Satya- Truth

Week two, and time for the next yama- truth. Grounded in ahimsa, satya is truthfulness and honesty, in thought, speech and action. As always, the intention is important.

• Honesty towards yourself: am I living my life according to my inner truth? Am I expressing myself as I am, or am I expressing someone elses expectations, or perhaps something I wish to be rather than what I am? Am I not facing the truth because I am afraid of it? I've noticed that with some people I feel that I can be more myself, i.e. express my truth than with others. It's as if though I am afraid that I will not be accepted if I show who I really am. Do you recognise this? I wish I could always be honest with who I am. I guess this also has to do with ahimsa, loving yourself for who you are.


• Honesty towards others: is speaking the truth always the right thing to do? According to the sutras you must look at the intention behind speaking the truth, and also see if the truth might hurt someone. I think that one is tricky. Maybe by pointing out the truth to someone, they first feal hurt, but sometimes making someone aware of the truth can actually be helpful in the long run. I have had friends telling me in a quite harsh way to open up my eyes to the truth. At first I was very hurt, but after a while I have was greatful for their honesty, because it helped me get past certain obstacles. But then, their intention was good.

Balance and Bliss

Well, here I am again, staying home from work with a cold. Nastier this time than last. I guess I'm not in balance.

Again, going through my notes from Dr. Kumar's course, he gave us the ayurvedic definition of health:
"Health consists of balancing the functions of energy, the digestive fire, the tissues and the excretions. Having bliss in the soul, the sense organs and the mind."

Digestive fire, excretions and sense organs are fine. I guess since I have a cold the tissues are out of balance. I don't have sufficient auyurvedic knowledge to know how to balance the right tissue and with what. But I am trying to boost my immune sytem. How? With spirulina, echinecea, garlic, probiotics, broccoli soup and green tea. I might be a little low on the proteins. I'll do my usual smoothie with banana, maca powder, hemp powder(loads of protein), oat milk and flaxseed oil. Tastes really good.

Energy, well, a bit low. I've been a bit over active lately. I think I did too much too soon after the last cold. How to balance? Gentle(!) yoga and rest I guess. Sleep. Taking walks in the sun and fresh air.

Mind? A bit uneasy at the moment. Meditation.

Soul. Maybe one of the most important things to balance, but also the most difficult. How do you balance your soul? I don't know. I'm just guessing. Listening to your heart and expressing what it wants to say? Being with people who accept and love you for who you are? Love and respect your self. Having fun, laughing! Having a vision, something that gives you direction. A will to go on despite the ups and downs. Hope.

Sometimes bliss seems like a word I don't really understand. Have I ever been blissful? Is it possible to acheive in a wordly, profane life? Maybe it's one of those things that just happen. Like happiness, when you look for it, it just seems to get further and further away. Like running after a ball. You just kick it in front of you all the time. But when you stop running, the ball might just come rolling back to you. Is it the same with love?

Ahimsa- sowing positive seeds and watering with love

Yoga is, according to Sri K Pattabi Jois, 99 % practice and 1 % theory. This does not mean, as I unreflected thought in the beginning, 99 % physical practice and only 1 % philosophy...
It means that if you really want to learn something, if you really want to change and evolve on the yogic path, you have to practice what is taught. In other words- learning by doing.

So, this means that if you want to understand the yogic philosophy, you have to incorporate it in your life. A few years ago, when I was taking an intensive yoga course with my teacher Lisa Lalér, she gave us a home assignment every week to think about one of the yamas and niyamas in our daily life. This really helped in understanding what they meant, and it also helped in seeing the patterns in thought, speech and action that I had. In a way, a sort of self therapy. Since I am taking a course in Buddhism at the moment, and Buddhist philosophy seems so clearly similar to the yoga sutras, I thought this would be a good opportunity to conciously start practicing the yamas and niyamas again. One by one, week by week. Want to join me?

This weeks focus will then be AHIMSA.
Ahimsa: non- violence, non- harming, which really means having a loving attitude, towards others, and very importantly towards youself! In thought, action and speech. This yama is the base of all the other yamas and niyamas.

