Day 5: I will never need a walker, a surgery, or a hip/knee replacement..

Day 5:

Form.

Take two pieces of wood, from different forests, opposite ends of the world; cross them so that one lies perpendicular to the other, and you have one of the most important forms in the world today -- a cross. The two pieces of wood were totally empty of meaning before they were put together. Suddenly, as soon as someone puts them together and stresses the importance of them, millions of people wear it, honour it, and worship it. It’s interesting isn’t it? This goes for all religions and even yoga. For some, the asanas in yoga, specifically Iyengar and Ashtanga, are absolute. You cannot deviate from them, you must honour these poses and each one has a definite meaning and symbolism. Symbolisms are everywhere! What does it all mean? Why are these forms, which have no significance in reality, are honoured and respected worldwide? People who do not know the meaning of a form, such as the significance of Mother Mary, do not understand nor recognize the form. The meanings of forms are completely relative to people in that culture, country, race, or religion. I have no idea what some of the symbols in Buddhism represent, yet to Buddhists, they are the absolute truths and signify big ideas in their spiritual faith. 

In class today, we learned that forms in yoga are important for the safety of the student, but that we should not believe in them to the point where they are the absolute truth. Awareness of your body and your spirit are more important than form. There is no one thing forever; forms can change, people will change. Therefore, place more emphasis on the person than on the posture. 

This is why it’s important to think about the posture before you do it. Will this hurt my joints? Is this really necessary? Am I placing too much stress on my body? Don’t automatically assume that the posture is good. Instead, reflect about which muscles and bones are being used and determine if the posture will have a positive or negative effect on your body. 

In our culture today, we are all afraid of aging. I know when I think about being a wrinkling old woman who can’t stand up straight and needs a walker to get around everywhere, I shudder! If you think about it, where else in the world, besides the West, do old people walk around with walkers and, I guess roll around, with wheelchairs? In the third world countries I’ve been too, I’ve either seen no old people or the ones I did see were walking straight, balancing a huge bag of goods on their head! If you become hunched over and can’t walk in these countries, you die because there is no medical help you can afford or seek out. Life is survival. Now, we are lucky being able to live such long lives here, but when you are at that old person state, are you really lucky anymore? Being confined to a retirement home or a walker does not seem very lucky, or fortunate at all. 

I think, the reasons for the state of elderly people in our culture are prescription pills and the lack of exercise. First off, pills do not destroy the infection, inflammation, virus, or disease. The mask it and put it off until it comes back stronger, and more vicious towards your body. Yes they help now, but what about in a couple years from now? Isn’t there a better solution? I believe there is: PREVENTION. Same with exercise -- exercise now to prevent being all bent out of shape when you’re older. Don’t run because that destroys your knee joints, but swim, do yoga, go on the elliptical machines at the gym. Change your perception about age. Age does not need to be painful. Your mind is extremely powerful. I believe that it can change the course of aging. Say to yourself: I am going to be a fit and powerful older person; I will be strong and beautiful; I will not abuse my body and take countless loads of pills (which then require more pills to counter the ones you’ve already taken); and, I will change my lifestyle so I can achieve this goal. If you believe in your heart and mind that you will be strong, I believe you will be! If you are not a victim of your age and don’t adhere to the stereotypes of age, you won’t and you will be one of those lucky persons at age 83 who is still teaching yoga (saw a picture online in class!). I think its amazing and I definitely am changing my perception of aging. I will not be that hunched over woman who needs a walker. I want to stay active and teach yoga till I’m 90! Who says I can’t? You wanna say it? Come on, I dare you because that would make my day. This lifestyle change is all about attitude and your stage of consciousness. Stage of consciousness means basically your state of mind. If you feel like aging is just going to happen whether you like it or not, and you are doomed to a retirement home; well yeah, you are doomed because you’re already thinking you’re doomed. 

