WALKING LIGHTLY ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH: THE THREEFOLD ECOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY YOGA PRACTICE BY SAMA FABIAN
There is a renewed sense of ecological urgency that ripples across the world today and in its wake an increasing aspiration for spiritual transformation. The two movements bring into play mighty forces that combined, have the power to accelerate the inevitable changes that await us in the years to come and that for a large section of humanity are already taking place.
The choices that we collectively need to make are not tomorrow but today, not elsewhere but here and now.
A wondrous opportunity for transformation is at hand at every moment and at all levels: in the way we think, communicate, and respond, in our relationship to ourselves, others, our environment and the whole of the natural world. It is a tremendous challenge that we are facing individually, locally within our immediate families, communities and on the scale of our entire species.
Environmental ecology invites us to show respect for the Earth in developing behaviors and practical means which promote the flourishing of life and reduce if not eradicate the absolute brutality and mercilessness of modern agriculture and animal farming.
As Yehudi Menuhin once said: “I am shocked at the American use of the word ‘dirt’ to signify ‘earth’ while ‘earth’ means planet”.
This simple statement shows the depth of our disconnection with the nourishing aspect of earth, and exposes the frightful condescension that modern discourse lends to the very real concept of ‘Mother Earth’.
Socio-
Human ecology invites us to find peace in ourselves and adopt ways, which encourage
non-
Human ecology is the field from which deeper transformations can arise and all Yoga practiced. Sri Aurobindo once noted “all life is Yoga” and so in weaving synergies with our deeper self, each other, the Earth and all living species we can begin to truly embody the integrality of this wondrous practice.
According to Classical Yoga the first step is to apply the Yamas and Niyamas in our daily life which includes our Yoga practice of breath awareness, mindful body work, meditations, mantra and various formulations of Bhakti.
In essence, the yamas relate to vital movements in our human nature that need to be reduced or contained for the benefit of our personal and collective lives. Yoga as a path of freedom can never be prescriptive. There are no absolutes, only processes inscribed in time. What we need to change is not so much the external actions and movements but the mindsets that lead to those actions and movements.
Only then are techniques of any use, otherwise they are carried out for the satisfaction of the external self, to serve strategies of denial that reinforce judgmental attitudes, distort perception and inflate vital ego.
Ahimsa ‘non-
I cannot help but remember the time in the mid 90’s when the Kurdish population of Stoke Newington, London would set up quiet sitting demonstrations, some of which involved hunger strikes, to urge people to renounce their Turkish holidays. Meanwhile Yoga holidays in Turkey were candidly advertised in Yoga Centers, at prohibitive prices for the local populations.
There are many who will justify such practices, yet the time has come where the divorce between the political and spiritual lives must be mended.
We have seen this played out recently with the Buddhist monks in Burma and in the dilemmas the Dalai Lama has to face.
On a smaller scale we can witness this exploitative conduct in some Yoga Centers, run like traditional enterprises, and bent on selling yet more Yoga paraphernalia while paying their teachers miserably and urging them to fill up their classes.
Psychological exploitation is of a different ‘genre’ and can be witnessed in a variety
of pseudo-
Satya, the second Yama, speaks of integrity. It challenges us to stay coherent, be true to ourselves and avoid comforting spiritual narratives that lead to delusion. It is also an invitation to speak the truth and to keep in check our deepest motivations.
The Mahabharata specifies: “…truth should not be said that can harm, however, never
lie to give pleasure” !
We need always to make choices that are in line with our
deeper consciousness, in the knowledge that this will be subjective most of the time!
Asteya refers to non-
Brahmacharya is an invitation to moderation, a containment of the vital impulses.
In the words of the French eco-
Here we are compelled to face our excesses and move towards equilibrium,
to make sober, economical choices, which save energy, both physical and emotional.
On a personal level, this vibration brings a natural refinement of thought and action,
an elegance and beauty of the psyche where there is no demand, expectation or projection.
