Yoga

2 key concepts in Indian Philosophy and yoga:

Prakṛti (प्रकृति) refers to “cosmic nature” while Puruṣa refers to the “cosmic man or being”

I’ve posted this personal writing here, about the inspiration of yoga from India, and the roots of this practice, to direct anyone interested, towards the practice of yoga.

Its through practice, personal writing, chanting, singing, art and the studio building that supports our life and work.

Studying Iyengar yoga at RIMYI Pune, India

One amazing and surprising thing about the studio Geoffrey built for all of us here, is the gift of an acoustic for singing/chanting – I could never have expected it. Such an unusual shape, and I’m sure no acoustic designer would have come up with its triangle form going up to a high apex, and yet the sound for speech, and singing is clear and resonant, every individual sound can be heard and yet it is simultaneously gathered together in one holistic sound.

When the first Aum sounds at the beginning of each and every class we teach here, it becomes a place for devotion which resonates through the heart of our house – such a space is a gift from the gods and we are truly grateful and I feel blessed to live here.

It’s easy when in England to think of yoga purely as a physical subject, a commodity, a fashion statement, a route to make us rich, exotic and famous, but stripping yoga like that from its roots in India is cultural appropriation, its what we have done and not noticed we have done for 100’s of years. So yoga is also a study of de-colonialisation, and a study in self reflexivity and self awareness as we study and change the root cause of actions and thus their effects. So it is vital to learn, respect and appreciate the lineage, culture and roots of where Yoga comes from: India. Also to understand the affects of trillion’s of pounds of wealth being stripped from India by the British, as well as understand the effects on Indian British people of what we have done and what we do today. Awareness, study and dialogue are key. This lecture, by Scholar Gurminder K. Bhambra Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, helps fill in some of the many gaps

So we start with our Indian Guru, BKS Iyengar, and by studying his subject in his home, in the heart of his family in Pune, India. This is where the study begins, a realisation of ignorance, and an opening up to listen to the people, encounter their deep history, their ancestry, deity’s, temples, language, food, the animals, the plants, and underneath in the very roots and soil. This is spiritual soil and one is never far away from prayer.  It’s in the water too and there is so much of that in Kerala seeping in. It’s in the waves that move in deep layers and undercurrents as though inside the body like the breath in pranayama, and one cannot be immune to it.

The experience of India continues to seep in, since our last visits in 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, I feel some sort of folding seam happen where one place stops and the other starts, it’s very hard to say exactly where this happens and it’s changing every day. It’s as though I’m describing two porous vessels, but also separate and very different in form, and I am having some difficulty in trying to bring two worlds together; my life and work as an artist in England and my experience of India and my study as a yogini. I feel at times as though they are almost in conflict with one another, and I think this is because of difference, and a respect for difference, because although I always look for unity, I think one should not be assimilated into the other. Neither should either be done in isolation, without context. I am turning both to the politicization of our funded arts sector in England, having worked for and wrestled with exclusion for several decades, and to nature as a way in.

My colleague, teacher and friend Biant Singh sent me this

” I am an Earth Pilgrim, not a tourist. I walk in nature not as an escape from the stress and strain of urban life, not for entertainment, or sightseeing, not even as a scientist looking at nature as an object of study, I go in nature as a pilgrim for the renewal of my spirit. Walking in nature is my meditation and my prayer. The magnificent trees and majestic hills are my temples and cathedrals. I don’t look above the sky to seek heaven, my heaven is here on earth. Being one with nature, I am enchanted and enlightened”

Satish Kumar

while another colleague and friend Ray Kohn sent me this

“What I found particularly fascinating in your blog Isabel, was the emphasis that Prashant was giving to the breath – something I only REALLY understood from when I was very ill. It is odd how only those extreme circumstances sometimes strip away many assumed notions and bring you much closer to your body’s interconnection with the movements of nature – the sea, the wind, the breath. Perhaps disability must, on occasion, have the same effect.

I am making another assumption – that you have returned to the UK and not stayed in India watching life on railways plaforms 🙂
I hope you and Geoffrey are happily breathing in Nottingham and not missing Talya’s cooking. How are you both?

I loved your elephant Christmas card. My only problem at the moment is that I seem to be overwhelmed with some sort of musical force … notating is like struggling with an elephant … it is too big for me to see it all at once let alone hold it in my arms. So I try to move with it by breathing (knowing?) before sitting down to notate. Sometimes it works: that is wonderful as it feels as if I am floating without any tensions holding me down. Sometimes I am so frustrated with the outcome that I destroy it and realise that I have not really “known” what I was doing from the start. What are you up to creatively at the moment?;”
love
Ray

I am inspired by Ray’s description of the elephant in him, and in his own process of writing music.

