"Here is your new common sense: Less Thinking + More Listening = More Knowing." According to Master Teacher and accomplished yoga practitioner Erich Schiffmann, this is our equation for abundant awareness. It's the new math in very old clothing. Or, maybe it's the old math in the age of the Internet because, in addition to this equation, Erich gave us the following mantra, which he practiced with us by repeating many times throughout his lecture, "Be online all the time." Only a Master Teacher can make the Internet sublime. And what sort of sacred counsel has Erich embedded in this technologically inspired mantra? It happens to be the oldest story there is, and, according to Erich, at this time in history we happen to be waking up to it more and more. And, yes, of course, love does enter into it; however, Erich's instruction to "be online all the time," was intended to encourage us to be more infinite. His counsel was a reminder to us that Consciousness is infinite and the Infinite is everywhere, and, best of all, like all of the information stored on the World Wide Web, we always have access to it.
Yesterday, on a day too hot to be in a car driving the freeway, Erich drove anyway and joined the Laguna Yoga Shala community in celebrating its fourth anniversary. Joining the community turned out to be a large part of Erich's message. During part one of Erich's self-defined four-part asana practice, Erich talked. (The other three parts of Erich's classes include, respectively, meditation, asana practice led and free-form, and meditation.) His talk began with the definition of yoga. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means "to yoke," "to join," "to unite," or "to attach." This is what we do when we practice yoga, we join the community, not only of our fellow practitioners bending and sweating and returning again and again to master the physical forms of this discipline. We also join the community of sages, gurus, saints, prophets, philosophers, our dearly departed, all who have gone before us and who now contribute to the Consciousness of the Infinite community. Sounds downright, Jungian. There's more.
In the beginning, before asana, before hatha (the physical practice of yoga), the sages meditated. They sat, Erich told us. And in their sitting, in their stillness, in their yoking or union with the Divine, the Supreme, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient Consciousness, Erich said these sages were ultimately inspired to move. The energy they tapped into during their meditative states looked for release. Out of this release came the physical practice of yoga. This is also where all manner of artistic and musical expression come from, this Divinely inspired wellspring of infinite energy. We have the opportunity, then, or more precisely, the duty to channel this energy so that we can participate in manifesting our most genuine, alive, fully present Self.
Does this mean we are free from the rigors of our particular yoga disciplines? Can we ignore our teachers' gentle--and maybe sometimes not-so-gentle--admonitions? Can we really break free from the sequence, and practice whichever asanas suit us? No. And, well, yes, in a way. It takes great practice and discipline to break the rules. We must learn the form in order to reinvent it. Like Picasso did with painting and e e cummings did with poetry and Stravinsky did with his Rite of Spring, we, too, learn the discipline of the asanas so that, one day, we may be intuitively inspired to move differently. Our unique version/vision of channeling energy becomes ready for prime time.
"The genius of yogic practice is that it cultivates the capacity to experience a close-range, moment-by-moment inspection of reality," writes Stephen Cope in his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. I hear this same message in the writings of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn as he instructs practitioners in the art of meditation. And I heard it yesterday when Erich suggested that one person's "close-range, moment-by-moment inspection of reality" is not going to resemble any other person's close inspection, and that, my friends, my fellow yogis, is the point. This is the who and the why and the what of the Infinite. We are all a unique version of the Infinite and we are all infinitely connected.
We might think on it like this: Rain deposits snow high on the mountain top. In the spring, the snow melts and finds its way down the mountain and into the rivers. This water moves through the river, traveling toward its source in the ocean. There, when time, and tide and conditions are right, this water enters the atmosphere again, and the cycle is repeated. Energy goes from movement to stillness and back again. It is always there and never the same. No wave in the ocean is the same as any other wave. No shower of rain is the same this season as it was the previous season. No snow-pack is packed, no river swollen to the same degree from one year to the next. The water that ultimately finds its way to the ocean this year has never been exactly the same.
