Going within–exploring the hidden chambers of the heart to find one’s true Self–is really the first step in yoga. Continuing from that step, we can take the next one: bringing forth the latent divinity that we discover within, so that we may fully serve our individual dharma, or life purpose.
Although I began watching my parents practice with B.K.S. Iyengar when I was three, and joined them at age seven, it took me years to fully absorb this basic lesson. For the first 13 years of my yoga practice, my effort was directed at physically mastering pose after ever more difficult pose. In my late teens, I often practiced seven hours a day, many days in a row. Staying half an hour in Headstand and an hour in Shoulderstand would leave my neck so stiff that I could not even turn it the next day! In some sessions, I would perform 150 or so poses! By age 20, I had a repertoire of hundreds of poses, including high risk asanas rarely seen and almost never taught. I brought enormous energy to my practice, but it was more in service to my ambition and ego than to a higher and deeper purpose.
Then, helping a friend lift some crates, I ruptured two disks in my lower back. For what seemed like an eternity, I was unable to sit, stand, or walk without experiencing excruciating pain. When I could finally do asana again, I had to start from the beginning. The muscles around my pelvis, legs, and spine had seized up to protect my back, and I was stiffer than most beginners. This whole experience was a great lesson in humility, and it began the transformation of my asana practice to the much more heart-centered approach that is now the core of my teaching.
We are grateful to Christian for sharing his personal experience of how Purna Yoga Meditation has helped him heal attachments in his relationship. May what he has shared inspire us to find the true essence of our connections to others. (This video was taken at the annual Purna Yoga Retreat in Hawaii.)
As teachers, we must ensure that our students work intensely, yet without force. We generally assume that working forcefully is working intensely. Not so! Force is the opposite of true intensity. We force when we are not fully present in the body, not listening, not aware, not alert – just working blindly. Intensity is powerfully focused action, where the mind, heart, and body are united in effort and directed by a vigilant consciousness, ensuring progress without force, growth without violence.
Thus, when a student is straining to open his hamstrings, take the opportunity to teach a deeper lesson. Remind him that his hamstrings resist because they are not familiar with the opening. When we forcefully yank them open, how is that different from forcefully imposing our beliefs onto others who have opposing ones? Only feeling can develop sensitivity and acceptance of an opposing viewpoint.
When you see a student pushing as hard as she can, immediately ask her questions that require her to tune in and feel her body. Ask “What are you feeling just now? Can you feel the weight on your feet? How much weight is on your fingertips?” Even something as simple as feeling a physical action will move her away from forcing. Also, always remind your students to observe their breath as they do the poses and to keep it smooth and deep, for this helps reduce forcing and, as a spiritual bonus, invites the soul into the body.
When demonstrating a pose for your students, illustrate the difference between a pose done with force and a pose done with feeling. Grit your teeth, clench your jaw, knit your brow, purse your lips, and tighten your body with grim determination, completing the pose by puffing out your chest with false pride. Then, take a deep breath, soften your body and demonstrate the pose from the serene quietness and strength of inner awareness. If you exaggerate the extremes in this way, the ensuing laughter will release tension and reduce the somber mood of an intensely focused practice. Such a comical display also gives students an indirect way of laughing at their own pretentiousness and egoistic aspirations. The clown has a high purpose – to help others see the divinity they deny.
In your yoga practice, regularly pause for a moment, and look within. There, inside your Heart Center, find the inner smile. This connection with the inner smile leads to a state of unconditional bliss in which external circumstances cannot sway the joy we feel for who we are.
As a way of exploring this in depth, my brother Jehangir introduced me to a technique I frequently use in my teaching: Stand in Namaskarasana (standing erect with the hands in Namaste). Pause, draw your mind inside your chest, and feel the connection with your Heart Center. Allow your inner smile to emerge and create a smile upon your face. In other words, your face shouldn’t smile because you are expected to smile, but because your face spontaneously reflects the smile in your heart.
Once you have found this communication between heart and face, maintain this connection as you perform just one Surya Namaskar or some other familiar pose. Do not move unless your movement is initiated by the inner smile. As soon as the smile is lost, stop, reconnect, smile again, and only then continue. If you are honest, you may be surprised at how little you move. Most of our movements come from habits, conditioning, expectations, or a sense of duty. These mental processes live far from the Heart Center and can hardly be used to bring us back to it. We must be guided by the heart, and its eternal smile.
In class, observe whether you are competing with your neighbor. Are you trying to “accomplish” postures? Do you feel frustration at not succeeding? Are you violent in your attempts? Do you feel inadequate? If yes, does that make you angry? As you observe your responses, realize that they are the result of lifelong conditioning and not your true nature. As long as your responses to life are conditioned, you cannot be blissful – you cannot be free. Freeing yourself from the fetters of conditioning (be it by parents, teachers, advertisers, or religions) is a matter of finding and establishing the connection with your Heart Center, with your soul, and acting from the bliss within.
I recently had a wonderful time teaching the foundations of yoga and realized that this information never loses its value. For most, our introduction to yoga comes from the study of asana and pranayama. Therefore, today’s article provides a summary of the basics of these two foundational practices.
There are three general types of asana practice: sustained, flowing, and therapeutic. Purna Yoga incorporates all of them. In sustained asana – as taught by my asana teacher, B. K. S. Iyengar – postures are held. By holding poses for periods of time, refined movements and alignments evolve, and inner energies are opened and channeled. Sustained asana can be done in an active or a restorative manner.
