who am I? where am I?

Thich nhat hanh

Last night we went to see Thich Nhat Hanh speak. It was so loving and healing to be in this master’s presence and to practice with him. At one point he said that a student once asked him if there was anything he wanted to realize before he dies. He answered, “Realize what? Every moment is a realization”.

A student of Yogi Bhajan once asked him “who am I?”, and Yogiji responded, “You are a creature”. It’s important to answer this question in a meditative way, in a yogic way, because this question is a lure. One comes to it with all the discontent a human can muster, but it is an irrelevant question. It doesn’t pertain to our discontent at all. It won’t solve the problem of our discontent because our discontent is not a problem. Our discontent is a message telling us to meditate.

After much effort at meditation we value the present moment. It takes time. This is why no one understands a master unless they practice. Without practice, someone who says “be in the present” sounds like just another salesman. To the person who doesn’t meditate, this sounds like just another advertisement because in our lives we are forced to meditate on advertisements. Everywhere we look someone is advertising, selling. There are logos and catch-phrases, little mantras posted by salesmen. We repeat them in our dreams, our children repeat them at the dinner table. As human beings, this is our way, to repeat, to meditate. Salesmen know this, and the science of advertising has perfected the art of forced meditation. But this is not a healthy practice.

There really is nowhere in our lives that we don’t meditate. But we can choose what thoughts circulate and repeat in our heads, and we can choose what words come out of our mouths, and we can always choose to come to the present moment. Thich Nhat Hanh told us that this is like coming home.

The yogi replaces the question who am I? with the question where am I? because the answer is simple and relevant to human life. We are always in one of four places: in the in breath, in the out breath, or at the two points between. The breath is the present moment of our lives; but we are not accustomed to being there. As we practice being where our breath is, life reveals itself to us, and we understand a teacher’s words. Without practice, there is no way to understand.

And without pain, there is no way to desire to understand. Yogi Bhajan was once asked, “why is there pain?” by another student. He answered, “Because in pain, there is a chance you may pray”. Our path is not the philosopher’s path, with endless wondering over the answerless nature of questions and the infinite indeterminateness of words. Our path is the way of a practice, lit by devotion to ourselves as something much higher than a philosopher. Unlike the philosopher, we have stopped wondering because wondering took us from our practice, and the more we practice the less space we have in our lives to wonder.

malaise is your friend

Osho once asked, if we have no idea where we came from, and have no idea where we are going, then what’s the hurry?

Part of living as a yogi is breaking through the mundane into bliss. Sometimes we get halfway or more through a meditation and we still feel restless, bored, angry and bothered by our practice. Sometimes we get all the way through and nothing changes. But if we keep up, one day we get lost in a mantra or in our breath or in an asana, and that feeling, like waking up, hits us, drops us back into our bodies, and lets us know that we have just broken through again. A feeling of peace sets in, and our inner joy awakens. We see beauty, unity in all.

But the yogi does not chase bliss. Another part of the yogic outlook seems much darker: total detachment from the world. I say ’seems’ because we in the West who attach to the bliss usually fail at this second side of living as a yogi. But the way we fail is instructive. Through the usual mental mirror trick, we identify detachment with denial, asceticism, and depression; in other words, the opposite of bliss.

Depression is the path of poets and philosophers, and it is paved with words. We are so versed in philosophy, it seems, that even our children are catching on. It seems that everyone is depressed because of so many centuries of people failing to come up with the right words that would answer fundamental questions of existence, like What am I? What’s my purpose in life? What is the purpose of life at all? Why is there suffering? and so on. Years of philosophical failure have become a cultural norm, a satire even.

What to do in the face of all this? Yogi Bhajan warned us about cold depression, a combination of self-hate and the pressure of the times. But sometimes it may seem to us that even our yogic practice has abandoned us in our quest for the meaning of life. After all, for all of our practicing, do we now really have a philosophy that tells us meaning? Or is our practice just a bunch of intermittent glimpses into a bliss that we’ll never reach?

The yogi has two criticisms of the Western search for meaning. The first is that we distract ourselves from this search. The other is that we use our minds to search.

