Day 2 - Still Committed

We woke this morning to find that one of our cars was broken into last night (well not quite broken into, since the doors were unlocked), and both of our ipods were stolen from the center console. Of course this is noticed when my wife is rushing to get out the door and drive the boys to school and I am with the baby. I can’t do anything, but react, and my first reaction was blame, anger. Why would I immediately blame my wife? It’s not like she put a huge sign on the back of the car that read “ipods inside car, take them.” Did I learn to react like that? Maybe I a mimicking my step-father’s response to things gone wrong - to always find the blame on someone else. Or was it my own issues with trust, since I have had ipods stolen before and don’t trust that things outside my own care will be handled properly? Well, the good news is I quickly moved through all that emotion. It was brief.

With all that brewing, I put the baby down (thankfully he was tired and ready for his nap) and got my mat out. My wife called to talk about the theft. What was there to talk about? Unfortunately, I was more rude than compassionate and said, “I had to get off the phone. I want to practice.” Two days ago, I would of stayed on the phone. I would of talked to keep busy. I find this the worst feature of cell phones, we use them to just keep busy. I always find myself calling someone just to talk when I am driving and I realize that I may be home and my wife calls me when she’s driving. Instead of doing things I talk, gossip, have good ideas, get pissed, fall more in-love. The spectrum of possibilities is immense, but what I’m not doing is being productive. So, I’m off the phone and on my mat.

A million reasons not to be on my mat. I’m stiff. I have a sore throat. I have emails. I have phone calls. I have to shower. I have to eat. The recycling needs to get out to the curb, and of course, the baby is sleeping which means I could do all of those things. But I resist. I stay on my mat. I put in my Leg Conditioning DVD. I breathe, stay focused and move. My body starts warming up. I’m sweating. I feel looser in my legs and back. I feel good. No I feel great! I finish and sit for a few minutes and think about everything. My own habits and how hard they are to shift. 

I get off my mat and realize that I didn’t have less time, but I made more time. My mat is the place where I become more efficient, more energized, more capable of doing everything else in my day. I finished and did the recycling, took my shower, ate, emailed and wrote this all before the baby woke-up. I have to remember that there is time for everything if I make the time.

Day 1 - Commitments

As I approach my 15 years of practicing and 14 years of teaching, I’m looking back with a sense of curiosity - Do I still have the same discipline I did back then? Surely, my life is much different. I a married with a family and a career, where as then I was 19/20, living at my parent’s with no bills or responsibilities. Okay, so being a 19 year old male yogi wasn’t quite the trend back then, but I chose sobriety, veganism, and of course my practice. My practice was everything and I defined yoga by the accomplishments on the mat. I would even say I was a fundamentalist when it came to asana. I had such will power and determination to wake every morning between 4 and 6 and practice and meditate (I found seated meditation the most challenging commitment I made, and even though I did half a dozen 10-day meditation courses in 2 years, I still struggled on my own to sit for an hour or two a day). But now, here I am wondering do I still have that discipline to get up, to get on my mat, to keep the commitment that I desire?

So Day 1 of my discipline to get on my mat and practice like I once did, to give it the time of day. What I have realized in creating this challenge for myself is so many other things that I want to commit to that I once valued or could do. So here’s my list so far: I want to practice asana, have a seated meditation, examine my use of language (no cursing, tone of my voice like yelling), look at anger and patience, diet, alcohol, and mostly following through. Getting inspired is not my issue, but maintaining the inspiration is. At one time I was so disciplined (to what I might now think was to a fault), but now with my life I almost find it is easier to keep the status qua than change with a family (2 step-sons 12 & 9, and my own son who is 10 months), my wife’s yoga studio and my own traveling schedule. But I don’t want to think that as my views of yoga have grown and developed and I feel much healthier, that I have also lost a huge part of what yoga means to me and my ability to empower myself at will to keep a challenge. So Day 1.

