Early on in my teaching career I had three symbols made for my first yoga studio. Each one was painted on a small canvas, so that I could move them along to future studios. Nearly thirty years on and I still have the yin-yang, AUM and The Way of Tao in my current studio. Symbols represent a practice, philosophy and a way of being. Exactly what “the way” may mean is open to individual perception, but the broad strokes are as follow:

Nourish this understanding, of Self, in Life, and you balance yin and yang (doing, non-doing, form and formless) with, according to The Way of the Tao, Lao Tzu’s poetic, deep mind experience of nature and inner nature (a lovely companion to Patajali’s 8 Limb Principles and Sutras). And of course all of this happens in the Universe, or All That Is. The undifferentiated A-U-M is the Totality, the sound mantra, is the vibration we make in our practice, and it resonates with the vibration or multiple octaves of matter and subtle energy frequencies of Everything. Jesus said for us to build our lives on the rock of the Love of his parents, God/Goddess, or call it Shiva-Shakti.

This is what we are to surrender to if we are to be in the flow of the great Yin and Yang of duality, within the liberating Non-Duality of Pure Awareness. Practice of the Yoga of Self-realisation, Union is a practical day-to-day reality. It is a process where yoga is self-development therapy that supports change. We are the change, made possible by our surrender in our practice. Nourish this Way, Know Self, Know the Way and Grow. Realise Self, Be Bliss.

Practice Yoga and keep warm – I write this from a wintery Yoga Studio,
on Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town, July 2019.
Regards, Johann.

Cultivating states of conscious awareness is therefore necessary to know creation at this level. It is a skill and there are techniques and teachings for its development, much like developing muscle or discerning thinking is enhanced through exercise, study, community and discourse. The latter stresses the value of satsang, and within context of a healthy community.

Yoga is not anti-intlectual, it is pro inclusive. Pranayama, for example, is considered a “science of breath” that includes anatomy, but does not exclude emotion or the influences of greater environment on the breather. Yoga emphasise that theoretical knowledge and practical insight together create wisdom. In instance of breath yoga teaches that without “breath awareness” one cannot fully explore breath in context of life. In yoga metaphysics knowledge is limited, and not enough to “know who we are” and therefore the wisdom of exploring “the breather” as a multi-layered being is essential to yoga. This is also why yoga means “union”.

In the yoga tradition Everything is part of a holistic, universal non-duality, where “everything is part of everything else”. A mix of mysticism, science and philosophy wherein all that exists is part of one vibrational field. Like quantum physics it includes, for example mechanical physics, but necessarily goes beyond its limitations. It puts the whole before any aspect. In yoga the physical self, on earth, brain included, is seen as a component of a greater intelligence, a whole “self”, with the capcity to be self aware and conscious of the consciousness of All That Is.

Such “supernature” is revealed when we tap into our complete potential that includes spiritual and emotional “Q” and not only IQ. Then we align with the vibrational field where “universe” and “Source” is one. In yoga the “consciousness of the universe” is a radiation of The Supreme Being, an ineffable “All”, rather than the God in-the-image of man as depicted in various religions, or as popularly perceived (or rejected).

Such a philosophy is simple in principle, but may quickly become a complex muddle. For me, personally, it is suffice to know that in complete spirituality life itself is sacred, as is the ordinary, commonplace. All “gods” and deities are expressions of God. One may work out the meaning of life, or lack thereof, to any degree in the thinking mind, but it is the bodymind that includes the heart, and the ability to “go within” for cosmic wisdom, that leads to realise itself.

Johann, Cape Town, 6 July 2017.

The sounds, combined with the mudra (“a motion of the hands”) create positive, harmonious sound currents. Yogi Bhajan, who popularised this practice in America, said the technique can reorient behavior patterns and thus open one up to the possibility of transformational change. It helps synchronise the brain hemispheres, and orient the whole body to the whole brain. The Kundalini Yoga greeting “Sat Nam” contains the first two syllables of the mantra.

I recorded the children in my yoga & music studio, with their teacher Jani Steyn, from Blissful Kids. The wonderful thing is that yoga learned as a child helps us be more creative, healthy and happy adults, and when learned as an adult, helps us be more creative, healthy and happy, like children! In a sense the mantra simply reminds us of the fact that we are human beings. On a more complex level it helps activate the nervous system, as described in the practice below.

