Tag Archives: Chip Hartranft

A Sutra a Day: IV-34 – Here Ends the Sutra of Patanjali

Posted on February 21, 2013 | 1 Comment

 

I’ve not been well today. A stomach complaint – severe cramping and slight nausea. Perhaps a dose of gastro or food poisoning? It could have been to do cleaning out a big mucky garden pot. Maybe something that is meant to live outside got inside me.

So here I am, all alone at home, while everyone in our household has gone to choir practice. I truly can’t remember having an evening alone for yonks. It’s exceptionally nice.

And, this is a special night too… the night when I present to you Patanjali’s last Sutra… the one that describes the final state of yoga.

What is it? T.K.V. Desikachar says it is:

‘…serenity in action as well as inaction. There is no sense of obligation, whether to take responsibility or to reject it. [The individual] is fully conscious of his own state of pure clarity and it remains at the highest level throughout his lifetime. The mind is a faithful servant to the master, the Perceiver.’

I’ll have a summing up in tomorrow’s post about my experience of trying to understand Patanjali, and hopefully a little surprise for you, too.

Purusarthasunyanam gunanam pratiprasavah kaivalyam svarupapratistha va citisaktirita

Freedom is at hand when the fundamental qualities of nature, each of their transformations witnessed at the moment of its inception, are recognised as irrelevant to pure awareness; it stands alone, grounded in its very nature, the empower of pure seeing.*

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

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A Sutra a Day: IV-27 – Those Pesky Psychic Grooves (grinding out the same old tune)

Posted on February 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Source: herblog.com via Rosie on Pinterest

 

Have you run across the idea that your yoga mat can act as your therapist? I know on one level that sounds facetious, but think about it. You put yourself on your mat routinely and, each time you do, it’s an opportunity for you to watch your behaviour.

What are your responses as you practice. How do you react when you find a pose too hard? Or, if you’re in a class, what happens when your teacher pulls you back or asks you to use a prop? By themselves, the postures are meaningless and props are just neutral. It’s your reactivity that is of interest and your approach to yoga can reveal your patterns, or what is called in Sanskrit, your samskara. 

Yoga philosophy says that we’re born with certain karmic mental and emotional tendencies – samskara – that influence our lives until we learn to control them through conscious awareness.

The way you approach yoga, and any reactivity you have, probably originated long before you started practising; but your mat can be where you witness what you’re up to.

For me, when I’m on the mat, my go-to gears in the past have been somewhat pushy and show-offy. The good thing about ageing is that it has put limits on those modus operendi because: 1) it takes too much energy to go on pushing through, and 2) there are youngsters out there who can rings around my ekapadrajakapotasanas and adho mukha vrksasanas.

Samskara are just habits – not necessarily good or bad. But if your behaviour on the mat isn’t serving you or ultimately satisfying, it’s likely time for a change.

Tacchidresu pratyayantarani samskarebhyah

Any gaps in discriminating awareness allow distracting thoughts to emerge from the store of latent impressions.*

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

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Dusting Off the Word According to Patanjali

Posted on February 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

 

Yesterday I kicked off the first of six sessions in which 9 of us will look at at least 10 of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. The form is a study group with me as the leader.

I loved the class, and I hope the others did too. It’s a privilege to give time to considering the big questions, like what is yoga? We do it daily or once a week but might not give much thought to the what and why we’re doing it.

One of the things I was able to experience was a fresh look at Sutra I:2 (thought of as the most important sutra) through the eyes of those who are newer to yoga – and also discover what it meant to them. I had a great insight… that this particular aphorism sums up the whole of the 156 sutra.

So, in the spirit of perhaps refreshing your definition of yoga, I’ll give you a few interpretations of the crystal-clear, pared down genius of the Old Sage. I’d be curious to hear which of these your mind and heart resonate with….

Yoga citti vrtti nirodhah.

Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness. – Chip Hartranft

Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness. – B.K.S. Iyengar

Yoga is the restriction of the fluctuations of consciousness. – Georg Feuerstein

The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga. – Sri Swami Satchidananda

Wholeness consists of a complete grasp and command over the process of being and becoming aware. – Kofi Busia

Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively towards an object and sustain that direction without any distractions. – T.K.V. Desikachar

Yoga is the uniting of consciousness in the heart. – Nischala Joy Devi

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A Sutra a Day: IV-21 – Mind-stuff Watching Itself

Posted on February 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Buddha and Galah

Okay I’ve run out of steam. I can’t think of a single anecdote from my life that will illustrate the Sutra of the day. I can’t even think of anything in my experience that will even obliquely describe today’s Sutra.

