I have taken the Jivamukti Chakra Balancing class from four different teachers now, from the originator of the class herself Sharon Gannon, and from Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teachers Jules Febre, Giselle Mari, and Will Lau. Although the class content is the same, I got something different out of it each time, and for that I will always be grateful. The first time I encountered this class, I thought I had myself figured out. Mostly. I didn't have major dramas in my life anymore. Or that's what I thought. The reality was that at this point, I had decided to cut my father off from my life- out of anger and indignation, and out of what seemed to be a justifiable need for self-preservation. Then I took this Chakra Balancing class and I realized some very important things. I realized that even as I protected myself by creating that distance, I did not protect myself from my own negative emotions. I realized that whatever it is that others have done to us, however justified our anger may be, we only continue to hurt ourselves by holding on to it. It does not mean that we invite ourselves to situations where we will be subjected to hurt; it does not mean we become dormats; it just means that we no longer let our past be the present. I realized that healing does not necessarily mean that I needed to get an apology from someone who may not be ready or willing or even capable of asking for it, but that it means we value our freedom more than our anger. I realized, quite simply, what Sharon Gannon said in this class: Everyone is just trying his or her best at any given time. Shortly after taking this class, I went to visit my father. He was changed by an illness. He was a different person and I knew at this point that it was the last stage of his life. I did not know how long he had left at this point, but it felt like the beginning of the end; and it was through seeing death so close that it became increasingly clear to me that he was not a bad person, just someone with a lot of fear and pain and unresolved issues who did not know what to do with them. The last few months of his life, he had lost much of his memory. It was in many ways a blessing because he largely forgot his own anger. One time, I got a Chinese-language newspaper, and asked him if he remembered teaching me how to read the characters. He smiled then, because he remembered. My father was not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination, and the broken version of me saw his flaws and only his flaws. But the healed part of me was able to see him in a different light. I saw him for whom he tried his best to be- someone who wanted to care, to love, to show affection, someone who wanted to act like a father. Yoga has healed me in many ways, and allowed me to deal with injuries far deeper than the physical body could reach. I am grateful for the opportunity to share a practice that was so instrumental in my own healing. May our hearts be open to accept the love that we all deserve. I am teaching this workshop at Yoga+ Makati this January 31, 2015 from 2pm to 4pm. It would be an honor for me to guide you in your own healing journey. Previous yoga experience is not required.
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When we are asked what time is, we just think of clock time. We know that at a particular time, we wake up, we go to work, we eat, we go to a yoga class, so on and so forth. Seems simple enough that we don't really think about it. But if you ask someone who is an expert in the field of physics or quantum mechanics or astronomy or cosmology what time is, the answer becomes a little bit more complicated. In fact, Albert Einstein at one point thought he understood the nature of time, but after six months realized that the nature of time is still a question yet to be answered. There are many things we do not know about time, but there are also some things that we do know. In some ways, the ancient study of yoga has intuitively known the concepts that physics is able to quantify. The Sanskrit word ksana refers to a point in time so small it has no dimension and cannot be further broken down. The same idea is expressed in physics called planck time, which Professor Brian Cox explains in his documentary What Is Time as "a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth and a little bit more of a second". We also know that we experience time differently with altitude. The higher we are, the faster we age. Of course, the difference is barely noticeable. In the book The Yoga of Time Travel, an example was given to illustrate the idea of how varied time could be. Two people measuring a 24-hour period can register differences in time according to movement. The difference would be in nanoseconds, but the idea shows that we do indeed experience time differently. Furthermore, the differences may seem insignificant as we are Earth-bound, but that time warp could be significant as we expand out to the universe. Why is the question of what time is relevant to the yogi? As yogis, we are searching for the truth. We are looking to dismantle illusions. We are looking to examine the unquestioned, the seemingly absolute, the prevailing beliefs of our time. Could time too be an illusion, just as many of the things we are attached to are illusions? If we are so certain that time is real and linear and follows an arrow because of our own sensory experiences and yet science has a few other theories, can we then see that other things we are so certain of can possibly be illusions too? Another point is that given we experience time differently, how is it that we can be so impatient and intolerant of others not sharing the same timing as we do? Think of someone in your life whose timing is different from yours. Perhaps you feel you have progressed in some area and this person is lagging behind, or maybe it is this person making progress or moving forward and you feel pressured to catch up, as if the point of this life is to get on some metaphorical finish line of success as we define it. Can we use asana as a tool to understand and accept this difference in timing? Even as the teacher gives cues for poses, each person moves along his or her own timing, breath, and rhythm. And given the room to honor one's own timing and breath and rhythm, we may notice that the differences become more pronounced, whether in the way we move our bodies from pose to pose or our opinions, thoughts, and feelings about different subjects. We may also observe our impatience and intolerance towards ourselves, measuring ourselves against an imaginary timeline of what asana we should have mastered by now or how much money we should have by now or where our lives should be right now. As timing is different for everyone, it is imperative that we start accepting our own timing. This does not mean making excuses or being lazy or denying truth as it is. Rather, it is that we do the best with all that we have and accept the results as they are. It is only when we are able to accept our own timing that we can accept the timing of others. It is only when we