Ned Grant  Yoga Class Nosara Yoga Institute Wednesday, March 21, 2007

                                                                                            (Expletives Deleted)

When I was waiting for inspiration last week, for an idea of how to structure this class, two suggestions that Don made provided the answer: 1) that the class should deal in some way with the multidimensional nature of our being, and 2) the idea of a gift, which was brought up during one of the “journaling” segments.

The Multidimensional Nature of the Self:

     If you remember the chart that Don designed, depicting the koshas as concentric circles, with anandamaya kosha as the outermost, equal in size to the others, it may have occurred to you that, if the chart were drawn to scale, anandamaya kosha would be so ;large that it would obliterate the other koshas. Not because it is physically larger, but because it is the largest part of our experience: it is eternal, it is who and what we are; it is our atha. We live the majority of our experience in this state of eternal bliss, and we spend a few relative seconds as humans, and yet the  suffering that  sometimes accompanies our human experience receives the majority of our attention. We conclude that because suffering is a possibility in our experience that it is the totality of our experience, and even worse, that it is our lot to suffer. I would suggest that that is like saying cars are built to crash because they crash from time to time. Anyone who said that would be considered ingenuous, yet when it is said about the human condition, we often nod our heads sadly in agreement.

    As humans, we have the ability to turn away from the most powerful attractive force in the universe: that of eternal bliss. Bliss is a truly attractive force, in the sense that we usually mean, in that it draws us to it, whereas gravity is more of a compulsive force: we have to submit. No one can defy the law of gravity, and we would be very impressed by any one of us who could. Yet we  all defy the even stronger force that is bliss, the least among us can, and it is this genius bliss-defying ability we have as humans that can (but doesn’t have to) lead to suffering.

    Our inner beings live in bliss, and become us in part to experience something other than pure bliss, not to suffer but, hopefully, to bring our joy into this experience for the purpose of expression and exploration. We are the eyes and ears of the universe, therefore, exploring itself from the unique perspective that each of us represents, from the set of space-time coordinates, if you will, that each of us represents. So, like, have a good time! But I can’t! I have this affliction, and I have that problem: they’re mine, I take full possession, but not full responsibility!

    It’s as if we have two buttons: a bright, red, shiny candy-like button right in front of our faces that reads “be Happy!”, and, just out of reach, a real uncomfortable stretch away, another, greasy, dirty, smelly little button that reads “Kick My Ass!”. It’s as if we feel it would be lazy, shiftless, and worthless to press the Happy button that’s right in front of us, we seem to go out of our way to flip the Kick My Ass switch: “It’s the human condition to suffer (kickmyasskickmyass); I need to work harder,” (kickmyasskickmyasskickmyass); it’s tradition: “mom & dad always hit the ‘Kick My Ass’ button, (especially on the holidays)”; “It’s hereditary,” (kickmyasskickmmmyasskickmyass).

     Any organization, whether it’s a university or a corporation, that sends representatives out into the field, has a responsibility to

supply that representative with whatever the representative needs. We are more than representatives of the universe - we ARE the universe itself, exploring all of its facets. Not only humans, but non-human animals, plants, and rocks! The universe supplies us all based upon our needs, which it feels from us before the needs which lead to desires even become conscious thought.

    Think of the universe as Amazon.com!  “You asked for this, you might like this...” and remember that we create our experience based upon our point of focus. Think about it: if you focus on illness, you get illness! “You liked the flu, you might like cancer,” says the universe. It’s not that the universe is stupid - it expects us not to be stupid! It expects us to “ask”, through the focus of our attention, for  what would best suit us. How many of us are “booking a room” in the convalescent home now, at the age of 40 or 50, by focussing on what we consider our limitations? Practicing old age and decrepitude while we’re still young. You don’t do that? I heard a lot of that at Nosara!

