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John Hawkins, RYT · · · · · · · · · 360-820-1267 · · · · · · · · · john@theotheryoga.com · · · · · · · · ·

Loose Threads

In the late 1990's I was the editor of "Sutra," the newsletter for the Athens Yoga Center in Georgia. It was a successful newsletter that not only showed upcoming events at the center, but addressed issues concerning Yoga

"Sutra" means "thread" which refers to aphorisms made up in writings called "Sutras." There are several such sutras, but the one most important to practitioners of Classical Yoga is "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali."

"Loose Threads" introduced the readers to articles in the newsletter and relate news tidbits that may interest students of Yoga. I am continuing that item on this website.

In the News

SOUTH ASIA: The day after Christmas a tsunami hit several islands and countries in the Indian Ocean. At this writing, over 137,000 deaths have been reported and that number is expected to rise. Topping that off is mounting threat of disease from bodies and the lack of clean drinking water. I can not say that anyone deserved this, that there was a karmic debt to pay, or there was some unknown meaning. My very mind has been overturned as my sense of meaning has again been challenged.

The epicenter that created the tsunami sent waves that have not ended in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand or Maldives. They flow still as the misery of the tsunami will soon beat upon our shores with unrest and possibly with disease. We can only counter that wave with a wave of deep compassion. The 137 thousand plus souls who perished have been conscripted into a war for compassion, of sorts. Shall we take a cue from the French after September 11, and proclaim that we are all South Asians? This tragedy rumbles through the world from shore to shore and if from it we can gain the keen sense that we are all precious our brothers and sisters in South Asia will not have died in vain. Help The Survivors of the Tsunami

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PHILADEDLPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Quaker and Yoga practitioner, Lillian Willoughby, turns 90 in January 2005. That, however, did not stop her from taking a stand. Instead of paying a fine of $250.00 for demonstrating against the Iraqi war on the day the invasion started, Willoughby served a week-long jail term. (Common Dreams, Thursday, October 21, 2004)

In This Issue we take a deep look at faith, Yoga and Religion. And we ask the question: "In these times of unrest, what's a Yogi to do?"

To My friends

It has been a while since I updated this site. Much has happened and my view of this country has changed. After an election, one with many irregularities, people have become depressed, angry or bewildered. Some psychotherapists have even dubbed this syndrome "DD" for "Democrat Depression." I prefer my own title, "Blue State Blues."

There is a “cold civil war” at play and at this writing half of the people in this country are not represented in the federal government as one political party controls all four estates; the judicial, legislative, executive branches of government and the media. Education, the poor, the dwindling middle class, true diplomacy, minorities, women, children, the environment have no voice. Compund this with the fact that every newborn in this country comes to us $1,800.00 in debt?

Bill Moyers writes in his article. “This is the Fight of Our Lives,” (Common Dreams, Wednesday, June 16, 2004 ) that in 1960 the wealth gap in America between the top 20% and the bottom 20% was 30-fold. Now it is more than 75- fold. He continues later in the article to note that in President George W. Bush’s administration Congress has awarded $2 trillion in tax cuts all tilted towards the wealthiest people in the country. “You could call it trickle-down economics, except that the only thing that trickled down was a sea of red ink in our state and local governments, forcing them to cut services for and raise taxes on middle class working America.”

Our current war in Iraq is a war of choice costing us over $147,000,000,000.00 which could have otherwise insure over 87,300,000 children a year, hire over 2,500,000 additional school teachers a year, and provide over 7,000,000 students four-year scholarships at public universities? http://www.costofwar.com This war is, at the very least, as controversial as the one we fought in Viet Nam.

With all this unrest the question arises:
What is a Yogin to do?

Moving through the internet(s) is a letter reported to be from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of “Women Who Run with the Wolves.” In the letter she tells us, whether yogin or of like-mind, “We were made for these times.” Estes encourages us to understand that “there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world….Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest.” Estes admits feeling despair after the election, but tells us “there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here.”

Yogins are fond of speaking of peace, and experience profound peace in consistent meditation. The “greater forest” from which our prow and rudder come instills in us a life steeped in genuine love and peace. But, do remember that peace is not passive, but most active. A yogin who sits in deep meditation soon discovers as Estes writes: “When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.”

These are our times. We all can do something to help each other get through this, each according to his or her temperament. As a Yoga teacher I am here to help you move from mere reaction to true response and remind you of what Lao Tzu wrote, “To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.” Know that deep inside, you have immense power that can, and will, change the world. You are the change.
.........................................................© 2004 John Hawkins

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A Matter of Faith

How faith shaped the 2004 Presidential election interested many in the political punditry of the United States. Moral values figured prominently in the exit polls. However, it is unclear how the moral values figured in the voting as those same exit polls showed Senator John Kerry winning in a landslide. Both sides speak to moral values as governing their decisions in how they vote.

