December 2009 Newsletter from Srivatsa Ramaswami--One legged poses and story of Bhagirata

[Srivatsa Ramaswami]

WARM SEASON’S GREETINGS, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Since I am leaving for India in a few days, I thought I could send
this December Newsletter earlier.

Please send replies to
in...@vinyasakrama.com


Here is a letter I received from a friend and my reply thereof

Dear Ramaswami,

I always look forward to reading your monthly emails. I appreciate
the thoughts you share with the yoga community.

I have a concern about yoga that I would like to share with you and
would appreciate any feedback you may be able to provide. I have been
practicing yoga for almost 6 years, but I am not a diligent student.
I started to take your class on Hatha Pradipika but I discontinued the
class after 2 or 3 lessons. I recall that during the class as you
went through the Hatha Pradipka, you mentioned how crucially important
it is for students to be devoted to God. In fact, yogis were not
supposed to teach students who did not have faith in God.

After learning that, I felt I should drop your class because I am
agnostic with beliefs that lean toward atheism. I cannot be sure that
there is no God, but feel that most likely God does not exist. I also
don’t believe that there is one spirit or life force that we should be
praying to. I think there are actions that are inherently good,
rather than religiously good, and that the human race desires to
follow a path of “goodness”. I think that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra is
at the very least a tremendously useful guide to living an effective
life, and perhaps much more.

At the time I was taking your class, …….. was my teacher. When I
asked …. about these issues that bothered me, she advised me to just
practice the pieces of yoga that are helpful to me and to not worry
about the bigger picture. That seemed like reasonable advice and I
have been following it. She did advise me that unless I change my
beliefs, I would not be able to experience certain aspects of yoga.

I love to practice yoga and have become an enthusiastic advocate of
yoga asanas and meditation. Perhaps I am enthusiastic about something
that is a misinterpretation of yoga, since one might argue that one
does not really practice yoga unless one believes in God.

I have heard it said that once you experience yoga, you feel that it
is a gift that you want to pass on to others. I do feel that I would
like to teach yoga---not as a primary occupation, but more as a
service that I can provide to others. But I am bothered by the
religious issue. Should I abandon yoga and seek out a more atheistic-
friendly discipline? Should I just keep practicing and learning, and
teaching what I know? Do you have any thoughts on this? Sincerely
*****


Dear ****: Thank you for your e mail. I really do not remember the
context in which I said that. I might have mentioned that some
orthodox yogis consider faith in God as a prerequisite for yoga. In a
way Patanjali includes iswarapranidhana as one of the niyamas. But
then when I teach I do not check whether the person coming to the
class believes in God or not. So this should be considered in the
correct light. There are many orthodox Hindu philosophies like Sankhya
(Yoga borrows heavily on it) which proclaim that there is no need to
postulate a Creator to explain creation of the universe. While I teach
Yoga sutras I stress that Patanjali takes care of both believers and
non believers, only thing is that believers have a positive
psychological advantage which may of course be contested. I think
belief in God or the lack of it is pretty deep, maybe it is in the
genes. The problem comes when the believer yogis try to convert the
nonbeliever yogis or vice versa. Even the vedas address this question.
The commentator on Vedas, Sayana says that even if you debate for a
billion years the believer and the nonbeliever will not be able to
convince each other, there will be no consensus. When many people
argue for or against the belief, it is mainly to fortify their own
convictions. Hence it is perhaps futile to indulge in this discussion
--Creator or no Creator. So I would say that since yoga is good for
everyone, it has something very positive to both believers and non
believers, one should practice accordingly. I think your practice as
it is, is very good and you may teach the way you have learnt from
your teacher and practiced and experienced yourself. One has to be
good yogi and follow as many yamas and niyamas as possible. There are
good 'nonbelievers' and 'not so good' believers. I am sorry if I had
created a serious doubt in you which you seem to carry. I wish you had
stayed on with the program that you started with me. Thank you and
with best wishes Sincerely Srivatsa Ramaswami

P S Maybe you would consider revisiting the article “A Creative
Hypothesis” contained in an earlier Newsletter, click the link below
http://groups.google.com/group/vinyasa-krama-announce/browse_thread/thread/1d8cbbf54072c031?hl=en#


Here is a letter I received from Shawn Drummond

Dear Ramaswami:

I hope this finds you well. It was good to see you in Chicago in
September. Thank you for recommending Yoga Rahasya. I received it
from
KYM, and I have been studying it.

