Purnatva

By mado | Published: July 2, 2010

I am enjoying the perfect days of summer.  You know, the ones where you look around and think “I am completely content in this moment”.  I feel so blessed to live in this town and get to teach yoga to students who are seeking a deeper and deeper experience of themselves.  To interact daily with people who choose kindness and awareness as a way of life.  And to experience an abundance in the natural world that mirrors the physical and cultural diversity of the people.

We have a tendency to seek happiness outside of ourselves and in the future.  So perhaps it is the perfect mate or the right promotion that we beleive will fulfill us.  And with this state of mind, we attach any current happiness to the current circumstances. With this comes the fear that what ever circumstances are making us happy will change.  And inevitably they do.  However, we have within us everything we need to be happy in each moment.  This potential for experiencing complete contentment and even bliss rests within each of us and cannot be taken away.

Happiness can be found externally — sometimes.  We can use the beautiful moments of our lives to set mental patterns that will train us to experience contentment in other moments. This occurs when we consciously appreciate our experience of any given moment, without attaching ourselves to the circumstances surrounding it.  Patterns of contentment will begin to pop up in more unusual circumstances.  We might be having a discussion with a friend, and that friend begins to get heated.  Rather than getting upset, we find that we are still completely content in the moment.  We are able to look at that person with love and compassion, clearly state our case (if necessary) and then move on.

Purnatva is the state of experiencing divine perfection in all things.  Inherently, the nature of the universe is abundance. “When the microcosm totally dissolves into the state of Macrocosm, as a sugar doll dissolves into water, ‘Purnatva’ is THAT non-verbalized state.” (Jinendra Swami)

Purnatva may be taken as a goal, or a state to which one arrives upon the completion of some preparatory measures.  We can also take the goal as the path, seeking first to perceive the abundant, perfect order in our bodies, in our evolution, in ecological systems, and in our relationships. With each moment we celebrate the already impeccable, orchestrated, complete experience, we plant powerful seeds (or mental imprints) to experience the same, over and over again, each time more fully.

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Summer Retreat at Sunswept Farm

By mado | Published: July 1, 2010

Please join Mado and Meghan Ganser for an incredible celebration of the fullness of summer at our first ever retreat July 23rd-25th 2010 at Sunswept Farm in Madison County.

We will celebrate the bounty of the season as well as the blessings in our lives through yoga asana, pranayama, meditation, chanting (kirtan with Sangita Devi), Homa (fire ceremony) and sangha or spiritual community.

Free massages will be offered from the students of Asheville School Massage and Yoga. These will be offered first come first served in order of registration, so register asap to secure your free massage.

More information and registration.

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Weeding the Garden and Wiping the Mirror Clean

By mado | Published: June 15, 2010

As I stood over my recently weeded garden bed the other day, a feeling of peace and contentment came over me.  The rains of early June had given the weeds just what they needed to overtake my planted veggies.  With the weeds safely decomposing in my compost pile, the veggies I had carefully planted had room to breathe.  Within days they were obviously larger and their color more vibrant.

Why does it feel so good after we take a shower or clean our house (or weed the garden for that matter)?  One might argue that the impulse for cleanliness is a reflection of the purity that lies at the essence of each of us.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, we seek to remember the divinity at our core.

In his book “The Splendor of Recognition”, Swami Shantananda describes the world as a mirror reflecting our own consciousness. This mirror, rather than reflecting what is outside, reflects what is inside. “I am a mirror and my life is nothing but a reflection of my consciousness.”.

Our feelings of imperfection, of being less than, come from our urge to merge back into the ultimate freedom of supreme consciousness. In other words, we feel separate from God and we yearn to reunite.