I want to have healthy internal organs when I’m 90. Appearance doesn’t matter that much, as long as my mind is sharp and my liver is functioning, I’m good to go. No pills, no knee/hip replacements, no pacemaker, no surgeries. This is how I’m changing my life, TODAY. I am choosing to be healthy for the rest of my life. I will not succumb to the diseases of the Western World. What have I got to lose? My life? No, I will not lose my life; I have found my life.

DAY 4: A POEM OF POSTURES

Day 4:

Yoga is so beautiful. When I’m on my mat, mindfully moving my body into a poem of postures, I smile, I am in bliss. Nothing can harm me on my mat, I am safe. I am beautiful, I am free. In yoga, there is no judgement, no competition. No one expects anything of me, yet I expect everything from myself. I am not pressured by external influences, I go at my own pace, I push myself when I feel comfortable. I sit in Sukasana, knees bent, one foot in front of the other; avoiding the act of crossing my legs as it places tension on the joints. I take another cushion to sit on because my hip-bones hurt. Lightly touching my thumb with my fore-finger, creating Jnana mudra, the mudra of wisdom, a hand gesture which increases energy in the body. Breathing in and out of my nostrils, I inhale into my belly as it expands out. As I exhale, my tummy deflates into my body. BREATHE. I forget about the room, the hot sun shining down on my back through the windows, the tightness in my left hip-joint. I focus on my breathing, everyone else seems to disappear, not because I want them to but because I am so caught in my own breath; I can’t concentrate on everyone else’s actions. Suddenly, my torso starts moving back and forth, slightly, only a tiny bit but enough I can notice. It feels good; I feel peaceful moving, breathing, and creating energy. A moment passes; was it a moment? Was it an hour? Was it a year? I dart open my eyes, afraid that I’ve completely lost touch with reality. Looking around, I check my body. I haven’t been breathing! My mind suddenly realizes that I can’t remember the last time I took a breath. I’m not dying, I’m not searching for breath, I just haven’t taken one. I quickly inhale, just out of habit, out of the need to fill my lungs because that’s what I’ve been taught. “What was that?” I ask myself, “Why wasn’t I breathing?”. “Where was I?”

I learn later that the ancient yogis would stick their head in the sand for hours or days without breathing. It was said that they converted prana, or energy, into the oxygen requirement. That was how they were able to stay in the ground, meditating or contemplating, for that amount of time. I don’t know what happened to me, but I love fantasizing about the fact that I may have converted my energy into oxygen.

In lecture today, we talked about the three groups that humanity is divided into: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Visual people use a lot of adjectives and descriptive words; they think in images. Auditory people use language that relates to sound; they perceive reality through sound and understand something best when they hear it described. Kinesthetic people understand through feeling and touching and use language relating to how they felt different aspects of reality. Their knowing occurs through physical movement and touching other people or objects. 

In the regular school system, the school combines all of humanity (all three groups) into one classroom. In kindergarten, all the three types are engaged: visual kids are interested in all the bright colours and posters; the auditory kids are intrigued by songs and rhythmic repeating of sounds; and the kinesthetic kids are engaged by the toys, painting, and crafts. However, after this year, all of a sudden the kids are put into a classroom that doesn’t have all these aspects. The visual students may be engaged from the chalkboard and the auditory students can be stimulated from the lecture, but there is hardly anything for the kinesthetic. Even the visual and auditory students suffer from the lack of diversity in their areas. This is why some people thrive in elementary school and suffer in high school. My boyfriend Doug is a great example of this. He excelled in some years of elementary school because he is highly kinesthetic and there were more art projects and creativity involved in these years. However, once he reached high school, his grades fell tremendously and he wasn’t able to become fully engage because nothing he was taught fell into his hands (literally). It was more directed at the auditory and visual students, even still lacking in my opinion. Now he is at an art school where his kinesthetic side is completely involved and he is getting the best grades in the class! 

