasana. My front knee was bending and, in the back of my brain, I could hear the voice of my teacher Ramanand, (who was somewhere in the room) "you can't bend your knee in trikonasana, he will kill you!" OMG, What's he going to say? After all of the stories I had heard from students in previous intensives, I was prepared for a blistering introduction to yoga the Iyengar way.

  Amazingly enough, yoga the Iyengar way was exactly the teaching. Our first communication, at least in this life time, began this way. He placed his foot toe to toe with my front foot, looked at me and said "I want you to know how I practice." Pointing to his own foot, he says " what is the pressure on this inner toe?, why is there less pressure here, more pressure there? why is the skin stretching here but not stretching there?, why is the color different in these two areas of the skin? ". Then he pointed at my foot and began asking similar questions.

   "I want you to know how I practice". It is not about 'getting it right', about doing the 'correct pose'. It is an open ended enquiry into the mystery of aliveness. The poses are entry points into  this mystery. "The body is my temple, the asanas are my prayers " is one of Iyengar's more poetic quotes. Almost 30 years later, I can gratefully state that my somatic practice is just as he described: a sustained enquiry into the subtlety of sensation, perception and action in the layered complex energy fields and awesome mystery we call the human body. Where is there dullness, where is there aggression, where is there harmony? Can I study the nature of dullness and aggresion, to discover the roots of imbalance. Can I study the nature of fluid harmony and balance, so I can nurture it further?

  This way of practicing did not come at once and has not always come easily. As a beginner, I was full of ideas and seriously lacking in direct information from the body. When he asked about my foot, my mind searched everywhere but my foot for help. The few sensations that trickled through the mental noise foot had no frame of reference, no basis for comparison, no experience in paying attention. I was very good at being willful. I could find the basic shapes of most poses, I could hold them, as I thought I was supposed to. I was young, strong, and really clueless.

  This course is written for that clueless kid who wanted to get it right all those years ago, if he were to walk into my class today. It is a course to help you find your own entry into the path of awakening, your own skillful practice, and point out some of the pitfalls I stumbled into along my journey. But, without all of my mistakes, what would there be to teach? I am grateful for my confusion, my imbalances, my blockages and mistakes, because they have been my nourishment. And if you can learn from mine, if you can avoid my pitfalls, then you will get to discover a whole new set of misakes, errors and screw-ups that will be uniquely your own, and you will be a better person, a better teacher for your struggles.

   This course is divided into 3 sections that are based upon the 3 nested, increasingly more subtle bodies or shriras as denoted in both classical yoga and Buddhist teachings, each with its own intelligence. Each of these sections will include general instructions for spiritual practice, a detailed study of the principles of hatha yoga, references to relevant revelations of modern science and an examination of 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives as relates to the featured body.

                        Three Courses, Three Bodies

     The first course is grounded in what is called the gross or structural body, known as the shthula sharira or the anamaya kosha in Sanskrit, and the nirmanakaya in Buddhism. This is the physical or tangible flesh and blood body. The literal translation of anamayakosha, first articulated in the Taittiriya Upanishad, is the body composed of food. It is the body that can be seen and touched, has mass, weight, and inertia. It is described by anatomy and refered to in yoga through alignment instructions. This is the simplest and most familiar of the bodies and the body most modern yoga classes address. From a scientific point of view, it is matter or the world of gross forms. From hatha yoga perspective we will explore the how coordinating intelligence integrates tissues, bones and joints into graceful movements and stable relaexed posture.

    The second course centers on the subtle or energy body, sukshma sharira in Sanskrit sambhogakaya in Buddhism, which is experienced as energy or energy flow. The terms chi, qi and prana refer to the organizing movements of aliveness of the subtle body, and, as this is where the confusion of the mind most directly manifests and the healing process most clear, this is the key body for our practice and explorations. As we will see, this is the most complex and complicated body and will take lifetimes to fully explore its possibilities.

   In the Taittiiriya Upanishad, the sukshma sharira is described as into distinct and progressively more subtle layers or koshas (sheaths.) These are: the pranamaya kosha or physiological sheath, the manomaya kosha or mental sheath and the vijnanamaya kosha, the sheath of intelligence. These layers are manifestations of energy flow, not matter. The physical heart has weight, but also electrical, mechanical and thermal energy flows. The pranamaya kosha includes the physiological systems, (digestion, elimination, circulation etc), and it in turn has five majors energies and 5 minor energies which we will explore more deeply in the postures section of the course. The mental layer includes sensation, perception, memory and all of our conditioning. The intelligence layer includes the cognitive capacities to transcend and transform our conditioned patterens and to integrate and develop more and more complex and sophisticated ways of processing information and acting in the world. The newly emerging field of Interpersonal Neurobiology, where 3rd person neuroscience is integrated with the 2nd person relational and 1st person subjective realms, will be used to help unfold the complexities of the psyche so key to the subtle body realm.