In the asana practice it's very easy to see your thoughts. Maybe you push yourself very hard so that you eventually harm yourself. Maybe you think badly of the person on the mat next to you because they can do something you can't, maybe you think you are worthless because you just never seem to be able to come into a certain asana. The teacher never sees me. I'm too fat. I'm too slow. I'm too restless. I'm not ambitious enough. I can never say no when I need to. And so on. At work or in your relationships, can you recognise these thoughts even there? In action and speech- Do you impose your views on others? Do you take other peoples time and space? Do you express anger on inoocent people? Do you manipulate people to get what you want? These questions also give rise to the principles of asteya (non-stealing) and satya (truth) that are the following yamas.

The antidote to these negative, harmful thoughts is to replace them with positive, loving thoughts. Don't let the harmful thoughts take root. Thouhts are seeds to your emotions. Sounds easy, right! But I know, it's hard, because your thought patterns are so deeply rooted! Especially harmful thoughts towards yourself. And it's a constant practice. It's not enough to do it just for a short period and then hope that the effect will last forever. And to begin with it might be necessary to sort of trick your mind. It might feel like you are not being sincere when replcing a bad thought with what might feel as a constructed good thought. But remember(you too Tina!), that you are not your thoughts. Just because you had a negative thought does not mean that it came from who you are at the moment, and it might not be a correct response to the actual situation. It is very likely that the thought came from your old thought patterns, the samskaras, the "autobahn" in your mind.

Thoughts preceed speech and action, so working with changing your harmful thoughts seems to me to be the first and formost important thing. And it needs to be done with a loving, non-judgemental attitude!

Next weeks subject on my course is metta-bhavana(loving-kindness) meditation. That's cultivating ahimsa!

Water your thoughts with love!

I just finished listening to "The Yoga Matrix" with Richard Freeman. I think I will go back and listen to it one more time. I didn't get everything the first time, and also I wasn't concentrated the whole time, so at least one more listening is left!

I was a bit sad that I had finished listening to it, so I went to Richards website and found that you can download talks that he has given the past years! They're possible to copy to your iPod:-) So, maybe another few weeks on the bus are saved!

Practicing Awareness

Two weeks ago I started a course in meditation and Buddhism at "Stockholms Buddhistcenter". I guess I've been meditating on and off for maybe ten years, but it's hard to get a regular practice. I took this same course five years ago, and found it really good. When in Mysore, I meditateted every evening before going to bed. I felt that I wanted to continue the practice when I came home. Also I have this longing for learning more philosophy. Listening to Richard Freeman talking about the Yoga Sutras, he said that Patanjali was influenced by Buddhism, and that there are a lot of similarities between the two. Having read and practiced a lot of yogic philosophy, I thought maybe that I would understand the course in a new way this time.

This weeks home assignment is to be aware. Actually, to be aware of how you can be more aware in daily life. The sitting meditation is a practice to become more aware. But the goal is to become more aware all the time. In daily life. When walking to the bus, when doing the dishes, when you are bored or stressed at work, when your expectations don't come true, when your sick, when you're miserable or when you're just neutral.

There is this saying that awareness is like a light. The light of awareness can dissolve pain. If you sit with pain and let the pain be present, without clinging to it or judging it, it can dissolve, or at least diminish. It's quite powerful actually. I think the not clinging part is difficult.

But I was going to talk about the home assignment, not about pain...when I was out walking this weekend, the weather first felt like shit. It was grey and foggy. It felt as grey and horrible as it could ever get. But then I thought about becoming more aware. I started seeing how the trees and buildings dissapeared into the fog, and it was extremely poetic and beautiful. I felt the the drops of water falling from the branches onto my cheeks, I heard the birds chipping in the bushes, I felt the contact between my feet and the soil, the sound of pebbles being crushed underneath my feet, the smell of the water and the wet earth. It became one of the most precious moments of the week. Using all the senses, sharpening them and being totally present in the moment can be very liberating. No thoughts have any room left to dwell in.

Home With a Cold

Many yogis who have a steady and regular practice talk about how rarely they get sick. I just never seem to get there. Maybe it also has to do with what constitution you are? I am mainly vata, and vatas have the poorest immune systems of the three doshas. I've also noticed that when I get sick, I almost always have my period. I remember reading somewhere that the immune system gets weaker during the menstruation. I can meet a person with a cold, a week passes and I think yeah! I didn't catcht it! Then comes my period and bang! I'm sick. Anyone recognize this, or is it only me?