A mudra and mantra practice

The Sa Ta Na Ma seed syllable mantra sounds is done with a corresponding finger mudra: take a large inhale and make the relevant sound, one per thumb to each finger. One exhale per four sound/four finger round. Move thumb rhythmically from the tip of the index to the pinky, small finger. Do five rounds, five breaths, and conclude with an Om, with thumb to index finger mudra.

● Sa – thumb and first (index) finger – birth
● Ta – thumb and middle finger – life
● Na – thumb and ringfinger – death
● Ma – thumb and small finger – rebirth

Sit in a minute of meditation, to feel or explore the “shifted” energy. Feel empowered, knowing that old patterns that don’t serve you are disrupted, that inner flow of energies are harmonised, physically, mentally and emotionally, to shift into new perspectives, and new patterns that serves you better.

This finger mudra is also used to balance the elements of water, earth, fire, air and space.

Read more about the value of mantra.

Mantra & Mudra Blessings
Johann
Cape Town,
28 June 2017.

Although we sometimes fall way short on this invaluable attitude when the going gets tough, “appreciation of appreciation” is nurtured by simply taking note of “what is”, when “it” is. And when not feeling so awesome, just let things be, and be grateful when things are awesome. With practice we learn to become aware of the glass being half full, not half empty. Which is, of course, a full glass. The uplifting energy of appreciation may just be enough momentum to carry us through the trough to the next peak. The bliss of that peak experience is the necessary fuel of life to inspire higher living. Or the energy to aspire to, and develop the life skills to achieve such a life.

A simple uplifting yoga practice

In yoga the practice of pranayama – to lengthen or alter the breath, and therefore contact with Life Force – is a great way to mix gratitude practice with meditation. Just sit in meditation, mindful of you, yourself, and the breath, in the body. Take a sow, deep breath,  and gently hold it, for a few moments, in awareness of the expansive potential of the moment, without holding on to the moment. Breathe out. Now place your hands in prayer, and be grateful, physically. Not the word or the concept, but the energy. Of course holding an inhale for a few relaxed, focussed moments, is in itself uplifting, so combine the above techniques. With practice we begin to feel how frequencies form our lives, and learn how to choose frequencies that form positive, life affirming patterns in our lives.

Gain altitude with the attitude of gratitude. Get into the habit to follow your bliss and your highest self.

Johann
27 June 2017

Sacred geometry water crystals from the page of Masaru Emoto, and texts from his book “Messages from water”.
PS. See yantra for another connection of yoga to frequency, form and appreciation.

The real you, infinite self, is famously described by Deepak Chopra as a quantum self, an “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind”. Yoga, amongst has as its highest goal to show us, and trains us, to uncover this self by “going within”. Inhabiting both the little self and the infinite self is akin to looking at the detail without losing sight of the big picture. The yin, and the yang.

Self here is the energy behind the thinking being, the force behind the persona, which is represented by the person, or the picture of a person, like in the ID book. Like in an ID book we sense that we are not that image, yet we identify with it. For practical everyday purposes it makes sense, though unfortunately for us we tend to over identify with that self.

Becoming aware that ordinary reality is not the only reality, that there is also a non-dualistic whole, is the first step to uncover the true self. Then we don’t need to control, and we go beyond being controlled. This resolves everything because it already is everything, a state of one-ness. We stop worrying. Suffering ends, joy flows.

Ascension from ignorance to no mind is a gradual process. Yoga suggests that we begin with the practice of postures, to prepare the bodymind to become unstuck from ordinary reality by tapping in to the life force of all that is. That life force may arise gradually, or spontaneously, in stops or starts, as we develop our concentration practices, breath practices and ability to focus inwards. Development of intuition and spiritual practice of compassion for others, practice of self care or self love, and generally placing oneself in some form or another in altruistic service of humanity, coupled to a process of self-enquiry, erodes identification with the thinking mind, to uncover true self, until “self” is “realised”.

In the real world you will most likely continue to feel ups and downs, desire thing or things, think that someone is a prick and consider blowing up countries. Yet a self a aware person is less of a slave and a fool to the egotistical puppet masters who controls us for their gain, of course by virtue of our greed and fear rooted in our egos.

This is why religion is at best a step towards salvation, it cannot be salvation. This is why negotiating for peace is a temporary step towards peace, it cannot produce peace. For the same reason conventional (unholistic) medical health care can save lives, but is only a step towards healing, Only aware, conscious one-ness can do these things.