   The third body is the causal body, the karana shirira. Here, the individual is experienced as being a field embraced by and suspended in series of integrated, nested fields from gravity's macrophase shaping of the galaxies and stars, to the 'web of life' dna fields of the life systems ot the planet, to the strong nuclear, electromagnetic and quantum shaping of the atomic and sub atomic realms. From this point of view, you and the universe are never separate, and thus this is also referred to as the body of bliss, the anandamaya kosha or in Buddhism, the Dharmakaya. This is the realm of spiritual intelligence and where the grace of transcendence is readily available.

I was recently reminded again on the depth of Iyengar's intuitive genius when, in pursuing my neuroscience studies, I came across Jonah Lehrer's recently published book, "How We Decide", on the neuroscience of decision making. In it there is an interesting discussion with an unusual man by the name of Bill Robertie. Bill is a world-class expert in three different games, chess, Texas hold-em poker and backgammon. This is an extraordinarily rare event as most of the masters in these domains spend their lives studying and playing just one of these games. Form Robertie's perspective, his success has a simple explanation. "I know how to practice, I know how to make myself better". And, he adds " It's not the quantity of practice, it's the quality". He constantly studies and reviews his errors. 'Self criticism is the key to self-improvement. (pg 50 -51)

    Further on Leher quotes famous quantum physicist Niels Bohr who states an expert " is a person whohas made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field". Lehrer goes on to say "From the perspective of the brain, Bohr was absolutely right. Expertise is simply the wisdom that emerges from cellular error. Mistakes aren't things to be discouraged. On the contrary, they should be cultivated and carefully investigated."  Here was the neuroscientific explanation of my lesson from the guru. It is all coming together.

    The living organism we call a human being is a marvel of the emergent evolutionary creativity of the cosmos. It's innate capacity for sensation, perception, contemplation and action is complex, profound and subtle. This section will use the practice and principles of yoga to explore the organismic intelligence of the human as expressed in what is being called "the living matrix". This matrix is a dynamic structure that allows integral functioning of the three principle holistic information systems in the body: the fluid/circulatory system, the fascial or connective tissue system and the nervous system, with all the cells, organs and organ systems of the body. The matrix facilitates the flow of energy and information to and from every molecule, cell and organ of the body, through fluids and tissue, from skin to core and core to skin. In this section we will see how an intelligent yoga practice engages this matrix in awakening and facilitating a process of spiraling self integration.

  This dynamic energy/information collective has traditionally been called ki in Japanese, (as in aikido), chi or qi in Chinese (as in chi gung or tai chi), or prana in Sanskrit, and has long been explored in the embodied disciplines of the East such as yoga and the martial arts and the healing practices such as Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. Insights arising from the modern scientific tradition allow us to include electron flow, electromagnetic and gravitational field effects, and resonance in our understanding of the integral energy of aliveness. Developmental neurobiology, integrating psychology, anatomy, physiology and embryology, offers insights into the complex ways in which human energy systems may evolve depending upon genetics, relationships, life conditions and other factors. We may complexify and mature, or we may get stuck in less efficient, less mature, and possibly destructive patterns.

  An embodied yoga practice seeks to facilitate the natural process of maturing and integrating the energy and information systems, involving both structure and flow. It brings a harmonizing of all of the organic systems of the body, awakening the capacity for all of the cells and organs to be deeply conscious and present to the fullness of this moment, through all the fields of creation. Life is a flowing exchange of energy and information between the organism and the environment, including gravity and the electro-magnetic fields arising from the galaxies, the sun and moon, the earth, and other living beings. Embodied living is being fully present to this ongoing dance of moving energy, a full expression of self, other and wholeness.

  Modern civilization has long engendered a dissociation from the natural world and the consequences of this are coming home to roost big time in the 21st century. David Abram, in "The Spell of the Sensuous" discusses the possible origins of this estrangement in the emergence of the alphabet and writing. Leonard Shalin offers a parallel discussion in 'The Alphabet and the Goddess and links this to emerging dominance of the left hemisphere of the brain over the right. We will look at this in more detail in the neurobiology section, but suffice it to say that an embodied spiritual practice such as hatha yoga can offer a powerful entry point into the healing of the multiple layers of nested relationships that comprise the living body of the earth, the solar system and the Kosmos as a whole.

