as-a-matter-of-mind
ATTC - 4th and last week
Imagine a monkey. Not the sedate or bored but the whiskey-jugging type.
Now sit still for 5 minutes. Focus on your breathing and watch your thoughts. Did you recognize the drunken monkey?
For the past 4 weeks we were drilled with yogic techniques to reign in our drunken monkeys with chanting, pranayama (breathing exercises), asanas (holding postures), vegetarian diet (sans onions and garlic) and meditation. The masters said that beyond the monkey is peace and in this brief moment of peace God whispers.
All it takes is one thought and the drunken monkey is on the loose.
Morning meditation by the lakeside:
I see the lake.
I’m thinking that I’d really like to live near the water.
The house will have a terrace overlooking the water.
Maybe we can buy the house that Paul rented in the Philippines.
Tear that termite infested house down.
Make a two story building with no walls on two sides to let the breeze flow freely.
I like it that it overlooks the banana plantation and the Davao river.
Nice for doing yoga classes.
Paul and I can live in cities with a Sivananda Center.
I will send my kids to yoga kids camp.
I will teach yoga and grow vegetables.
I see a crow.
Such great design, this animal of flight.
Interesting that the tip of it’s wings are turned delicately upwards.
That girl’s hair is really red.
Yesterday she said she’s a sunset person.
She wears the setting sun with her red hair!
When is this chanting going to end?
I ‘d get my mug from my room when I get back to the ashram.
What would be nice with tea?
I still have that almond muffin. That’ll go really well with the tea.
I did tell myself I’d cut down my sugar intake.
I’d just take vegetables for brunch and no rice.
Lori is leaving today.
I wonder if she managed to fit all those books in her bag.
I wonder if Paul is gargling saline water for his sore throat.
Oh, good. The chanting is over.
I’d better hurry back and have some of that prasad with black tea.
All that thought, one after the other, in a span of 40 seconds.
Swami Sivananda explains, “The mind is ever rotating like a wheel. It receives the different sense impressions through the avenues of the 5 senses. The mind and the senses always run outwards.” The practice of yoga techniques on breathing, poses and meditation stops this rotating wheel. There is a very tiny gap between the end of one thought and the rising of another. Yoga trains the mind to stay in this gap for as long as possible. With constant practice the gap widens and in this gap lies the experience of profound creativity, peace, intuition, enlightenment or the experience of God. Easier said than done as demonstrated by my lakeside morning meditation, even after 4 weeks of practicing intense yoga in a controlled environment.
In the ashram, I experienced that “me” as I know it is all a matter of mind. I had the opportunity to carefully watch what I feel and what I do arising from what I think of. And what I think of arising from what I see, taste, smell, hear and touch. I am a slave to my senses. Put two or bilions of slaves together and we create consumerism. Picture this: Politicians draw people with fireworks and bands and lights and freebies; TV commercials are fast and high pitched and colorful; Five star hotels are clean and luxurious and comfortable; or Food is tasty and soft and delicious smelling. Yoga (with it’s various practices) teaches a way to freedom from this slavery.
In finishing the ATTC we are given the title of Yoga Acharya or Master of Yoga of the Sivananda Yoga tradition and with it comes a directive not to preach about yoga but to live it authentically. A blunt dismissal of my initial intentions for taking the course (and the two latter paragraphs I wrote above). I’ve been asking myself if I’ll be disciplined enough to practice on my own. Waking up in the morning to do pranayama, daily asanas and meditation. It seems that the real ATTC isn’t the month I spent in the ashram but after it. Tomorrow I leave the ashram for Kanyakumari on a week-long CRS workshop after which I return to Afghanistan. The fruits of 4 weeks intense yoga practice in the ashram will be put to the test.
Mar 9, 2008