There are three impurities that separate us from experiencing our true nature:

anava-mala causes us to feel separate from god.  This causes us to feel unworthy and alone.  The associated emotion is sadness.
mayiya-mala causes us to see objects and other people as separate from ourselves.  We begin to compare ourselves to others.  The associated emotion is anger.
karma-mala makes us perform actions to aquire some objects and avoid others.  This causes the impression that there is too much to do and too much to know.  We begin to feel overwhelmed and incapable.  The associated emotion is fear.

Our experience of separateness is a thought to be an impurity, dust on the mirror of our consciousness.  The science of yoga deals with how to clean off our mirror and recognize our connection to all that is.  However, it is essential to recognize and accept that our mirror will continue to become dirty as long as we live in this physical world.   The afflictions of the Malas are a given, a necessity even for functioning in this world.  An obsession with cleanliness (spiritual or physical) might be just as unhealthy as living in unconsciousness.

Within each of the Malas lies an opportunity.  We may temporarily transcend each affliction and know our true nature in a more complete way than might have been possible without experiencing the separation first.  In addition, our experience of the malas gives us the ability to be compassionate to others as we see them suffer, and even the ability to help them clean off their own mirrors and know themselves more fully.

When we feel our suffering increase, we can look to the Malas and discern which of them is causing our suffering.  From there, we can take action to clean the mirror of our consciousness.  Sometimes all it takes is washing the dishes and wiping down the sink for us to remember who we really are.

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Discipline

By mado | Published: April 14, 2010

Something happens, a wake up call.  Or perhaps we wake up slowly and one day we realize that we have a longing to follow our hearts.  So we decide to change.  To break free from our habitual lives in order to make time for the things that strike our hearts.  But how?  Our habits are deeply ingrained.  Without constant vigilance we fall back into self pity, television, co-dependency, drugs…whatever our personal habits are.

In order to create these changes without getting lost, without falling back into old destructive habits, we need to create a structure for ourselves.  This structure helps us to create new habits, positive habits, habits that nourish and sustain us.  This structure can also be called discipline.

Discipline is a word often ascribed to the virtuous.  Most of us secretly know that we do not belong to this select group.  We would like to be disciplined, it sounds so prestigious.  But we know deep down that we are not special.  Only ordinary.

Growth usually requires either challenging circumstances that force us to stretch beyond our previous capabilities or sustained, intentional effort over time.  Frankly, the second method is easier.  We cannot usually plan for the challenges that will force us to grow, and probably wouldn’t want to.  The sanest path to personal growth is one of intention and discipline.  We often think of discipline as something severe and austere.  We associate it with being bad and requiring punishment.  However discipline is really another way of describing a structure or container for growth.

What if the discipline I am describing was not something severe or austere?  What if we looked at it as an act of love towards ourselves?

In order to create a discipline or practice that sustains us, we must first examine our intentions for doing so.  If we decide to practice because we think we “should” or because we are expected to, our practice will be dry and painful.  We will soon find a reason not to practice, and when we don’t we will berate ourselves for our lack of discipline.

To create a sustainable practice, we must do it for ourselves.  Because somewhere deep down, we realize that we are worthy.  That we were born to live our lives fully and our current habits are keeping us from feeling fully alive.

Discipline is a gift you give to yourself.  Choose a practice that feels like a gift.  It will still be hard to do consistently, but once you get started you will remember.  Start small.  Start reasonably.  Take baby steps.  Be kind to yourself.  If you skip a day, also skip berating yourself about it.

Growth happens one baby step at a time.  Change happens one baby step at a time.  Take one today.

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Yoga Styles

By mado | Published: March 22, 2010

Iyengar. Ashtanga. Anusara. Flow. Kundalini. Hot. Yin. With all the different kinds of yoga out there and all the esoteric terms, it can be difficult to decide what kind of yoga classes to attend. On this page, I will decode the different styles of yoga, what makes them different from each other and why you might choose one over another. Of course, you may not be so lucky as to have a choice. The options in your town may be limited to general yoga at a gym. Or the one yoga studio in town is strictly Iyengar. Well, there is always travel yoga: visiting a yoga class when you travel to a larger city or going on special yoga retreats and vacations.

