The Mirror of Yoga

by Richard Freeman

  By continually reformulating our theories about what the actual medium we are working with is, some schools of Indian philosophy have the point of resting in the understanding that the matrix is actually Brahman or pure consciousness. Brahman simply has the qualities of sat, which means “truth” or “permanence,” cit, which is “consciousness,” and ānanda, or “joy.” So we could say, metaphorically, that the universe is like a tapestry composed of many thousands of threads that intersect in an infinite number of places, and that if we look at any one of those threads, we find that the very center of that thread is hollow like a tube. We discover that the nature of that empty thread, in fact the very nature of the space within that thread—that which allows life to flow—is relationship. So it turns out that relationship is the one aspect of yoga that keeps the practice grounded. You could become very skilled at yoga postures, at philosophy, or at prāṇāyāma, but still, when it comes to relating to someone else, you could be a beginner. This is true for everyone. We are, all of us, always beginners in relationship because to relate to another, someone outside the systems of our own mind and our own ego, we must temporarily suspend those very systems that we so closely identify with, and we must come back to the beginning. We must release our theories in order to connect in the present moment with someone else.

  It is important to recognize that through connection with others we naturally upgrade and return to our own systems of knowledge; we do and should continue to use the structures of our ego in order to relate to others, but we must also be able to let them go. If we are dominated by our structures, then we are unable to interact outside of our own ego and we cannot dissolve into the web of support that is yoga, so that ultimately we experience a sense of separation, fear, and suffering. Most often, what we are afraid of is the truth. We are fearful of the clear vision revealed through yoga that the body and mind are simply vibration. It can be confusing if not frightening to contemplate the notion that all things that we can identify as being ourselves and everything we see as distinctly ours are actually not separate at all. There is no “us,” but instead all of it is an interpenetrating aspect of everyone and everything else. When we grasp the vision of being identifiable individuals who are also literally part of everything else, then we can actually see, just as Arjuna was able to see through the story of the Bhagavad Gītā, that the universe is a kind of death machine in which everything is impermanent. Initially this vision is terrifying, and it marks the very beginning of deep yoga practice, when there is a visceral understanding of the truth that we are all in the same basic situation with our bodies and minds. Moment by moment we are facing death, that of our own body along with the death and the transformation of everybody and everything that we know. This underlying teaching of the Bhagavad Gītā is the initial key teaching of yoga as relationship.

  It is said that someone is a real practitioner of yoga when she is able to see the true self, the ātman, in everyone, while at the same time seeing all others in the ātman. The essence of our vision of yoga, therefore, is that in a very deep and radical sense, we are all the same being. This yogic insight, however, exists within a layer of our awareness that often remains mysterious because it is a level beyond the formulations of the mind, outside the realm of that which is perceivable. The extent of our interrelatedness with others and all aspects of the world can be a truly alarming vision. We see that the body we consider to be ourselves is actually a tiny speck, intermeshed with this very delicate biological web that is temporarily covering the surface of the planet Earth, and if you look closely you may see that it is a very unstable and temporary situation. We begin to see that even our very own multifaceted insights and our profound desires are simply part of a cultural net, a shared latticework that is not really unique to our own particular ego. It turns out that the conditioned mind’s worst perceptions of reality provide the impetus to actually wake up. When we discover that we are really each other and that our own dearly beloved body is enmeshed in the very fabric of the universe, then there is a release of the mind’s multi-pointed focusses and the arising of clear, one-pointed focus, defined in the Yoga Sūtra as samādhi pariṇāma, or transformation samādhi. It begins the uncovering of the actual nature of the matrix as being an absolute freedom, a radiant, limitless ecstasy, described as both complete aloneness and a sense of being enmeshed. So, we are completely separate from and intimately connected to everything else, both at the same time. As we have seen, in the Yoga Sūtra, suffering is said to be grounded in avidyā or in the ignorance of pure consciousness, being mistaken for that which is impermanent and with a limited form. It is an ignorance grounded in identification with false self. The last root of suffering, abhiniveśa, is when through ignorance we cling irrationally and spontaneously to life. Abhiniveśa is said to arise even in the minds of those who are very wise. If we can allow the wave of fear at the thought of being not separate from all else to wash through us, we then find that the very vibration of this insight is the clear light of reality. That which was the most terrifying aspect of reality turns out to give us the greatest joy. The thing we choose to rarely talk or think about, but which is really the only guaranteed thing in life—the fact that we will die—can truly draw us into the present moment. It splits open our hearts and gives us true relationship because it reveals the mysterious and deep nature of relationship as a sustaining aspect of reality.

