Meditation: the low-down

Yoga and Meditation are not really separate, yet they are. You can think of Yoga as the entire practice that prepares you for meditation. Before you can run, you must walk, and Yoga prepares you to meditate profoundly. Many people these days have heard great things about meditation and want to learn techniques so that they can be even more effective in their work. They want to optimise their minds so that they can learn faster think more effectively...Certainly meditation can help with this, but it's all a little bit more complicated than sitting quietly for 30mins. You didn't think it was going to be that easy did you?

Here's a little clarification from Master Desikachar:

"Mind is synonymous with experience: mind is always something other than itself. Through the practice of Yoga, one comes to see how the form of the mind is the same as its object. By projecting itself onto its objects, the mind becomes shaped and molded by them to the point where the impressions of the objects begin to hinder the clarity of perception.

The point of Yoga is to keep the mind clear of the build up of impressions. Once we understand that the mind assumes the form of its experience, we have the opportunity to choose the objects that shape our minds. Yoga is the practical application of this ancient yet simple insight." (Desikachar)

This is incidentally why you are what you do repeatedly. What is it that you do every day? Is this who you want to be? 

Before you can meditate, you must have these 3 qualities:

- Curiosity about who you really are (Yogana)

- Go through a cleansing/purifying process (Sadhana)

- Have a positive attitude (Bhavana)

A consistent Yoga practice will give you these 3 things, and give you a good framework to work on all of them. The work is not purely physical but also mental, so you need to purify and cleanse your body as well as your mind before you are ready to meditate. This takes most of us quite a few years. It's a well worthwhile journey though, and improves people lives in staggering ways. Never underestimate its effects.

I often hear people say that the spiritual aspect of Yoga isn't for them, which is really like going to a therapist and saying as Brene Brown did "Here's the thing: no family stuff, no childhood shit. I just need some strategies". You have to do the work and in this case it's getting to know who you really are. This is the spiritual aspect of Yoga. There's a lot of confusion with Hinduism and Buddhism, and lets face it most western Yoga studios propagate the confusion. Yoga and meditation are not religious practices unless you make them so, that's up to you. Getting to know yourself: not optional.

What do you do when you meditate?

You don't have to sit, you can walk, whatever is comfortable, but sitting with your eyes closed is really easiest to begin with for most of us. Meditation is a practice of the mind, so you are focusing your mind on an object, whatever it may be. You may pick an image, a thought, a sound, an idea...whatever works for you. Most of us sit still and quiet because be we're so concentrated and its easier to keep concentrated this way. Other meditators can focus whilst walking or chanting. There are different practices for different minds. Keeping that kind of unwavering focus on something for a long time is very very hard at first. For most of us just sitting still is hard enough.

You can think of meditation in 4 stages:

1.  Come to a stop 

2. Work towards clearing the mind

3. Refine it

4. Direct it

It takes a lot of work on yourself and in your life to get to through the 4 stages. There are really no shortcuts here, and believe me I explored many different routes. I was a very reluctant meditator, because I always wanted to do things and became frustrated.  I wasn't ready.  I started Yoga and began by loving the gymnastics, and that's all it was for me. Until of course the practice did its magic on me and broke me down to reassemble me. A wiser, more compassionate, kinder and gentler me emerged. Some days I still struggle just to sit still and come to a stop. Most of the time I can clear my mind and focus it. On rare days I break new ground. 

What's up with your mind?

Everything that happens to you is dependent on the role of your mind. Everything you see and experience is filtered by the mind. Your mind can be the source of freedom or imprisonment. Everything can either be neurosis or sanity. It depends how your mind is trained to see things. Yoga is there to help you untangle things, and meditation to help you train your mind afresh. This is why we say that Yoga is about undoing rather than doing. 

What's up with your body?

It is said in the old texts "As is the food, so is the mind" for example. Mind and body are meant to work in unison. Yoga helps your body and mind remember that, because many of us have forgotten. When you eat junk food, it affects your body and it affects your mind, and not subtly. Once you are in the process of purifying both, the numbness drops away and you become much more sensitive to these things. To everything. When you say "I have a gut feeling", it really is in the gut. The body and the mind together are capable of so much. The first rung of the ladder is to reconnect them. 