Lets start with the basics: Hatha Yoga is an umbrella term for the physical form of yoga that originated out of the Hindu spiritual tradition in India. There are a few other kinds of yoga that originated from other traditions, namely: Kundalini Yoga, Tibetan yoga, and Daoist yoga which come from Sikhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Daoism, respectively.

From the Hindu tradition, Hatha is only one of several yogic paths. The other paths include Raja (Royal) Yoga, Jnana (Knowledge), Karma (service), Japa (mantra), and Bhakti (devotional).

Types of Hatha yoga commonly practiced in America today:

Iyengar
Iyengar yoga is probably the most widely practiced form of Hatha yoga in America. Iyengar yoga was developed by B.K.S Iyengar who was a student of T. Krishnamacharya who is known as the grandfather of modern yoga. Iyengar classes are known for their precision in alignment, use of props such as blocks and bolsters, and relatively little spiritual focus (at least in the beginning). This, combined with the fact that you hold the poses a long time and thus the class moves relatively slowly, makes it a great style of yoga for beginners, elders, and those with physical disabilities.

Ashtanga
Ashtanga yoga was developed by Pattabhi Jois, another student of T. Krishnamacharya. It is one of the most athletic forms of yoga. Students follow the same series of postures linked together with their breath every day they practice. There are known to be 7 series, but even the first is too difficult for most beginners to do without modifications. Traditional Ashtanga classes are known as Mysore style classes and are not led by the teacher. Instead, students practice the series at their own pace and the teacher comes around and helps students individually. Ashtanga yoga has inspired several different kinds of uniquely American yoga styles, most notably Power yoga, Vinyasa yoga, and Jivamukti yoga.

Viniyoga
Krishnamacharya’s third famous disciple and son T.K.V Desikachar created viniyoga. Viniyoga is usually taught one on one and focuses on practicing yoga according to one’s individual needs. Viniyoga also uses specific sequencing and balancing each pose with a counter-pose.

Bikram
Also known as hot yoga, Bikram is controversial in the world of yoga. The founder, Bikram Choudhoury, has copyrighted his sequence and the term Bikram yoga. He requires that all Bikram instructors be certified by him and has brought several lawsuits against studio owners. Thus the term hot yoga is used by practicioners of Bikram who have not been taught by him or have fallen out of grace for one reason or another. He is very specific about how Bikram yoga can be taught, so a teacher could lose the right to use the term Bikram by teaching out of sequence or saying things during class that are not proscribed by him. Like Ashtanga, Bikram is a specific sequence of poses, however this sequence was developed specifically for Americans and is done in a very hot (100-110 degree) room. The 26 poses combined with the heat make for a very vigorous practice that Bikram claims purifys the body and prevents disease.

Kripalu
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, MA is the largest and best known yoga retreat center in the US. It was founded in 1966 by Amrit Desai, who named his style of yoga after his guru Kripalvananda. In 1994, Desai resigned as spiritual director of Kripalu and the center moved away from the guru-disciple model to become an interdisciplinary yoga retreat center. The main style of yoga taught there is still Kripalu as originally taught by Desai. Kripalu yoga is a three part system. In the first level, students hold the poses for a short period of time and focus on alignment and coordinating breath and movement. In the second level the poses are held longer and meditiation is included in the practice. The goal of the third level is to acheive meditation in motion.

Integral
The goal of Integral yoga is to integrate all the different kinds of yoga together: Hatha, Bhakti, Karma, Raja, Jnana, and Mantra. An Integral class might be comprised of gentle physical postures, deep relaxation, breathing techniques, chanting and meditation.

Anusara
Anusara is a relatively new form of yoga developed in 1997 by John Friend, a former Iyengar instructor. Anusara focuses both on detailed alignment and the emotional, heart opening aspects of yoga. Anusara certification is one of the most rigorous yoga certifications available and certified teachers are highly knowledgable in the therapeudic applications of yoga. Classes will vary in vigor depending on the teacher and the classes impart a sense of community with partner work and lots of very happy people.