Malaise is this ‘hurrying up’ that Osho talked about. The feeling of being a human, the disjointed, out of control feeling of being in a body aimed toward age and death, subject to time and events over which we are never the master, our sleep clouded by dreams we don’t author, our minds distracted by thoughts we can’t direct, this feeling we all have seems like a joke sometimes, and we react by hurrying somewhere to forget it or confront it. When we get depressed, when we isolate ourselves, when we stagnate, we are really hurrying away from the reality of being human.

‘Keep up’ is our mantra these days. Keep up in your practice, keep up in your discipline, in your grace. Keep up not hurrying up, just being with yourself as a yogi, and with the love-hate relationship our practice is all about. Everything falls away in time: it’s not we who detach, it’s our habits, our dramas, and our desire that does. Faith in ourselves as yogis is the only way to experience love and detachment as something other than opposites.

Sickness and Health

watermelon sculpture

According to Patanjali, there are three energies that need to be balanced in human life. Tamas, or inertia, makes us into a couch potato or gives us the staying power to finish a task. Rajas, or activity, gives us the drive to do, to run around, to accomplish, to conquer; or else it gives us an absent-minded busybody mind that gets lost in the details and the drive for personal power. Sattvic energy invites us to simply sit and be passive to life, to develop devotion by avoiding commotion.

Imbalances in these energies can turn a person, a family, or even a society into a manifestation of injustice and tragedy. History teaches us about Tamas, Rajas and Sattva through stories of saints, peasants and kings; and it’s quickly apparent that we have been taught to value Rajas, the kingly energy, over the other two.

All strife in life can be traced to an imbalance in our ability to be steady, active, or meditative. These imbalances are serious, and can lead even the best minds into contradictions.

For example, we found out that we qualify for a diagnosis of what Dr. Steven Bratman calls Orthorexia Nervosa. Describing this serious condition of our time, Dr. Bratman warns us that there is a growing epidemic of “pathological fixation on eating proper food.”

Dr. Bratman, a former cook and organic farmer, has summed up his “disillusionment” with healthy eating with the following conclusion: “Many of the most unbalanced people I have ever met are those who have devoted themselves to healthy eating.”

It seems that this week, we qualify for a diagnosis of Orthorexia Nervosa. For a couple of days now we have been on a watermelon fast to cleanse our gall bladders, kidneys, and liver. We’ve been in a wonderful state of mind, a light, prayerful state, a truly Sattvic state, which has been so nice after so much running around this late summer season.

According to Dr. Bratman, however, we are imbalanced. Apparently, by deviating from the Standard American Diet and embracing “a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health.”, we have gone down the slippery slope of developing an eating disorder in which “the act of eating pure food begins to carry pseudospiritual connotations.”

We are, in fact, not worried at all about being imbalanced in our quest for balance. We are not worried about becoming so spiritual that the very act of eating becomes a devotion. And we are not for a moment confused to the point of believing that health is unhealthy. Although we are not medical doctors like Steven Bratman, we feel pretty confident that we know the difference between sickness and health.

Because life is for spirituality. Everything about it is designed to bring us to awareness of spirit. The original division we are born into, of feeling permanent in a world where nothing is permanent, propels us in a spiritual direction as we experience age, loss, and love. Some people give up, concluding that it’s all a demonic game and that God hates us. Waking from this belief into our spirituality is the real game to be won.

Yogi Bhajan said the we are not human beings having spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Take a day to meditate, to sit, to become Sattvic, to gaze into your lover’s eyes, or just into nature, it doesn’t matter – God gazes also into you.

Growing and Outgrowing

Robert McNamara, who had a distinguished career as a military statistician, lived an interesting dichotomy up until the end of his life. During World War II, he was responsible for calculating populations in urban areas of Japan so as to target bombers to kill the most civilians with the least amount of effort. Later, as president of the World Bank, he gave addresses on the threat of overpopulation. The world, as he saw it, did not have enough to go around for the people living on it – that is, statistically.

This view of the planet not having enough continues today, as the planet’s polluters promise to save the water supply they have destroyed, and governments give corporations the power to sell the earth’s water back to us. The dichotomy is the same: the earth doesn’t have enough. We can do it better.

Are we not part of the earth? When did our mother become our enemy?

There is so much anger at the mother these days. We’re so afraid of her, this woman who provides. We’re so afraid in fact, that we recoil from the very image of her godly ability to provide. Where did this fear of not being provided for come from? It goes hand in hand with our desire for control.

