Learnings from philosophy class

Rest and study day. Only one more week until the exam so I am going to put in some solid study time. And I am going to use this blog to help me study, especially the philosophy. So continue reading at your own peril...

The Five Points of Yoga

We have been given a couple of different sets of things to remember. This set is specific to the physical practice of yoga. If we go on the teach yoga, we have been instructed to emphasize these to our students. Yoga is a system of self-discipline based on simple living and high thinking. The body is the vehicle of the soul, and like an automobile, it has certain requirements. We have been practicing these this month, and hopefully we have created good habits that will continue back in the real world!

1) proper exercise (asana) - the lubricating system of the car

2) proper breathing (pranayama) - the battery

3) proper relaxation (savasana) - the cooling system

4) proper diet - the fuel

5) positive thinking and meditation (vedanta and dhyana) - the responsible driver

Brahman = Atman

I remember learning this in world religions class at Westtown. This means that Brahman (the infinite, eternal, supreme reality) is the same as Atman (absolute consciousness of the individual). They are one.  So we (our true self) is god, and god is ourself.

Sounds simple, right? But there are a few things that get in the way of us knowing this truth. Absolute consciousness is veiled by the upadhis, or limiting adjuncts. These are simply (or not so simply) the body and the mind. Jiva is the individual soul, it is atman that identifies with the body and mind. Another thing is maya or the illusion, the creative power of Brahman. Everything in this world is maya, it is not real. Brahman plus maya is Isvara, or Brahman with attributes. Isvara is further subdivided into the hindu trinity of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Siva (the destroyer). To make things complicated, all of these have many incarnations and therefore many names. But the basic idea here is that "the names are many but god is one". And we are part of that same "oneness", because there is no "other". The meaning of 'yoga' is UNION. 

The 3 Gunas

Maya, or creation, is made up of 3 essential qualities. They are present in varying degrees in everything, from the gross (physical) to the subtle (the mind, emotions, energies). These are the 3 gunas, which i will describe further because we have learned about them a lot:

Sattva

Sattva in the mind is purity and knowledge. Sattva in the universe is information, knowledge, and preservation.

Rajas

Rajas in the mind is desires, ego, restlessness and attachment. Rajas in the universe is energy, change, and action.

Tamas

Tamas in the mind is dullness and lethargy. Tamas in the universe is matter and solidity. It is the veiling quality that makes us think that what we know is reality.

Yogis try to cultivate sattva in all things. Sattvic food, sattvic environments, sattvic personal care. Doing this makes sattva in the mind grow.

The Four Paths of Yoga

If you haven't noticed, or if you are new to my blog, I have been doing a lot more than stretching this month. Yoga, or "union with the divine" is pursued through four paths:

Karma Yoga 
The yoga of action, of selfless service. The karma yogi dedicates himself to serving the god who is present in all living things, without attachment to the 'fruits' or the outcomes of action. This sounds easy enough, but really it is not. I think about the volunteering that I have done. I typically do it because I like the organization and the work it does, or because I feel good after. Apparently this is good, but not good enough.

Bhakti Yoga 
The yoga of devotion, the approach of pure love. Supposedly the easiest form of yoga or path to god, but I am not sure. The bhakti yogi channels all emotions into devotion to and love of god in a personalized form. Forms of devotion include chanting, japa (repeating a mantra), and pujas (ceremonies and rituals). We are going to have the opportunity to be "initiated" into a mantra, which is associated with a particular deity who we feel strongly about (the ista-devata). I am thinking about it, but I could use some guidance.

Raja Yoga 
The scientific, systematic approach. First you control the body and breath, andthen the mind. There are 8 steps, which i will go into later if I feel like it. I have to know them for the exam.

Jnana Yoga 
The intellectual approach. Through study of scripture and philosophy, the jnani learns viveka or discrimination between the real and unreal, and vairagya or dispassion and unattachment. But the intellect can only take you so far. Then you must discard it and simply KNOW. This one is the most abstract. I don't quite get it.

Ok brunch time, this is enough for now. more studies later. 

Karma and synchronicity

Karma is an accepted fact of life here, even though not everyone comes from a spiritual tradition that espouses karma. It is central to the yogic understanding of the world. I have always liked the idea of karma, that for every action there is a reaction, but it was challenging to accept when I first got here. I was caught in the analytical frame of mind, and thinking about the scientific criteria for determining causation. Needless to say, this frame of mind was not working too well for me. The yoga philosophy that we are being taught has been passed along from teacher to student for thousands of years. I find it hard to believe that the teachings haven't gotten manipulated in some way. Remember that telephone game we played as kids? I would think it might work something like that, the message gets pretty mixed up as it is passed along the chain. But we are told that as the philosophy and teachings of yoga are passed down, they are not modified or changed, even as time changes, because the wisdom is eternal. Hmmm. Karma is an appealing idea but tough to wrap my mind around, especially when i think about it from a reductionist scientific point of view. You can't prove karma, particularly because, as we have been taught, the karma that we experience is most often a result of actions in previous lifetimes, not this one.