Ananda
Based on the teachings of Parmahansa Yogananda (author of autobiography of a yogi), Ananda yoga is designed to prepare students for meditation. These gentle classes include affirmations associated with postures and consciously sending the body’s energy to different organs and limbs.

Kundalini
One of the forms of yoga that does not directly originate from the Hindu tradition, Kundalini yoga is based on the Sikh tradition. Kundalini was popularized in the West by Yogi Bajan who founded the 3HO (Healthy, Happy Holy) organization in 1969. Kundalini yoga is designed to awaken the kundalini (energy) in the body. Classes are usually taught as kriyas or sets of exercises designed to accomplish a specific purpose (for example cleanse the liver, balance head and heart, etc). They include chanting, breath control, meditation, and postures, often done in specific numbers of sets. While it is not required that one become a Sikh to take Kundalini classes, the teachers are usually practicing Sikhs.

Sivananda
One of largest schools of yoga in the world with over 15 ashrams worldwide, sivananda yoga includes asana, chanting, and meditation. The classes tend to be very serious and devotional in nature without a lot of talking or explaining poses.

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The Basics

By mado | Published: March 22, 2010

The Basics.

Yoga is a practical, comprehensive system for living a better life. By strengthening and toning the body and calming the mind, we are able to enjoy our lives more completely.

Yoga is not a religion. It is simply a set of guidelines. Each student can pick and choose which parts work for them.

You do not need to be strong or flexible to practice yoga. Each person’s yoga practice will be different and you never need to be able to twist yourself into a pretzel to practice yoga. The reason that people work on more and more advanced yoga poses is that it is healthy to give yourself a challenge and practice remaining composed when you are outside of your comfort zone. This aspect of the practice is not going to appeal to everyone and may or may not be right for you.

Because there is a lot to learn, a teacher can be a helpful guide in deciding which aspects of the practice to learn and use and how to stay safe while doing it. A teacher is simply someone who has knowledge of the practice and whom you respect as trying to live what they teach. This is different from a guru, who is supposed to be someone who has attained enlightenment. Good luck finding one of those!

I am passionate about sharing yoga with others because it has changed my life. I am stronger and more flexible than I’ve ever been. Even better, I have become much happier and more accepting of my life and of other people. All of the relationships in my life have also benefitted from my practice of yoga.

How has yoga affected your life?  Post a comment below.

What else would you like to know about yoga?  Leave a comment and I will update this post or add a new one if appropriate.

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The Yoga of Creativity

By mado | Published: January 28, 2010

I am facilitating a 12 week series on the Artist’s Way along with the lovely and talented Anna Ferguson. The Artist’s Way is a course in unblocking creativity, based on the book of the same name by Julia Cameron.

I have a very loose definition of creativity. To me, creativity is that which makes us feel alive and connected. Whatever it is that we do to make our mark on the world, that is our creative work. When we go to work day in and day out, come home and turn on the tv, and just go through the motions of life without being fully connected to what we are doing, that is being blocked. When we are blocked from our creativity, we intuitively know there is something wrong. Our lives may not have anything outwardly wrong with them, but we feel dissatisfied and uneasy.

Being alive, embodied, is a gift. We were put on this earth to live, to create, to feel, to explore. We are given a chance to live the diversity of experience this world has to offer. Our creativity is our gift back. When we cut ourselves off from our creativity, we are denying our dharma, our sacred duty.

There are many ways to unblock your creativity. The Artist’s Way has proven to be a particularly effective set of tools for many people, but each of us has the opportunity to unblock just a bit in any moment. When we soften our boundaries and feel the life pulsing within us, we unblock. When we take a walk and notice the breeze in our hair or the sunshine on our face, we unblock. When dance or laugh or love uninhibitedly, we unblock.

