It's week 3 of the Yoga Teacher Training and there is so much happening, inside and outside - not on a gross or extreme level (although I would never reject flashes of enlightenment :-)) but on a more subtle, intuitive level. So, I thought about what kind of theme to use to tell a story about these various thoughts, feelings and developments - and that's how I came up with the title 'Crystals and Gems': Crystals as the manifestation of something crystallising (i.e. becoming clear and solid and developing into something that reveals itself as a form or concept - something that the mind can comprehend); and Gems as a symbol for all these little wisdoms that I have received from my friends or people I met or things that I read over the last years and especially last weeks.
In that respect, it is probably the concept of mindfulness, understanding that the present moment is the only thing that is 'real' and realising what is important and where need to put our energies towards, that comes out as an overriding theme.
I think my homework assignments on the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras helped to bring home the destructive effects of 'attachment' and 'aversion' as they either replay your past dramas or hold on to previous pleasures, or future (unfulfilled) dreams or hold you back because of fear or worries. In essence, they keep you in the past or focus on something unrealised in the future and like a broken record they keep replaying your karmas and prevent you from looking at what is right there now and in front of you. And more importantly, even if you recognise this present moment, your mind will have the tendency to colour and judge it - and either it will hang on to it or will try ways how to get out of it. What we think is a virtue - our constant obsession with thinking and putting 'intelligence' on such a high pedestal - is actually more a curse than a blessing! The mind is pretty smart and conditioned to keep you occupied, so that the consciousness escapes you (or more symbolically speaking: the soft tones of consciousness are drowned out by loud music or overpowering colours of the overactive mind). This also leads to the tendency to think in terms of 'what do we have to do to get to a certain point, become a certain person, reach a certain status' (Jon Kabat-Zin) - the concept of 'getting there' is the mind keeping us away from the present, instead of realising that we are already there! “If we are not present in the moment, the only reference points we have is our conditioned response in the past or our unfulfilled hopes and dreams or worries and fears for the future (and our imagined responses to those).” Thus, the mind goes into auto-pilot and relies on ‘learned’ responses rather than forming new linkages and blocking the formation of new connections. He further says that if those blockages or learned responses accumulate over time, they build up to the point that our bodies are blocked, our thinking is blocked and our minds are blocked and we feel stuck with whatever condition or conditions we acquired.
All these concepts were further powerfully illustrated by the Sutra class from Alex Medin who spoke about the difficulty for a teacher of conveying what ‘yoga is’ (and in his case, to prisoners in a high security prison!), and the fact that most yoga teachers fail in this regard (and he included himself in it) – as it is not about the learned things about yoga that we ‘think’ are correct but is a lot more subtle. Specifically, his answer to the question of how to ‘be’ a good yoga teacher and how to go about teaching yoga in the ‘real’ world, was quite enlightening as he stressed that it was not about obtaining a particular certification or doing so and so many hours of workshops or practicing asana to a certain level. Instead, he said not to even think of becoming a yoga teacher and teaching, but living it first (quote “Get your life in order first!”). He went on further to say that if you just memorise theories and asana, it won’t help you at all but in the end will destroy you as it is just an empty construct. The important aspect is to discover the innermost essence (the ‘divine’ or consciousness) in us and connect with it and then your words and action will come from the depth of your heart and will have weight and impact and things will happen to you and your path as you will live with integrity: “If you open up to the divine, how can you ever fall short of anything as you are living and acting in accordance with your inner self”. And the interesting aspect is also that you cannot gain this ‘luminous inner experience’ while trying with all your might – in fact, as many of us do in asana, he stressed that we have to let go of the need to improve and putting great effort into things - in order to be able to open up and receive whatever we are supposed to experience, we need to open up and let go first. Thus, asana (but also many other aspects of our lives!) should not be ruled by our ambitions but it should remove the patterns of ambitions and we then can learn to be within yourself and attain stability. And you cannot find this stability through outside actions or achievements (let it be asana, careers, etc) and certainly not by trying really hard – it is all about letting go, inviting in and accepting what is.
So, what I took away from Alex’s lesson was that yoga (in an encompassing sense) achieves greater understanding of how the mind works and we are better able to sift through these past and future projections and see through the veil that the thinking mind is creating. But Alex also stressed that we can’t practice yoga ‘a little bit’: the development of practice needs to happen consistently and over long periods of time and as such it will become part of your life: “Embody yoga, find your place in the world first, live according to the yamas and niyamas! Dont try to be a yoga teacher, let it happen, bring it to live with yourself, and then it will come! Far and foremost, Yoga should be a selfless service and it will grow your own yoga, which is more important than running a lucrative yoga business.”
