Day of Silence & the 3 A’s of Anusara

I have had a sore throat and a runny nose for the past few days and it all culminated today. I can’t talk. I can move my mouth but no sound came out. Last night I was getting a little anger about this. I wanted to talk, I knew I had class to teach and I didn’t want my sore throat to prevent me from being able to teach my class. I then paused and realized that having a soar throat and not being able to talk was the reality of my situation. I was actively misaligning with the situation which was not resulting in the attitude that I wanted. So as I paused I acknowledged that I couldn’t talk, that my throat really hurt and I decided to accept it. I found a sub (thank you Merissa and Obet) and instead when to Divas coffee shop and did some homework. If you haven’t been to Divas it is a beautiful coffee, tea, and café with a beautiful green house full of trees and a gentle fountain. It is a very peaceful place to work in silence. After enjoying some tea and finishing up some assignments I made a few phone calls and as I talked (or tried to at least) I relized it was the first time I had spoken. I then went back to the house looked over some books I have been reading, started thinking of my plan for leading the practice tomorrow night at the yoga center.

I am thinking about talking about how the practice takes time, its multiple steps and consistent practice that leads us into the ability to do some fun poses. I also want to talk about how yoga the practice of yoga allows us to know our self more fully. Sometimes as we discover more about are self the experience is pleasant and enjoyable and sometimes we rub up onto uncomfortable parts of our self. Through the practice we are given the possibility to know are self more. Each pose and each breath and each step we take in the practice is an opportunity to know our self more, to express our self more, to celebrate our self. I also want to talk about how the practice is important, how what we do on the mat and what it does internally for us is important. These are all just thoughts and hopefully by tomorrow night they will come together and come out of my mouth in a nice theme which will be linked through the whole class.

Anyways…Tyler and I then went to the front to go bouldering which was super fun I was able to do some problems that I couldn’t before. All of this was in silence. Tyler and I exchanged glances and high fives. The silence of the day was wonderful. In the beginning of the day I felt like I had all these things I wanted to say and was frustrated that I couldn’t communicate them. But as I continued to align with the soar throat it became a gift. The ability to not talk was a great opportunity for me to reflect of some life ideas I have been pondering as well as enjoy the silence of myself.

It was a really nice day of silence and reflection where I got lots of stuff (homework, reading, thinking, climbing, meditating, dog walking…) done. It continues to amaze me that when we align with the reality or the situation we are presented with and act accordingly it helps cultivate the attitude of love, compassion, and bliss. When we align it feels like the universe is working with us instead of fighting against us. “Align with your heart”.
I am hoping to have my voice back by tomorrow night to lead the practice at the yoga center 540-740 :)

Highlights from my diary

(recently moved into a new apartment with no internet yet, so blog posts might be less frequent till I get connected)

I just got back from The Uncle Uncanny’s Music Festival. It was a wonderful experience full of shri (beauty) and Lila (play). I danced to music, made new friends, played/ got stung by a bee, taught yoga, hula hooped, reiki, swam in a river, smelled the earth, smelled flowers, watched the sky….
Once I returned home to my new apartment I arranged my books on my bookshelf and came across my journal from a few months back, that I had temporarily packed. I looked through some of my entries and thought I would briefly share (these are just highlights from some of the topics I have been studying, if one interests you leave a comment and I would love to elaborate more fully.)

1. Yoga Sutras 2:3 discusses the 5 Kleshas (pains/blockages to spirit)
a. Avidya: ignorance (a =not, vidya=truth) associated with tamas
Asmita: “I-ness” “ego” a false sense of self. The person you think you are is not the person others think you to be. Makes it hard to learn from karma.
Raga: attachment. It’s not nessisarily your physical possession of something it is that things possession of you. Attachment of the mind (I find this kleshas fascinating, it is very interesting to observe)
Dvesa: repulsion, fear of the new/unusual/different (closed minded, judgmental)
Abhinivesah: fear of loss, clinging to one’s life

Thinking of maya reminds me of the freedom we have in our life. I heard Douglas Brooks say (roughly) its great we have freedom! The problem is everyone else has freedom too. This freedom allows us to fully enjoy life and choose our perspectives. We can choose to be negative; we can choose to pick at everything, point out and notice the bad. We can choose to see the darkest side of every situation. I think most people choose these perspectives because it is easy, it is easy to notice the bad. We also are free to choose another perspective. We can choose to be positive, we can choose to see the goodness in life we can even choose to see that everything in its essence is imbedded with goodness, everything is intrinsically good. We can choose to look at the brightest side of every situation.
Question: How can we use the kleshas to see the beauty and goodness in life?