The Great Giver keeps on giving, while those who receive grow weary of receiving.”

This is what we read in Japji. This is how Guru Nanak described the creation. What a different vision! If for one moment we could hold this truth in our hearts, all our desires would become futile, like the unhappiness of wealthy people. There is so much for every desire that desire itself becomes unsatisfying.

Our desire to control is sustained by the myth of scarcity. All economics is based on scarcity. But desire has its own economics. Desire is always desire for recognition, for the self in the eyes of the other. We won the championship – for what? To be recognized by the losers.

You will never find your true self through desire. All your emotions will only ever block your happiness. These are the truths yogis take into their hearts when they practice. And yoga is the technology that allows us to take these truths into our hearts.

We get confused in life when we mix the economics of our desire with the economics of our mother. Who can understand such a thing as mother through the lens of desire? She, the ultimate sacrifice, can hardly be understood in terms of economics, scarcity, and desire.

This is why we chant Rakhe Rakenhar every morning. To affirm the mother within the creation that sustains us. To surrender to god the giver. To receive. Every day we plant the seed of mantra so that our psyche may grow, and that the fantasy of outgrowing our creation, of becoming too big for our mother to contain, of buying and selling her, may diminish.

Food Consciousness! – Food, Inc.

Somewhere along the way in our yogic journey, food becomes important to us. The consciousness we cultivate in our daily practice extends so naturally from body consciousness to consciousness of what goes in our bodies, that it’s perfectly natural for yogis to awaken to the need for a change in diet.

If this is happening to you, or if it has been happening for a while, we urge you to see the movie Food, Inc. If you are American, you may get the impression from Food, Inc. that we don’t really know what is in our food, and that we need a sort of ‘re-education’ about food to really understand what we are putting into our bodies every day.

If you are already quite conscious of what you eat, Food Inc. is still a wonderful movie to see because it raises a needed group consciousness about food. It doesn’t promote any specific food agenda except the ‘Know Your Food’ agenda. So it’s perfect to take a friend to who may not be hip to food conscousness yet.

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more about "Food, Inc Trailer", posted with vodpod

Video from Solstice 2009!

This group of yogis is travelling all over the country to experience different types of yoga and report back to the world. Check out their experience at 3HO’s summer solstice this year!

(NOTE: you’ll have to click on the link below to view the video, that is, until WordPress allows real video embedding!!)

Yoga: The best healthcare reform

We live in changing times. Old hypocricies aren’t working as well as they used to. The science of Psychology, once thought to unlock the scientific potential of the Public Relations Industry and pave the way for the Haves to outwit the Have-nots, is failing. Even as one ear hears those in power speak with the voice of the people, the other ear hears a quality of irony, or pantomime.

This is why we do yoga. Yoga is our healthcare, our insurance, and our protection. The change to the Age of Aquarius means that old ways can’t work anymore. They can’t work because we are changing. We can’t be manipulated anymore. We communicate faster than they can whitewash; we doublecheck our sources; we use our intuition and listen from the heart.

We recently saw the founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, speak in Pasadena. Even as she was put on the President’s “No-Fly” list, and interrogated at airports and harassed by FBI and TSA personnel for her beliefs, she used every opportunity to educate her interrogators about the benefits of a vegan diet.

In the same way, as we encounter people who gravitate toward us to speak of their ills, of their failing mental and physical health, we can use the opportunity to reach out and teach them about yoga – that yoga is for everyone, that it’s not dangerous, that it’s fun, that it’s uplifting, and that through yogic technology people really can change.

As the Aquarian Age comes, it is up to us to reform ourselves, so that we can have a place of sanity in this changing world. For those stuck in the Piscean ways of living, life is getting more perplexing every day.

Travelblog: Thailand

Greetings from Bangkok! This morning we got up for sadhana and headed to Lumpini Park in the heart of Bangkok to join our yogi brothers and sisters in the Amrit Vela. When we got to the park at 5am, it was FULL of people! Stretching, running, aerobicizing, old and young, there were people getting in shape before the sun was up. Loudspeakers broadcast the 1,2,3 of step aerobic workout routines, and we couldn’t help but notice that most of the people out were older folks! What a difference from the U.S., where lifestyles can be so sedentary and parks at night are where we are afraid to go!