However, Chip Hartranft will save the day with this great explanation of the distinction between awareness and consciousness, which has been the theme of Chapter IV with its Sutra being all about freedom. Hartranft says consciousness cannot illuminate itself, any more than a television picture can watch itself…

…even though it is capable of displaying a vast array of distinctive programs and settings, each offering a compelling pseudo-reality. Once the volume is turned down and the screen darkened, however, the illusion evaporates. One remembers that it was just a show appearing on a machine. Seeing our reflection in the screen, we sense ourself sitting there, breathing, watching, thinking.*

If one can wake up out of the illusory experience to the knowledge of pure awareness, one stands apart from all experience and discovers nobody is watching.

There is just watching itself.

Cittantaradrsye buddhibuddheratiprasangah smrtisankarasca

If consciousness were perceived by itself instead of by awareness, the chain of such perceptions would regress infinitely, imploding memory.*

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

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Patanjali’s Sutra – Impossibly Pithy?

Posted on January 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

Source: eveyoga.com via Donielle on Pinterest

 

I’ve set myself the goal of learning what can be known, novice as I am, of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.

Certain of these terse aphorisms make sense to me, but others I find are too obtuse. Nevertheless, I keep at it. I do this by comparing various commentaries and then teasing out any ideas I understand by writing about them.

I read something today that presented a few of the reasons why the text might be difficult for us to understand.

Chip Hartranft* explains one of the problems thusly:

Most readers have not travelled very far on the path to realisation and therefore can only relate to the Yoga-Sutra as a philosophy instead of as a way of being in the world.

Thus it follows that most of the millions who today practice yoga worldwide are unfamiliar with even the basic concepts of the Yoga-Sutra. Few are aware that… Patanjali’s system predates the development of most hatha yoga by many centuries and offers a radically different program, primarily addressing the meditative approach to insight and liberation.

So, if like me, you have been thwarted by the ‘impassible thicket’ of Patanjali’s jargon, I can say it is worthwhile to keep on keeping on – not the least because of the stubborn durability and wide-ranging influence of a centuries-old text.

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali 

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A Sutra a Day: IV-13 – Early-to-Rise Rewards

Posted on January 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

RegenerativeYoga

I feel very happy this evening – Day 5 – of an early morning yoga intensive that I’ve been running this week in the Yoga Shed. Thank goodness it’s been scheduled for 7 am because by 8:30 the tin shed is starting to cook.

Tomorrow is the final session and we will do a restorative practice. A regenerating sequence is appropriate for these hot weather conditions and also as a sort of reward for the effort the students have put in this week.

Some of these students have made a 40 minute drive to come to the intensive, and god knows the time they had to get up to be punctual. Me, I just virtually roll out of bed, and I’m there ;)

I think that ‘intense’ yoga courses can be transformative just because they shake people out of lethargy and because they demand a commitment.

I had a student at Sydney Yoga Centre who was a regular at our early a.m. classes, and he would say that his higher self got him out of bed and on the mat in the morning, but his lower self would be coaxing him back to bed when he got home.

The lower self voice does get quieter eventually. How long it takes, it just depends.

Te vyaktasuksma gunatmanah

The characteristics of these sectors, whether manifest or subtle, are imparted by the fundamental qualities of nature.*

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

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A Sutra a Day: IV-6 – ‘Shed’ those Negative Influences

Posted on January 2, 2013 | 1 Comment

 

Are you sensitive to different energies? Recently I’ve had a few visitors come to the Yoga Shed who have told me how much they appreciate the special energy of the space. Someone of a more skeptical attitude might think that’s a bunch of hooey – how can a room emit energy?

It happens over time… layer on layer of sweat, grunting, heavy and soft breathing, listening, observing, concentrating, laughter, and the simple joy of being in one’s body; over months and years, they all combine to gradually shift a yoga room’s atmosphere. You arrive in the space and know it’s time to settle into yourself – not dropping into an altered state but coming into the now.

We’ve been doing the yoga thing in the Shed for 2.5 years, and it’s been taking on its own lustre. Hopefully, the space calls forth the best in people, as they manifest a sort of nonchalant effort in their practice of yoga.

I know how I feel when I’m in the room. I may come in distracted, lethargic or out of sorts, but then I just let the mood be as it is, and, without any trying, generally something shifts in a positive direction.