This reality makes me frustrated. Being homeschooled for most of my years in school, I don’t know how I will ever send my kids to regular school. There is just so much more I learned about myself, about how to live in the real world, and about how to relate to people on a different level than with people my age. I feel like I’ve just had so many more experiences, even without traveling on the boat, that is a result from being homeschooled than other people at the regular schools. What am I to do then, if I want to be successful with my career and raise my kids the way I want? I want to do both, and I don’t think anyone telling me I can’t is going to help me at all. I HAVE TO FIND A WAY! Actually, if anyone tells me I can’t do anything, I immediately want to do it. Just ask my parents! If they said don’t jump off the bridge, I’d jump. Don’t cross the street! I’m crossing. In some areas, that may be just ignorant stubbornness. However, I’d like to think that you never get anywhere standing still -- right Dad? 

DAY 3: manifestation in yoga

Day 3:

Ahh, 2 hour class of beautiful stretching to start the morning off. What could be better? I forgot my yoga mat this morning, which at Prana Yoga College, is almost like committing manslaughter. However, my wonderful boyfriend Doug brought it to me just as I was trying to scope out if I could steal a yoga mat from someone (ie. see if anybody brought two). Thank you Douglas! I shudder to think what my punishment might be if I tried to snatch someone else’s yoga mat; probably death by too much tofu and rice.

I’m excited to say that Shakti talked about MANIFESTATION today!! I was so pumped to hear her say that word and everything after my head followed in enthusiastic nods while taking extremely detailed notes with multiple stars and arrows. 

MANIFESTATION:

Some of you may be wondering what this concept is. What does it mean to manifest something? To manifest means to alter your reality by having intense thoughts or concentration levels which, supposedly, effect events, objects, and people to align with those thoughts. This is an example of manifesting negativity: you think negative about your life, you are depressed with your relationships, believe yourself to be a victim of other people’s bad actions, or think that you are worth nothing. These thoughts, whether they are true or not, are actually manifesting negative events, people, and objects to come into your life. Because you are obsessing over negativity, other negativity outside in the world is automatically attracted to you. Even if your life isn’t really negative, but you think it is, it will attract negative things to you. Intent and information can change your reality because your brain doesn’t know the difference. If you say to yourself, my life is positive, I have great relationships, and an amazing job with lots of opportunities then the neurons in your brain, whether or not you have those things, will start to form alternate pathways so that, in time, you will actually believe it and will attract positive things to yourself. The neurons in the brain doesn’t know what is good or bad, they are just cells. If you think positively and form those pathways in your brain, even if its just faking it, the cells will stayed charged with that positive energy. 

Okay so we talked about manifesting emotions, but this doesn’t explain manifesting things or the attraction of objects. The whole idea with manifesting things or events to take place is the act of writing and repeating your intent in the present. For example, this past summer I became a believer in manifestation just because of how much it happened to me. For the first month and a half, I wanted a hammock so much. I told everyone about my want of a hammock and I thought about myself in my hammock swinging in between the trees almost every day and night. I put all my intent out there that I wanted a hammock and that was that! Lo and behold, a friend who had gone back to the Big Island, never to be heard from again, turned up unexpectedly back on Kauai with a hammock just for me. Networking, as it appears in this manifestation, played an apparent role. If you want something enough, and tell other people about this want while thinking about it daily and writing it as often as possible, it will come to you. Manifestation is a power that should be used with responsibility especially since greediness has negative attributes attached to it. 

When thinking about manifestation, there should be no ‘no’s, not’s, never’s, un’s, or dis’s’ (any negative words or pre/suffixes that denote negativity). This is important because, the energy that drives this manifestation does not understand that negative language concept -- it is man-made. Therefore a manifestation should read like this:

“I want a hammock” or “I want a blue-stripped hammock that is made of cloth” and not,

“I want a hammock but not one that is blue”. Your intent has to be specific on what you want, not what you don’t want. 