I also ordered from Amazon an English translation of Thirumandiram.
It
comes in a three-volume boxed set. I just received it today, and I
look
forward to reading it. Here is the link at Amazon, in case any of
your
other students are interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Thirumandiram-Classic-Tantra-Three-Vollume/dp/1895
383021/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257820286&sr=1-1

Thanks again, and take care.

Regards,

Shawn Drummond


Here is one from Michael Tibbs

Head stand with fused C7 - T1 spinal disc. Yoga works!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_GfIRUQUYA

Michael Tibbs R.Y.T.
Certified Yoga Teacher

TREE POSES AND STORY OF BHAGIRATA

The Sanskrit root ‘tap’ means to heat up (tapa daahe) and there are a
couple of words derived from the root that are found even in the
Vedas. They are ‘taapa’ and ‘tapas’ both of which are used by
Patanjali in the Yoga sutras. The word taapa means to be under intense
heat or pressure and hence uncomfortable, like the ‘cat on a hot tin
roof’ or walking barefoot in the sands of Sahara around midday in
midsummer. The word taapa as used by Patanjali and the Vedas indicates
the taapa mood as one in which the mind feels intense pain, like the
inability to get what one wants and the inability to get rid of what
one does not want. So taapa is a negative feeling, of being tormented.
Whereas the word tapas, which also means intense heat, indicates self
purification or a self discipline imposed by the person (yogi or
tapasvi) to be able to attain something out of the ordinary. Tapas
will indicate channelizing one’s energies without distractions and
wastage toward the main goal. The Vedas refer to intense study of the
Vedas (srutam), charity all through one’s life (danam), remaining
peaceful and maintaining equanimity all through life (saantam),
leading a austere religious life (yagnyam), meditating on Brahman the
ultimate reality (brahma Upasya) as tapas. So while taapa refers to an
unbearable negative heat, tapas refer to heat generated by positive
uplifting effort. Tapas has a cleansing effect, like using heat to
remove dross from precious metal like gold.

During the time I was a kid, teenage pregnancies in India were the
order of the day, especially within my Brahmin community. It was
mainly because parents would arrange the marriage of their young
daughters very early, almost around puberty. I was born when my mother
was 19 and then I was the third child. Because the mothers were young,
medical facilities were limited and medical science had not advanced
as of now, infant mortality and the death of the mother at childbirth
were unacceptably high. Later on the Central Government passed a law
raising the legal age of marriage bringing some sanity to this
abhorrent situation. Even so, parents still had a complete hold over
the grown up children especially with regard to whom they would marry.

The practice of the parents arranging the marriage of the offspring
continued and continues even today, though to a lesser extent. It is
common even now for a young Indian software engineer with a doctoral
degree from Stanford or a medical doctor from Harvard Medical School
working in USA or UK to go on a fortnight’s trip to India, interview
half a dozen girls the parents have shortlisted, choose one, marry and
return to USA with his bride, a happy married man.

The hold of the parents on their children regarding marriage is still
quite strong. So when I was young one of my distant cousins fell in
love with a young man in the same neighborhood, it was considered a
reckless act. The parents of both of them disapproved the proposition
and tried all means to stop the marriage, like talking reason to them
(sama), promising goodies if they would break the friendship (dana)
then attempted to create rift between them (bheda) and even threatened
them with dire consequences (danda), but nothing worked. The girl was
steadfast in her resolve, persisted with her mission and ultimately
they got married. “She stood on one leg” as the expression goes and
got things her way, everyone said. Standing on one leg is an
expression used in my language to indicate goal oriented perseverance,
and a never say die attitude.

So we have a number of instances quoted in the Puranas, where someone
would do penance standing on one leg until one gets the vision of God
or Goddess. I have written about the story of the kid, Dhruva who did
Tapas standing on one leg to please Lord Vishnu/Narayana. The one
legged postures are said to create a great sense of balance—physical
and mental—and also create tolerance, patience and perseverance and
goal orientation and fine tunes the sense of balance. One legged poses
group are sometimes known by the general term, vrikshasana or tree
pose sequence. It looks like one standing like a tree standing on
(one) trunk. The one legged poses are known as Tapasvin postures or
poses of penance /austerity.

