Yama & Niyama
Apraigraha
This past week I participated in the Global Mala Project – Yoga for Peace. The first time I particpated was the year before last, with my then yoga teacher and now friend, Mia Baer. It was in Central Park, and it started at around 8am in the morning, far earlier then what I was use to waking up on the weekends. I remember the excitement of it, and the challenge, could I really do 108 Sun Salutations? I also didn’t really know what the event was all about, having just learned about it a couple days ago during Mia’s class. It was grueling. My practice, was still in it’s beginnings, and after about 20 sequences, I could feel my wrists giving under the weight.
I remember catching glimpses of the yogis around me, wondering how they managed it so effortlessly. And looking admirably at Mia, as she gracefully interspersed her sequences with a bakasana (crow) here, and a down dog split there. I discovered 40 sequences later where my mis-alignments lay — it was inevitable, those areas WILL begin to tire, and correcting them. I had begun to cultivate a deeper body awareness, knowing where I was needlessly “wasting” energy with unnecessary (e.g. wrist) flourishes, and instead began to look where I placing my feet, and how I was rising to Warrior I.
Two years later, I’m at Battery Park — a 10 minute walk from home. This time, practicing at high noon, under the guidance of teachers from Jivamukti, Integral, and Dharma Mittra. Once again, I was surrounded by fellow yogis, who were born knowing how to do these sun salutations. But rather then envying their effortless salutations, I found myself admiring our effortless union, the global mandala.
This time, after 40 sequences I noticed how we as a group sank deeper into a meditative state, and moved as one under the lulling intonations of Dharma Mittra. I began to appreciate the meditative quality of repetition, and the intense concentration a group practice brings. Most of the time in class, I don’t focus on my connection with other classmates, just the opposite in fact. I “feel” their blanket encroaching on my space, how she’s placed her mat a little too close, and I’m more then just a little annoyed if they’re power-rushing their way through the practice. I think we’ve all experienced they type, they spring into downdog, pull themselves painfully forward in uttanasana, and kick up into headstand. I’m sure they existed on this sunny day, I’m sure they were practicing with me. But at long last, I finally didn’t care, and for the first time experienced the liberating joy of aparigraha (non-attachment) during practice.
Video of the Global Mala Project, with glimpses of unattached one.
Shaucha
Book 2: 40 Shaucha – By purification arises disgust for one’s own body and for contact with other bodies.
I’ve had an ambivalent relationship with the idea of purity and the body, and reading this sutra didn’t change that. I already have a healthy amount of disgust for my body, I really don’t need to meditate in order to foster it.
As a woman, I think it’s fair to say, that society often perpetuates unrealistic images of our bodies. Cosmetics is a billion dollar industry, whose very foundation, is built on the insecurity of women. But before I burn my bra, I admit I buy cosmetics, and probably more than the average woman. Truth be told my entire body is a living testimony to how much I’m willing to punish myself for my insecurities. I figure if I get the latest bag to hide my belly, cute 5-inch shoes to hide my height, facials to hide my break-outs, and lose maybe 20 pounds, I’ll finally accept my body. I rinse and repeat this cycle almost every day.
I’m not alone, history, philosophies, and religions abound with traditions of women and the impurities of their bodies. Some of these traditions include chastity belts, isolation and / or preclusion from contact during menstruation. Naturally, these traditions also have purification rituals for when the woman’s reproductive cycle isn’t so apparent, and she can re-enter society. Was this sauchat?
Maybe sauchat isn’t about the disgust for our own bodies, but rather a disdain for our attachment to it. Every form of ID that I have has a picture of my physical form, specifically my face, as if saying THIS is Marie Hernandez. But as yoga teaches us, is this physical form actually who I am? Given, how much time I have spent trying to make my body “better”, it indeed has become a large part of me, and maybe this part is what Patanjali is trying to disspel.It won’t be easy. I know almost no other way to live, except to count my calories, and check my cellulite, and it still isn’t enough. I’m still not content with me. After decades with this struggle perhaps it’s time for a new scale, a new mindset.
Thankfully, i have thousands of years of traditions to fall back on.Traditions have long acknowledged the need to remind us of our mindset with spaces where we can ponder divinity, and rituals that represent our intention. Water, is often used as the vehicle of change. Baptism in Christianity, the mikveh in Judaism, the Gangese in Hinduism, and Misogi in Shinto, to name a few.
Other rituals of purification involve food, or refraining from it, as in fasting. Others have guidelines on who can prepare your food, what kind, and in which manner it should be eaten to retain its’ pure nature. On this point, I remain unconvinced. Sometimes, it just seems like there are so many rules, you forget the essence of what the ritual was trying to sanctify, you lose the forest in the details of the trees.
I believe these rituals were to sanctify a space, an environment both mentally and physically. They say, that a surrounding area often reflect the energies of the individuals and activities that exist in that space. The water, the fasting, all may serve to help remind us of what we’re going to use that space for, and as we grow in our spiritual journey maybe so does that space.