Aparigraha is the last of the yamas. It tells us of non-
In ‘The Essence of Yoga’ Bernard Bouanchaud speaks of the yamas as principles of
respect. The very same respect that modern ecology promotes. Ecology is the study
of the relationships between living organisms. It’s essential statement is that living
organisms are interdependent and that as humans we cannot dissociate ourselves from
our environment.
Krishnamurti once stated ‘Yoga is relationship”
If we are to be in Yoga we are inevitably set into a relational field which goes
well beyond common civilities and which includes, active listening, non-
The niyamas refer to vibrations which we are invited to increase.
The first, shaucha tells us of cleanliness of body, thought and action.
It brings
to mind notions of impeccability and clarity. To clear the body of the external touch
of life, to release fearful thoughts from the mind, to make of every act a total
act.
Santosha speaks of nurturing a state of contentment which can only come as a result of self respect, reliance, esteem and perhaps the deeply established perception of the validity and worth of one’s own experience. This in turn leads to further trust in the movement of life and helps us touch upon the mystery of creation with a deep sense of wonderment, and joyful gratitude.
Tapas refer to a mindset that involves rigor, a refusal to be distracted or seduced by forces of inertia and complacency.
Here we are invited to be passionate in our endeavor, to burn unnecessary and wasteful burdens in the fire of an unwavering aspiration, to be ruthless with mediocrity, egotistic sentiment, self satisfaction and self importance, to stay uncompromisingly awake, alive.
Svadhyaya is a commitment to self knowledge and the study of the texts. In our desire to understand our processes, inner movements and experiences it becomes essential to hear what both our predecessors and our fellow practitioners have recorded of their observations, enquiries, findings and wisdoms. Here we contextualize our practice within an uninterrupted continuum of transmission, a bead in the great mala of Yogic experience.
It is our prerogative to redefine the practice in the light of our current socio-
With the last of the niyamas Ishvara Pranidhana we touch upon a very intimate realm. Sadly our secular societies are at a loss to transmit this beautiful vibration outside the inevitable distortions of religious dogma. I would suggest that a profound connection with a deeper and broader consciousness is the key to nurture this particular field of Yogic experience.
To know oneself to be always in the presence of the Divine. Here we return to those first moments of revelation where in the early days of our practice we knew as clear as day that we had found our way, and that we would be guided by our trust, unwavering surrender and all pervasive love.
As all these vibrations permeate our collective reflection, society as we know it might well be transformed. Each must labor deeply to reach this level of responsibility and consciousness and access the sacred dimension that makes us experience life as a magical and magnificent gift of love.
It is this love that deep ecology speaks of, not a righteous and often superficial concern, but a profound experience of belonging, of being these two legged creatures on the surface of a most beautiful planet, our Great Mother Earth and knowing ourselves to be a crucial player in a wondrous evolutionary project, to embody cosmic consciousness.
Bibliography:
Pierre Rabhi ‘Pour une Insurrection des Consciences’, ‘Paroles de Terre’
Bernard Bouanchaud The Essence of Yoga, Reflections on the Yoga Sutra of Patañjali
Francoise Mazet Yoga-
Dr. Peter Yates Heart Yoga Wolverhampton, UK (from conversations)
Tanya Syed Sacred Sound and Experimental Film, Ldn, UK (from conversations)
Dr Robert E. Svoboda (from talks)
Sri Aurobindo ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’ ‘The Divine Life’ Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry
To find out more about Sama’s work see http://www.aurolabyoga.net/
THE IYN MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL -
I would like to share some of my experiences and thoughts about volunteering at the recent IYN festival, which is to be, I am sure, the first of many.
I arrived early on Friday afternoon, a little late for the start of the volunteers’ briefing and more than a little frazzled by the journey (which included an unintentional, but nonetheless fascinating, tour around the delights of Bath). Upon arrival at the first IYN festival, the thing I most wanted in the world was a long lie down in a dark room.
After a short period of readjustment, however, I found myself in a beautiful Victorian house where wisteria dripped from warm stone walls and ducklings lived alongside stone Buddhas in the flowerbeds. By the time guests began to arrive later in the afternoon, I had well and truly melted into the environment and felt as though I had been there all my life.