I had this cool feeling of synchronicity with the most recent speaker series, on the topic of neuroscience and religion, given that in a way I am here because of my brain injury, and they were talking about the brain!

I suppose its not really that much of a synchronicity, since the brain has been a really popular topic in the news lately. One thing that was a source of hope for my parents after my accident (and for me when I was aware of it) was that recent work that has shown the plasticity of the brain, or how you can teach an old brain new tricks. Every time you do something new, you create new connections in the brain. One of the scientists discussed the effects that spiritual practices can have. He said that the practice of meditation creates a lot of new neurological connections. I was busy building neurons after my accident with brain games and physical exercise, but I never practiced meditation or any mindfulness exercises  beyond yoga. So while I had been thinking of this yoga course as a form of brain rehab in a more abstract sense, now I know I am here literally building my brain!

One speaker was a philosopher who specializes in Advaita Vendanta, which is an ancient collection  of hindu texts from (I think) about 3000 BC. He made this interesting connection between the parietal lobe of the brain and the ancient sanscrit words for "self" and "other". The parietal lobe is the part of the brain responsible for our sense of embodied self and other (as in, I am here and you are there). In neuroscience, this is called "grasping". The sanscrit words for "self" and "other" in the Advaita Vedanta litterally mean "the grasper" and "the grasped". I think this was a bit of a stretch of the definition of association, but it was an interesting story nonetheless.

The two neuroscientists talked about the challenges of studying religion and the brain when there are not a lot of well defined terms. First of all, science takes the brain and the mind to be the same thing. Religious philosophies like yoga take them to be different. Second, neurological models are correlative, meaning that a person does X activity, and you see Y appear on the MRI scan. But phenomena like consciousness have no visible manifestation. Spiritual experiences result in a confluence of brain states that do not fit with any models. Apparently, even what scientists used to think they know appears to not be true. For example, we used to think that activities are localized in certain parts of the brain for certain functions. Actually, any behaviour affects the whole brain. Second, a meta analysis of MRI scans of the 'resting but awake' mode show that the mind is in fact always active, even in deep sleep and, to a certain extent, a coma. The mind is constantly cycling. So this is scientific evidence of the 'monkey mind'!! Imagine that! Overall, they highlighted the inadequacy of current methodologies, and even vocabulary, to study and describe these 

Another speaker told us about how psychologists have borrowed meditation and mindfulness techniques from yoga and buddhism, secularizing them and removing their deeper philosophical and spiritual significance, and they are still extremely effective therapies. I recognized a lot of the scientific namespace the therapies from the many systematic review titles I read over in my work for health evidence. The speaker told us that these studies are reducing these practices to parts that make up the whole, and they are likely missing something much deeper. The science is not explaining the experience, but explaining it away. 

The conclusion of the symposium was that scientists are in need of new methodologies for answering questions about religion and the brain, but also that science and spirituality need not be considered antagonistic, indeed they are complementary. 

This post turned into more of a review. Unfortunately I mainly just copied out some notes that I had taken, because I haven't really had the time to think about this more, even though I wanted to. I actually wrote this overt the course of 3 days, and as I am finishing it now I realize I forget most of it. In my next post I will write more about the workings of the ashram and how I am adjusting to the program. Good night!

First day off!

We get one full day off a week, and today is that day! even though it has not been a full week yet, I am still so grateful. I am getting used to the schedule, but I just feel like i need time to absorb everything!

But what an amazing day off it was. I got to nap, go to the beach, do laundry, talk to my mom, and I got a massage. I think the massage was the real game changer. I have felt nearly euphoric ever since. A lot of people who saw me after remarked that I looked brighter. Oh what a good massage can do. 

I am hoping to carry this feeling into tomorrow. Tomorrow we begin reading the Bhagavad Gita. It's interesting to feel so immersed in Hinduism, when most of the people present are not Hindu. This morning we participated in a puja (devotional ceremony) to Ganesha. Ganesha is the elephant-headed god, and in the puja we called upon him to remove any obstacles that we will face. In India, elephants have been used in clearing the jungle and in wars to trample down the enemy's settlement. I guess that is the connection. We did some chanting, and then we all got in a line to make an offering and burn incense. I felt a bit uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what was supposed to happen and what I was meant to do. I don't think I bowed enough. Oh well. Swami Saroopananda explained it after we were finished. It would have been nice to get the meaning before. It kind of felt like pretending. 

The way the Hindu deities have been explained to us, each god that we call upon in our chants is an avatar of one true god (Brahman). But you call upon the different deities or manifestations of god depending on the situation. Swami Sivananda said that all religions are the same at their essence. There is one true god, one ultimate supreme reality, but we can worship him/her/it in all its names and forms. There are symbols of different religious traditions all around the ashram. So gradually I have accepted that I am not here to be converted to Hinduism, but there are a lot of things to be learned from Yogic philosophy (which I am not even sure is the same as Hinduism). So I can participate in the Ganesha puja not because I believe in Ganesha as a god, but because I am asking a higher power for some support in clearing the crazy jungle of my mind so that I can truly benefit from the TTC experience. 

