Om Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.

Oh, how life has dealt me some blows in the last few months.

Through my tears, my sad faces, my anger I've managed to finally lay down a second a job and pick up some yoga classes to sub.

And through those days where all I want to do is pull the covers over my head, I get up, sit on my cushion and practice my pranayama.  Some days I get to the yoga shala.  Some days it's a half practice.  Some days my body aches.  Some days I touch my fingers in Supta Kurmasana with my ankles crossed.  There's progress even in the twilight - or maybe this is the sunrise. 

I find myself impatient with the human race.  Someone pointed out to me that maybe I am simply observing my own impatience with myself.  I opened my blue book this morning - my yoga book, where I write my yoga teachings - to read about the 6 enemies that cover the heart or the arishadvargas, according to Pattabhi Jois (as taught to me by my teachers, Jeff and Harmony Lichty).

1) Kama - desire
2) Krodha - anger
3) Lobha - greed
4) Moha - delusion
5) Mada - pride
6) Matsarya - jealousy

Pattabhi Jois is quoted to have said, "these are not external enemies; but in fact, all our external enemies are born from the arishadvargas, from the internal enemies, so that what we have inside us, what our heart says, is what we are forced to see outside."

So, for me this essentially means, what I see, what frustrates me, what saddens or angers me are mirror images of what exist inside of me - emotions that I need to let go of or become detached from.

Pattabhi Jois also explained that these enemies are destroyed through chanting mantras and through the practice of surya namaskaras (sun salutations).  The mantra he deemed the most important is the mantra from the Krsna Yajur Veda, which I refer to myself as the Bhadram mantra.

Om
Bhadram Karanedhih shrunuyaama devaah
Bhadram pashye-maakshabhir yajatraah
Sthirairangais tushtuvaagumsas tanubhih
Vyashema devahitam yadaayuh
Om Shanthi Shaantih Shaantih

(There is more to the mantra but this is the part I learned while in TT and it is short enough for me to repeat three times in the morning before my pranayama.)

It translates as,
"O gods, may we who are engaged in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge, hear only the auspicious with our ears, see only the auspicious with our eyes, not evil ones, please make my body strong and firm, so that I may have the power to speak only auspicious and divine things, and please make my words unwavering in their value."

I've combined two translations that I have because this is how it sits with me and how I feel it when I repeat this to myself in the mornings.

So this morning I tried to embark on the day with feeling no anger to any one person and above all to try to avoid reacting to anyone's emotions.  I think it was successful, I had to remove myself from a situation once in order to not take someone's bad day personally but I left my job today with no resentment, no annoyance and no anger.

It most definitely wasn't easy.  But nothing's been easy lately.  I might as well embrace it.  I've heard that the faster or more easily someone climbs, the harder they fall.  So maybe it's better that my climb is difficult.  Maybe one day I will land softly.

I hope everyone has a soft landing.

Om. Shantih. Shantih. Shantih.

Namaste.

Pranayama and Breath

I used to find Pranayama Deep Breathing, the start of a Bikram class, very difficult and challenging.  I now enjoy the breathing exercise, it fills me with energy.  

As I experiment with the breath in Ashtanga yoga, it reminds me that finding the breath can be difficult and challenging and that being aware of each breath brings focus to the practice.

I am re reading Iyengar's Light on Life and I like Mr Iyengar's insight on Pranayama:

"Yogic breathing techniques are meditative in their origin and in their effect.  They basically consist of four parts.  They are inhalation (puraka), retention of the breath after inhalation (antara kumbhaka), exhalation (recaka) and retention after exhalation (bahya kumbhaka).  The in-breath should be long, subtle, deep, rhythmic, and even.  The energizing ingredients of the atmosphere  percolate into the cells of the lungs and rejuvenate life.  By retaining one's in-drawn breath, the energy is fully absorbed and distributed to the entire system through the circulation of blood.  The slow discharge of air in exhalation carries out accumulated toxins.  By pausing after the out-breath according to one's capacity, all stresses are purged and drained away.  The mind remains silent and tranquil."

"It is impossible , when we turn our attention to the inner movement of breath, to use our senses externally at the same time.  You cannot also be thinking that you must stop at the supermarket on the way home after work.  Pranayama is the beginning of withdrawal from the external engagement of the mind and senses.  That is why it brings peacefulness.  It is the hinge between extroversion and introversion" 

The second paragraph I find to be very true in my Ashtanga practice.  I have had moments where my mind has wandered, in my home practice, and I have lost everything.  My balance, the asana, my breath.  When I stopped and found my breath and focus I was able to continue.

M.I.A

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve shown my face around here.  I’ve been having a rough go of it and the thought of writing about my yoga was more than I could handle.

The hot room has been hotter than any kind of hell I can imagine.  My muscles have been screaming – hips, calves, lower back, shoulders.  I have burst into tears a few times in the last three weeks.  Pranayama Deep Breathing was more like Pranayama Gasp For What Little Air You Can.  I’ve sat out Stick, Triangle and the entire Spine Strengthening Series.  I’ve been hiding in the far back corner of the room.  My brain would not shut off.   I had cut my practice back from 5 – 6 days a week to 3. 

And then one morning I asked a teacher about my Pranayama.  It was killing me that I could not breathe.  All he said was, “Fake it.”  I know.  Not what you’d expect to hear, right?  But you know what?  It gave me permission to just accept my practice.  To accept myself and yep, to fake it if I’m really having a hard time and feel like I want to scream and cry and fall down on my mat.

And now?  I’m back , baby!  I feel strong.  I feel on fire.  I still have screaming muscles.  I am still tired some mornings.  The room is still hot.  But I’ve found myself again.  I can look at my own eyes in the mirror again.  I like what I see and am happy with me and the simple fact that I am there, in the room.