That first evening, there was a short welcoming ceremony followed by a concert of improvised music by the very excellent Bardo Muse. Despite us being a lot of people in a fairly small room, it was not long until most of the audience were lying down and allowing the music to sweep over our bodies. As the music played and the sky turned to gold behind the Scot’s Pine trees, the Barn Owls began to stir – a beautiful start to the weekend.
I was enormously impressed by the huge effort that people had put in to the arranging and running of the festival. The whole event went smoothly and couldn’t be described as anything other than a resounding success. That so many people gave so much time and energy to this event is indeed wonderful and everyone involved (organisers, presenters, volunteers and everyone else) is recognised by me here.
I found the whole thing to be a wonderful experience. I had countless interesting discussions with lots of great people in a beautiful environment (looked after by a very welcoming community). I spent some time looking at the stars and listening to beautiful music by the campfire. I also ate chocolate cake so I couldn’t have been happier.
For a lot of the time over the festival period, I was stationed at the IYN membership
desk in the registration tent in the garden. From this vantage point, I was able
to observe the weekend unfolding. A gang of young people seemed to be running around
the grounds most of the time. They were safe, happy and just doing what children
do (not representing the terrible threat of our tabloid-
Watching this, it really struck me that this entire event – all this organization and human energy – was aimed at the exploration of the possibilities of human experience. I was suddenly aware of how wonderful it was that all these people, with no commercial interest, should have come together to protect our freedom to carry out this exploration.
In this festival, as yogis, we came together in a spirit of freedom and sharing. Connections were made and friendships developed. Undoubtedly, we will carry this spirit into the communities in which we live and operate. The success of the festival shows that together we can counter the efforts of those bureaucrats and salesmen who seek to prescribe the limits of our lives.
YOGA AND EDUCATION BY PETE YATES
National Occupational Standards are written within a defined structure regardless of the nature of the occupation. This generic structure makes it possible for the standards to be recognised across occupational areas and by national awarding bodies and other accrediting institutions. It also means that while details of content can be amended as a result of consultation the basic structure of the document cannot be amended…. (Skills for Health document downloadable from http://www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/development_documents.php?id=17) (My italics.)
There have recently been moves in the UK to regulate Yoga education, both as found in general Yoga classes and in the training of Yoga teachers, and to consider it in line with general educational principles which have some kind of governmental endorsement. At least three instances of this tendency spring to mind.
The one we are most familiar with is the collaboration of the BWY with the fitness
industry bodies REPS and SkillsActive to produce the so-
For some time, Yoga teachers working in Adult Education establishments have been
urged to conform to yet another educational requirement. Pressure has been put on
many of them to get the C&G Certificate in adult education (7307). Like the NOS,
this is a cross-
Yet another initiative is (apparently) being considered by the British Council for
Yoga Therapy. Their big idea is that Yoga teaching and Yoga teacher training should
come under the same regulation as that now being proposed for Yoga therapy. (This
is another NOS and like the SkillsActive “standard” it conforms to NVQ level 3.)
Like the attempt to bring Yoga education into the fold of fitness, this too would
allow Yoga education to be influenced by a non-
For all their apparent rigor, all of these approaches to Yoga education are built upon the same unexamined presupposition. What those involved in these initiatives have taken for granted, as though it did not deserve a second thought, is that Yoga education is sufficiently similar to other very general categories of education to be coherently considered under their rubric. In what follows, I’d like to examine that presupposition to see if we can safely continue to presuppose it.
The first fundamental question is this: “Is Yoga training education at all?” Well, what is education? The term “educate” derives from the Latin “educere” which means “to lead forth”. Education, then, is a “leading forth”, and this gives us a workable picture of what, ideally, education should entail: there is the one who leads, the teacher, and the one led, the student, and the immaturity and ignorance from which the student is “led forth”. This is clearly applicable to the situation in which an experienced Yogi leads a student, through various means, towards the experiences, transformations, intuitions and states of being that Yoga promises. This process is one which is necessarily gone though by one who would himself lead others forth: it applies to teacher training as well as to general Yoga teaching.
So both Yoga training and Yoga teacher training are forms of education, at least in its original conception. So how does Yoga education compare with the education received in schools, colleges and universities and the vocational training received in practical disciplines?
