Peace on Earth

When I roll out my mat I try to do it in as peaceful an environment as I can. I get up early while my wife and kids are still asleep and tip-toe downstairs. In the warmer months, I set up on the patio facing the rising sun and feel it’s warmth on my face as I run through a practice. In the winter, I clear a space in the room next to the garden and light it softly. I am uninterrupted apart from by the cat. In those circumstances, it’s easy to be tranquil.

When we’re all in the house though, as we were over Christmas, it’s not so straight forward. My motivation to get up early when I don’t have to work is, frankly, compromised. I often get downstairs last. The TV is on in one room, breakfast is being made in the kitchen. The space I normally practice in is occupied with a small person in pyjamas busy with the first art project of the day, or clarinet practice, or watching something on the iPad.

So I find myself in a different room which, as well as being empty, also joins all the other rooms together. My kids come through, curious, and ask me if they can have a biscuit. Sometimes they join in for a while. Other times they just sit and watch. I can hear the radio and the TV talking over each other. My wife is trying hard not to interrupt, and sneaks past to get the milk from the step. The washing machine is beep-beep-beeping.

It isn’t what I’m used to, but it’s good. My purpose isn’t to escape from life; I’m trying to discipline my interior hustle so I can concentrate on enjoying the exterior bustle. What good is a quiet space inside if you can only access it when it’s quiet outside too?  I want my quiet to be there even when it’s noisy. In fact, especially when it’s noisy. So bring on the interruptions and the distractions. I don’t want my peace in some otherworldly space, I want it on Earth.

Back after a break

The week before last I was really, really tired. Work was furiously busy, everyone at home was worn out, there seemed an endless amount of things to do...I just couldn’t face either getting up early to do yoga at home or going out in the evening to a class, so I didn’t. I got forty five minutes in at home over the weekend, but then went away with the extended family for six days. It was a good break, but there was neither the time nor the privacy to do a practice so I missed another week.  

After driving for six hundred and fifty miles yesterday, I didn’t really fancy it this morning either. However, I was sufficiently confident that I would enjoy it that I got up at 5.45am and rolled out the mat.

I’m glad I did. I soaked it up like a sponge. I was completely absorbed and the time flew by - the twenty minutes was up before I felt I’d even started. It’s good to be back.

My Favourite Asanas #2 – Eagle or Garudasana

Along with tree pose, I think of this as being one of the poses people think of when they think of people doing yoga. Despite its cartoon-y nature, it’s quite tricky and, ultimately, pretty rewarding.

Unlike tree pose, there isn’t anything obviously eagle-y about it at first glance, but it is there.

Trying to find a focal point past the entwined forearms and hands, I am unable to maintain the usual combined binocular picture of the world I’m used to. Instead, I get two images, one from each eye, like most creatures do (can you think of another creature with both eyes on the front of the head rather than the sides?). My eyes flicker from side to side getting used to this new perspective.

In this crouched but taught position, knees bent, elbows pushing up, I am really aware of the musculature around my shoulders and upper arm – there is a coiled sense of strength which I can release if I dip my shoulders, arch my neck back and spread my arms out and behind me, fingertips lifting up and back. Flying.

I don’t know if this variant even has a name, but it feels great.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras for Beginners #2 - The Vrittis

In my first post on Patanjali I talked about the way the mind "whirrs away... generating...froth." Patanjali classifies these movements of the mind into five separate and distinct types which he calls vrittis.

The first vritti or mental activity he identifies is True Knowledge. This is stuff we know and can rely on - things we see for ourselves, work out for ourselves or are told by a reliable source.

The second vritti is False Knowledge, things we believe but which do not have a reliable basis in reality. This could be the obviously (to us) false knowledge that the sun revolves around the earth, or the mistaken "knowledge" that someone we know definitely doesn't like us, when in fact they do; it's a spectrum.

Third up is Imagination or Prediction. This is where we use what we think we know (which may be true or false) to guess or fantasise about what might happen in the future. This is a sort of mirror image of the fifth vritti - memory. Memory is the playing back in our minds events which we have experienced in the past and we assume, because we were there when it happened, that our recollection is accurate. Hmm.

A curious thing about memory is that we are just as deeply if not more deeply attached to bad memories as we are to good. We are also probably more likely to embellish the bad than we are the good; we often remember things as worse than they actually were but less often as better. We do the same when it comes to imagination - we are strangely prone to imagining worst case scenarios and tormenting ourselves with the image of a disaster yet to come.

The fourth vritti, which I skipped over, is sleep. He calls it "unbeing" and leaves it there. Although we spend a third of our lives doing it, sleep is a closed book even to Patanjali.

Music is yoga for the ears

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras for Beginners #1

If you want to understand a bit more about yoga than the poses, there really is no better place to start than reading Patanjali. My kids prefer to watch films when they know what's going to happen (weird I know) because they say it allows them to enjoy it more.  I think the same holds true when it comes to this text.

The first thing you will need to get your head around is the distinction between the mind and the self. In modern western thought, the two are so interchangable as to be almost indivisible. Blame the enlightenment and the age of reason (yes you, M. Descartes, with your cogito ergo sum).

To understand the entire premise of Patanjali you need to think of the mind as one thing and the self as another. The self is called all sorts of things depending on the translation - self Self, I, atman, conciousness - but it's all the same. The self exists in a sense behind the mind and is often obscured by the mind, which masquerades as the true self and hogs all of concious thought.

A useful analogy is Blakes assertion that he sees through the eye, not with it. The mind isn't the self, it's just a big processor that whirrs away thinking of reasons and explanations for everything, rationalising our experience rather than just perceiving it. If you can stop the mind generating all that froth for a minute, then you have a chance to be able to see things not as you think they are, but as they really are.

Yogamatters

I like this shop enough to write this entirely unsolicited testimonial. I like it partly because the name can be taken in three ways. Firstly, Yoga matters as in, yoga is important. Secondly, yoga matters as in, the matters concerning yoga. And thirdly (and I really hope they did this on purpose) you could, at a stretch, describe someone who either makes or spends a lot of time on a yoga mat as a yoga matter. Like a coffee drinker, or a bird watcher. Lovely word play. I could enjoy that all day.

The other reason I like it is that it sells good products quite cheaply; sadly not something that can be said of every yoga retailer. I'm not going to link to it. It's easy to find.

I especially like my eye pillow. It cost less than £5 and is great. It’s plain and comfortable and just the right weight. The cover is removable which is handy if you want to scent the pillow, like I did. I removed the cover before adding five drops of lavender oil to the pillow, so the oil didn't stain the cover.

Unless you want to perform a chemical eye peel, I suggest you use no more than two drops.