I've been going through my notes from the Ayurveda course I took in Mysore. If you start treating the first symptoms right away, if your lucky(and don't get your period...), you might be able to stop it. Here are some tips Dr. Kumar gave us:

For a sore throat
Gargle with salt water.
For itching throat (kapha symtom): chew on 1 clove, 1 peice of black pepper and 1 peice of salt.
For pain (vata) or burning (pitta) in the throat: chew on a peice of liquorice.
Drink ginger tea 3 times per day. Take a thumb sized peice of fresh ginger, crush it and boil in 2 glasses of water. Boil until it has reduced to half. Add 2 pinches of turmeric powder and add jaggery or honey to taste(when it has cooled down). 1/3 in the morning, 1/3 in the afternoon and 1/3 in the evening. Max one glass of ginger a day.

I really miss my yoga practice during these times, but I will do this soft, immune enhancing program that my teacher has designed. It's done with a bolster, which you can make out of rolled up blankets and yogamats.

Immune Enhacing Program

• Baddha Konasana 10 minutes leaning back on a bolster(placed at the sacrum).
• Balasana (childs pose) 10 minutes leaning forward on the bolster.
• Supta Virasana 5 minutes leaning back on the bolster.
• Balasana 5 minutes without a bolster.
• Paschimottanasana with a bolster, 25 breaths.
• Upavishta Konasana with a bolster, 25 breaths.
• Viparita Karani (legs upp the wall pose) for 25 breaths.
• Baddha Padmasana & Yoga Mudra 25 breaths.
• Finish with Padmasana and Savasana.
• Everything done with Ujayi breathing if possible, exept if you have a sore throat or fever.
  

Well, being home with a cold gives time to write and study! So instead of being bored, I'm trying to see it as an opportunity to do things I otherwise don't have time for. Attitude is everything, right?

Intensive Course

Last weekend I took a three day intensive ashtanga yoga course with my teacher. The subject was to go deeper inte your own practice and also to talk about teaching. Maybe half the people on the course were already teachers, and the rest were either thinking about teaching one day, or just there to deepen the practice.

Most people were from other parts of Sweden, people who don´t have Maria as there regular teacher. I realized how lucky I am to have such a good teacher (and of course the other very qualified teachers at the shala) so closeby and available every day. A few weeks before this course I was on another course with Maria in Ljusdal, where there also were many teachers from other places in Sweden. What struck me was how many of these teachers were teaching after having practiced only for a few yeras (one girl had practiced only for 6 monthes!), and not having a 5-6 times/ week practice. I guess this is something that can happen in small towns, where there is no competition, and people ask you if you can start teaching because they become inspired by you.

Anyways, Maria talked a alot about what a big responsibility it is to teach. You don´t go to a physician or chiropractor who has only studied for two years. As a teacher you are actually manipulating not only peoples physical bodies, but also there subtle bodies, i.e. on an emotional plane. The one most important thing to remember as a teacher is to always be present she said. Even if your life outside the shala is in turmoil, once you step into the yoga room it is your responsibility to be totally present and there for the students. There is a difference between being an instructor and being a teacher. A teacher has to take responsibility and guide the student. To be able to see if a student needs to back off or be challenged.

The last day we were suposed to talk about how to integrate the yamas and niyamas in the practice. Unfortunately there was not so much time for this. I took a course for a couple of years with my other teacher Lisa, and I think I learnt a lot from her how to incorporate these into my practice, not only on the mat, but also in the everyday life. Perhaps this is another post. At the moment I am listening to Richard Freemans "The Yoga Matrix", and I can really recommend it if you are interested in going deeper into the yoga philosophy.

To teach or not to teach, now there's a question!
Am I ready? Will I be able to keep up the practice? Will I loose interest if I make it into a proffesion (although not full time)? Or will it make me go even deeper into the practice and will it give me joy to help other people? Will I have to change my present life completely, or will it become even better?
? ? ?
Time will tell. I surrender and leave the question in the hands of the universe.