If you remember the Terry Gilliam film Brazil, you may also remember the movie poster used to advertise the film when it was released in 1985. The poster pictures the head of a man, and out of his head is an explosion of thoughts in images. This is how I felt upon leaving Itay and Mary's Shala yesterday after encountering Erich, and this is how I imagine you are feeling right about now as I have attempted to share my first encounter with him with you. Allow me, then, for a moment, to go back to the start. When Erich gave us the mantra "be online all the time," I was reminded of the poem This Place of Abundance by St. Catherine of Siena. I use the title of her poem here as the title of this post because I felt as though, intended or not, Erich had tapped into this Saint's original message.
Yesterday, on a day too hot to be in a car driving the freeway, Erich drove anyway and joined the Laguna Yoga Shala community in celebrating its fourth anniversary. Joining the community turned out to be a large part of Erich's message. During part one of Erich's self-defined four-part asana practice, Erich talked. (The other three parts of Erich's classes include, respectively, meditation, asana practice led and free-form, and meditation.) His talk began with the definition of yoga. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means "to yoke," "to join," "to unite," or "to attach." This is what we do when we practice yoga, we join the community, not only of our fellow practitioners bending and sweating and returning again and again to master the physical forms of this discipline. We also join the community of sages, gurus, saints, prophets, philosophers, our dearly departed, all who have gone before us and who now contribute to the Consciousness of the Infinite community. Sounds downright, Jungian. There's more.
In the beginning, before asana, before hatha (the physical practice of yoga), the sages meditated. They sat, Erich told us. And in their sitting, in their stillness, in their yoking or union with the Divine, the Supreme, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient Consciousness, Erich said these sages were ultimately inspired to move. The energy they tapped into during their meditative states looked for release. Out of this release came the physical practice of yoga. This is also where all manner of artistic and musical expression come from, this Divinely inspired wellspring of infinite energy. We have the opportunity, then, or more precisely, the duty to channel this energy so that we can participate in manifesting our most genuine, alive, fully present Self.
Does this mean we are free from the rigors of our particular yoga disciplines? Can we ignore our teachers' gentle--and maybe sometimes not-so-gentle--admonitions? Can we really break free from the sequence, and practice whichever asanas suit us? No. And, well, yes, in a way. It takes great practice and discipline to break the rules. We must learn the form in order to reinvent it. Like Picasso did with painting and e e cummings did with poetry and Stravinsky did with his Rite of Spring, we, too, learn the discipline of the asanas so that, one day, we may be intuitively inspired to move differently. Our unique version/vision of channeling energy becomes ready for prime time.
"The genius of yogic practice is that it cultivates the capacity to experience a close-range, moment-by-moment inspection of reality," writes Stephen Cope in his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. I hear this same message in the writings of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn as he instructs practitioners in the art of meditation. And I heard it yesterday when Erich suggested that one person's "close-range, moment-by-moment inspection of reality" is not going to resemble any other person's close inspection, and that, my friends, my fellow yogis, is the point. This is the who and the why and the what of the Infinite. We are all a unique version of the Infinite and we are all infinitely connected.
We might think on it like this: Rain deposits snow high on the mountain top. In the spring, the snow melts and finds its way down the mountain and into the rivers. This water moves through the river, traveling toward its source in the ocean. There, when time, and tide and conditions are right, this water enters the atmosphere again, and the cycle is repeated. Energy goes from movement to stillness and back again. It is always there and never the same. No wave in the ocean is the same as any other wave. No shower of rain is the same this season as it was the previous season. No snow-pack is packed, no river swollen to the same degree from one year to the next. The water that ultimately finds its way to the ocean this year has never been exactly the same.
If you remember the Terry Gilliam film Brazil, you may also remember the movie poster used to advertise the film when it was released in 1985. The poster pictures the head of a man, and out of his head is an explosion of thoughts in images. This is how I felt upon leaving Itay and Mary's Shala yesterday after encountering Erich, and this is how I imagine you are feeling right about now as I have attempted to share my first encounter with him with you. Allow me, then, for a moment, to go back to the start. When Erich gave us the mantra "be online all the time," I was reminded of the poem This Place of Abundance by St. Catherine of Siena. I use the title of her poem here as the title of this post because I felt as though, intended or not, Erich had tapped into this Saint's original message.
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