The similarities first: Yoga like every other type of educational project has an informational content. It is generally thought that we need to learn what the techniques of Yoga are called, what they are for and to get acquainted with some model of how they work and so on. This is comparable to learning names of the various types of joints, pipes and valves needed by a central heating system, their functions, and the theory of hydraulics which enables us to mentally picture a whole system and so on. Knowledge of the history, textual basis, psychology and philosophy of Yoga is also thought useful in Yoga education, if only because it enables the student to place what he or she is practicing into a meaningful context. Confining study to these matters, however, remains in the sphere of scholarship and doesn’t move into the sphere of Yoga itself which values practice and experience above all other aspects of education.
Again like most other practical areas of education, Yoga education imparts certain techniques and skills. Just as we might show someone how to solder a joint in water pipes, we might show someone how to perform a Yoga asana or pranayama. We will then get our student to execute the technique for himself whilst we observe and we will then in all likelihood correct any mistakes. We will do this several or even many times if necessary. The inward aspects of Yoga discipline, however, are not quite so amenable to this method.
The third similarity is that both Yoga education and education in general transform
the student. Someone who acquires literacy has the course of their life changed (hopefully
for the better) with knock-
Like education in general, then, Yoga education contains informational, practical and transformational elements and on this basis we are surely justified in treating it like any other educational project.
But this conclusion, to my mind, is too hasty. It rests on an inadequate consideration of the transformational element in Yoga education. It underestimates just how radical the transformation of the human being that Yoga education promises is and how it is of a wholly different order from the undeniably beneficial transformations in an individual’s confidence, social integration and so on that come from gaining a university degree or becoming literate or acquiring skills in plumbing.
There are many ways within the Yoga traditions of conceptualising and expressing
Yoga’s transformational promise and it would take us too far afield to try and survey
even a few of them. But what is clear is that Patanjali’s “chitta vritti nirodha”
or the sublime vision of cosmic unity of the Gita are a far cry from the well-
Yoga education, if successful, re-
And here we meet the decisive difference between Yoga education and all other educational programmes. The education which produces a maths teacher, reflexologist or plumber exists primarily to produce people who have the information and practical skills to fulfil these roles in the economy. Any positive transformation of the individual is welcome, but secondary. By contrast, Yoga education is primarily aimed at profound transformation of the individual and all other results are secondary.
This concern with radical individual transformation, which defines Yoga, also places it apart from pretty well all other educational programmes. Does this leave the informational and practical aspects of Yoga education untouched so that they can be considered in the context of education in general and accordingly prescribed with the transformational aspects alone being left to Yoga itself?
This indeed is the view of the authors of the NOS (Yoga Teacher) and it is just plain wrong. If transformation is the raison d’être of Yoga education then everything else about Yoga education must be subservient to it and determined by it. In the NOS (Yoga Teacher) programme, the practical and informational elements of what purports to be a Yoga education are determined from outside of Yoga. Consequently, Yoga’s transformational element is cut adrift which is why it goes unmentioned in the NOS documents. The NOS in fact fails completely to map out a Yoga education because it severs the determining link between Yoga’s transformational essence and what that requires practically and informationally.
It is because of this kind of fracturing of Yoga’s educational structure that we
see some Yoga teacher training programmes emulating academic disciplines with essays,
tests and all the rest of the rigmarole. But if we look carefully here we will see
that this is a deformation of Yoga education. A little thought-
Consider now the practical aspects of Yoga education. The practical aspects are the means by which transformation is approached. Obviously, without a clear view of the ends, the means cannot be prescribed. But as we have seen, treating Yoga education alongside other educational programmes obscures its unique end, the transformation of the individual. This must necessarily also obscure its means. (The practical result is the inevitable emptying out of techniques of their transformational charge at the same time as technique is fetishised.)
As far as I can see, only the IYN/Yoga Register initiative takes account of the unique
structure proper to Yoga education and does not erroneously conflate Yoga with education
in general. If we are to remain true to the insight which has guided us this far,
we should reject attempts by non-
Pete Yates