Writing from the Inside Out (21 page)

For a while we persist, but after an indeterminate length of time, we no longer do so. The length of time won't really matter when the moment of death approaches. Our achievements won't matter when death reaches us. Life is beautiful beyond its temporal limitations. We can achieve realization and a sense of overwhelming oneness even in our lifetime. We can put ourselves to work today, as living, breathing, healthy people.

What we give away openly, we experience fully, and what we hang onto, we lose. We fight ourselves crazy to lock our sense of self into an imaginary stasis. There was a man who liked broccoli but he didn't like kale. Thursdays, when it was cooked, he liked cauliflower, but he never liked cauliflower on Fridays, or cauliflower and broccoli mixed — ever. That was when he was eight — he had at least that much figured out. He turned eighteen and, as time passed, he figured out a lot of other things, like how to drive a car, how to apply for a job, how to parasail, and one day he realized he was relishing cauliflower and broccoli and kale, whether it was Thursday or they were cooked or raw, together, or separate. To him there seemed to be no contradiction.

Our need to feel certain and self-consistent is by habit extremely strong; it takes a deep practice to loosen our grip on the constraints of self-representation. In return, we can embrace the openness of spontaneity. We can come to trust nature, inside and out.

We're doing that kind of emotional jiu-jitsu all the time to stay self-consistent. We change from moment to moment, hopefully living in a way that increases our sense of fullness and meaning in life. The moments roll forward, and we can use the regularity of material occurrence, the persistence of matter, to progress in our practice.

Whenever we're not curious, interested, engaged, receptive to experience, when we shut down and wish for nature to be some other way, we're fighting an impossible battle, and we're only creating pain. This pain can manifest within us in the form of emotional tightness and psychological rigidity. It can lead to arguments and bitterness with others whom we relate to, and to mistrust of those we have as yet only imagined meeting — potential friends and acquaintances. We do all this work to stay self-consistent. In reality, everything (including us) is far more interesting and various than we could ever fully conceive.

Understanding first that things just
are
can liberate us from unhealthy self-consistency by returning us to the undying curiosity that engages us with the world beyond our concept of self. It doesn't matter how long we've spent forming a cohesive worldview that trains our conscious mind to appraise the success of our self-concept. What's inside is more important. We can get at it from the outside as well: entering the forest firsthand, exploring the multitude of independently moving sights, the smells of life, the dark environment's breeze and chatter.

The truth is that you're on a path already. Pursue love's deepest expression to such an extent that nothing is left over, no sense of self. All that you do and think are offerings, expressions of the divine paid back to the divine. Appearances are relative — they change with perspective, with time, and with mood. Through all potential appearances is the experience of authentic being. Let that move you.

You have the ability to move around. When something doesn't suit you, when the situation is uncomfortable, you can change things. Not everything has latitude. Many plants, for example, have very little latitude. A collection of moss growing on the side of a stone has no say over whether the workings of rain cause it to tumble down and get buried. As humans, we always have some latitude.

In writing, I have the ability to alter my perspective so that I am more playful and involved. I am free with regard to how I use my latitude. What brought me to the page asks only that I continue to honor the call.

I trust my practice. When I know that what I am doing poses no real risks, I face an irrational fear. That is the ego's irrational fear of opening into the knower.

Intrinsically, by nature, we are free. Even at this very moment, we are free. As full of the baggage or worries or doubt that circumstances might hand us, through all the perceptible clues of baggage, we are actually free.

In this practice, many things call for your attention. The call you should answer depends on the moment, and the only way to know is by practicing discernment. More than anything else, you must cultivate a sensitive internal witness. It is central that you do not become attached to feelings or meanings, and instead practice openly, with what might be considered restraint — restraint from the expectation of choosing what you receive. The practice of absolute devotion affirms with trust that you are open to feel what the divine causes you to feel. It may be confusing, it may be blissful beyond comparison, and it may feel icky. It is good to let these things pass. And, anyway, they're only true for that moment, after which if we hold onto them they become something else — they become a story. The mind speaks in words. The ego speaks in feelings and is always assessing the elements of perception for well-being or threat. The more you practice with integrity of devotion, the more your ego will be challenged, so it is crucial that you work to cultivate a strong ability to discern, to be acutely attentive.

There are a million games the ego can play, a million ways of forming stories from the elements of sense perception. I may feel that I deserve the feelings of blissful practice and go around feeling entitled. I may own the weird feelings of turmoil brought up by practice, believing that I am in some way flawed. I may be tempted to set aside practice altogether out of the threat it poses to the ego. I am certainly overwhelmed by the extent to which I construct stories out of what initially is “just” sensation.

 

 

In ancient Sankya practice, it was believed that by denying the senses of gratification, you burned them. This is to be taken as a sacrificial rather than a literal fire. For this reason, after they died, advanced yogis were not cremated, but buried, because cremation was a means of purifying the body to ready it for rebirth elsewhere. The yogi was one who had burned himself, his senses, burned out his impurities in this life, and it was fitting to simply bury him in the ground. There is the saying that a realized person resembles a burnt thread — at the slightest touch of wind, he dissolves entirely.

In practice, you metaphorically offer your senses actions that challenge and purify them. After your practice, you become a more open person, one whose senses reveal what is truly there, at the slightest touch — pure being, inside and out. Through language, you offer your mind a kind of sacrificial fire that opens you to a more direct experience of truth.