build the capacity to unconditionally love ourselves that we could project this unconditional love out into the world. Physics shows us that we do experience time differently. Is that not a design of the universe reminding us that our own pace is the default setting, that there is nobody to catch up to except ourselves? Is it not very telling of the magnificence by which we move individually in very subtle yet unique ways? Perhaps the bigger problem to be solved is not the nature of time but the remembering of the nature of our consciousness. The January focus of the month is time. It's a subject that philosophers and physicists alike have long discussed but not necessarily agreed on. In the essay written by my teacher David Life, co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga, he cited two theories explaining the nature of time. The first theory states that time is linear, that past goes on to present and goes on to the future. The second theory claims that the concepts of past, present, and future are mere illusions. The second theory is certainly difficult to grasp. How can it be, we may ask ourselves, when we obviously cannot go back to yesterday nor take a leap into the future, at least as far as we know right now? Our doubt comes from being attached to our sensory perceptions. We can only understand what we are capable of experiencing ourselves. And yet, "to see is to believe" is not completely accurate. Consider, for example, that when we see the sun rise, it is a mere illusion. And in fact, the sun that we see is the sun as it was eight minutes ago. And at night when we look at stars, we are looking merely at the ghosts of these stars. These stars have already died, and we see the light only after it has traveled some distance and some time. What does it mean for us yogis to explore the nature of time, of space, of our existence? When we realize how much of the unexplored is out there, we are able to learn not to be so attached to our perceptions, to even what we consider knowledge, because that too is limited only to what is available to us right now. Embracing the vastness of the unexplored- including our questions about the nature of time- helps us embrace our humility. We are not the center of the universe. Astronomy can confirm that there is no such thing. What then, is the point of pretending that our worries and woes are what the universe revolves around? Perhaps a more meaningful way to find ourselves is not to put ourselves at the center but to consider that all of us who live and breathe and ask the same questions are in this together, in this vast expansive space and time. If time were linear like the first theory states, then we can see this is a clear sign to be compassionate towards ourselves, in that time is continuously flowing, and we are merely following a certain breadth in timing. We do not need to compare where we are with where others are. We merely have to accept that the way we move is different, no better nor worse, than others. If the very concept of time were a mere illusion, then could it mean that all of the versions of who we are exist all at the same time? If so, then there is no separation between the I who fails and the I who succeeds, the I who has virtues and the I who has vices; furthermore all versions of I existing at the same time means there is no separation between I and others. What is time? What is space? Where am I? Who am I? Treading on the path of yoga may not guarantee us the precise answers to difficult questions. But in the asking of these questions, we strip away illusions, we let go of selfish tendencies, we dismantle the ego, and we shift our perspective. And in that, we may find humility in that it is in our connectedness that we find we are bigger than those questions. This is the clip I played in Savasana when I taught this class: Pale Blue Dot- Carl Sagan. PYS IV.33 Ksana-pratiyogi parinama-aparānta-nirgrāhyah kramah The succession of changes (the uninterrupted sequence of moments) is only recognized as distinct moments when one has transcended those moments and is at the other end. Ksana means a point in time. It's the equivalent of a point in geometry. It has no dimension. It is a moment so small we cannot really contain it. I think the words of William James expressed it succinctly. "Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming." Can we capture ksana, or are we constantly anywhere but here at this moment? Are we holding on to the past or anticipating the future, even if this past or future is mere minutes or even seconds ago? How often is it that we have a conversation with someone, and we mull over it, thinking we should have said something else? Or we are reading a book and realize we have gone through an entire paragraph with our eyes scanning the words but our mind not really comprehending it? Or closer even to our yoga asana practice, how often do we wonder in shoulder stand if the pose is going to be over soon? Is it our nature to never be really here? Or can we train ourselves to be conscious all the time, so that we are here now and now and now, and that when we look back at the series of nows we were present in, we can say that we are able to look at those individual points clearly? When we practice yoga asana, we get to observe where we are in terms of being in the moment. For example, in surya namaskar b where we make quite a few transitions, notice if you get into your full downward facing dog, or perhaps you are in a rush to get to warrior 1, or that maybe you hold the warriors for three seconds but low push-up for only half a second. Are we able to practice equanimity, catching that precise moment we get into the pose and yet not holding on to it when it is overdue? The art is in capturing it as it happens and releasing it just as momentarily, as if we held on to it but just barely. The yoga sutra also teaches us the connectedness of events. We are able to be where we are now because of points in the past. There are no such things as accidents where things just "happen to us". Our individual past actions contribute to what is now our reality. Think of a situation you are having difficulties with. Now, instead of taking on the victim role, we start to take responsibility. What were the thoughts we had, words we said, actions we took that led to this? This is not to blame ourselves, but to bring forth the clarity that will allow us to move forward and make the necessary changes. Knowing the individual points that led to this outcome, can we now be fully conscious of the individual points moving forward to steer ourselves to a different direction? Taking responsibility is liberating in that we learn our freedom is in our hands. All that we do in our yoga practice helps cultivate the consciousness to be present. And when we are able to capture that ksana as it happens, then we will understand that the future is nothing that we need to worry about. In being completely present, right here and right now, we are fully alive, complete in the expression of who we are. |
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