 Ultimately, as Krishnamacharya said "You learn by being with people, by taking responsibility for them". If you think you will end up somewhere new, you may be surprised. I came back full-circle, but far better equipped to be with people and take responsibility for them, and the learning continues.

photo credit: premasagar via photopin 

The truth about Yoga

photo credit: 68photobug Yoga and creativity has been a trendy topic recently in the innovation space. The thinking is that if you do Yoga then you will have more creative ideas and therefore be better placed to innovate. This isn't wrong, but maybe just a little simplistic. You may well have an awesome idea whilst in Pincha, but doing Pinch isn't the way to have one. What helps is simply calming down and through that, being in a space where you have the chance to really look at the world and yourself. It's peeling back the layers of judgment, opinion, likes, hates, loves, should/shouldn't, he did/she did,...all that stuff doesn't matter. When you get into a state of Yoga, I don't think even innovation and creativity are a goal anymore. Sometimes it can be a side effect.

What defines Yoga?

Yoga is not about bending yourself into a pretzel and doesn't really have anything to do with flexibility. "Asana", they physical postures, are but one of the 8 branches of Yoga. The full eight are listed in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, and they are:

- Yama: your ethical standards, or how you conduct yourself. There are 5 Yamas (Non-violence, truthfullness, non-stealing, contience, non-covetousness).

- Niyama: Self-discipline. There are 5 of these too (Cleanliness, contentment, austerity, self-study, surrender to something bigger than yourself)

- Asana: The physical postures

- Pranayama: Gaining mastery of the breath

- Pratyahara: Withdrawal of the senses

- Dharana: Meditation

- Samadhi: Basically, the experience of great peace

You have to be practicing all 8 (or at least have the intention to), regularly, to really say that you are practicing being in state of Yoga. Sharon Gannon says:

"You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state".

Going to a Yoga class every day and then shouting at people while driving, drinking wine in the evenings and feeding yourself a ton of sugar through the day is not going to help you be more creative. If you are working stupid hours every day ask yourself why? Is it really for the joy of the work? Or is it to get promoted, to get a raise, to afford more stuff that you don't need? Yoga really is about everything you do in your life. Not just that hour you spend at a Yoga studio. It's about what you eat, what you say, how you treat people, your actions, their consequences, your intentions, your focus.

The most important thing to learn: Breathing properly

Breathing is very important. If you stop doing it, you will die. If you do it very badly, you will become ill. Can you think of a few people in your current meetings who have their shoulders up around their ears? It's impossible to get a full exhale by doing this, and they are often in a constant state of inhalation. This causes the body to be flooded with C02 and triggers the adrenal system. These people are unsurprisingly tense and anxious, or even angry. Can you think of people who hold their breath on the inhale in conversations, while they wait for you to finish? How do these conversations typically go? In my experience not so well. Encouraging people to hold the breath on the exhale (if they absolutely feel they have to hold their breath) is very useful.

When we focus on our breath and practice long slow smooth inhales and exhales we allow the body to shift into a state of homeostasis, that is, an ideal balance between stress and relaxation, alert but comfortable.

Our central nervous system is designed to cope with 2 natural states of being:

- Sympathetic nervous system is triggered by stress “fight or flight” - Parasympathetic nervous system is indicative of a relaxed state “rest and digest”

When we are stressed, taking long slow breaths, particularly on the exhale, we are reducing the effects of the sympathetic nervous system.

Yoga is a state of mind.

It is about developing the ability of the mind to remain focused on that which we choose to focus on, rather than on that which the mind tends to focus on. I often say that the mind is like a big puppy, very excited, difficult to control and potentially hazardous, as it jumps around sending vases and whatnot flying all over the place. When you try to meditate (like in seated meditation practice), it's as if you have put the puppy out on the balcony so you can get some peace. The problem is that it will bark, scratch at the door, whimper, anything it can do to get your attention, it will try. Yoga exercises are like throwing the dog a bone to play with. It soon forgets about you and you can get some peace finally.

To reach a state of yoga we need to calm down. There are many methods in Yoga practice to lengthen the exhale, so that the body and the mind can calm down. The body is a good way to the mind, but it's quicker to reach it through the breath. It takes seconds to begin to feel different. Incidentally this is why some say that "the postures are empty". They're just there to serve a purpose, to calm you down, to enable to come into yourself, free of self- judgment, free of self-punishment, free of self-opinion. Just you being you.

Once you get into that place, you can focus the mind on whatever you like. William James said "Our lives are the sum total of what we choose to focus our attention on".

Where is your attention focused?