Manifestation can take a long time; my experiences have lasted about 2 to 3 months. One of the most important things about manifestation, I’ll repeat it again, is RESPONSIBILITY! My boyfriend and his roommate, Ryan, play a lot of Halo. I have gotten so angry at Doug for playing so much of this stupid video game that I have repeatedly told him that I wished his video game would break. Well, just a few days ago, they took the disc out of the Xbox, a day or a couple hours after previously playing it, and saw that it had an inch and a half long crack that ran straight through it. They have no idea how it happened since the disc had been fine when they played it last and had not been taken out of the Xbox since then. I believe that I actually manifested the breakage of their game disc -- this is what’s called irresponsible or negative manifesting: when you manifest something that hurts someone else. Be careful what you wish for. This kind of manipulation in manifestation is called black magic because of the negative effects it causes for the manifestor and manifestee. 

More simply stated, do not go out of your house grumpy because you are affecting the world with your emotions! We’ve all seen the domino effect of grumpiness and anger that continues from person to person just in everyday life from the taxi cab driver, to the working mom, to the cashier, and finally to a husband who just can’t take it anymore. This is irresponsible manifestation because you are manifesting that negative energy which is then negatively affecting other people. 

Moral of the story, if you want something, don’t keep it inside - tell the world! Think positively and it may come to you sooner than you think. Try it out! What negative thing can come from it if you are thinking positively? 

DAY 2: YOGA YOGA YOGA

Day 2:

There was no yoga class today, which was a slight disappointment, especially since the day was spent arranging my ass in between pillows on the floor listening to a lecture. However, Shakti was speaking about the philosophy of yoga, which took my mind off of the fact that my “sit-bones” were swearing at me -- something very ‘un-yogaish’ as my mother would probably say! 

Yoga has been regarded as three different practices: a religion, a science, and a spiritual practice. In India, yoga is viewed as a religion. The practitioners follow specific disciplinary actions, dietary guidelines, and daily requirements to fulfill the absolute truths of yoga. What I wonder, in regards to religion, is how can holding anything as an absolute truth add any development to the growth of the mind? I think that the mind constantly interprets situations to see your own reality. Fate, for example, is a situation where the mind interprets a past situation to define and give reason to what happens to in the present. It seems that this interpretation is completely foresight in these instances. Fate, or someone’s will, cannot be determined by anyone since we all judge by our own experiences; which, in reality, is limited in their existence. Our experiences are limited because we know only what we see, hear, and feel and therefore, can solely interpret situations due to these limited senses. Yoga is a practice, not a religion in my opinion, that can be used to tune your mind to reduce the noise of interpretations to realize the reality of the situation beyond our limited senses. There is no absolute truth about yoga; it is just a practice. 

Shakti went into the science of yoga briefly, basically stating that yoga has known about the body way before modern science. I can see where she’s coming from but it was very brief and I’m skeptical that the ancient yogis really knew what they were doing in regards to every specific organ and ligament. 

She asked all the students to write down what spirituality meant to them. This is what I jotted down quickly:

Spirituality is the essence of questioning perceived truths and thinking about different philosophies/beliefs that may add love and light to life. It is also the act of questioning the self, wondering “Am I authentic in my action, beliefs, and self?”

Spirituality is the process of rising above supposed DNA programming of putting the self into certain evolutionary roles and functions in society. These certain roles include reproduction, survival, food, shelter, defense of territory, raising and training the young for the future, and making a living. Everyone does these things, but I wonder, do they do these acts because they want to or because it is expected of them? Do they want to find a mate or have they really been programmed into thinking they want a mate? Are they authentic to their selves or not? All our emotions and instincts are driven from the programmed need to survive. People feel lonely today as an instinct because we used to live in tribes and big families. We feel programmed to get married, make a living, train our young for the future, and retire at an old age and succumb to the ‘reality?’ of retirement homes. 

Shakti explained that yoga transforms the body, mind, and consciousness beyond all programming. 