It chimed in too, with this ‘back home in England blog. I keep writing and re-writing it as if things change slowly, both feeling the affects as witness and instrument as I try to explore nature and the extent to which we are part of it. Is it right to bring this culture back to my home, and benefit from it, it does not belong to me. Instead it’s more complex than that and I think there is a need for various manifestations of the whole. Each part is in a sense a separate vessel, it’s distinctness is necessary to support the spiritual, independence  and creative growth of the source. Each vessel starts with the same clay, from the earth we share, but a multiplicity of interaction acts as a vehicle for understanding ourselves. There are many ways of seeing

Prakrity is the Sanskrit word for nature. It is an important concept in Indian Philosophy, and of particular importance in the studio and path of yoga. We are part of nature or ‘prakrity’, and through Yoga we are given an opportunity to know and understand natures energies within ourselves. We study this, and prepare the ground to make our minds fertile for our own evolution. We change from being passive recipients of something we don’t understand to becoming active agents in a process of growth, that’s the key.

How does this happen? We’ve been given both a guide and a map: Iyengar Yoga. Or Patanjali Yoga as BKS Iyengar describes it.

“Nature’s efficient cause does not impel its potentialities into action, but helps remove the obstacles to evolution, just as a farmer builds banks to irrigate his fields” BKS Iyengar Translation in Light on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Pada 1V.3

So when studying Yog in India, I experienced the multifaceted flow of breath in Prashant’s class, and then on arriving in Kerala we were traveling along the canals of the backwaters; I saw the paddy fields running right alongside the dwellings of local villagers, and there, a new level of understanding arrived.

When looking at these paddy fields, and considering the affects of the annual monsoon it becomes clearer. Rice has been grown here for thousands of years, but not by chance. Rice is an important food, it is mentioned in the vedas 1500 – 800 BC and it is the first food given to babies when they start eating solids. The traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. This simple method requires sound planning and servicing of the water damming and channeling, but reduces the growth of less robust weed and pest plants that have no submerged growth state, and deters vermin.

To create the sustainable structure for rice to grow, the farmer understands and knows how to harnesses the natural energy of water in both drought and monsoon. It’s quite extra-ordinary to witness all this knowledge, precise work and exact timing reaping the rewards in those paddy fields. In yoga we do this with the body so that the breath can cultivate the mind.

In England now it’s bliss to breathe the clear air, but as we struggle to keep warm, it’s almost impossible to imagine the 35 degree heat and high levels of humidity of Kerala, where I experienced there how a spinal twist comes so naturally as with greater ease we turn and squeese our bodies as though an orange full of juice, but it is more difficult here as our bodies shrivel and ache with the damp even in summer, as in India we were never far from the naturally juicy fruits of this land which grow in abundance

This week we’ve had lots of rain, wonderful bright green foliage, sweet smelling roses in West Bridgford, the rain water sits in various pots in our garden, the air is clear and easy to breathe, and I’m very grateful for that. But things feel more brittle, energies are totally different, I’m glad to kick up into handstand as it gets me warm. We utilise a lot of our energy in the process of generating heat. Where the deep shade of a coconut palm was a godsend in India, here back home Geoffrey and I head out if there sunshine, the birds do it too. In Kerala the Coukal bird hopped amongst and under the palm branches, taking in insects from the branches and air, a strange movement from such a big bird, as it managed to keep in the shade conserving efforts. Yet here at home I can see a big pigeon in our back garden now basking for a moment in the sunshine whilst making energetic pecks at the green lilac tips. Such energy expenditure would be impossible in Kerala for person and bird alike.

It’s not so easy to feel the flow of movement here and the results of stillness seem to lead to a cold stiffness, it’s harder to be still and feel good, so we seek flow and dynamic movement to keep us warm to energise us. Certainly in 33 days in Kerala I never saw anyone running! In fact, one day I was walking quite quickly early in the morning to daily class, thinking I might be a little late I heard a quiet voice of a man who I’d overtaken saying ‘don’t rush there is time’. I found myself noticing my change in breath as he spoke and a widening and softening of everything. And certainly I know I’ve handled my own energies in England by wanting to march about the place, even cutting things fine so that I have to move quickly. In India Geoffrey reminded me each morning that we should allow time so that we didn’t work up a heat before starting yoga at 8am. Once the heat builds in the body it’s hard to get rid of and we found only a cold shower would rid us of it then or a session of pranayama. So part of the work in yoga is to learn about the underlying qualities of things, for example to see how the heat and energy works in ourselves and to listen, to tune in to nature and then choose which asana to do, what food to eat and to bring about balance.