Flowing asana, taught in a variety of traditions, is used to generate heat, flush out toxins, and develop external form and strength. Using the breath to connect the postures while fixing the gaze on certain points requires and cultivates an intense focus in the mind.
Therapeutic asana is designed for individuals for particular problems, each student receiving a unique practice. The normal “rules” may not apply – knees may be kept bent, movements may be done slowly, active poses may become passive, and in some cases (such as depression) passive poses may become active. Extra props are often used to help support the student.
As we practice pranayama and refine our control over the breath, we open the energetic channels of the body and are better able to receive Divine light and inspiration into our life. In an ideal scenario, asana simply prepares the body to safely receive the power of pranayama.
Pranayama helps the nervous system to both cleanse and strengthen itself. When the nervous system is in our control, we are able to perceive the causes of our physical and psychological tensions. Thus, asana and pranayama work together. With asana, we learn to control the body and keep it still, and with pranayama, we learn to control the mind and nervous system.
The first step toward pranayama is to use your breath to go deeper into asanas. This will help you build the connection between your breath, nerves, and body, for it is the nerves that always tell the muscles what to do. While studying pranayama, first learn ujjayi pranayama, then viloma, and then the more subtle and powerful pranayamas. Because of the inherent risks to the nervous system, pranayama must always be studied under the tutelage of a yoga master
“All life is yoga,” wrote Sri Aurobindo. What does this mean? This means that all life is an exploration of ourselves, done either consciously or unconsciously. When we operate unconsciously, out of habit or “what everyone else is doing,” the path is long and painful.
However, when we bring awareness into our choices and align them with our true values, real progress happens. These choices often require more effort in the short-term, but in the long-term, they are the only means of creating harmony in our world and fulfillment in our lives.
In business, I ask myself, “Why am I making this choice? Is it because it truly feels sincere, or is it something I am justifying because it is what everyone else is doing?”
For example, when we began our mission of supporting organic farming in India through the creation of Eastern Essence foods, Mirra and I made the decision that we would not bribe any officials, although it is a common business practice there to do so. We also chose to process the foods in the very best way possible, because although this is more expensive, providing people with a product that is extremely high in nutrition is what is most important to us.
A quote from one of the Harry Potter movies sums it up very beautifully: “The time will come when we will all have to choose between what is right and what is easy.”
Fortunately, in the long-term, what is right is easy, because it is the only thing that creates sustainability and wholeness for everyone.
We want to share this beautiful testimonial from Allison, taken while we were at the Purna Yoga Retreat near Hilo, Hawaii this last February. With gratitude to Allison for her sincere sharing.
The cosmic intelligence that we call Divinity has as much love for the saint as for the rogue. The only difference is that the saint feels loved, the rogue does not. When we fill ourselves with the Divinity that pervades all existence, we have all the love we need and more.
Love is not something that we find after a long journey. Love is where we are. Indeed, love is we ourselves, our very Self, though it has been veiled by the ego with its incessant demand for gratification. Our task is, in essence, to peel away the layers of self-interest with which our ego has coated love. To see love’s face, we must face all that isn’t love. In truth, ego is the lack of love. It wants its own way. Unmask ego’s pretense of love, and let true love blossom.
The sage Patanjali explained that there are five obstacles (kleshas) on the path of yoga. Since yoga is union, these obstacles surface while discovering the love of Self. To summarize the five obstacles: First, we are ignorant (avidya) of the fact that we are, in essence, pure love. Separation is the primary illusion. Second, the ego (asmita) manages to mask this love everywhere – except in the Heart Center. Third, the ego seeks love through the forming of attachments (raga) to others. Fourth, the ego, living in a world of separate egos busily forming attachments with other egos, develops aversions (dvesha) to what is different from it. And fifth, the ego, founded on false pretenses based on the denial of love, deeply fears impermanence and dreads death (abhinivesha). As we go within, we must face each of these obstacles, each one blocking the light, preventing union, denying love.
Sri Aurobindo wrote that deep inside each one of us “hidden powers dwell.” To love yourself is to know that you co-create your life with The Divine. This is your strength. Once you take on this responsibility, you are empowered to love.
When you are united with those hidden inner powers, you realize that everything you have looked for outside is already inside. So the path is finding in yourself your essence, uniting with it, and feeling the wonder that is love. There is really no practice that can create love. We can only discover the love that has always been there. Love cannot be analyzed or quantified by the mind, nor can it be controlled or forced by the passions. It is simply felt in the quietness of our inner world.
There is no way to discover love other than to do what every faith and sage has counseled for millennia: Go within.
Spend time each day being alone and still, focusing only on your breath. Gradually, this will still your mind by muting your thoughts. Observe the emotion that surfaces as you inhale, and as you exhale, feel your breath releasing that emotion. As the emotion leaves you, offer it to a ball of light in front of you. Fill the empty space with light from your heart. Notice that you feel lighter. Turn your awareness inside yourself. Only within your Heart Center can you realize, in a lasting way – a way unmoved by the ebbs and flows of affection and circumstance – that you are loved.
Musings and insights from Mirra and Aadil
on the evolution of Purna Yoga—uniting asana, meditation, yogic philosophy, and nutriton—to
quicken the transformation of our human nature
into our Divine Self.
Going within–exploring the hidden chambers of the heart to find one’s true Self–is really the first step in yoga. Continuing from that step, we can take the next one: bringing forth the latent divinity that we discover within, so that we may fully serve our individual dharma, or life purpose.
