Category Archives: Yoga Teacher Training

Practice and All Is Coming

  By | , ,
10 Comments

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois once said, “Practice and all is coming.”  We can apply this idea to yoga practice, to working for non-profits, to our jobs, and to our relationships.  The point here is that we need not worry about the outcome.  If we just do our practice, wholeheartedly, what will come will come and we have done our parts.   Given that non-attachment brings us closer to our natural state of bliss or enlightenment, that effort to simply practice, regardless of the concrete outcomes of the practice, brings us closer to our true selves.

Today, I was reminded of this as I participated in a 90 minute vinyasa practice, led by one of my fellow teacher trainees, and then taught my 90 minute practice session.  Looking at these two experiences from the perspective of the immediate, neither was everything I might have hoped it would be.  Katie’s class was great, but the ongoing problem that I’m having in my right arm made some of my poses feel sloppy and/or uncomfortable.  And then, in the practice I led, I learned that I am not ready to teach immediately after taking a class.  My head was in the “follower” space instead of the “leader” space and I felt pretty discombobulated. I also realized that I would rather have more pages of notes with bigger words, or less words on the page but bigger – basically, I need to be able to see my notes without my old lady glasses on 🙂

And yet, even with these problems, I’m glad I came to the mat.  I am glad that I did my practice.  Because the practice itself is good for me, and so is being in these moments where my expectations and reality are clashing a little and needing to push myself into letting go of the expectations.  It’s all a practice –  all of it.

Namaste,

L

Got Me? – Asmita in the Age of Accomplishment

  By | , ,
2 Comments

So, as I have mentioned, I spent the past few days at an academic conference in my field.  These conferences are always an odd experience for me.  I wouldn’t say that are bad, because I enjoy the things I learn, the time spent with friends and colleagues I don’t get to see much, and often (though not this time) exploring whatever city I’m in.  But, they are odd because they bring up a wash of not-so-pleasant self-evaluations every time.

Even though I don’t logically really expect or want a lot of attention, at conferences I always find myself feeling a little disappointed or ashamed that I have not accomplished more with my career.  It’s funny, because some people would probably say that I’ve done plenty.  Yet, in those moments, I feel like I should have researched harder, published more, made more of a name for myself, struggled more diligently to rise in the leadership of the organizations, etc.

It would be tempting to say that this is about career, but that is not true.  I get the same way about other things.  I have a favorite band that I adore.  In the past decade, I’ve seen many shows and even gotten to see several shows on one tour in the front few rows.  Eventually, I started to feel that I had to be close to the front.  And then, someone in the band acknowledged my presence and that became the new standard of a “good show.”  Over time, even that didn’t feel like enough.  What did I really want?  To meet the band?  To have my picture taken with them?  I don’t know.  Again, logic tells me that I’m not going to suddenly be their very best friend, and I’m not even sure that I want to.  But that vague sense of needing to do/be more crept in and started to rob each concert experience of the joy in the moment.  I had to take a step back from my attendance at shows and following the band’s progress to shake myself out of it.

I don’t think I’m the only one that gets like this.  It can happen in work, in family life, or even in “leisure activities.”  It’s easy enough to lose track of the general benefits of yoga, running, swimming, playing music, and get overly involved in the winning or recognition.  I’ve seen it in others, and I’ve seen it in myself.  Certainly in blogging, the competitive and recognition driven “me” can rise to the surface extremely easily.

Thinking about how this manifests itself in my own behavior and the behavior of those around me makes me wonder… Do we, as a culture, encourage this focus on recognition by the way that we interact and raise children?  Does the giving of awards for everything from finger painting skill to being on the t-ball team to “most improved science student” create people who have trouble being satisfied with where they are but instead yearn for the 15 minutes (or 15 months?) of fame that we think we are due?

Perhaps the way to change this is to put our focus, from childhood on, onto the experience itself, rather than the external outcomes.  Maybe we can’t completely get away from the desire for external motivators, but at least we might be able to reduce the stifling of the intrinsic value of our actions, and of our being.

Meanwhile, I may never be the band’s best friend, the foremost scholar in my field, a yogi rockstar, or the biggest vegan/yoga blogger evah, but my life is pretty darn great and I’m going to try to keep myself in a headspace where I can remember that!

Namaste,

L

Unwinding the Koshas

  By | , ,
2 Comments

I don’t really have a catchy song for this one, but I’m still traveling and still working on studying for my exam, so it is what it is. 🙂 The koshas can be understood to represent the layers or sheaths of the self. Many people liken this to Russian nesting dolls, with each kosha being a doll that holds within it the others and so on. I tend to have visions of those filmstrips we saw as a child that started with the image of the person, then the next slide would be the muscular layer, then the bony layer, then the organ layer, an so on (and on that note, if you’ve never checked out Google’s Body Browser, do – http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com). But the koshas go beyond that, because they are not concerned with just the physical self. The layers can be understood to proceed from the most “base” or physical to the most divine or spiritual.

Annamaya kosha is the most physically apparent layer composed of the obdurate stuff of the body (bones, muscles, blood, etc.). Literally translated, the annamaya kosha is the “food-apparent-sheath.” It can be thought of as all of self that is created/fed/sustained by the food we consume.

Pranamaya kosha is the layer of the body that is occupied by the breath. Literally translated (more or less) it would be the “air-apparent-sheath.” The pranamaya kosha represents the self that is created/fed by the air that we breathe.

Manomaya kosha is the functional mind. It is the mind that helps us process directions, take care of our daily tasks, etc. Manomaya kosha, or the “mind-matter-apparent-sheath” is not the seat of the self. I think of it as being something like the motherboard of the body.

Vijnanamaya kosha, or the “wisdom-apparent-sheath” represents the intuitional wisdom of our being. This one is a little hard for me, as the difference between intuition and instinct or true wisdom and social wisdom is not easy to determine. I can kind of get it (maybe with my vijnanamaya kosha?) but then it slips away when I try to really think about it (with my manomaya kosha?).

Anandamaya kosha is the “bliss-apparent-sheath.” This is the one we see often discussed as the goal of meditation, yoga, and more than a couple of religions. When I visualize this part of the koshas, I see it as the empty/every thing that remains when all else is peeled away. If we could completely peel away all the other layers, we would dissolve into oneness with the universal. I love that, in this way of understanding bliss or enlightenment, it is not something you have to find, because it’s already always present. What you have to do is to remove the masks that distract you from it, in a sense.

So, there you have it, the quick version of the koshas! Rockin’ on with the studies and the YIOM!