This is how meditation dissolves suffering. While in meditation you may pleasantly find your attitude, opinion, want for stuff and revenge dissolve. You may even be able to bring some of this forward into your daily living. As with anything else, the more you practice, the better you will get at it. You will feel less need for control, and become less vulnerable to control.

This state of no mind-self cannot negotiated for or purchased. Only inner peace can produce outer peace. Illness, consumerism and war goes away when the self is rooted in self-awareness. This is why yoga says health is not the absence of disease, health is the presence of well-being. Likewise is peace is not the mere absence of war.

This self is equal to God because God is everything and self is everything. We are already that self. All we have to do is know ourselves and realize it.

I wrote this on a flight from Varanasi to Delhi, 11 November 2014.
See the other half of this blog No mind is everything.

Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed… the great yogis…  as well as common sense, dictates, quite practically, very similar spiritual truths.
The picture below is from Swami Sivananda’s Divine Life Society Ashram, Rishikesh.

Immersed in Rishikesh, India. Historically one of the most yogic areas on the planet, a culture in stark contrast to the Western world I live in. A decisive feature of India is becoming, for me, a seemingly built-in philosophy of self-realisation.

On the surface there is much ritual and religion, and the next level of various means of full-time service and professional devotion. These worldly endeavours are tied into concepts of karma that appears to be only a first and second step towards the bigger goal of self-realisation.

Deeper levels of self-realisation suggests the highest attainment; freedom from all bondage to the world. Release is found on an inward bound journey to let go of the “I”, the ego, doing and business, without suppression of thought, or relinquishing of any kind. Nothing is forcibly given up, everything is transformed by the wisdom of true knowing and the lifting of the veils of illusion. Soaking a Western mind and body in a culture immersed in this metaphysical philosophy is rather radical.

In a state of pure awareness true self understands, or realises, what it is. That it is one with the eternal, and at the ordinary, local reality, a duality that exists in a non-dualistic reality. Here the world of good or bad drops away, to reveal ordinary reality as a dream, an illusion. In a state of non-duality self realises that it, one, “just is”. The “me” or “I” that creates duality, in seperation from the underlying one-ness of all, creates an unending stream of me, you, us and them, fear and hope, gratification and desire, divisions of within and without. Dissolve theses illusions created by ego self, and inner peace comes effortlessly; self is “realised” or actualized.

Inquiring into union, yoga

This is why I am drawn to integral yoga, it suggests a path of self-enquiry to learn a bit about everything as parts of one whole. Its asana practice is to steady the body comfortably, pranayama to charge the nadi, concentration to sharpen the mind, in order to meditate successfully.

In meditation, just observing the natural breath helps the mind, and its thoughts, become quiet. In awareness practice the world around us may effortlessly fall away. We may then look at the body, and the breath, and recognise that neither is ours, or us. The thinking mind stops grasping for meaning or doing. Looking for self changes to being self. Limiting mental and emotional patterns are revealed, and gradually dissolves. Consciousness activates self awareness.

Such “self” is nothing, and everything, and is beyond intellectual grasp. For instance, how can that be true that such concrete reality as we see around us is not real? And that stepping out of such a reality can be so simple? In the unmasking of the delusion that the world, with its pleasures and pains, is real, a mirage created by a thinking mind lets one identify with a version of the world that keeps the mind locked in identification with duality. It is useful to not dismiss the world as we know it, the ordinary, unreal reality is also real. To be mindfully in the present, rejecting nothing, helps unify duality. A simple process of direct, objective perception leads to understanding that “self” is limited by unconsciousness, unlimited when free of judgement, fear, cynicism, etc.

There are many paths to one-ness, but the inner peace is a singular result.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharsi said “One who gives up the conditionings gains Self-Realization. The vision of the Lord as the Self as the Self is true God-Realization”. (“Upadesa Sara”).

This process is so different from life in Cape Town, that the India I seek to understand is almost unreal. The normal thinking mind easily rejects that which attempts to overthrow a different way of being than it is used to.

Blessings and well wishes on the path of one whole truth:
from the Ganges, at the Sivananda house museum,
5 November 2014.

Next: follow-up blog No mind is everything, on Hatha Yoga & No Mind.