So, Alex’s class (and Noah’s teachings) really summed up how my thoughts have shifted over the last weeks about what yoga is, what is important in yoga and what it means to be a teacher. It also brought home the importance of meditation and letting go of my habit to ‘achieve, improve and work really hard to be good at whatever it is that I’m doing’ and instead accepting where I’m at, who I am and trust that I will know where I’m going.
In that respect, it is probably the concept of mindfulness, understanding that the present moment is the only thing that is 'real' and realising what is important and where need to put our energies towards, that comes out as an overriding theme.
I think my homework assignments on the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras helped to bring home the destructive effects of 'attachment' and 'aversion' as they either replay your past dramas or hold on to previous pleasures, or future (unfulfilled) dreams or hold you back because of fear or worries. In essence, they keep you in the past or focus on something unrealised in the future and like a broken record they keep replaying your karmas and prevent you from looking at what is right there now and in front of you. And more importantly, even if you recognise this present moment, your mind will have the tendency to colour and judge it - and either it will hang on to it or will try ways how to get out of it. What we think is a virtue - our constant obsession with thinking and putting 'intelligence' on such a high pedestal - is actually more a curse than a blessing! The mind is pretty smart and conditioned to keep you occupied, so that the consciousness escapes you (or more symbolically speaking: the soft tones of consciousness are drowned out by loud music or overpowering colours of the overactive mind). This also leads to the tendency to think in terms of 'what do we have to do to get to a certain point, become a certain person, reach a certain status' (Jon Kabat-Zin) - the concept of 'getting there' is the mind keeping us away from the present, instead of realising that we are already there! “If we are not present in the moment, the only reference points we have is our conditioned response in the past or our unfulfilled hopes and dreams or worries and fears for the future (and our imagined responses to those).” Thus, the mind goes into auto-pilot and relies on ‘learned’ responses rather than forming new linkages and blocking the formation of new connections. He further says that if those blockages or learned responses accumulate over time, they build up to the point that our bodies are blocked, our thinking is blocked and our minds are blocked and we feel stuck with whatever condition or conditions we acquired.
All these concepts were further powerfully illustrated by the Sutra class from Alex Medin who spoke about the difficulty for a teacher of conveying what ‘yoga is’ (and in his case, to prisoners in a high security prison!), and the fact that most yoga teachers fail in this regard (and he included himself in it) – as it is not about the learned things about yoga that we ‘think’ are correct but is a lot more subtle. Specifically, his answer to the question of how to ‘be’ a good yoga teacher and how to go about teaching yoga in the ‘real’ world, was quite enlightening as he stressed that it was not about obtaining a particular certification or doing so and so many hours of workshops or practicing asana to a certain level. Instead, he said not to even think of becoming a yoga teacher and teaching, but living it first (quote “Get your life in order first!”). He went on further to say that if you just memorise theories and asana, it won’t help you at all but in the end will destroy you as it is just an empty construct. The important aspect is to discover the innermost essence (the ‘divine’ or consciousness) in us and connect with it and then your words and action will come from the depth of your heart and will have weight and impact and things will happen to you and your path as you will live with integrity: “If you open up to the divine, how can you ever fall short of anything as you are living and acting in accordance with your inner self”. And the interesting aspect is also that you cannot gain this ‘luminous inner experience’ while trying with all your might – in fact, as many of us do in asana, he stressed that we have to let go of the need to improve and putting great effort into things - in order to be able to open up and receive whatever we are supposed to experience, we need to open up and let go first. Thus, asana (but also many other aspects of our lives!) should not be ruled by our ambitions but it should remove the patterns of ambitions and we then can learn to be within yourself and attain stability. And you cannot find this stability through outside actions or achievements (let it be asana, careers, etc) and certainly not by trying really hard – it is all about letting go, inviting in and accepting what is.
So, what I took away from Alex’s lesson was that yoga (in an encompassing sense) achieves greater understanding of how the mind works and we are better able to sift through these past and future projections and see through the veil that the thinking mind is creating. But Alex also stressed that we can’t practice yoga ‘a little bit’: the development of practice needs to happen consistently and over long periods of time and as such it will become part of your life: “Embody yoga, find your place in the world first, live according to the yamas and niyamas! Dont try to be a yoga teacher, let it happen, bring it to live with yourself, and then it will come! Far and foremost, Yoga should be a selfless service and it will grow your own yoga, which is more important than running a lucrative yoga business.”
So, Alex’s class (and Noah’s teachings) really summed up how my thoughts have shifted over the last weeks about what yoga is, what is important in yoga and what it means to be a teacher. It also brought home the importance of meditation and letting go of my habit to ‘achieve, improve and work really hard to be good at whatever it is that I’m doing’ and instead accepting where I’m at, who I am and trust that I will know where I’m going.
And maybe here I want to close with one particular ‘gem’ that I am so grateful to have received earlier this year and I want to quote it symbolically for all these other great wisdoms that I have received from all my friends:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.”
Love you all.
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