After dropping the boys at school, coming home and putting the baby down for a nap, instead of taking my time procrastinating on the computer, eating and drinking coffee, I immediately got my Abs & Arms DVD out and did it. Is it narcissistic of me to do my own class (maybe, but no more than blogging - okay a whole other blog right there)? It was great to be in my breath, focused and moving. My wife put her mat down and joined me and instead of talking, which would of been so easy to do, I resisted and kept breathing and maintained my focus. The practice was great! And now to my other commitments - no swearing on the golf course today.

First Steps

Is there a point in life when things stop being new? As adults do we lose the gift that children get every day, the gift of wonder and newness? I watch my 9 month old and everything he does is new. From crawling to stepping, to foods, to even his head hitting the wall and to watch him test it again to understand “head, wall.” It is an amazing source of discovery that in our world seems harder and harder to get. I read recently if there are any places to go on Earth where no one else has ever been. The answers were mostly places in Antarctica. Think about when the America’s, Africa or Asia were discovered by Europeans. When the Earth was no longer flat but round or gravity was understood. Are we robbed of firsts or are we unable to think that the opportunity for a first is always present?
My dad made an interesting comment to me the other day. He thanked me for the weekend he spent with my son, his grandson. He said, “It’s not easy to have a first at 60.” I thought true but sad. Why can’t everything be a first? I watch the dissatisfaction people have with their marriages or jobs and they think, “a new spouse or job will make it all better.” I used to think that. I used to think it was everything else around me that made me, but now I think differently. Now I invoke the greatest gift yoga has taught me, the power of what, how, why, when and where I choose.
Try this for the next week. Everyday wake up and think about the things in your life, maybe your spouse, job, family, friends...and instead of thinking of all of them as obligations or responsibilities, instead choose to love them. Choose to see them as gifts in your life. Choose them everyday because then you will get to have first loves, first jobs, first friends, firsts steps everyday.

I am Patriotic

I’ve just listened to the now President Obama deliver his inaugural speech. I sat with my wife and six month old with tears in my eyes for the future beauty in our lives. A promise not only for us, but also for our children and their children. We feel the hope as we look out over the 2 million people gathered in Washington and the millions more around the world watching with anticipation of hope rather than fear. It’s time for a real change and it’s happening now.

In President Obama’s speech he had a central theme that connected us – our country, America. I think it is fair to say that for the last 7 years or so, being an American across the world has not been a desired identity. Not only across the world, but if you disagreed with American politics within America then you were seen as unpatriotic. But now, President Obama brings pride and hope in being an American and a reclamation to what it means to be American and patriotic.

A few years ago, I remember celebrating the 4th of July at a yoga retreat and the teacher talked about how this is our America just as much theirs (referring to the Bush administration and Republican values), yet we all felt so anti-American. How were we to celebrate the independence of America? Were we patriotic? What does that mean? Why can’t disagreeing with the patterns and behaviors of a politic mean that you are not a member of the country? After all, aren’t we a democracy rather than a dictatorship?

Yoga has an agenda and part of that agenda is not inventing things that already exist, but reclaiming them in new ways and perspectives. We’ve all felt the transformations of yoga in our bodies and the spill over into our diets, philosophies, views and consciousness. We started reclaiming ourselves the moment we began yoga, but we must constantly be willing to reclaim ourselves as we advance our yoga.

It is hard to look at yourself and who you are, who’ve you become, and be willing to constantly redefine yourself. It’s like a marriage. The problem with marriage is not the institution of it, since it is actually one of the most beautiful unions, but rather the marriage represents an ending rather than a beginning. We found and developed the love and now that we are married we don’t have to cultivate it anymore. Except the very reason a marriage works and lasts is because each person chooses to recommit, to redefine, to reclaim their love everyday. It is not the obligation of the certificate (which is legal) that holds a marriage together, but the constant choice to define your love. Well your life is no different. Everyday you have to wake up and be willing to reclaim who you are, even if that means you have to shift the perspective because who’ve you become is no longer in alignment to what you believe or value.

I feel very proud to be an American right now. I’m very proud to be a yogi because like our President reminded me today I need to look at myself everyday and reclaim myself and my own constitution as the my conscious choices to be better, not just for me but for my wife and child and all of our futures.

