|
|
John Schumacher
(founder of the Unity Woods Yoga Center)
Winter 2004
Letter
Yoga means meditation.
--B.K.S. Iyengar
NAMASTE,
The April 23, 2001 issue of Time magazine featured a cover story on yoga.
The August 4, 2003 issue of Time magazine featured a cover story on
meditation. Just as yoga has caught the attention of the American public in
the past few years, so meditation has recently experienced a significant
jump in acceptance by the mainstream culture. And just as the Time story on
yoga focused on the empirically verifiable physical and health benefits of
yoga, so the piece on meditation went into great detail about the
effectiveness of meditation in creating scientifically measurable benefits
for mind and body.
Science has been quite effective in providing us with gadgets supposed to
make our lives more comfortable and productive. Coupled with its success in
producing breakthroughs in fighting disease and prolonging life, science has
achieved a very high status in our society. In significant ways, science
nowadays often plays the role previously occupied by religion and philosophy
in terms of answering some of the big questions humankind has pondered
throughout the ages: how we got here, the nature of reality, and why we are
the way we are, to name a few. It is no surprise, then, that serious
attention from the scientific community has conferred mainstream
respectability upon the time honored practices of yoga and meditation.
Of course, attention from the mass media has been even more instrumental.
Media attention is, however, a double-edged sword. Over the years, I have
learned not to expect too much from the mass media, especially with respect
to a subject that I know something about, such as yoga. I used to find the
inaccuracies and superficiality irritating, but I have come to understand
that with the pressure of deadlines and the intention of selling as much
product as possible by being cute or controversial, to expect serious
investigation, analysis, and accuracy from the media is unrealistic.
Nonetheless, I am sometimes pleasantly surprised by the skill shown in
gathering a large amount of information, condensing it to essential points,
and presenting it in accurate and cogent fashion.
In most of the articles about yoga and meditation, a point that I think is
often overlooked, as in the Time stories, or misunderstood is the
relationship between yoga and meditation. Meditation and yoga are often
spoken of as if they were separate things. This is evident in Time’s having
given them each separate stories and covers. In many people’s minds, yoga
means asana, i.e., performing various postures or positions. The pretzelier
the posture, the more it is "real" yoga. Doing these exercises is said to
help improve health. And meditation means sitting in some cross-legged
posture and either "emptying your mind" or concentrating on something like
your belly button or repeating a phrase over and over to yourself. Studies
indicate that this helps reduce stress and bring serenity, peace of mind.
I can understand and have no problem with speaking of yoga and meditation in
this sort of shorthand manner. It is a functional way of distinguishing
between the gross aspects of practice. When people say, "I am going to
practice yoga", they usually mean they are going to do postures or, perhaps,
breathing exercises. And when people say, "I am going to practice
meditation", they usually mean they are going to focus their attention on
their breath or a concept or a feeling of some sort. These are techniques,
activities. But they are not Yoga or Meditation in the fullest sense of
those words, in the capital Y or capital M meaning.
Just what is Yoga as distinguished from yoga, the various practices? Yoga is
a state of mind, a state of being. Classically, Patanjali, the author of the
Yoga Sutra, defines yoga as the "cessation of the fluctuations of the mind".
Nothing about postures or breathing here - just the end of the waves of
thought in the mind. In other words, a quiet mind, a mind that is still.
That is Yoga. In yoga circles, there is general agreement on this point.
Meditation with a capital M is also a state of mind, as distinguished from
various practices intended to bring about that state. Here there may not be
general agreement. Nevertheless, I’ll proceed.
Joseph Goldstein, a noted meditation teacher and author, writes, "Meditation
is not thinking about things...Although meditation is not thinking,
nevertheless it can be clear awareness of thinking." B.K.S. Iyengar defines
meditation this way: "[Meditation] is a way of discovering the greater self.
It is the art of self-study, observation, reflection and sight of the
infinite hidden within." Krishnamurti, renowned philosopher and teacher,
says this of meditation: "What is important is not controlling thought, but
understanding it, understanding the origin, the beginning of thought, which
is yourself...when you understand what quietness is, ...then out of that
comes an extraordinarily quiet mind....and this is meditation.
From the point of view of Meditation being quietness of the mind, then, Yoga
and Meditation are in essence the same thing. In the Buddhist meditation
traditions, as in the various yoga lineages, the practitioner is referred to
as a yogi.
So, we can go into our room and practice yoga, stand on our head, breathe in
particular ways. And we can go into our room and practice meditation, sit on
our cushion, close our eyes, and focus on the object of our choice. The
practices, small y yoga and small m meditation, are like a farmer plowing,
planting, irrigating, and cultivating his field. By so doing, the farmer
helps create the conditions that will most likely result in a field full of
wheat. But maybe not. Storms may come; the seed may be weak; clouds may
obscure the sun. Ultimately the wheat grows or it doesn’t, depending on a
myriad of factors. It’s just that the likelihood of the wheat growing is
greatly enhanced by the hard work of the farmer. Our practices, asana,
pranayama, sitting, concentrating are like the work the farmer does in the
field. We create the conditions that we believe or have been taught will
lead to quietness of mind. And like the field full of wheat, maybe the state
of quietness that is Yoga/Meditation will come and maybe it won’t. As Mr.
Iyengar says Meditation cannot be practiced. It is the fruit of our
practice. Like the farmer, we do our work, set things in motion in a way we
believe will be helpful and then it’s up to the Great Cosmic Ooze. If and
when the quietness of Yoga/Meditation comes, according to Patanjali,
Krishnamurti, B.K.S. Iyengar, and all the great spiritual teachers and
sages, then something truly grand happens. We come face to face with who we
really are, free from all our ideas and fears and wishes about what we are
or are not. Krishnamurti puts it this way: “The mind being still, truth
comes to it.”
Yoga is so much more than exercises and Meditation is so much more than
relaxation. Health and serenity are wonderful; they help life be sweeter and
easier. But when awareness of truth and reality are possible, why settle for
less?
At Unity Woods and generally in the Iyengar tradition, we don’t practice
formal sitting meditation. For Mr. Iyengar the practise of asana, pranayama,
and pratyahara are meditation. In Tree of Yoga he says, "Can I extend my
awareness of my self and bring it to each and every part of my body without
variation? This is what I mean by fullness of meditation"..Thus, I learn to
be at one with my body, my brain, my mind, my intelligence, my consciousness
and my soul without any divisions at all. That is how I practice. That is
why for me there is no difference between asana and dhyana [meditation]."
As practitioners, we use these methods - asana, pranayama, pratyahara - as
vehicles for developing attention, refining awareness, and becoming quiet.
This is not easy. Recently, I have also begun to provide some time for
formal sitting at the end of my class. After the relaxation and involution
of attention of Savasana, this allows the students to more deeply penetrate
and savor the meditative quality of the preceding practice. This is not easy
either. The real art of meditation, though, is to maintain quiet awareness
in every moment of life. Each moment is an opportunity for practice. This
definitely is not easy. Yet, whatever methods you use, bear in my mind that
the quiet mind arising from deep awareness is the real point of practice,
because when that happens, you are free.
Reprinted with permission from
www.unitywoods.com
|
|