  If we go through a lifetime of yoga practice, if we memorize the Upaniṣads and can do every conceivable yoga posture, if we are able to hold our breath for three hours, and we acquire all kinds of titles as a yoga master, even if we become famous throughout the three worlds for our practice of yoga—where is all of this at the end of our life? At the time of death, when you are choking on mucous, where is your prāṇāyāma? When the central nervous system is failing, how important is it that you stretch those hamstring muscles you have been working on for years? When we are facing death, these things reveal their true nature: that they are enmeshed in an interwoven matrix of all else that is life in the infinite reaches of the universe. Whether it is at the moment of death, or right now, this is our chance; it is the moment when we can begin the practice of yoga again. The opportunity to start over at the very beginning is always available, but we often overlook it. We may build the edifices of the ego in the mind for years and years and years before we see through them, before we actually use those very structures of mind as the object of our meditation. But then, through practice, context is revealed. By practicing, by starting over, the context of whatever the focus of the practice is becomes revealed more frequently. This is a gradual process; in the beginning, maybe once every five years we really face the games that we are playing. Then perhaps we meet our illusions of mind twice a year, then maybe twice a month we get back to a grounded reality, a real yoga practice. Eventually twice a week or three times a day we are able to let go of our mind games and get back to the present moment. Gradually the frequency increases until perhaps every five minutes; or if we are skilled, maybe every two or three seconds we start over, stepping out of our games of preconception and avoidance of the present moment. Again and again we look at reality with fresh, innocent eyes, open ears, and an open heart, until the process of waking up becomes like a hum in the background of all existence, the frequency that underlies everything. Eventually the letting go into the present circumstance metaphorically becomes like the hum of the syllable oṁ, and that very nature of the mind, releases the mind. This is the theme of tantra; it is the mind that releases the mind, it is the knowable that shows us the unknowable. The immediate things that are happening in your life—and many of the things that are happening are deeply rooted in confusion and suffering—these very same things are the medicine that is going to end your own suffering.

  Once we have insight into this aspect of the nature of being and of mind, no matter how esoteric or advanced we become in our study of yoga, we find that it is the practice and the releasing of that same practice in a contin
uous cycle that remains the key to freedom. At a certain level of understanding we must see through what we are doing until we recognize that it is all simply the guṇas of prakṛti acting upon the guṇas of prakṛti. Understanding this does not mean that we have “got it” and that therefore we should abandon our practice (though that is often the instinct at this phase of the practice), because the practice is an expression of the matrix and is the very activity of life itself. At the same time, within a healthy yoga practice we do not become stuck in the particulars, nor do we become shackled by our theories about it. We release, deepen, and refine the practice so that we do not identify with it and do not use it for selfish ends. This is why it is very helpful to engage in service to others within the context of your yoga practice: because it places everything in perspective.

  Even without a formal yoga practice all of us are already practicing, doing things all of the time, and this is one of the ironies of yoga; we are all doing yoga whether we want to or not. We are constantly creating little idols in our mind, serving the idols, and occasionally knocking them over to build new ones. Everyone who has a mind does this all the time. From this perspective, since we are already practicing, a formal yoga practice just slows down to reveal to us what is already happening. As we hone the skill of bringing awareness to the subtleties of the present moment, the puruṣa (pure consciousness) is awakening into clear observation of a process that is already happening. We then see that the interpenetration of all things within the field before us is the mother ground of practice, and we truly comprehend that at the core of all practice is this insight into the nature of relationship as being at the heart of every aspect of existence. This understanding inevitably brings practice back to earth and grounds it in simple honesty. So yoga is a very human activity. Advancement is not measured in terms of siddhis, or magical powers, or in fame or political powers. Instead advancement in yoga is measured as honesty, as insight into the very foundation of knowledge based in the core of the heart. It is also measured by vairāgyam, or nonattachment, the ability to let things go. Just as the sun lets its energy go all the time, so too the advanced yoga practitioner is constantly letting his philosophy and beliefs go while engaging in the practices with a feeling of continuous, radiant release. An advanced yoga practitioner does not have to appear to be untouchable and exotic, or extraordinarily unique. Instead someone deeply steeped in and accomplished at the practice becomes more accessible, more normal and ordinary, more human on all fronts.

  So whenever we look at yoga practice, whether it is our own or the practice of another, we know that jñāna, or wisdom, and vairāgyam, nonattachment, are the fruits of true practice. We know that perhaps someone can walk on water, they might be immensely famous and popular, and maybe they can pontificate about esoteric philosophies that are incomprehensible, but none of these count for anything in terms of the world of true relationship, true yoga. Given this, we might wonder what is the importance of philosophy and why we should worry about studying it at all. The answer is that philosophy is not restricted to theories debated and recorded in ancient texts; it is an innate human activity that all of us are doing all of the time. We are always thinking. We are constantly making theories about the world, testing them out, and even revising them occasionally. All of us are philosophers even if the academic subject seems repulsive to us and even if we may not be accomplished. Philosophy is the essential catalyst for the practice of yoga since it is the function of mind. When we study philosophy we see that it is not really an opinion, or a theory, but rather that philosophy is concerned with the world as it is; it is the study of how things really are in the world. So when we practice any type of yoga we are actually practicing philosophy, and through this we learn to cultivate the skill of releasing the practice itself so that, whether we are doing a yoga pose or philosophizing about life itself, we learn to start over at ground zero again and again and again. The job of philosophy is to allow us to experience the body as it is, to see the mind in its natural state, to see others as they are, to see the world around us just as it is. Good philosophy encourages a full multiplicity of viewpoints, and it allows us to explore new perspectives so that we become free of philosophizing altogether.