There are many beautiful poses and vinyasas in this sequence and some
of them bear the names of sages. We have asanas named after Bhagirata
a royal sage, Durvasasana named after a sage called Durvasa. There is
also another pose called Trivikramasana which is the form said to have
been taken by the Lord as an incarnation. For more information of
these poses you may please refer to the chapter on one legged poses in
my book “The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga”. It has an array of asanas
with multiple vinyasas.

Bhagiratasana named after King Bhagirata is a one legged pose which,
nowadays, many call as Vrikshasana. There is an ancient temple city
near Chennai in South India, said to have been constructed around 700
AD. It is a shore temple city with a number of beautiful ancient
structures. It also contains a sculpture of Bhagirata standing in one-
legged Bhagiratasana.

The story of Bhagirata is interesting.

The Sun Dynasty (Suryavamsa) of the Puranic age was a dominant one and
could boast of outstanding kings and emperors. When the Lord decided
to incarnate as a human being—a perfect example a human who followed
Dharma—He chose to be born as Rama into this dynasty ruling from
Ayodhya in the northern part of India. Our hero Bhagirata, a
forefather of Lord Rama, was an outstanding one from the Sun dynasty
(Surys vamsa)

Sagara was a king of this dynasty ruling well and comfortably in
Ayodhya. But he wanted to expand his kingdom; he wanted to become an
emperor. In the olden days it was considered that the responsibility
of each king was to expand the kingdom. There is an interesting
saying: A contented king and a discontented brahmin (scholar) will
come to grief. In the olden days the king who had territorial
ambitions will take a thoroughbred, nicely decorate it, and go through
extensive religious ritual called Aswamedha or horse worship. Then the
horse will be let loose, driven out of the country followed by the
King’s army. The deal is this. When the horse goes through other
countries the king of the countries through which the horse wanders
will have to take a calculated decision. Should one fight the invading
army following the horse or let it go through thereby accepting the
suzerainty of the invader? If he chooses to fight, he would order the
arrest of the horse which will be signal that this aggression would
not be taken lying down. Then there will be a war. If the invading
King loses that signals the end of the mission. If he wins the
conquered kingdom will be annexed.

It is said that Sagara had 60,000 children—(Really? Yes, it was
puranic time)—who formed the bulk of his army. These boys were good
fighters, but short tempered blockheads. So, the horse properly
venerated was sent out of the country followed by the king’s army made
up mostly of the princes. The horse trotted far and wide and met with
no resistance whatsoever; all the heads of the neighboring states felt
that discretion was the better part of valor.

But then there was a small principality whose ruler knew he had no
chance against the mighty invading army; even so, he felt he should do
something. So when the horse for a brief moment went out of the sight
of the following army, he quickly abducted the horse, took it away and
tied it to a tree close to the ashram of a pious sage, known as
Kapila. The name Kapila is associated with Samkhya philosophy and also
a famous yoga pose, Kapilasana, a vinyasa of Ekapadasirshasana. The
princes finding the horse missing panicked and started running in
circles.

There is another version of this incident. It is said that Indra, the
boss of the ‘gods’ panicked at the possible success of the Aswameda
expedition. There is a belief that if anyone can do 100 aswamedas in
one’s lifetime, he would ascend the throne of the devaloka or the
world of the gods replacing the incumbent. So it is said that to
thwart the aswamedha attempts of king Sagara, Indra himself stole the
horse and deposited it in the sage’s ashram.

Anyway, the king’s army finally located the horse and immediately
concluded that the sage had stolen the horse. Since the Sage Kapila
himself was in deep samadhi, the boys concluded that after stealing
the horse, the old man was faking a nap. They shook him violently but
the sage could not be brought out of Samadhi. After a while they lost
further interest in the sage but wanted to teach him a lesson. As a
worst form of insult, they made a garland out of old torn shoes and
put it around the neck of the sage. Then they took the horse and
started walking away from the Ashram. Just then the sage came out of
his Samadhi and immediately realized what had happened. In an unyogic
fit of anger, he converted all his accumulated yogic powers into yogi
fire and with a stern look burnt all the intemperate boys to ashes. In
a moment, in place of 60,000 soldiers, there were 60,000 heaps of
human ashes. In an instant the sage regained his composure and
regretted that he lost his temper resulting in the loss of all the
yogic powers he had accumulated over a long period of time and
considerable effort. He was also remorseful.