               The Practice of Yoga

   We will explore an embodied yoga practice from the three bodies as described in classical yoga literature with the updated perspective of modern science. We can see them as points of view or different perspectives each with their own points of reference, rules and instructions for exploration, but ultimately all part on an integral wholeness.

    In our yoga practice and teaching, we will use all points of view and in time learn how to create a truly integrated spiritual life practice. Three types of practice emerge in concert with the three bodies. The physical or structural view is first experienced through the yoga postures known as asanas. By using the breath in the poses we will quickly integrate the subtle body flow to the structral level to allow the integration process to begin. Another aspect of subtle body practice evolves as mindfulness, meditation and metta practice, where our attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and emotions are examined. As the meditation practice matures and non dual meditation emerges, surrender into the wholeness of the causal body helps deepen the connection to our divine nature

                                       Asana

   Yoga postures or asanas, whether linked in flowing movement (vinyasana), or sustained for longer periods of time such as in meditative or restorative practice, are profound vehicles to bring higher levels of balance and integration to the human organism and nervous system  and awaken new levels of understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. An integrated yoga pose is a highly sophisticated state of embodied stillness, and to fully understand its subtlety, (sthira and sukham to use Patanjali's terminology), we need to study not just the poses themselves, but the fundamental organizing activities of the body/organ systems that underlie movement and posture, namely the spontaneous movements of the prana or chi and their western scientific correlates.

  The body is a verb, not as noun. As Emilie Conrad is fond of saying, the body is movement. Movement is not something the body does! The cosmos, all of creation, is movement. Life is movement. From the sub-atomic realm, through the cellular activitites, into circulation, respiration and digestion, and the movements of our bodies through space and time, our aliveness is sensed and expressed in our bodies through undulating rhythms of breath, pulsating rhythms of the heart beat, and the vibrations arising from the cellular and molecular levels into the fascial matrix.

  Posture implies a sustained stability, of our aliveness, and also our particular structural/psychological/emotional relationship to the world in the moment. Ideally, this is a stability of flow and flexibility/novelty and not contraction, freezing or collapse. A yoga posture starts with our structural/psychological/emotional core energy of the moment and then plays with gravity and leverage, limbs and torso, organs and cells, to discover new ways of sensing, feeling and acting. Whether standing, sitting, prone, inverted, rotating, flexing, or extending , the organism is challenged to sustain flow, strength, flexibility and novelty.

   A yoga pose is an entry point into mystery, not a place of arrival. A common mistake made by yoga practitioners, especially beginners, is to assume that there is a correct pose that is somewhere, out there, to be aquired or arrived at in the future. What is happening in the moment is often ignored as the mind tries to remember past instruction or impose its will onto the body to move toward a fantasized future.

   This mind-set or belief system is a difficult one to overcome and mindful awareness is the primary antidote. Most certainly there are bodily positions that are compromising or down right damaging to the body. The study of basic alignment principles will help the student recognize the most common challenges that arise from a yoga practice. But what is most important for the student is to learn to listen to what the body is saying moment by moment so that you feel the misalignments and learn to feel the moment by moment adjustments that alleviate strain as it arises. Eventually the poses become a living example of self-education and self - integration

                                Somatic Pioneers

   An exploration of embodied wisdom would not be complete without including some of the modern pioneers of awakening somatic consciousness, Emily Conrad, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Susan Harper, Hubert Godard and Caryn McHose. We will also look at how the work of Ida Rolf and the many 'Structural Integration" practitioners who have followed in her footsteps have contributed to our understanding of embodied intelligence. Special focus here will be on Tom Myer's work on "The Anatomy Trains".

  As all of the sections are interwoven, our exploration the body-mind will delve into all of its chaos and harmony, looking deeply not only at the physical level (muscle/bone) and physiological level, (breath/organ/fluid/vibration), but also the psychological/emotional components that arise concurrently in the poses, refering to our Heart/Mind/Meditation explorations when necessary. Our underlying attitudes and beliefs about practice, ourselves and the world are as fundamentally important to study as are alignment, strength and flexibility and thus we will be spiralling back and forth between the physiological and psychological on our journey through the poses.

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