We miscalculated, and, unfortunately, sadhana had been scheduled for Saturday instead of Sunday. I blame it on jetlag… anyway, we did OUR sadhana out there on the grass, our long Ek Ong Kars blending with the step aerobic chanting in the beautiful Thai language our ears have adjusted to since arriving.

It was so nice to share our routine with the local Thai, and to realize that kundalini yoga may prescribe a crazy schedule for us (waking up before dawn, taking cold showers), but to the rest of the world, it’s not so crazy to get up before dawn and move the body in order to start the day.

Maybe WE are the crazy ones, we Americans who have been socialized into a “normal” that includes obesity, cancer, and heart disease; sedentary life with minimal social contact and maximum escapism and fantasy. Maybe WE are the ones who need to get up to date with the rest of the world, and get our butts up earlier! Just a thought…

Special Guest Teacher: Roger/Bagwandt Singh!

Sat nam dear ones,

You’ve probably been wondering where we’ve been these past few months, and we don’t blame you! Well, as many of you know, we’ve been busy getting married! So, our newsletter has had to take a backseat.

In just a couple hours, we’ll be on our way to Thailand for our honeymoon. We’re looking forward to enjoying a couple weeks on a tropical island, and then returning refreshed and renewed in early June to teach some great classes (and a new series as well — more info on that coming soon!).

While we’re gone, our good friend Roger/Bagwandt Singh iscovering our classes. He’s planned several special guests and activities, including guitarist Sean Campbell displaying his musical talents, and Tibetan singing bowl meditations!

Roger’s themes for the coming weeks are:

“Energizing the Self”
“Awakening the Dormant Power Within”.

So come and be elevated so you can fully enjoy your weekends. Roger, who will be assisted by our friend Gina, promise to make it a great start for a Friday night, with trance music from Goa and some partnership yoga kriyas as well!

The class info remains the same, but in case you forgot:

7-8:30 p.m. Fridays
The Awareness Center,
2801 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
(626) 796-1567

Love,

Baba and Nimrita

The search for inspiration

Last night we went to a movie together, and afterward decided that what we liked the most about it was the special effects. Looking around us at the flat, uninspired faces of the departing moviegoing crowd, it seemed like we were not alone.

As we slept that night, visions of the movie continued to play in our consciousness, and it was difficult to get to sleep. And there came a realization that it is the mind’s desire to be entertained, to space out before bright lights and thunderous sounds and emotional intrigue. All that time, effort and money had been spent to entertain the mind, while the consciousness went along for the ride.

One of the most insidious enemies of spiritual practice is boredom. Boredom counts the minutes, forgets the past, and dreads the coming hour. It saps our passion and invites us to retaliate by finding inspiration. This is just another game of duality.

Don’t get me wrong. Reading a book, listening to music, or going to a certain teacher’s yoga class in order to kick start our personal mojo is a great thing, and we need it. But some of us do crazy things in order to find inspiration, like move across the world, leave a lover, or quit a job. All of us know someone (maybe ourselves!) who seems to always search and never find.

The search for inspiration usually leads us to sever ties or form new ones, to abandon or join, or both at once. It could be that we have found something wonderful in our lives, like the first yoga class that moved our souls to practice at home, or the first meditation in which we found peace, or the first dharma talk that summed up our most personal pain. These first experiences of inner awakening are priceless, and we would do most anything to re-experience them, especially when boredom pecks away at our practice.

But practice means commitment, and we must understand that commitment will sooner or later bring us face to face with the boredom-inspiration duality. Will we transcend this maya? Or will we backtrack, abandon our practice, and search for a new way to remember that initial spark that started us on our path in the first place?

It’s important to keep in mind that our attempts to remember this spark should give us forward momentum in our ability to commit, rather than drive us to abandon and join, repeat and forget, over and over. As yogis we will necessarily tread the fine line between breakthrough and backtrack, and be deceived by our feelings as each approaches.

There may be nothing harder for us than finding that our meditative center has moved somewhere else, and for us to feel as if we don’t know how to find it again. But in these moments of uninspiration, boredom and even anxiety we can become again the new student we were, without abandoning, without joining, without searching. Don’t forget that when we commit to using yoga to connect to our Source, the Source commits to us as well. Be still, feel what you are feeling, and wait for the creation to serve your prayers.