  Swan at the Pot of the Belly (8)

  The swan represents the liberated ātman. It floats on the clear, calm lake of the enlightened mind. When the swan sleeps it rests its head on its heart in samādhi. The shape illustrated here is formed by the practice of mūlabandha, uḍḍiyāna bandha, and jālandhara bandha. These bandhas unite the prāṇa and the apāna which then interpenetrate and fully spread into this integrated shape, opening the back of the diaphragm like wings while opening the center of the heart like a buoyant sun. This integration and suspension of the in-breath and the out-breath ignites a fire under the pot of the belly, opens the vacuous, bright tube of the central channel, allowing the mind to rest in its own radiant nature, free of conceptual coverings.

  The word philosophy is actually a composite of two Greek words: philo, which means “love,” and sophia, which means “wisdom,” so you could imagine philosophy to be either the wisdom of love or the love of wisdom. Both views, when joined together, give us freedom. It is so easy to get carried away or lost in our ideas and our fantasies, but when we realize that yoga’s jeweled net is actually the human body, our own human body, then our perspectives may still shift, but our mind can settle. By entering the jeweled net by means of that which is most immediate and real to us, all of our ideas, perceptions, feelings, and sensations can be brought home, giving us a direct and tangible experience of what yoga actually is. So when we talk about joining together wisdom and love, or linking the gem of the known with the matrix of the unknown, of connecting form with context—we can actually experience it in a down-to-earth, practical, real way. If we consider for a moment the joining together of apāna and prāṇa—the rooting and the flowering patterns, we see that they they are utterly interdependent. This uniting of the inhaling and the exhaling patterns allows us to feel the residue of each in the other, which reveals the suṣumnā nāḍī at the core of the body. Feeling this central axis we can access deep emotion, and we can experience our thoughts rooted in sensation, feeling, and deep memory. So truly, it is through these movements of prāṇa and apāna that the mind becomes embodied as our body. Likewise the habits of perception in the body and the movements of the body are, in a very deep way, constantly influencing the fluctuations and patterns of our mind. This means that yoga can be practiced under all circumstances. It might not be the form of a yoga practice that your mind flatters itself into thinking it should be doing; you might be laid up in the hospital, or you might be like Arjuna and involved in an extremely complex political crisis, but you can still do yoga.

  The very presence of your breath and of your body is one of the most astonishing things in the universe, and it offers the continual opportunity to start over. This awareness allows us to start the entire project of our life over, to reinitiate all the threads of our thought, grounding it all in the immediate experience of the body. What an incredible relief it is to understand that the ultimate place of pilgrimage is right in the center of our very own heart. The realization of the simple fact of the existence of our own body can be a source of the greatest joy, even though we know that the body as we know it is subject to birth, disease, old age, and death. In spite of the fact that the body is enmeshed in a network of biological dependency, of craving, hatred, and ego, encapsulated in a very false concept of ourself, it is still a source of great inspiration, and it is still a beautiful mystery. Our bodies are not what we think they are. When examined closely with the tool of samādhi, they possibly have only the qualities of sat, cit, and ānanda.

  So whenever we practice yoga we take another look. We look again for the first time at our breath, and we feel it flow through the nostrils. We examine our thumbs, our fingers and hands, our arms, feet, and our legs. We feel the mouth, and we sense that skin is all over the body. We l
ook once again at each other, at the world, and at the mind—all anew and fresh, without the preconceptions that come from past experience. Looking into the mirror of yoga we see there is something deep, completely mysterious, extraordinarily joyous, and most of all very familiar.

  Acknowledgments

  This book is the result of the kindness and endless patience of the wonderful people who surround and inspire me. The foremost of these is my beloved wife and muse, Mary Taylor, who sees the best in me and who has worked tirelessly in organizing and editing the text. It was she who lit the fire, which led to the creation of the original Yoga Matrix audiotapes from which this book was derived. Thanks are due to Tami Simon and the people of Sounds True who drew Yoga Matrix out of me. Thank you also Sara Bercholz of Shambhala Publications, who has had unwavering enthusiasm for my work, and for others at Shambhala who have helped in the editing and production of this book. Elizabeth Gregg, who types like lightning, did the original transcription from the CDs. My endless gratitude goes to Gabe Freeman for not being reducible to or reducing himself to any theory.

  Shri K. Pattabhi Jois of Mysore, my primary guru, tied together all of the yogas into one for me. Shri B. K. S. Iyengar allowed me to feel and embody transmuted emotion. Matsuoka Roshi of Chicago was my early inspiration and grounding in the unbearable simplicity of yoga as Zen practice. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami taught me the ins and outs of the paradoxes of religious thought. My mind is always renewed and inspired by the work of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the brilliant light and depth of Buddhist teachings.

  Special thanks are due to Susan Chiocchi for the brilliant illustrations, which are drawings of the undrawable.