Faith has played an astonishing role in history and its power is so often underestimated. It worked wonders in the liberation of India. Mohammed’s faith changed the Arab world and opened the area to tremendous wealth and trade not only of goods but of ideas. Muslims save ancient writings of Aristotle and practice medicine closer to the modern times than in Medieval Europe. In Ireland, Patrick, a British bishop, arrived and changed the whole nation, one which became a haven for scholars during the Dark Ages. These scholars saved ancient documents and made great gains in writing, being the first to separate words and create paragraphs.

Faith has played its cruel part, as well. During the Crusades Europeans zealously massacred Muslims in Jerusalem in 1099 and created a rift between two civilizations still remembered today. So called, Islamic Fundamentalists turned to terrorism, one fateful day, in the destruction of the Pentagon and World Trade Centers murdering three thousand people. Christian terrorists have killed doctors who help women with their reproductive rights. Today, because of an interpretation of the Book of Revelations, some American politicians belonging to a small branch of Christianity neglect our environment, and thus our future, because they believe the end of the world is at hand.

The power of faith changed history time and again, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill; usurping countries, opening hearts, creating movements, killing, healing.

How one views faith determine how one treats others. Many people of differing religions see elements of faith as beliefs in X, Y, Z; the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus and Lazarus, the parting of the Red Sea, reincarnation. These are fine points of belief that help many people with their faith and their ultimate expression of self. They are events which engender faith, reminding us that we live in a universe larger than our imaginations. However, accepting X. Y, Z is not faith nor do they really determine how one lives a life. They are large cosmological beliefs, and whether they exist or not actually play a small role in our lives.

Beliefs that pack the most power are much smaller. They have greater impact than the large cosmological beliefs people deem as articles of faith. These small beliefs may go unnoticed even for a lifetime. They are the general beliefs we have about life and our role in it. Most of them were formed when we were learning to cope with life. Most of our beliefs were filtered through the eyes of a two-year-old and many reside just beneath our awareness. Our self-image is tied up into these viewpoints along with our way of looking at the world. A parent who shows a lack of trust in others, for instance, may pass along to a child a belief that others are deceitful or devious.

Faith (shraddha) is mentioned only once in the “Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.” B. K. S. Iyengar translates “shraddha” as “confidence.” It is the way we are to face the Yogic lifestyle’s larger world of awareness; with utmost confidence, trust or faith.

The second sutra in the first chapter (pada) opens us to the notion of ‘vrittis,” whirlpool-like fluctuations in an otherwise calm lake of consciousness. Through the 2200 years of the “Yoga Sutras” scholars have translated “vrittis” as “thoughts” which hamper equanimity of the mind. They are identified by Patanjali as being painful or painless.

Some of the vrittis are not necessarily bad. The first vritti is pramana or “right knowledge.” ” It can be painless, as pramana can lead us to a clearer understanding of events happening in our environment. It can be painful if a fact is used to harm others unnecessarily. Pramana is not, however, a base for living. Non-violence, ahimsa, is. The quality most important of ahimsa is its experiential nature. Right knowledge is an abstraction. Patanjali lists revealed scriptural authority as one of the categories of pramana and beliefs in X, Y, Z seem to fall into that area.

As typical when crossing language barriers English may fall short in adequately viewing “vrittis.” It seems to be not so much a thought, but a charged thought; one which takes hold to steer our lives. Maybe a better word would be “belief” which, as any psychotherapist and motivational speaker will tell you, is either empowering or weakening. These beliefs form the undercurrent to how we approach life and they play a large role in what we chose to believe on a religious level.

Matthew Fox, an Episcopal priest and founder of University of Creation Spirituality shifts the idea of faith in his book, “Original Blessing” (Bear & Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1983).

“…the New Testament word most often used by Jesus for “faith” and which Augustine understood as “intellectual assent” in fact means “trust” (pisteueín) in the original Greek. Jesus time and again assures people that “your trust has healed you.” He recognizes the salvific power of trust.” (p. 83)

Swinging our understanding of faith from intellectual assent to trust opens a new world. Accepting elements of X, Y, Z pales in comparison.

We are still reeling from the shock of 9/11. Many Americans live in fear that terrorism will strike again. Our grief of loved ones lost and of innocence stolen is still fresh. Danger is part of the world. It always has been. Fear, a necessary emotion, keeps us safe.