First day of teacher training

The Yoga Teacher Training course has officially begun. We had our orientation yesterday and then a formal initiation ceremony, in front of the whole ashram at satsang. The ceremony involved making an offering of a flower with the priest, and then getting blessed with some coloured powders by the swami. It was a lengthy ordeal. 2 and a half hours of sitting cross legged on the floor and chanting. But it was really a cool experience to be a part of. I took one picture, but I am having difficulty posting photos directly to the blog so you can see it in the photostream.

There are 55 people in my class. Mostly women ages 25-35, with about 10 men. This morning, we had to stand up in front of the whole ashram at satsang and introduce ourselves. We had to say where we were from, what we did, and why we have come to the ashram. I had such a good thing to say. But then I got up there in front of 250 strangers and I freaked out. I was going to talk about my accident and how I sort of see this teacher training program as a last step in my rehabilitation, in order to work on the emotional and psychological side of things, which I really haven't done much of. I want to learn some practical skills for dealing with the emotional challenges of life. But I panicked, so I just said that yoga helped me after my accident and now I want to learn "more". 

We received our uniforms. Mom, I will match your house. Our uniform includes a yellow tshirt and white pants. Yellow represents knowledge and white represents purity. We have two sets, and we have to wear them for satsang and lecture, but not for yoga asana class or free time. Or karma yoga!

Part of the program is to do an hour of service to the ashram each day. This is called karma yoga. My karma yoga is to take the roll call for half of the students in my class at the beginning (and end) of every class, satsang, or lecture. It is a little bit stressful, but its also nice to say hello to 25 people 12 times a day. With a bit of reflection, I can understand why it was my karma to get this job. Crowds and busy situations make me anxious, and I don't like people being mad at me. So it will definitely be good practice.

Today we had our first experience of the schedule that I mentioned. It was rather hectic and exhausting. Its definitely not going to be a chill month of lying on the beach and doing yoga. I didnt even go to the beach today! We had two yoga asana classes (the physical practice of yoga), and two lectures. One of the lectures was on meditation, and the other was about the 4 phases of life that people go through, or at least the ones people went through in India 3000 years ago. They are not really applicable to modern life, but the take home message was that we will not do the same thing our whole life, our lives will change, and change is inevitable. Wow look at that, I just did my homework! For our philosophy class we have to write a 1-page summary of the day's lecture. We will occasionally do that for our other lectures as well.

This course is a lot more sitting than I thought. That is the worst thing so far. I am fine with waking up at 5:30, I am fine with two meals a day. But right now my knees are screaming at me because we sit cross legged for 7-8 hours of the day. I wish I had some powerful painkillers. But that wouldnt be very yogic of me. Maybe there is a black market for that sort of thing... Just kidding.

I hope it doesn't sound like I am whining. But thats how it is with everyone right now, we are all whining. The majority of the class is struggling. With the scheduling, with the discipline, with the lack of food and sleep, the sitting... but I know we will get used to it. One of the first things  they told us in the orientation was that we had to just surrender to the process. So I am making a resolution now to all of the world wide web. I will not whine any more. It is distracting me from really listening and absorbing all the great things that I came here for.

Paradise Island

Actually, thats the name of this island, I'm not just saying that!!

I have been in the ashram for 2 days now. It is a beautiful green jungle garden with several wooden platforms, small buildings, and tents scattered throughout. The island Paradise Island is located just across a bay from Nassau, on the larger island of New Providence. The ashram has some glamorous neighbours including the gargantuan Atlantis Resort and Nicolas Cage. 

The ashram is very full, Rumor has it the total population is 250. My course has 55 students, most of whom are here already. Lots of people to meet! New friends!! 

The teacher training course starts tomorrow, so I have been taking it easy thus far. From all reports, it will be very intense. Even though it hasn't started yet, I am still attending morning and evening satsangs. Satsang is a gathering of the whole ashram. We meditate for half an hour, chant mantras for half an hour, and then listen to a guest speaker or one of the swamis speak about yogic scripture, philosophy, or other related subjects. I think they are meant to speak for an hour, but it is often more. It is pretty hard to sit cross-legged on the floor for all that time and stay focused, but I am sure it will get better. I think I will sing more in the coming month than i have or will in the rest of my life. Maybe I will actually become a half decent singer. Top 40 here I come. Haha if sanscrit chanting made the top 40. 

The lacto-vegetarian food is delicious. They don't really use spices or onions or garlic (or salt) so its all quite bland, but my taste buds will adjust. I have gone to two yoga (asana) classes so far, just the open classes. They follow a different style of practice here, so it is an adjustment. When the course starts I will be doing 4 hours of yoga (asana) a day. Here they are quite emphatic that the physical practice of yoga is a tiny part of the yogic life, so the Teacher Training course will of course involve asana but also so much more. I am a little nervous, but everyone I have spoken with says that the course is really amazing and also really challenging.

It is a little rainy right now, which is why I am on the computer instead of at the beach!! I was a tad worried about my tent, but I think it will be ok. I put a tarp on top of it for the rain. I have been sleeping really well because of all the fresh air, I think. My skinny thermarest is more comfortable than I would have expected!

Click the link to my photostream on the right side menu to see pictures. The ipad app for blogger is not great.