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.
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