The horse returned to the country, by itself after a while. The King
seeing the horse alone realized that something amiss had taken place.
He panicked and immediately left the country in search of his boys.
Soon he reached Kapila’s ashram and saw to his horror all his army,
made up of mostly his offspring, reduced to ashes. He felt a deep
sense of sorrow at the pitiable end to his sons all because of his own
ambition. It is said that one of the most heart wrenching dukkhas or
sorrows of anyone is the loss of a young adult offspring, especially
due to untimely/unnatural death (akala marana). He approached the sage
Kapila, prostrated before him and profusely apologized for the
despicable acts of his sons. He begged him to pardon his children and
bring them back to life. The sage in turn apologized for his non-yogic
rage but replied that it was beyond his capabilities to revive the
dead. But according to traditional view, when there is unnatural
death, the disembodied soul suffers until it is liberated so that it
can go on with its journey to the next birth. So the King requested
the sage to help save the souls of his children. The sage suggested
that the only way to have it done is to sprinkle the ashes with the
holy waters of Ganga and then continued with his own meditation.

The remedy the sage suggested was easier said than done. The problem
at that time was that the Ganga was not flowing down the plains and
was confined to the upper reaches of the Himalayas. It is said that
Lord Siva was holding the Ganga on his head which surely made Ganga a
proud entity. So the problem for King Sagara was to get the waters of
Ganga to flow down the mountains. He neither had the engineering
skills nor was able to please Siva to release Ganga to flow down the
Himalayan mountain range. Disheartened, he returned to the country. A
dispirited king, the curse of wrong doing of the sons, the disembodied
spirits all spelt gloom to the country. Kings of the neighboring
countries become emboldened and attacked; there were natural
calamities due to the acts of angered gods. The country suffered with
pestilence, draught and strife. The King died a broken man.

One of the surviving princes who did not take part in the aswamedha
misadventure ascended the throne and ruled over a weaker and smaller
kingdom. Several weak generations later Bhagirata took over the reigns
and immediately felt that he had to do something to change the
country’s fortunes. He consulted various wise men and they all
indicated that the main cause of the misery was the disembodied
spirits of the forefathers and until the curse of the sage was
eschewed the people will continue to suffer. So King Bhagirata asked
his ministers to take care of the administration when he would be gone
to find a permanent solution to the chronic condition. He approached
sage Kapila (the sages lived much longer than the Kings, I guess) and
made the same request King Sagara had made. Kapila asked Bhagirata to
get the waters of the Ganga. Bhagirata pointed out that the Ganga was
not flowing in the plains. The sage then suggested that he should pray
to Ganga to come down from the exalted position she was in, on top of
the Siva’s head, top of the world so to say. So to please goddess
Ganga, Bhagirata decided to do intense penance. He decided to stand in
one of the tree poses that is, stand on one leg and keep the other leg
bent and placing the foot on the other thigh, the foot position a la
Mahamudra/Janusirshasana. (Please refer to my book The Complete Book
of Vinyasa Yoga). He stood in the posture for a long time, some works
refer to it as 1000 years. After all this effort Ganga did not relent.
She abhorred the idea of flowing down the plains, she was at the most
exalted position, the crest of the Lord Himself. She would not give it
up, would any one do it, she thought and decided to ignore the fervent
pleas of Bhagirata.

Even as he was pious, Bhagirata was a Tapasvi, a determined one. He
then went back to the sage and said that Ganga will not accede to his
request. The sage suggested in that case, he should consider appealing
to Lord Siva Himself who had given the high position to Ganga. Again
Bhagirata stood in the one legged position and preyed to Lord Siva,
who also has another name Asutoshi, or one who is quickly pleased. So
Lord Siva quickly responded to the penance of Bhagirata and appeared
before him. “I am pleased Bhagirata with your devotion and
determination, the Lord said, “Now what can I do for you?’ King
Bhagirata narrated the story which Siva as Sarvagnya (all-knowing)
already knew. He gladly acceded to his request, looked up to Ganga and
said to her
“Come on now, come down and flow over the plains to help out devotee
Bhagirata” and disappeared.