In the ancient yogic texts we learn that all nature is made up of an interplay of 3 fundamental energies: or Gunas. In very simple terms one could think of Sattva as clarity, Rajas as dynamic movement and Tamas as inertia. Although often people like to try and identify which category they most likely fit into, but we are mix of all three. It is a debatable point whether each energy is neutral of should be viewed as positive of negative.  These energies however, get a grip over us and even when we might feel on some level that the emphasis of one is not useful we don’t seem to be able to change. Whilst sometimes we feel stuck gripped by an inability to get on with anything, at other times we might move so quickly and with such ego that we don’t connect to anyone or anything. A reflective state is needed to explore the energy lying at the root of matter, and a practical practice. As the mind and body are fundamental to yoga prana (the breath) is the vehicle to connect the two.

In Patanjali’s yoga sutras pada 1V; the final chapter in the book. BKS Iyengar explains that to be free of the gunas is the summit of yoga. Patanjali lays it out clearly and Iyengar gives us the practical tools to make it happen.

So we learn in yoga how the complexity of these energies work in ourselves; and how we are made up of a mix of undesirable/negative, neutral and desirable/positive qualities. A part of our journey is to study and notice things around us as well as in ourselves as though in a two way dialogue. We learn that nature is a complex mix of all these things depending on context, material, or personalty and we are part of that nature and we are derived from it: ‘prakrity’.

So ultimately we are trying to work towards releasing ourselves from their gravitational pull, we can’t do that unless we know how they work on us and how we can work with them. I felt this was one of the key points that Prashant taught me, developing my awareness for example in his study of the fish could directly help me with the moving flow of my breath in pranayama. The 3 Gunas aren’t static, and ultimately we are trying to work towards releasing ourselves from their gravitational pull, we can’t do that unless we know how they work on us and how we can work with them. I felt this was one of the key points that Prashant taught me, developing my awareness for example in his study of the fish could directly help me with the breath’s flow of movement in pranayama.

The Gunas can be useful on the path of personal growth, if we know how to change these energies through yoga we can work better for self improvement. For example; Rajas can often be the catalyst for change positive or negative, whilst Sattva can help to harmonise that change, Tamas will put a check on that change, even stop it.

So pretty simplistically what can we learn about nature through yoga?

We learn how the complexity of these energies work; a mix of undesirable/negative, neutral and desirable/positive qualities. For example the energies of the elephant, and dragonfly are so completely different. The elephant is big and does not make delicate, dynamic changes in movement, it gets hot and needs to go often to immerse in the water.

The lizard soaks up the heat here in early morning, on the coconut palm to gather the heat up so that it can move swiftly.

But the dragonfly is light and can dart about in the air, it keeps moving and generates a flow of air all around.

If these creatures are allowed to follow their natural tendencies they survive independently, but when such animals are kept in captivity they loose connection with their natures; the elephant in captivity has to be washed by human beings and coaxed with a stick into the water. Meanwhile the human being goes to the gym for a rowing machine not downstream on a boat to find food. Both elephant and human being become disconnected from the waters.

In the ‘developed’ world we seem to have become out of sorts, confused by daily life. We try to control the flow of food, heat, cool, money, transport, people, and here in England I notice it particularly, as my feet are swathed in socks and slippers or big boots. Where in India my feet were open to the air all the time and I could feel the ground a couple of centimetres under the soles of my flimsy slip on shoes. We live our lives separately from nature, living in high level protected environments closeted from the world I saw on the streets in India. Gosh I notice the contrast now: the very vegetables we eat are packaged so they look inert. It is as though we were in a sealed ‘aircon’ unit, we’ve build islands, office blocks and gated communities to separate ourselves from people and nature, and eventually we can’t survive without all that separation. A world largely cut off, so we just stop listening somehow and the mind and body separate.

Yoga helps us with all this, helps us to integrate and be more whole.

As many of you know, I’ve been very interested since the age of 7 or 8 years old in ethics, and as an adult since 1982 I’ve been involved very closely in an arts movement pushing for attitudinal change. In the process I developed Salamanda Tandem this arts charity to remove obstacles, and enable disabled children, adults, and carers to develop, shine and grow through creative realisation. Such a process involves a keen and dynamic process of self reflection, so thoughtfulness, empathy, positive action towards self and others are bound up with this too. On our return from India I’ve been thinking about this, because it’s incredibly difficult to make change happen and we can’t make it happen without awareness. When in India, it’s easier to notice things like a child can, and such an experience awakens us and our awareness towards nature and other people. On returning to our normal lives, yoga becomes even more relevant, as we need help to stay awake to these possibilities and not become numb.

Our society and each individual needs a daily practice, to develop our reflective abilities and consider our life more carefully, in relationship to oppression and discrimination. Things we have stopped noticing, or maybe never even noticed are there, they were always there.

So we have an opportunity to enter yoga, particularly in this important moment in history; to learn to be aware, to break old useless habits, let go of ego, position and hand over power, to make productive new connections.

But it takes

Vairagya: Discipline, Practice, Effort

Abyasa: surrender, non-attachment

Farewell  fear: and Hello … an ever expanding inner world….