Just as a side note, I’m not saying that I believe in everything that Shakti says. I’m just extremely interested in this topic and am writing off of my notes in class. It’s a really great study technique to go over the material after class and it seems to settle itself nicely in my mind. This is primarily a place where I can write what the lecture was about and ask my own questions while adding my own insights here and there.

Anyway, she stressed that everyone needs to be deprogrammed from all we know so that we can all make our own authentic choice. There is a need to master drives and acknowledge the instinct to achieve self-transformation. 

When you’re spiritual, you shouldn’t have the need to change the world, there should only be a need to change yourself. There is no absolute truth, so who are you to try and convert people? You can stand up for what you believe in but while you do, you can’t start another war to make them believe in the same thing. This war originates from suffering and the need to change -- we perceive life to be related to suffering but in reality, life is just life (neither good nor bad). If we solely identify with the body (war is a physical thing, as well as negative comments or actions) and the body is fragile, then we are more prone to suffering. Suffering, in its existence, is a result of the perceptions of the mind, or in other words, the interpretations that we make from our limited understanding. The way to avoid suffering is to realize that your self is not the absolute truth and to not identify with the body as your true self. When we identify ourselves with something lesser than we are, then we are obviously more prone to feeling worse about our existence. Materialism also stems from this and the fact that we gain an identity from calling materials ‘our own’. The usage of the word ‘my’ indicates the need to put the self in relation to material things -- my food, my family, my country, my god. These are all situations where people gain identity from things that don’t really exist in their own identity; therefore, are lesser than yourself. They are just concepts or perceptions that, when identified with to define your self, do nothing to add growth to your life. 

True freedom is letting go of this small self that is prone to suffering and the identification of things lesser than the self. Stop trying to make sense of the things on earth because the way we experience reality is the way we’ve been programmed to see it. Shakti said something interesting here, she said, “not all questions are relevant because the mind can create an endless amount of questions, most of which are not worth being answered because they have no relevance”. I wondered about this for awhile and while I love asking questions, I can see her point. What is the use of asking, lets say: ‘is there other life out in the universe’, when that question in general is derived from our own experience of reality on earth? Is there oxygen on other planets? Can plants grow there? These questions are all irrelevant because there could be endless different possibilities on other planets of which we have no experience. Spirituality, and a disciplined practice of it, enables you to recognize that you live in a limited capacity of the mind and then expands the perceptions of the mind to explore a new reality. The whole point is to avoid ignorance, the act of not knowing yet trying to make sense of it all, which will remove us from suffering, the feeling of uselessness because our limited experiences cannot understand everything. 

So here ends Day 2. A full day of philosophy, questioning, and understanding that I have a limited understanding (which is now, not so limited?). Please feel free to ask questions on something if you do not think I was clear. I would love to have feedback on my article and see if I can’t explain things more clearly to you. 

Yoga Teacher Training: DAY 1

Day 1: 

I was so excited for my first day of Yoga Teacher Training at Prana Yoga College in Vancouver, BC. I arrived, on time surprisingly, to the Centre of Peace in the heart of funky Kitsilano. The training takes place in the Great Hall of the building -- a beautiful room with huge bay windows and 30ft ceilings. As I crept into the room, feeling a little intimidated and unsure of what to expect, I was greeted by several women, milling around the outskirts of the room, not really sure what to do or what to say. I stuffed my overweight backpack in the corner of the room and joined in on the uncomfortable and shy feeling that hung throughout the Hall. After grabbing my course-pack, I took a seat in the half-circle of chairs, careful to leave a chair empty between me and the person beside me. I don’t know why I do this; I think it might be because I like my space and hate it when random people sit so close to me. Anyway, as the students took their seats in the half-moon stage, a gentle murmuring of greetings arose from the women and the single man taking the course. Suddenly, a woman entered from the outside of the circle. Dark hair cascaded down her back, spilling onto a blue velvet cape and a turquoise velvet gown underneath. She walked with such confidence that everyone stopped talking and stared wide-eyed at this goddess. The woman flew past the chairs and into the centre of the group.