When we entertain that fear for a long period of time and without break that emotion of fear turns to a state of fear. This state wrecks havoc on our central nervous system. The brain creates neural-peptides associated with the emotional reaction we call “fear.” These neural-peptides travel to each cell in the body. Each cell has receptors and many receptors take in the peptides. Candace Pert, author of “Molecules of Emotion” says that the peptides change the nucleus of the cell. If this is constant then when that cell divides the new cell will be equipped with more receptors for receiving the neural-peptides associated with fear and less for receiving and assimilating nutrients. In essence, we incarnate our fear. If this fear persists throughout our lives we actually re-incarnate that fear time and again until we each form an identity and its physical component. We begin to see everything through the color of that fear. This is the work of a faith of sorts, a belief that engenders fear.

Working with faith, then, are not an intellectual acceptance of certain cosmological events. The X, Y, Z principles people set up as a standard for accepting a particular religion is not the first step of faith. It is beliefs we hold deeply in our lives. Many times it takes an uprooting of a belief that has lodged itself into the very physical makeup of our bodies. Any action to change the color of a state of being which weakens us takes an amazing amount of courage. Moving to a state of fear to a state of trust is the work of faith.
.........................................................© 2004 John Hawkins

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Yoga is Religion,
But....

This issue gets batted around from time to time. Every so often, a Yoga magazine will pose the question; “Is Yoga a religion?” Every teacher is compelled to address it in a beginner’s class. Many students are refugees of bad religious experiences and some have strong connections with their religions and do not want teachers usurping that relationship.

A quick etymological look at the words deepens our understanding. “Yoga,” as many practitioners know, means “union;” union of mind, body and spirit, union to our true self, union to that which is most real. When we start a Hatha practice we begin to notice the union of mind, body and breath. We start to notice how what we think creates how we feel, physically.

The word “religion” is a combination of two Latin words: “re” meaning“again” and “ligare” meaning “cord” or “to bind.” “Ligare” is related to words, “legal,” “league,” and “ligament.” The last word fits nicely into our Hatha practice. Religion is a binding back to our source.

The words, although not etymologically connected (or bound), mean basically the same thing. Union and a re-binding to our source or to that which is most real is the purpose of Yoga and one would say (I would) the true purpose of religion. Of course, in both areas we encounter practitioners who are only paying lip service to this aim.

In an etymological sense Yoga is religion. Yet, many practitioners say that Yoga is not a religion rather spirituality. This notion has more to do with past experiences with religion and less to do with what religion actually is, or should be. Maybe it is my attempt to resurrect religion from the mire of its history, through which it has acted more as a controlling than its actual purpose as a liberating agent.

However, the word “spirituality” tends toward the idea of something separate from the physical world. This word is problematic in a belief such as Judaism. According to Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, the Hebrew word for spirituality does not appear in the Classical Hebrew of the Torah and carries with it Christian baggage. “Spirituality therefore seems, almost by definition, to invite the seeker to exit this everyday, material world in order to attain some higher, spiritual or holy domain.” (“Jewish Spirituality; A Brief Introduction for Christians” Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, Vermont; P. 10). Kushner continues to state: “Everything, from prayers to garbage, is a manifestation of God. And everything is connected and conceals the Holy One of All Being. Jewish spirituality, therefore, is an approach to life in which we strive to become aware of God’s presence and purpose – even and especially in what might strike the casual observer as gross or material things.”

Christianity is Greek in its basic, canonized texts and embedded in Greek is the notion of separation of the ideal and the physical. Some scholars would say this, and not Jesus of Nazareth, is the major difference between Christianity and Judaism.

In the study of Yoga, people tend to disparage Americans’ preoccupation with Hatha, the physiological Yoga. They say that the nature of Americans causes us to favor the physical in Yoga over the spiritual. I disagree.

First, I disagree that Americans are physical. The truth is that we are not physical enough. We are, instead, situated, floating actually, in our heads; swimming around the structures of our mind. Our love affair with Hatha is an attempt to get back into our bodies. In other types of exercise, such as aerobics, we many times work and rework the body treating it as a machine rather than as a living organism. When we react in this way our concentration falls more on the form of the exercise and less on the tangible experience of the body. The machine-concept is a structure of the mind which can divert us from the true experience of this physical organism.

Hatha is designed to create experience of the body and increase the range of our proprioceptors. When we were children we were open to the sheer joy of experience, but we learned to shut off much of that delight as we grew older. Our bodies sank into the deep dream of thought. To borrow a Christian concept, the practice of Hatha Yoga becomes a resurrection of the body.

Yoga is religion. But notice that the statement, “Yoga is religion,” is quite different from the statement, “Yoga is a religion.” Yoga is not a set of beliefs to which one adheres. It is, in fact, an experiential endeavor. One can slide any religion into the framework of Yoga.

Yoga allows us a real connection with ourselves. The longer we stay with it the more grounded we become and the deeper we move into our own experience of spirituality/religion.
.........................................................© 2004 John Hawkins

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