Advice on philosophy?
kcol...@gmail.com
year, all told - but I am having question after question after
question. The classes I'm taking and the practice I'm doing at home
are helping me to refine the physical part, but what's happening to me
mentally and emotionally is throwing me into confusion.
Can anyone suggest a book or a couple of books that will help me
understand the way I'm going about this journey? I'm having trouble
internalizing the fact that I can't apply my natural perfectionism to
yoga, and that I maybe need to discard my perfectionism altogether to
enjoy yoga properly. I'm so confused about the way I'm practicing and
I need some guidance. My yoga teacher is wonderful, but she has a
whole class full of students, and I feel like I'd need another hour
after the class is over to discuss all this stuff with her. (I wish
there was a companion class to my yoga class on yoga philosophy!)
I bought The Heart of Yoga (which looks good, but kind of high-level
for me) and Light on Yoga (which, flipping through it, is just
intimidating!). Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Kat
PS: Do I really have another seven years before my hamstrings stretch
out??
Richard Corfield
> I am not very far into my yoga journey - I've been practicing about a
> year, all told - but I am having question after question after
> question. The classes I'm taking and the practice I'm doing at home
> are helping me to refine the physical part, but what's happening to me
> mentally and emotionally is throwing me into confusion.
I wish you all the best with it. It sounds like you're enjoying it and
doing well. Your teacher can be a great help if he/she is willing to
spend time with you.
There can be challenges. I'm still facing challenges - trying to work
it all out which may be a lot of the problem! Probably trying too hard
to resolve it at a logical level.
Yoga for me brought out things in my history where I was hurt by
over-evangelical Christians. A teacher would (and did) say that the
practice of yoga brings back things that have been buried. There was
also the area of overlap so although I didn't believe what these people
told me I still had to face up to it.
> PS: Do I really have another seven years before my hamstrings stretch
> out??
You'll notice improvement before then. I think that's a thing in yoga.
It's a gentle practice working from where you are now and enjoying where
you are now. Although maybe nice to be perfect - coming to accept
wherever you're at is a great thing. Yoga is not competitive.
- Richard
--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard dot Corfield at gmail dot com
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twilight Zone
Shava_X
You might want to flip through a Book called "Meditations from the Mat",
or Either of "Journey into Power" or "40 Days to Personal Revolution" both
by Baron Baptiste. Generally, spend some time in a book store and/or
library flipping through the various books related to Yoga. The one that
will speak most directly to You is probably out there.
Richard Corfield
> understand the way I'm going about this journey? I'm having trouble
> internalizing the fact that I can't apply my natural perfectionism to
> yoga, and that I maybe need to discard my perfectionism altogether to
> enjoy yoga properly. I'm so confused about the way I'm practicing and
> I need some guidance. My yoga teacher is wonderful, but she has a
> whole class full of students, and I feel like I'd need another hour
> after the class is over to discuss all this stuff with her. (I wish
> there was a companion class to my yoga class on yoga philosophy!)
I forgot to mention - I found Judith Lasater's web site very good.
http://www.judithlasater.com/writings/
kcol...@gmail.com
enjoyed the website, and I'm definitely interested in reading more of
her stuff. She seems like she's a little more grounded in the workaday
world than other authors, some of whom have intimidated me with their
ethereality. Shava, I'm a little dubious about Baron Baptiste, but the
Meditations book looks good. All the books in my local bookstore seem
to be created to appeal to people who aren't committing to the
emotional journey, but I'll keep looking.
The problem I'm having, and I'm sure it's pretty common, is that as
yoga has grown in mainstream popularity, it's gotten harder to filter
through the books and products that are just trying to capitalize on
the "fad", and those that come from a place of honest belief and
practice in the yoga path(s). What does the alt.yoga group think about
this? Am I being too picky?
Thanks again for your replies. I'm going to keep looking, and keep
going.
PS: Richard, I've already seen significant improvement in my hams in
the past six months, but I can't seem to stop wishing I could do all
the pretzel positions in my Iyengar book. :)
Richard Corfield
> The problem I'm having, and I'm sure it's pretty common, is that as
> yoga has grown in mainstream popularity, it's gotten harder to filter
> through the books and products that are just trying to capitalize on
> the "fad", and those that come from a place of honest belief and
> practice in the yoga path(s). What does the alt.yoga group think about
> this? Am I being too picky?