2. The 3 A’s of Anusara yoga and Karma, Jnana, Bhakti...

a. I have been re reading the Bhagavad Gita and reading other translations (which is always fascinating to look at someone else’s perspectives). I think Krishna’s main teachings in The Gita are the Three Ways to “God”. Krishna tells Arjuna that you can connect with the heart and with God through Karma (action), Jnana (knowledge), and Bhakti (devotion). What I love to much about Anusara yoga is that it offers an invitation not to pick one of these ways to know and connect more fully with your heart, but Anusara yoga is an invitation to practice all three of these ways at once, we call these the 3 A’s of Anusara yoga. The three A’s and how they relate to the three forms of yoga:
• Attitude (the Will to be, know and to do)= Bhakti
Alignment (knowing the Will) = Jnana
Action (manifesting the Will) = Karma

3. The Highest purpse of Anusara Yoga
a. CHIT: Self-Knowledge to know oneself
b. SHIVA: Awakening, recognition, remembrance, self-realization, enlightenment
c. ANANDA: Creative expression, to enjoy the freedom of being
d. SHAKTI: Make beauty, serve the increased joy of the whole, exulting in the Goodness, celebration, flowing with the heart

4. Pranayama is formed by two Sanskrit words. Prana= Life force energy, Yama= The control of. Pranayama is really cool because when we use and control our breath we can conrol our life force energy.

a. These are five main movements of Prana:
• Prana: rising in-drawing energy, from foundation and extending up
• Apana: downward rooting energy, rooting into foundation
• Samana: contracts to the core, hugging into the midline
• Udana: Rises and moved outward, extending out from midlife, organic energy

b. These five movements of Prana underlie every movement we see around us. Everything is an extension of Prana…The way we move, a tree grows, a car moves, the planets swirl, our heart beats… Prana this vital life force energy is marvelous because it is the fabric of everything. It is like the oneness we can merge and experience our self with. Through the experience and control of our breath we can begin to experience our pranic body. This experience opens us up to something bigger. First principle.

c. “All that exists in the three heavens rests in the control of Prana. As a mother her children, oh Prana, protect us and give us splendor and wisdom” Prashna Upanishad 2.13

3 A’s of Anusara Yoga.

“A pose can have exquisite alignment and be balanced in its Action, but without a pure spiritual expression from the heart, it loses its power of deep inner transformation. A pure spiritual expression in a posture is an unfolding of the deepest qualities of the heart, such as love and joy, into the body and surrounding environment. These pure heart qualities make a posture sing with a beautiful inner music, which harmoniously joins into the grand symphony of life. This heart energy (attitude) is the key element that makes the practice of hatha yoga into a profoundly transformational art. A pure attitude during the performance of an asana purifies the body and mind, and lets the light of the heart freely shine out.” John Friend

I think karma yoga and the first six chapter of the Bhagavad Gita (see earlier post) is very similar to the 3 A’s of Anusara yoga. Both focus on the ways in which we act, the reasons we act, and the outcome of our actions. The Three A’s are attitude, alignment and action.

Attitude (divine will (Iccha/heart)): The power of the heart is the force behind every action we take. It is our intention. I think everyone’s attitude is to be happy, the aspiration to reawaken to our divine nature, and the celebration of life. In Anusara they use a metaphor to explain the three A’s. The attitude is the desire to unlock the door and be free. If attitude had a voice it would say “I want” or “my heart wants”.

Alignment (divine knowledge (Jnana/mind)): Alignment has to do with how various parts of ourselves are integrated and interconnected. Through self study, and self observation we can learn how to align ourselves physically, energetically, emotionally, and mentally. It is the knowledge of technique. How do we want to align our self with this situation? With life? With the divine? The alignment is the knowledge of how to align the key in the lock, and how to turn the key to open the door to freedom. If alignment had a voice it would say “I think” or “my mind thinks this is the plan”.