Life's Flood

I’ve always envied those people, both men and women, who cry. It was something that seemed impossible to me. I don’t know if it was me holding on to some macho notion of what it meant to be a man, even though I was 19 teaching yoga and spending the majority of my time in the company of married housewives. But I wanted to cry. I would try to squeeze out a tear at movies, while reading, in the appropriate “cry here/now” situation, but never with success. I watched my friends, partners and teachers cry. It not only seemed like such a release, but also that they were feeling life in more ways and deeper ways.

The word for tear in Sanskrit is aksha, which is the same word for eye, like in pratyaksha (senses) or literally in front of the eyes. It is said that Shiva’s tear, rudraksha, creates life. The tear is the bindu, a point, but much more the shape of a drop (3-D) than a point (2-D). That initial tear is filled with Shiva’s juice, rasa, or emotions. In Indian aesthetics art has 9 (originally 8) essential emotive qualities called rasa: erotic, comic, compassionate, ferocious, fearful, heroic, disgustful, wonder, and peaceful. The same aesthetic philosophy becomes a school of yoga called Alamkaradhvani. The original tear is filled with all the qualities that make life an art. The verbal root ras, where rasa comes from means to roar, yell, cry out, scream. The eye creates the tear, which acts like a lens to perceive and taste life.

I was taught that life happens in the tears. I would sit at retreats and the other students all around me would have these breakdowns. I felt like I wanted to have what they were having. I didn’t want the transformations I was having (which I was at exponential rates). I wanted to have that cathartic meltdown everyone else was having as my transformation. Only I never did. Did I have to live a life of hardship, self-abnegation, or torture myself? Why was I barren? Was this something I had to learn or was it more who I am?

Now I hate using age as an excuse. Sometimes it is true that age matters. You just experience more as you live. Yet, age doesn’t mean that you can’t be good at something simply because you are young. But age has seemed to be a big factor for me. In my own aging, I have grown up. I have experienced many of the hardships of life, but more the joys that come with living. I have lost relationships, friends, and businesses. People I know have died, life has been filled with terror and now the economy looms towards a depression. I have lived with the responsibilities of taking care of others and all the hardships and stresses that come with such responsibilities.

I’ve found my tears, but not because of the hardships, but because of the greatest joys. The loves of my life is where my tears formed. My wife, baby and stepsons have brought me tears – full cathartic meltdowns (it’s true I have it on video). After the birth of my son, life changed. It got juicier and I started to taste (rasa) and see (aksha) in deeper and more ways. And the tears started flowing and flooding. Now, when I am at the movies, reading, or simply experiencing the joys and pains of others my eyes swell with life. I not only know there is a point (bindu) but I see it, feel it and taste it every day in the joys that surround me. My yoga never denies the hardships, but my yoga sees the joys as the creative power of my transformations.

My First Noble Truth

I remember reading Pema Chodren’s book When Things Fall Apart when I was 19. I was heavy into my Buddhist studies and practices, and at that time her book was at the top of the must read list. At 19 what did I know about things falling apart? As children and young adults we are so overly egocentric that everything happening seems larger than it is, or that we are the only ones who’ve ever had any of this happen to. So, I can’t say that at 19 things didn’t seem to be falling apart, it’s just now when I look back at then and I look at now, the notion of falling apart seems worlds apart.

Life is great (that’s the first Noble Truth for me). As a great life we don’t have to fix anything. If life is inherently suffering, well then, you’ve got to relieve that suffering. Otherwise you will always be suffering. If life’s an error, an illusion or a mistake then you have to transcend, escape or transmute the state your in, in order to achieve liberation. You have to be liberated from something into something. Which leaves the question, where do you go when you achieve this liberation? This is why life is not the problem. Life is great.