The Gift:

As it turns out, “The Gift” was something I had always considered a curse: a combination of “hereditary” (kickmyass- kickmyasskiickmyass) arthritis, which has made my joints hurt for almost twenty years,  and contracting Lyme disease two years ago,  I feel the sensation of pain in my body all the time. Last April, on two different mornings, it was impossible to get of bed and stand up because of hip pain – I had to crawl out of bed and get myself ready to teach a Yoga class! Adding to the misery was the thought that I was a complete fraud, coming in (with a barely noticeable by this time limp) to teach people to open up their bodies.

    Finally one morning, again last April, I got out of my car and began to walk across the parking lot of a local store, when I stopped in my tracks, and thought: “I’ve had enough! I’m gonna scream, and lie down and die right here…” I instinctively looked up. I think people think that God is in the sky because when we are stressed it is an instant relief to arch the upper back and look up into the forehead. Those two actions load the brain with serotonin, and we feel a little (or a lot) better. So I looked up: “I give up!” Isvara Pranidana . I saw a glorious blue sky. I saw puffy white clouds. I saw green buds on the trees. I felt soft cool air on my face as April was breaking the grip of Winter, and I felt better, and I walked on into the store, and on with my life, and I’m still walking, and I haven’t screamed yet-

    We create our experience - at least that’s what we believe and understand if we’re Yogis – by what we focus our attention on. Our focus moves 360 degrees toward and away from bliss, and if we look at the sky and the clouds and the trees or whatever pleases us we turn toward bliss, and if we bitch about how our bodies feel or about illness or predators or the weather we turn toward misery. It’s nice to know that we’re not helpless victims; that even if our experience is negative, we can take responsibility for it and begin to turn more toward what we say we want.

    Right now, I can “check in”, and know that my right wrist is on fire, like it’s being pulled out of my arm, my left elbow burning as if  the upper and lower arm were being pulled apart, but the pain has no power unless I choose to focus on it.  The negative experience can exist (and where is it going to go?) utterly powerlessly. As I continue to focus elsewhere, the pain will eventually be so far from where I’m focused at any given time, that it will virtually cease to exist.

    So this, it turns out , is the gift to me and to you, that this knowledge of the power of focus can change your life, or keep it on an even keel. Unless you’re really fond of your pet bitches! What do you talk about all day? Mostly good things, or mostly bad things? Welcome to the universe of self-creation! Whatever happens, you did it! That’s power, at least, even if you don’t like the outcome. And if you don’t like what you’ve got, quit bitchin’, and change it!

The Class

Sukhasana:

As you sit in sukhasana, easy pose, make it easy, not hardasana. Tilt your hips until they are vertical, using a block or cushion or blanket under the hips to allow that. Realize that back and lumbar support is a matter of what is under the hips, not behind the back. We only need support for the back when we are lying down. As you roll forward onto the fronts of the sitting bones, the spine can rest in a vertical position. The low back achieves its natural lumbar curve easily, no threat of herniated discs or low back muscle strain, the thighs and abdomen holding us up so easily that they and we are hardly aware they are “working”.  Easy pose!

    Close your eyes and become aware of how your body moves with your breath – how the breath moves the body, that is. On the exhalation, the whole back of the body descends, and as we get out of the way and don’t resist that descent, it transmits a sense of ease, release and tranquility to the nervous system: a natural tranquilizer! Not one that will make us sleep, but one that offers the possibility of the total release of tension in the body and suffering in the mind with every exhalation (and we exhale thousands of times a day).

    The movement down the back with the exhalation opens and prepares the front of the body for the inhalation by allowing it to relax and open. Don’t resist the release of the front as the exhalation moves down the back. Let gravity assist the release down the back. Isvara Pranidhana!

    When we inhale, the diapragm moves downward, so again, don’t resist the aid that gravity gives the inhalation. As the diapragm moves down, it expands,  opens the ribs, and allows the lungs to fill. It’s not the air we’re after here, but the exhilaration of this expansion. The upper back arches a bit, as it did in my experience in the parking lot, and the effect is of an anti-depressant. This is not a pill to make us happy against our will. If we are willing to go along, this is the emotional ride of the breath: a tranquillizer on the exhale, anti-depressant on the inhale, thousands of times a day

Lying on the back:

As you lie down as if in savasana,