I wonder where the balance is. I tend to avoid things with crystals
and electromagnetic meditational wobbly things and so much that is "New
Age". If meditation does do funny things with electromagnetic waves then
let's put a load of people in a Faraday cage with some measuring equipment
and find out. Claims that meditating over your ice cubes gives prettier
patterns don't seem relevant to me. Even if we did a double blind study
on that one what would it prove?
Then again, I find the temple very peaceful - although a Christian I took
there found it threatening. (I see that the church is peaceful to them
but I can find it threatening). I've experienced a feeling at a point in
someone's home that this is a very special place before finding out that
person practiced regular meditation there. I don't remember consciously
seeing any clues as to that place's purpose but maybe they were there.
So where do we find the balance between being open and accepting that
these things work for some people and just ruling them out? How do we
step back and assess them, or am I becoming as much a stickler for
tradition as some of the evangelical Christians I meet on a fairly
frequent basis.
The various religious paths all seem to have teachings about non greed,
caring for others, serving your community and world, developing
compassion. Some of the things sold around yoga seem to develop more
towards greed, but it can be a fine line and really comes down to
personal motivation. There are things I've seen at yoga festivals that
I'd just thought of as "snake oil".
Even a really big thing, Transcendal Meditation and Yogic Flying,
something with is popular and has many happy adherents, can raise those
questions. Is it greedy to want the Sidhis? Is it cart before horse
(regardless of whether or not you believe the cart exists)? Doesn't even
the various scripture warn against this? The argument, that these while
not harmful in themselves can get in the way and become a distraction,
seems to make sense. The TM-ers argue that developing these things is
a valid focus.
Replace Sidhi with material success, position in your job, and how
does this fit the real world? What are the religions telling us about
our attitudes to things like material and job success? That it's not
harmful in itself, but can if focused on lead you to being the kind of
person that treads on everyone else to force their way up the ladder?
An alternate view, isn't drive towards a goal a good thing in life and
something we need? Christians have this bit about camels and the eye of
a needle. Hindus have Artha, material success, as an aim second only to
Dharma, righteousness in this case. Buddhists have their middle way.
(As an aside - I was reading about Peter Gabriel recently as someone
who's had material and job success but not it seems by greed or force
but because he's good at it and loves what he does. He now uses that
position of wealth to benefit the world. This seems more "Yoga")
> Thanks again for your replies. I'm going to keep looking, and keep
> going.
Do so. It's an interesting journey.
> PS: Richard, I've already seen significant improvement in my hams in
> the past six months, but I can't seem to stop wishing I could do all
> the pretzel positions in my Iyengar book. :)
Me too at times, and reliably kick head height in karate. You can find
so much though just where you are. For me just getting to the point
where I could sit on the floor comfortably made a lot of difference,
though I still fidget if I have to sit for long periods.
Shava_X
Some of the books out there may be just riding the fad, but in some
respects the large number of books is because of the wide group of people
looking into Yoga. A book that 'connects' with one person will not
necessarily 'connect' with another. One Yoga instructor finds they can
connect with a large group of people, so they write a book. Another
instructor find they can connect with a different large group, so they
write a book too. The down side of so much choice is that You must sift
through it all to find the ones that can actually connect with You. As
with Yoga itself, it takes time and patience.
kcol...@gmail.com
<Richard.Corfi...@REVERSE.uk.me.littondale> wrote:
Yeah, I agree. I'm having a difficult time believing that I should be
thoroughly nonjudgmental about everything and everyone - I feel like
that way lies naivete and danger. I'm reading a book about the chakras
right now which is thoroughly New Age-y, but it has useful information
and is more approachable than a lot of other books about chakras. I'm
trying to discard what seems foolish to me, without being judgmental
of the author, but it's a tough balance to find.
I think it would be wrong to entirely rule out anything in the New Age
realm, no matter how silly it seems (crystals seem rather silly to
me), in part because I have felt such intense stuff during yoga and
chakra workshops, all of which I'm sure someone else would scoff at
and find silly. My partner is a skeptic about ghosts and the like, and
I firmly believe that there has to be more out there than what we can
see. Sometimes it's nice to have him around to ground me.