Action (freedom of Action (Kriya/body)): It is taking the action of the alignment. It is the manifestation. Action is actually turning the key in the lock, and involves knowing the amount of force needed to turn the key. If action had a voice I think it would say “let’s do this” or “my body is going to do this”.

Example: Your attitude in life is to be happy. Then you get hungry, you think I am hungry? What shall I eat? This is where the alignment comes in, when your mind (Jnana) comes up with a plan or a technique to align your actions with your attitude of being happy. You have many choices in this situation: pizza, steak, veggies, sandwich, salad, ice cream….Depending on what your mind chooses (alignment), then the body makes the action, which is eating the food your mind decided on. Depending on what you choose your alignment will determine if you are happy in the long run.

Everyone has the same attitude. Everyone at their core wants to be happy. The problems start to arise when the ego gets involved with the mind and the alignment. When the ego comes into the 3 A’s, we start to think we will be happy (attitude) by seeking things that bring us pleasure and avoiding things that bring us pain (alignment) so we act accordingly (action). Because of the influence of the ego, our alignment is thrown off and the actions we take will never result in bringing us delight (at least not in the long run). The Gita reminds us of this when Krishna says, what appears pleasant at first is “bitter as poison in the end” (18:38).

Krishna explains what happens when we choose to align with our ego and act out of attachment, and what happens when we choose to align with the divine and act free from attachment. Krishna says acting out of attachment “breeds desire, the lust of possession that burns into anger. Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer learn from past mistakes. Lost in the power to choose between what is wise and what is unwise, your life is utter waste. But when you move amidst the word of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end and you live in the wisdom of the Self” (2:62-2:65).

To me the first 6 chapters of the Gita sound like Krishna explaining to Arjuna how to choose good alignment in his life, so his actions will be selfless. Encouraging him to let go of the ego and the attachment to the outcome based on the self. And instead align with Krishna, with the divine essence that manifests everything, with this essence, with the divine, with nature, and with God.

Practicing the 3 A’s is hard. It is so much easier for me at out of the ego and seek gratification quickly. It is easy to see what will quickly bring me pleasure and what will quickly cause me pain and align and act off of that. However when I align with my ego my actions never bring me lasting happiness and delight. I work hard at trying to not align with my ego and instead align with nature/divine and act for the higher Self. However, I often make mistakes. Sometime these mistakes happen because I simply forgot. Sometimes I think I am choosing my alignment correctly and then I realize the ego tricked me into thinking I was acting without the ego. It can get frustrating. It is reassuring when Krishna reminds us that “On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear. Those who follow this path, resolving deep within themselves to seek me alone, attain singleness of purpose”(2:39-2:41)

I am reading Christine Sells book Yoga from the Inside Out, and she talks about sadhana, “the work”, this really reminds me of alignment. She says “The work involves enlarging our focus beyond our ego’s limited viewpoint into the larger context of spiritual life”. She continues to say later in the book that when “we offer ourselves to the Divine to be used for service…We create fertile ground in which the seeds of the Divine can grow and bloom.”

How can I use my mat and my asana practice to remember the 3 A’s? How can I use my practice on my mat to help inspire me to choose better alignment in my life so that my actions lead me to my attitude (to be happy)? When I physically practice poses on my mat that is my action. As I do this I make an offering with my body to this moment, to nature, to the Divine. This offering reminds me to choose an alignment, mentally and physically, that will better serve the Self. This means if I am doing a pose and I feel pain instead of pushing into and being driven by the ego, I acknowledge that this physical alignment that I am in is no longer honoring my Self. Practicing like this encourages and motivates me to align with the divine on and off my mat, instead of the lower self which is fuelled by the ego. When I practice like this I am happy, because I know that the actions I take are helping me align and serve the higher Self verses the self.

One thing I really love about Anusara yoga, and the tantra philosophy is you don’t use the 3 A’s to avoid any situation. Instead you align with every situation in a way that allows for the most progress. We align so that we can karmically move forward better and faster and as a result get happier and smarter. Since I have been studying Anusara yoga, doing immersions, practices, reading the Gita and studying the 3 A’s, I feel more and more like my yoga asana practice has been shifting in a wonderful and powerful way. The experiences with the 3 A’s on my mat have been really fueling me to practice the 3 A’s off the mat.