PranaBeing blog: The Root of Suffering

I grew up immersed in nature. From a young age I was concerned about humans’ abusive and consumptive relationship with the natural world. In my twenties, I served nonprofit organizations that worked on issues I thought were important: water and land conservation, education. After awhile, I noticed that although I was working hard on beneficial things, I was simultaneously experiencing high levels of stress that showed up as symptoms in my body.

Have you noticed how easy it is to generate conflict within ourselves and with others, even when we intend to do good?

Every war has been fought for peace. - Gurudev Shri Amritji

Now, I feel acutely the state of our world: the mass extinction of myriad life forms, our compulsion to ignore, deny, and lash out. I see us caught in cycles of “problem solving” that create more problems as they proffer solutions. I observe this collectively, as well as in my own life. What is it about human nature that prompts us to perpetuate suffering?

Yoga is a system that examines human consciousness and poses the possibility of alleviating self-caused suffering. These teachings resonate with me so deeply because I want REAL solutions that address the root issue from which all other problems arise.

Yoga and Ayurveda reach back thousands of years as intact systems of knowledge and practice. They contain lucid, straightforward explanations for the most meaningful problems we face. I trust these teachings to guide my explorations because they withstand the test of time, and they consistently demonstrate themselves to be true in my personal experiments within the context of my own life…as long as I understand and apply the principles correctly.

So what is the real problem with being human, and what is the solution?

We say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The same is true with problems. The problem is in the eye of the perceiver. - Gurudev Shri Amritji

Yoga clearly lists the source field of all types of human misery as avidya, often translated as ignorance. Sanskrit is a profound and powerful language with multiple dimensions of meaning. “Avidya” can mean “not knowing,” or not seeing. It implies going against what exists.

Our afflictions can be traced back to not knowing who we truly are.

It is from this root that all other suffering sprouts. This mistake of identity causes separation and disconnection. When we conjure changes outside by getting ourselves or others to conform to rules without doing the inner work to heal the rift within ourselves, at best, we have reformation. We might make the appearance of change, but the source problem does not go away; it simply takes another form.

Yoga is integration, connection. Yoga asks us to turn towards, to trace our pain back to its origin, to find our way by feeling in the dark to the very core of our own existence.

Here, stripped of countless layers of distraction and defense, we experience Being. We may feel it more than seeing it, like the subtle sensation of daylight seeping into a room where you have been sleeping.

There are many ways to reach into the core of ourselves, including some that may seem accidental; others, quite brutal. My theory is that life itself is a process of evolution that ultimately compels us toward this exploration. Yet the routes can be circuitous, defying all logic, and the timeframe is something approaching eternity. So we’re not likely to understand this journey with our mind.

Yoga helps not by giving us all the answers, but by providing us with the right tools for our journey, helping us to know what to look for, and to understand where we are going. These teachings are a map, and our life is the territory. We are explorers, adventurers in consciousness!

Yoga works from a paradigm of response-ability and self-empowerment, recognizing that we are co-creators with life. We have the ability to respond (response-ability) to what happens, and through this response-ability we can effect change. By learning the workings of our body, mind, and consciousness, we can actively participate in the process of transformation.

When we change from our core, transformation radiates into the world. This is what is means to “be the change you want to see in the world.” In order to reach transformation, we have to see differently. We must shift our perspective, what we believe about our selves, others, and the world. How do we accomplish this?

Gurudev would say that we must learn how to shift from conflict-creating, reactive interaction to co-creative harmonious interplay with who or what is present.

The practice of yoga is all about how to make this shift.

Start by noticing. Paying attention is turning toward. Turning toward is how we find our way back to the root.

PranaBeing blog: First Things First

I have been a student of daily routine and committed practice for almost 23 years (more than half my life!). Over the course of these years, I’ve experimented, explored, observed, and struggled.

I continue to learn about myself, about life, and about health.

I continue to challenge my beliefs about freedom, agency, control, and what it means to be a conscious creator.

Inputs are among of the most powerful ways we influence ourselves. What we choose to connect with—and when and how we take things in or take action—affects our body, mind, emotions, and perceptions. This in turn affects how we interact and show up in life.

Gurudev often explained to me how unconscious patterns are built into our lifestyle as habits that support and reinforce inhibitions and false self-concepts. When I first heard this from him, I didn’t want to believe it; but after years of exploring, I have realized the truth.

Whenever we are struggling, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or relationally, we need to look to how we are living to find the levers that will allow us to create change.

I’ve found that the more important something is, the more essential it is to do that thing FIRST in my day. The more the day unfolds, the less likely it is for me to be able to guarantee anything getting done!

Waking up to who I AM and being fully alive is my #1 priority. Consequently, I choose to start my day by cultivating life energy and connecting with my Self through sadhana (practice). The specifics look different on different days, but the core of the practice is experiencing myself as a prana-Being.