> The various religious paths all seem to have teachings about non greed,
> caring for others, serving your community and world, developing
> compassion. Some of the things sold around yoga seem to develop more
> towards greed, but it can be a fine line and really comes down to
> personal motivation. There are things I've seen at yoga festivals that
> I'd just thought of as "snake oil".
Agreed! All the discussion around Bikram Choudhury is a perfect
example. What is his motivation, truly? And the prices that jewelry
artisans are asking for their pieces, just because they have the om
symbol in them, is shameful.
> Even a really big thing, Transcendal Meditation and Yogic Flying,
> something with is popular and has many happy adherents, can raise those
> questions. Is it greedy to want the Sidhis? Is it cart before horse
> (regardless of whether or not you believe the cart exists)? Doesn't even
> the various scripture warn against this? The argument, that these while
> not harmful in themselves can get in the way and become a distraction,
> seems to make sense. The TM-ers argue that developing these things is
> a valid focus.
>
> Replace Sidhi with material success, position in your job, and how
> does this fit the real world? What are the religions telling us about
> our attitudes to things like material and job success? That it's not
> harmful in itself, but can if focused on lead you to being the kind of
> person that treads on everyone else to force their way up the ladder?
>
> An alternate view, isn't drive towards a goal a good thing in life and
> something we need? Christians have this bit about camels and the eye of
> a needle. Hindus have Artha, material success, as an aim second only to
> Dharma, righteousness in this case. Buddhists have their middle way.
See, from the bits of Light on Yoga I've read, it seems like Iyengar
is goal-oriented, intent on perfecting the pose. (I guess he would use
the word "refine" but he does use the phrase "master the pose", which
seems to me to be contradictory to "be where you are.") I know that no
success in yoga can really be defined as material success, but the
drive toward the goal, which is so inherent to Western thought, is
what I'm having a hard time shedding for my practice. The goal is mu.
The goal is the journey. But isn't there a way to be better at it than
you are, and therefore *better*?
I've always associated greed with material things only, but I guess
that wanting inner peace in four easy lessons is rather greedy. I
never thought of it that way.
Is it wrong to push myself in my practice? To try to do poses that I'm
not sure I'm ready for, because I want to stretch myself physically
and mentally? To hold a pose until it's really, really difficult to
keep holding it, so I can try and hold it even longer the next time?
Is that ambition the wrong path?
> > PS: Richard, I've already seen significant improvement in my hams in
> > the past six months, but I can't seem to stop wishing I could do all
> > the pretzel positions in my Iyengar book. :)
>
> Me too at times, and reliably kick head height in karate. You can find
> so much though just where you are. For me just getting to the point
> where I could sit on the floor comfortably made a lot of difference,
> though I still fidget if I have to sit for long periods.
The thing I think will make a lot of difference in my practice is to
be able to think of downward dog as a restful posture in between more
difficult asanas. That will be my "sit on the floor comfortably". My
teacher always takes us back to down dog in between sun salutations
and says "Five breaths. Ahhh." No! Not "ahhh"! This is HARD! :)
K
Richard Corfield
>
> Is it wrong to push myself in my practice? To try to do poses that I'm
> not sure I'm ready for, because I want to stretch myself physically
> and mentally? To hold a pose until it's really, really difficult to
> keep holding it, so I can try and hold it even longer the next time?
> Is that ambition the wrong path?
>
In the west we've always pushed ourselves, and been happy in our fast
improvement. I also don't think that entirely sitting back is that
useful - at least for us younger lot. It's a balance. We don't want
greed to take over and to hurt ourselves in yoga, but we don't want to
not try. (Tapas from the Yoga Sutras is work/effort). We can gain
pleasure from our success.
There's an image of still working hard and trying hard, but without
attachment to the result, so all is not lost if you don't achieve. Also
you don't hurt yourself by over straining. It is so different to what we
normally think of working with attachment, because we want to achieve.
It's a religious ideal and I can sort of see how it works, but wonder if
sometimes striving and occasional disappointment is useful to us.
> The thing I think will make a lot of difference in my practice is to
> be able to think of downward dog as a restful posture in between more
> difficult asanas. That will be my "sit on the floor comfortably". My
> teacher always takes us back to down dog in between sun salutations
> and says "Five breaths. Ahhh." No! Not "ahhh"! This is HARD! :)
That is useful. My first teacher also stressed that Down Dog was a rest
between more strenuous poses and I wondered at first, but seem to find it
more restful now I've been doing it a while.