What are the things that bring you fully into the moment? Can you commit to doing one of those things today?

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Finding meaning in suffering

By mado | Published: January 15, 2010

50,000 people died in Haiti this week.  A catastrophe of this magnitude is difficult to comprehend.    How can we find meaning and even hope in the wake of so much suffering? Sometimes the only choices appear to be to sink into a hole of sadness, or to cut ourselves off from the suffering of others, to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

There will be times when each of us succumbs to one of these.  Both of them are symptoms of the same malady: a sense of purposelessness.  If there is so much suffering, how can there be meaning to life?  There is a third choice as well.  The choice to be present with the darkness without being swallowed by it.  To take action, however insignificant it may sometimes feel, to relieve the suffering of others.

Viktor Frankl survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.  During his time there, he discovered that meaning could be found even in the darkest of places.  In his influential book Man’s Search for Meaning, he describes how the people most likely to survive the camps were the ones who found an inner freedom and an inner meaning by helping others.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Frankl claims that the essential struggle of humanity is seeking a sense of purpose in life.  If we feel that our lives have meaning, we can overcome anything.  If we do not live for something greater than ourselves, even our comparatively cushy lives will feel like a prison.

How do we discover meaning in our lives?  Frankl offers three ways:

  1. by doing a deed
  2. by experiencing a value
  3. by suffering

Rather than being something that robs our life of meaning, according to Frankl (someone who clearly speaks from experience) suffering can actually be a gateway to greater happiness and a sense of fulfillment.

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.

Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist meaning is available in spite of–nay, even through suffering, provided . . . that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If, on the other hand, one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.

A student of mine has been struggling with shingles for the past several months. She has been in a lot of pain. Many times she came to class anyway, just to be around others and feel the energy of a yoga class even if she couldn’t participate in everything. Rather than getting better, the shingles kept getting worse. They went into her left eye. Then one of her parents fell ill and she had to travel to take care of them, while she was still healing from her own health problems.

“Shingles have been such a blessing” she said to me after class this week. “I have been in such wonderful health all my life, that I have never been motivated to get to know my body.” Now, practicing yoga while dealing with illness, she has found a new connection to herself. On top of this, because the shingles was in her eye, her doctors discovered cataracts and are able to treat them early.

What a beautiful thing to recognize the huge gifts we receive from our struggles and limitations. While we often (understandably) want life to be easy and enjoyable at all times, it is the times of struggle that are the biggest opportunities for growth.  Life is not always sweetness and light. There are times of contraction and times of expansion. Together, these create the pulse of life.

Frankl experienced more suffering than most of us can imagine, and in the midst of this suffering he held on to his integrity by finding meaning in a seemingly meaningless life and circumstances.  The meaning that Frankl found, was love.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

When we are confronted with disaster on a scale too large to ignore, may we use this opportunity to wake up.  To seek out the meaning in our lives.  And to discover a greater capacity for love and compassion within ourselves.   The greater purpose you discover for your life must be motivated by love in order for it to truly fill you. No matter how you frame it, in order for your life to be meaningful, you have to dedicate it to love.

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Anytime meditation to relieve suffering – you can do this sitting or anytime, driving, doing the dishes, walking, etc.

By mado | Published: January 15, 2010

Begin by cultivating a loving acceptance of yourself. Soften and open to your own good. Breathe and feel and experience the love you feel for yourself.

Think of someone who automatically brings up feeling of love for you, such as a child, intimate friend, or spiritual teacher. Absorb and memorize the feelings that they bring up for you.

Think of someone neutral and continue to project feelings of deep love to this person.

Think of someone that you struggle with. Send them love and compassion. Check in with yourself and see how you feel, both physically and emotionally while doing this.

When you feel your energy begin to shift away from love, return your thoughts to one of the previous people until you are able to connect back. You can do this again and again.