Many, many years ago, Vedic priests would construct “chariots,” perhaps signified by a careful outlining of rice, in which they would (ritually) fly to the sun. As yoga came more onto the scene, the imagery persisted, and the sun came to be understood as something else, namely the energies in the belly. Yoga enabled practitioners to yoke the sun in the belly through ways of posturing the body and focusing the mind and controlling breath. Subtle energy that normally engaged with the outlets of activities could be generated and allowed to circulate more freely. Rays from the sun came to be understood as
nadis
or energy channels inside. No priest was needed. Energy itself became the teacher. In a similar way, yoga reaches me in my writing practice. It is very important to recognize that yoga takes many forms, inward and outward, and it is good to keep an open mind regarding issues of achievement about things that are difficult or sometimes impossible to see, even within the self.

The highest posture in yoga, as put forth by the
Bhagavad Gita
, is sitting in lotus posture performing
kichari mudra
. From the outside, the posture might not reveal its own level of achievement — and that should be remembered.

So what is
kichari mudra
? When the body's prana (aliveness) is high enough, when the energies have been churned through practice, the witness has been trained as a renunciate, and the mind is ready to receive, the kundalini (sometimes referred to by Swami Kripalu as the “menace of kundalini”) energy rises up the spine. The yogi is able to do so because all the nervous system's channels of energy have been opened and purified. The body has been trained to trust yoga practice above all else, and the energy spontaneously rises up the central channel of the spine (the shushumna nadi), overwhelming all other sense functions. The tongue, under the direction of prana, presses hard into the roof of the mouth and ascends into the nasal cavity, experiencing the spaciousness at that center point in the middle of the head, the realm of heaven in Hindu mythology. The tongue in this position is
kichari mudra
. Getting the tongue there takes practice — ordinarily, the tendon prevents anything close to such movement, but through practice it has been stretched. The tongue is pressed there to help direct more energy toward the metaphorical realm of heaven. The combination of heightened prana and the tongue creates the mudra and the experience — simply cutting the tendon and moving one's tongue into this position would not be the same thing.

In this position, the tongue is pressed near the opening of the nasal cavity, merging sensations of feeling, scent, taste, and hearing, the tongue's tip moved toward the third eye, this central point. And, perhaps, what the eye sees is the thousandpetaled lotus.

The practice of nada yoga can, in effect, be thought of as visualization for this practice. It may be of some help toward achieving this physical phenomenon and will remain a rich visualization with its own rewards. What happens on an energetic or spiritual level can be difficult to measure. The unstruck sound can be thought of as the sweet music of dissolving, or
laya.
I believe it makes for better writing to draw attention there, to the space in the center from which the single sound that exists in all things emanates.

 

 

The word dharma can mean many things. One of the more useful meanings is
the structure that brings out your best
.

Each of us has a unique connection to dharma, so it's just as important to be sensitive to our response to any given practice as it is to learn everything we can about them. The structure that brings out the best in you is unique. You can relay it to other people, and they will be able to connect with what you share based on two primary things: the specific aspects that you mention, and your physiological integration with what you're saying — the extent to which you are able to mean what you're saying.

When I trod along the path of writing, for example, and I share it with my friends, telling people how wonderful it is and all that it's done for me, other people might be able to relate to what I am saying. They also might be able to relate to the way I am saying it, regardless of their experience with writing, and they may fill in the blanks with metaphors that connect to their direct experience — perhaps of their connection to their own goals, and perhaps based on their intuition for these things. One person's evangelism might open doors for other people. It is good to know that there is some relativity in these matters, and to be nonjudgmental. Is it better, for example, that one person is pursuing yoga full time at an ashram somewhere? Maybe. It is possible, unfortunately, that doing so might not lead to the right place — whether the teacher is not right, or the practice is confused, or perhaps something else should be worked out beforehand. Following anyone else's way will not lead me to my relationship with truth. In my practice, I do the best I can to find metaphors with other ways I have found, and I do my best to be sensitive to the nuances of my practice, which the deepest part of me knows must be followed.

Yoganand Michael Carroll once told the story of a bit of travel he had done in India. He said that one morning, he and a few of his friends left in a van to visit a waterfall, and on their way through the city, they passed a man in his front yard holding himself in the headstand posture. The headstand is often thought to be a difficult pose, and so those who do the pose or have some experience with it might feel a certain way about someone else who is able to arrive at some perfection within the pose. Yoganand and his friends continued in their van and went on to spend the day at the waterfall and do other sightseeing. On their way back, late in the evening, they passed through the same town and, again, saw the man in his yard, still holding himself in a headstand. It was admirable that he could hold the posture for such a long time, but — Yoganand wondered — why did he choose to do it in his front yard?

It's understandable to want to show off your skills. But when a practice is intended to be one of personal significance, it's misplaced to look outside for praise. To obtain balance, it is said that one should live in different modes depending on where you find yourself. In the world, one should follow Vishnu, the protector and sustainer. In the solitude of yoga, one should follow Siva, god of renunciation and transformation. Within the self, one should follow Shakti, wild fertile goddess of life.

This means that you want to be a good person in the world, following the path of nonviolence, ethics, and responsibility. Sometimes you will need to follow the law, and sometimes your heart will speak that the general momentum of society is troublesome, and our social habits will need to improve. The real authority here is the middle way, always middling between two and unity, multiples and singular.

In your practice, you want to renounce the world in a practical sense by separating yourself for a time from worldly relations and responsibilities; also by creating a place where you can focus entirely on the spirit, which means setting aside preconceived notions. This practice also means expressing devotion that does not expect a receipt, practicing because it is the heart's expression, because it is the right thing to do. This kind of practice will do it for free.