Tatra dhyanajamanasayam

Once consciousness is fixed in meditative absorption, it no longer contributes to the store of latent impressions.*

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

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A Sutra a Day: IV-0 – Freedom is a Balancing Act

Posted on December 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

Source: tetonyoga.com via Maiya on Pinterest

 

 

The bracket of dates that goes from Christmas Eve till a week or two after New Year’s is traditionally break time in Australia. It’s such a sensible and compassionate approach and one of the things I love about this country.

If you are fortunate enough to enjoy time off work in this period, you will have probably found yourself looking forward to it well in advance of the holidays. You fantasised about all the books you were going to read, the walks on the beach, the afternoon naps, and even leisurely cups of tea with too-long-neglected friends.

However here I am on Boxing Day – December 26th – and I’m noticing I’ve lost my momentum, a difficulty that’s exacerbated by having had two weeks vacation in New Zealand before Xmas. So, this morning I didn’t organise myself to do yoga practice, I haven’t picked up a book to read, and I feel a little queasy in my stomach from the combination and amount of food and drink I had for Xmas dinner. Hopefully, I’ll get in enough structure over the next weeks to be able to better enjoy my time off from structure :)

What does it mean to have free time? What does it mean to live without structure? What is ‘personal freedom’? Is that figure of speech an oxymoron?

As we move into the end of 2012, we have arrived at the last chapter of Patanjali’s Sutra, which is all about freedom (kaivalya). Having studied the ways that one’s mind can be refined through the practices of yoga, we will be looking at the possibilities that present for such a liberated mind – possibilities that ‘defuse the dramas of consciousness.’*

How very exciting!

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

 

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A Sutra a Day: III-53 – What’s Happening Right Now

Posted on December 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

 

When I was first learning  Iyengar yoga, the classes I attended were two hours long. I found the intensity of them overwhelming at times and would take myself off to the toilet a couple of times during the session, just to have a break.

The teacher, Martyn Jackson, had a booming voice and would exhort his students to do more, even though sometimes we were at our limits. Poses were held for long timings and repeated. As a beginner, I remember my legs shuddering and shaking in standing poses, so now I can commiserate with new students in my classes whose bodies are just learning to wake up.

It’s so interesting, the process a person goes through when strong sensations arise. One might run away from what is happening, which is sort of what I did when I took my toilet breaks. Another possible reaction might be to try to change the situation – perhaps make a case that one shouldn’t have to go through discomfort in yoga. Still another approach might be capitulation, just limping along and hoping to get through as best you can. And a final and more skilful method could be accepting what’s happening and staying with the process moment by moment, observing sensations. In this way of being, there’s the space to do something or not while avoiding knee-jerk reactions.

B.K.S. Iyengar says that the reason for his intense way of teaching is that he is trying to awaken students to be present, at least for the duration of his class. He describes what happens:

As I shout at them to straighten their legs…they cannot be wondering what is for dinner or whether they will be promoted or demoted at work. For those who habitually flee the present, one hour’s experience of ‘now’ can be daunting, even exhausting, and I wonder if the fatigue felt by some students after lessons is due more to that than to the work of performing asanas. - Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

While I have a lot of difficulty finding release in a pose while being shouted at, I can easily find stillness every morning I practice in the peace of the Yoga Shed. And I find that holding the poses gives time to touch what’s happening in my body, and by extension my heart and mind.

Ksanatatkramayoh samyamadvivekajam jnanam

Focusing with perfect discipline on the succession of moments in time yields insight born of discrimination.*

*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

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A Sutra a Day: III-51 – More Than Enough

Posted on December 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

 

Yoga Performance 1991

I like to be the centre of attraction. Over the years, because I didn’t feel accomplished enough myself, I attached myself to several charismatic men so that I would get their reflected glory.

This vicarious way of living was never really satisfying and I never felt authentic, but I met some interesting people, had some fascinating adventures and collected some good stories.

I think it’s still the case that women are often attracted to strong, confident male yoga teachers, as I was. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. It’s just interesting that there are so many more women yoga practitioners and teachers, but that men are the ones who are in positions of leadership and who draw large numbers of women to their classes.

Now, I paddle along in the backwater of Mitchells Island in the Yoga Shed and am much happier and fulfilled. I don’t have any yoga teacher at this time, man or woman, just my own experience to draw on and the daily stimulation of Patanjali. For the time being that is enough and I am enough and that seems like a lot.

Sthanyupanimantrane sangasmayakaranam punaranistaprasangat

Even when the exalted beckon, one must avoid attachment and pride, or suffering will recur.*

*The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.

 

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