So when I look at things falling apart, and my tendency is to fix them, I’m beginning to wonder whether that’s what I’m supposed to do? If I’m here to fix life then I have to understand what’s broken and look at repairing that. If life is great, then I have to see how I’m not being myself and then shift myself back into the optimal me. But it still seems like I’m always trying to make something better. When Things Fall Apart is actually not describing life, but prescribing life in its title. A Buddhist believes that life is impermanent and everything is in a constant play of joining and parting. When you understand that things “fall apart” you see life’s impermanence, and therefore cease clinging to these things. Really, it’s not bad advice. There is a time in our lives when we need to loosen the grip, expand our perspective, and stop dwelling in the predicament.

Yet, at the same time those things rejoin, right? The yoga is in the rejoining, not just that things fall apart and rejoin, but in how you make the relationship between them. All of a sudden, I realize that my life is always falling apart. It’s a hard life. It’s a challenging life. But at the same time, it is always joining together. It’s a simple, enjoyable life too. Instead of spending my time trying to fix what’s falling apart, which is impossible, I just remember to be me. In fact, our lives’ fall apart when we forget who we are and act in that forgetfulness. Many times things fall apart because we are so busy trying to keep things together. Kind of ironic, huh.

My life is no more or less challenging than yours. In fact, I am sure we all live under the same normal amount of stresses that comes in waves. My life may appear more or less stressful than yours right now, but I am sure that will switch at some point and balance out. So, we’re all in the same boat, which is happening to be falling apart right now, but let’s make the choice together to see the falling apart as just as great as the joining together. Your life is great not because you achieve a state, but because you can always be yourself in whatever event is happening.

Forgive me Internet, it has been 1 year since my last blog

Okay, okay, I know it has been far too long. I don’t know if I’m lazy or that November is my month to write. I think it is November. I realize that it is this time of the year when I transition the most. Is it the impending winter season? Am I like an animal that is gathering all my thoughts like food to store and go into hibernation? A year of hibernating…now that’s an idea! Is it the election and all the excitement of change in the air? Perhaps I connect to the traditions around the world where this time symbolizes the New Year. I don’t know, but it was last year at this time that I resigned from Anusara. It was last year at this time that I had all these grandiose ideas and was inspired to produce them all. Then the year happened and what a year it was. Now, it is this time of the year again and I sit here thinking I’m lost.

Now, I’m not interested in retelling my year to you. As interesting as I find my own life, I am sure you find yours more interesting. Yet, how could I write or share anything if it wasn’t about me? A year ago at this time, I sat with the world of opportunity in front of me. I had spent the betterment of 2 years struggling to make a very hard choice whether to leave Anusara or not. After making that choice, it was like I had found myself – the clarity and honesty were so raw and I had all the energy and enthusiasm to mold those opportunities. In that great spiritual dilemma, I thought I had found myself.

I remembered yesterday a critical turning point in the Ramayana. Right after Rama loses Sita, and the Kishkindya Kanda begins, Rama is cursing the forest, its creatures and the whole world. He becomes the Howler, a name of Shiva, and therefore loses himself or becomes something else. It’s the turning point of the book because a new journey must begin, the one of re-connection to what he has already known because yoga is always a journey to connect with what is already possible. Rama’s journey is our journey through the forest of thoughts and emotions, in a world of the familiar yet unknown, in a world where success is your privilege, but fulfillment is not your guarantee. Rama’s journey through the forest is our own turning inwards to reflect and learn about whom we are and what we can do. Rama’s return from the forest, with Sita and Hanuman and the fulfillment of his yoga is the turning from the density of uncertainty to the clear light of the City where a world looks to embrace and share with him and he can embrace it back.

The funny thing is, I thought in these last two years that it has been at this time where I have felt lost, and in all the uncertainty that makes my life I found myself sharing my thoughts, like mythic stories. Only now, I realize that it is this time each year that I return home after another long year and journey into losing myself. It is in my year that happens between these blogs where I have been losing myself, wondering through my own forest, encountering interesting characters, being seduced, angry, in love and in awe, yet not fulfilled. For what ever reasons the Universe seems to steer me in, each year I return to see myself whole, even if it is just for a moment. Well, my goal is to lose myself again, after all that is where the power of transformation begins, but this year I hope to not forget myself in that process. In other words, I’ll be back before next November!