Like an angry kid ordered by the parent to clean the room and unable
to disobey, Ganga grudgingly did what she was ordered to do. But she
was very upset too. She showed her anger by flowing down the Himalayas
in a torrent. Suddenly Bhagirata could see a huge column of water
flowing down at great speed. Instantly he realized that the huge
column of water when it would hit the ground would create a wide
crater and disappear into it as an underground river and he would get
nothing out of his entire herculean task. He virtually became
distraught and found a Himalayan sage named Janhu in a nearby ashram.
He went to him and briefly explained his predicament. Janhu, an
unusual Sidhha, had a unique Siddhi. He went near the foot of the
Himalayas, stood just under the Ganga stream slamming down and opened
his mouth. Lo and behold! All the waters of the Ganga now flowed into
the mouth of the sage and ended up in the stomach of the sage. (You
may want to tell this story to your children and they would listen to
it with open mouth. I remember that is what I did when I heard this
story the first time when I was a child.) From the crest of the Lord
to the stomach of a sage, it was a great fall for Ganga.

Now Bhagirata had another problem. The waters of Ganga would have to
be taken out of the sage’s stomach unpolluted; he could not wait for
the water to take the natural course from then on. He again pleaded
with the sage to release the waters. The sage then allowed a small
portion of Ganga to flow out through his right ear. The placid Ganga
flowed gently out of Jahnu’s right ear. Then Bhagirata mounted his
horse and led the waters of Ganga to Kapila’s ashram. He then directed
the waters over the ashes of his forefathers. The curses were
exorcised by the holy waters of Ganga. The released spirits stopped
haunting the citizens of Ayodhya and continued with their journey.
Bhagirata returned to his country and is a said to have ruled justly
and led his people to prosperity. Thus ends the story of Bhagirata on
a happy note. There are slightly different versions of the story I
have heard over the years but this is the version I like most.

Because of this episode, many people continue to consider Ganga as a
holy river. Everyone would like to travel to Banares/Varanashi and
take a dip in the holy river Ganga so that one’s sins are washed
away. Similarly it is the custom among many Indians to collect the
ashes after cremation of the body of dead dear ones and deposit the
ashes into Ganga. Because Bhagirata brought the holy Ganga to the
world, the river also was named Bhagirati. Another name for Ganga is
Jhanhavi (Jahnu’s daughter) as she came out of Jahnu’s stomach (and
ear). It is a practice among a section of Indians to name their
daughters after perennial rivers. Apart from Bhagirati and Jahnavi
other names include Narmada, Cauvery, Yamuna, Godavari, etc.

Bhagirata came to be known for his perseverance and the never say die
attitude. Despite many monumental obstacles he stood steadfast in his
mission. So the one legged posture of Bhagirata also known as Tree
Pose or Vrikshasana among many modern Yogis is a unique pose for
penance. There are a few other postures belonging to the vrikshasana
sequence like Durvasasana, Trivikramasana, etc. There are interesting
stories about these asanas as well. Maybe we can go into them sometime
in the future.

Tail Piece

The human body has 9 ports (nava dwara). They are the two eyes, two
ears, two nostrils, mouth all in the face and two others. All of them
are considered unclean as they secrete fluids and waste products. But
the right ear is considered always cleansed and pure, because holy
Ganga is said to flow through the right ear, like Jahnu’s right ear.
So, many people when they do nadisodhana Pranayama especially during a
ritual will touch the right ear after doing a mantra pranayama holding
the nostrils with the fingers of the right hand in Mrigi Mudra, thus
symbolically washing and cleaning the fingers and right hand.

******

On Santosha (contentment) a yogic trait (niyama) - "The happiness one
gets by the fulfillment of worldly desires and the joy one may get by
reaching the heavenly abodes mentioned in the scriptures are not
comparable to even a sixteenth part of the great internal space
( sukha) one gets by the eradication of the very desires." - the
Mahabharata, a great Sanskrit epic

Sincerely
Srivatsa Ramaswami