“I am Shakti,” she announced, “and I will be teaching you yoga.”

         Her strong Israeli accent thundered around our ears; rings glittering and eyes flashing, she was a celestial being. At once, I felt amazed and wished to be exactly like her. Velvet, bangs in her face, strong voice, confident, she glows in your presence. 

After that moment, the day was much of a blur. An hour and a half yoga class followed, full of downward dog, child’s pose, breathing, and posturing our bodies in unimaginable positions to a humble beginner. Shakti taught us about asanas or the postures of yoga. Asana means ‘to sit’ or ‘to be present’ in Sanskrit. There are very few moments when we actually acknowledge our existence and live in the present. Shakti said that we are all addicted to pain. I thought of tattoos, piercings; then in relationships, when you don’t fight with your partner you think, “what’s wrong with them?”. No pain, no gain -- this is what we are all taught since we were very young. However, the goal of yoga is to enjoy enlightenment in the moment, to drain the mind and hold yourself in the moment. I understand it as, stop dwelling on all the pain in your life and reflect on the present and listen to your body and mind at this moment. 

The Difference between Hatha Yoga and Bikram Yoga (regular yoga and hot yoga)

I know my uncle will hate me for saying this, but I hate hot yoga. Hahaha. Sorry Uncle Mark but this is why!

        True yoga is a breathing meditation; the postures are not meant solely for physical exercise. Every asana or posture is controlled, it is a focused meditation. 

I have taken a lot of hot yoga classes, surprisingly, doing a 30 day challenge and a few classes here and there. Bikram yoga, or hot yoga, is all about Go-Go-Go -- the teacher actually speeds you through the postures by clapping (very bootcamp-ish if I can use that as an adjective)! In the classes, the teacher wears a headset, pushing her voice through mechanical speakers. Then the whole set is revolved around 26 postures (the same ones every time) that you do in an hour and a half in a room heated to around 40 degrees Farenheit. The room is closed, so there is no new air circulating through it, creating an environment where everyone is breathing carbon dioxide into their lungs. When you have 30 people in an enclosed room, there is only so much oxygen in that space, then it turns into you breathing in everyone else’s gaseous waste. Fun. While it gives you an insane workout, it totally takes out the spirituality from yoga. Yoga is not supposed to be about Go-Go-Go, it is about controlled meditation! The whole world is about GO and true yoga offers a slower version out of life. Shakti shared with us that she thinks Bikram Yoga was created by taking the spiritual aspect out of yoga so that people didn’t not need to change when they took part in the exercise. It’s a lot easier to work out for an hour and a half and focus on only changing your body. It’s a lot more difficult to work for that amount of time focussing only on yourself, your mind, and changing your thoughts, intentions, and beliefs. 

In other words, if you don’t want to challenge your spirituality or encourage growth in that aspect of your life, do hot yoga; it is definitely a challenge. However, I will stay in a nicely aired room with generous amounts of fresh air, free from being spattered with other people’s sweat, and I will focus on internal change (isn’t that more important anyway?). 

The goal of yoga is to focus on expanding internal self-awareness and to move away from performance in the practice. There is no need for mirrors or competitions; yoga should not be a contest. Practice yoga like you pray; quiet, alone, without flaunting in front of others, because it is a private internal self-realization practice. Shakti said, “Make love with the asanas -- treat them as though you are in love with them and strive to go deeper and further with the postures at all times. Make your practice internal, make it yours, and do it privately without flaunting.” 

So, here I am, at the end of the first day, incredibly excited to continue my training and anxious at the amounts of learning and work that I will need to complete. I am motivated though. I have always wanted to learn these things and yoga is so amazing. Day 1, completed, 4 weeks and 4 days to go!