Especially if you are struggling with stress or worry, I advise you not to tap in to what causes you stress as soon as you become conscious. Skip scrolling Facebook or the news first thing. Make your work wait until after breakfast. You can be of service in the world after you have fed yourself (unless you are a mom; this requires a whole different level of practice).

Instead, make a point to connect with yourself before you invite anyone or anything from the external world to take up space in your consciousness, or claim a stake on your precious life energy.

If you are wondering what kind of tools you can use to connect with yourself, try one of my guided practices on Insight Timer. Pick one that fits your available time and practice it as one of the first things you do in your day. Try it for a week and see how it influences your quality of life.

Sample morning routine:

1. Wake up

2. Go to the bathroom

3. Brush your teeth and wash your face

4. Drink 8-16oz warm water (squeeze of lemon or lime optional)

5. Connect with yourself through practice

6. Now you’re ready for the day! Let ‘er rip!

I’d love to hear about your journey.

Connect with yourSelf before you connect to anything else.

You are the key to your health, harmony, and happiness.

PranaBeing blog: An Abundant Challenge

I often ponder the troubles we humans have and how we keep ourselves in a stew of problems. Getting to the root of a problem and discovering truth, if it is to be had, is one of my directives in life.

Closely examining any problem inevitably leads to an examination of our beliefs. Why?

What we believe filters how we perceive. How we perceive defines how we experience. Our experience reinforces our belief…and around we go.

I’ve learned from yoga practice (and verified this by doing things like riding my bicycle for 4,500 miles through record heat) that although there are obviously material limitations, these are not the ultimate factors determining what is possible. James “Iron Cowboy” Lawrence, an athlete who completed 50 full-distance Iron Mans in all 50 US States, in 50 days, said his achievement was 80% mental. The barriers invariably dwell within the mind.

In order to find new solutions to old problems, we need to see things differently. This means we need to examine the beliefs and assumptions that frame our options and actions. When we seek to make real and lasting change, we will inevitably come face to face with obsolete beliefs and the fears that guard them.

Here’s one belief I’d like to challenge that pervades our culture: we associate value with scarcity.

BELIEF: the more scarce something is, the more valuable it is.

CONSEQUENCES:

• “creating value” becomes about restricting or withholding resources

• value = exclusivity

• value is special and uncommon

• want what you don’t have

• compete with other life forms to “get” what you need

When I want to understand suffering, I ponder the man-made and mind-made world.

When I want to understand how life works, I look to Nature. Here’s what I see:

NATURE’S TRUTH: That which is most essential to life is abundantly available wherever life thrives.

CONSEQUENCES:

• Life is fed from the roots. As the mycelium and roots thrive, so does the whole forest. The biggest life forms feed back into the whole.

• When the river is allowed to flow freely, all life flourishes. When the water is dammed, a host of problems that need to be “managed” immediately appear.

• Every form of life provides a unique and precious contribution to the whole, whether we humans are aware of it or not.

In yoga, there is a practice called pratipaksha bhavana. It basically means “to cultivate the opposite.” This is a powerful tool we can use to disentangle ourselves from particularly sticky habitual patterns. So what would it be like if we reversed our concept of value = scarcity?

What if we built an economy based on the assumption that value = abundance?

What if we dedicated our efforts to ensuring that the things that are most valuable remain widely available and accessible—not only to humans, but to all life?

In yoga we learn that approaching our edge - the limit of what we know/believe/have experienced as possible - reveals fears we have held unconsciously. These fears have defined the way our world works. They have prevented us from exploring further by acting as boundaries for our experience. They are assumptions, not truths. Once they are revealed, we can challenge them with persistent, gentle, conscious experimentation. More often than not, I’ve discovered that these fears don’t hold up to the experiential test.

What comes up when we consider shifting our economy towards a model of abundance rather than scarcity?

“Doesn’t lack drive exchange? Doesn’t lack motivate people to better themselves? The idea that everyone could be provided for is ‘just unrealistic.’ The free flow of resources limits my personal freedom! How can we prosper without profit?”

My experience shows me with 100% consistency that energy and consciousness innately flow toward subtler, more complex, and higher levels of evolutionary function.

My hypothesis is that if we were to embrace an economy based on symbiosis, collaboration, interdependence, abundance, and reverence for life, we would not only begin the real work of healing our planet, we’d also see humanity access new levels of innovation, creation, harmony, and new realms of conscious experience.

What is the first step towards exploring this shift?

I’m offering it here. It’s to consider the possibility that we are operating under inaccurate assumptions, and that we have the response-ability to change it, using the choices that are available to use on a daily basis, starting now.

The bottom line (pun intended) is that we do not have to perpetuate limiting paradigms that cause suffering, whether personally or collectively. We can encounter our fears, courageously embrace new ways of being in and seeing the world, and take one step into the unknown. Then another step.

What is one way you could celebrate and elevate the value of something abundant in your life today?

What is one way you could ensure that something of value is accessible to everyone you meet today?

What is one tyrannical belief representing “the way things are” that you could challenge for yourself?