Finally, take all the positive feelings you have built up though your practice and send it out to all beings who are experiencing suffering right now. If you are inspired to focus on a specific person or group of people such as the people Haiti, do so.

Repeat often!

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Why you should break your New Year's resolution

By mado | Published: January 7, 2010

At this time of year, people are flush with the excitement of a new year.  Anything is possible and we want to start off on the right foot.  So we resolve to practice more yoga, cut out sugar, quit complaining, etc…  This is great and I highly recommend taking advantage of this energy and momentum to set some resolutions of your own if you haven’t already.

Unfortunately, most resolutions aren’t kept through the year.  I don’t know exactly how many, but a quick google search provides a range of 80-97% of resolutions aren’t kept until the next year.  Bummer, right?  Maybe not.

Most resolutions address a habit that we view as negative.  Habits are our default.  They are what we do when we are not paying attention.  They are the easy way.  Changing what is easy is…hard.

Of course not all habits are negative.  In fact, the whole idea of a resolution is to replace the habits that aren’t serving us (maybe coffee?) with one that does (water!).  When we cultivate positive habits, we are working hard in the present so that we don’t have to in the future.  When our new habit becomes second nature we are able to ride out the times when we slip out of mindfulness and rely on our positive habits to keep us afloat.

However, before that can happen there is work to be done.  To keep a resolution requires both awareness and discipline.  First of all we have to stay vigilantly aware of ourselves, or we will slip back into our old habits without even noticing.  Second, once we notice, we have to actually care enough to resist and replace the old behavior with the new.

In order to do this much work, we have to care deeply and passionately about the change we are trying to create.  That is why I recommend linking the habit you want to change with a deep personal goal.  For example, my resolutions this year are to drink more water and eat less sugar.  This is connected to my deep desire to live in full vibrant health into old age.

The path to our lifelong goals are just that:  lifelong.

To expect ourselves to make a change like this one day, and then just stick to it for the rest of our lives is simply unrealistic.  I know a few people with that much discipline, but not many.  I’m definitely not one of them.  Most of us go in phases of being more and less aware, more and less disciplined.

So rather than expecting perfection, it is actually more effective to break our resolution down into tiny baby steps.  In fact, I’m going to go drink a glass of water right now.  One baby step accomplished.  One step on my life path in the direction I am choosing to go.

Now when the inevitable happens and I veer off to the side, it’s no big deal.  Just one moment out of a lifetime of moments.  In the next moment, I have the choice to step right back on.  No guilt about “broken resolutions”, no story about how I’m just not disciplined enough and shouldn’t even try.

Even better, break your resolutions on purpose.  As a spiritual practice.  Yup.  I said that.  Break your resolutions as a spiritual practice.  Engage in your unconscious habits– but do it consciously.

True story:
Yesterday, my daughter was asking for some chocolate after school.  At first I wanted to resist, to tell her no, that it was just a habit to want to eat sugar.  Instead I said yes, but let’s play a game.  Let’s take tiny, tiny, bites and really savor each one.  Hedonist that she is, she readily agreed.  We took tiny, tiny bites, exclaiming after each one how incredibly delicious it was.  We pressed the chocolate against different parts of our tongues and compared the taste.  We let each bite melt in our mouth rather than chewing.

She could not finish her 1.5 square inch piece of chocolate.  I finished mine, but barely.  By the last few bites, the chocolate tasted overly sweet and was no longer appealing.  Fully conscious of our experience in the moment, we were able to tap into the wisdom of our bodies.

I propose that anything done with full awareness and enjoyment, is not a habit.  If we are fully present in the moment, the right path for us becomes clear and effortless.  Doing things that are counter productive to our deepest lifelong goals will just feel wrong.

Our yoga practice is a reminder for us to check in with our goals and intentions on a daily basis.  To practice awareness on our mat, so that we may also practice off our mat.

So go ahead and break your new year’s resolution.  Just make sure you enjoy every moment.

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