PRACTICE AND ATTAINMENT IN YOGA

Life in general can seemingly appear full of contradictions and so too may how we approach our practice of yoga.  One guideline often given early on is to not have expectations and ambitions in our yoga pursuit.  After all, yoga instructs that no lasting and genuine development can be enabled if there is egoic and personal desire associated with the practice.  This is because the quality of real evolution is literally inimical to the notion of aspiration, personal achievement and acquisition of state or specific capacity.

All our formal and formative education all reinforce these objectives or attainments as essential in life.  To engage in an activity that views personal goals and achievements as peripheral rather than central seems counterintuitive.  But the focus given in yogic practice is directed to expanding awareness itself at all times, free of superimposed conceptualization.  The ceaseless feeding of thought processes including imagination, fantasy, reverie and memories are all seen to impede cultivation of direct awareness, free of running commentary.  The popular expression “it is what it is” seems to imply that there is an implicit knowing of this understanding.  Yes, it is what it is but do we recognize “what is” free of our skewered, partial and imposed view of how it should be?

Here is an adroit take on what is:  “   Reality is what we take to be true.  What we take to be true is what we believe.  What we believe is based on perception.  What we perceive is based on what we look for.  What we look for is based on what we think.  What we think is based on what we perceive.  What we perceive depends on what we believe.  What we believe is what we take to be true.  What we take to be true is  what we call Reality.”  So, all is not as it seems, especially in regard to who we think we are and how the world appears to be.

The point here is this recognition that thought itself is implicit in creating confusion, and that what we see and take as real and true is deceptive, is illusory.  Someone once said that Maya or illusion exists in only one place- between your ears!  Here is where yoga can be of real assistance.  It’s methods are directed to helping us release the powerfully ingrained drive to see our relationship with all things through the lens of our thought patterns.  Through carefully applied practices the grip of imposed dualistic world and self views is gradually but radically loosened.  We change the lens of how we see so that our vision is refreshed, cleared and reveals the underlying wholeness that pervades everywhere, even in places unsuspected to hold such a radical yet natural potential.

One of the real pioneers of yoga practice, Patanjali, describes in his incomparable body of work called the Yoga Sutras, a comprehensive and vast array of practices that all bring about the means to transform our relationship to thought constructs in such a way as to bring forth the thought free state and consequent emergence of SILENCE and the end of the troubled mind.  What is evident from his work is that there is no one way to go about the central work.  What he puts forth is not based on belief, dogma, or blind faith.  However, he does advocate some criteria and this he calls abhyasa.

You could say that abhyasa means not what you do but how you do it.  It is practice, an undertaking and endeavor that when implemented is deeply satisfying and provides enduring state change, from thought congestion to lucid presence of mind, which is broad open intelligence that is incisively perceptive while simultaneously holistic in understanding and magnanimous in its kindness.  Abhyasa cultivates the whole person that has love of wisdom and the wisdom of love.

There are three facets of character that abhyasa is contingent upon, and through the practices we develop the capacities for real change of mind and heart.   The first is application of effort that is concentrated and consistent.  Many of us can garner some force or potency in application of effort but in a broken and discontinuous fashion.  In abhyasa the chosen practices used are applied without doubt, resistance or hesitation, but rather, with conviction and confidence. To do so enables the effort to be concentrated, with the ability to cut through what yogis call “the nine obstacles” that constitute self sabotage. 

The next quality that is intrinsic with abhyasa is not just concentrated effort but also its application over a long period of time.  In other words, we’re in for the long haul, because to be concentrated also implies requires the assurity of longevity.  Then the vicissitudes of emotional states such as moods, with bouts of self doubt that may arise are acknowledged but not acted upon.  Such resolution generates strength of character that meets weakness but does not waver.    A Sufi master once said “Most people give up just as they are about to achieve success, receiving only disappointment and failure.  Continue even in the face of doubt and the outcome is assured, just as day follows night.”

I feel that the most essential characteristic however is this last trait, without which the other two may become mechanical and their viability diminished.  Patanjali calls this satkara which means reverence or joyful undertaking.  The quality of our feeling is paramount to instill abhyasa into the fabric of our lives.  Just as upon waking each day, the ability to feel appreciative and grateful for the great gift of life encourages us to meet all that comes our way with friendliness and openness, so deep feeling and respect for the practices we are embodying brings them to life for us.  When satkara is present there is great power in our undertaking.  In the Indian contemplative tradition there is an expression that says “bhave hi vidyate devo” which means that the Divine Itself lives in the quality of our deep feeling.  We bring into being whatever resides deep within our hearts, so a yogi cultivates pure feeling, a deep reverence for all of life, and in so doing transforms her innermost quality of nature.  When such deep feeling is present everything else follows.

Abhyasa is central to the practice of yoga.  My own teacher used to say that for the swan (hamsa) of yoga to soar into Truth (paramahamsa), both wings were needed, one of skilful (abhyasa) self-effort and the other of grace.  When such sincere and heartfelt effort is givens all of the universe lends its unmeasured support.  Then yoga becomes one with all of life.