Yoga, Wisdom and No Worries
June 22, 2011 By Cindy Lee
Swami Atmamuktananda and Cindy Lee
Lama Marut’s “No Worries” tour kicked off in June with the Yoga of Wisdom retreat at the Satyananda Yoga ashram in Rocklyn, Victoria (Australia), continuing now across the USA and Canada.
A retreat class at the Satyananda Yoga ashramAt the ashram, we had the opportunity to study and practice various approaches to the main themes of the retreat - “yoga,” “wisdom,” “living the good life,” and being in the state of “no worries.”
Mid-retreat, someone had written verse 1.2 of Master Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra on the board – Yogash chitta virtti nirodhah. Since it is Master Patanjali’s definition of yoga, how one translates and understands this crucial sutra actually determines how one contextualizes the entirety of the text and the practice of yoga as a whole.
Looking to the translations of some of my teachers, the fundamental principle of yoga emerges.
- Geshe Michael Roach & Lama Christie McNally:
We become whole by stopping how the mind turns.
- Lama Sumati Marut:
The point of yoga is to stop the perversions of the mind.
- Swami Atmamuktananda (Resident Swami of the Rocklyn Ashram):
Yoga is dropping all thoughts that are unnecessary.
From these three translations, it is clear that yoga is a practice that’s inseparable from the mind. Further, these teachers’ translations all point to an interesting suggestion of this verse - that the practice of yoga is also the goal of yoga. In other words, yoga is practicing the goal of yoga, which is the complete cessation, stopping or dropping of our afflicted mindsets.
On the first night of the retreat, Lama Marut and Swami Atmamuktananda offered a satsang or discussion about our yoga, our spiritual practice. Lama Marut spoke of one of the “perversions of the mind” in that when we go on retreat, we think we are escaping reality. Retreat seemingly gives us a break from the “real world,” an opportunity to rest in the dream-like sacred space of our practice. Yet, the diametrically opposite is true. Retreat is where we are trying to apprehend reality. Out in what we call the “real world” we are usually walking around in a dream.
As Geshe Michael has suggested, we could consider that in the “real world” we have never performed a correct action. Out in the “real world,” we have never apprehended an object correctly. Out in samsara, we think that objects, people, experiences and so on have the capabilities, in and of themselves, to make us happy; and that the way to get those things is to push others aside, rather than making sure that others get them first. In the world of illusion, we continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting, magically, a result of happiness rather than suffering.
This fragmentary mindset is how the mind usually “turns” or turns things around. We feel separate from others, thinking there is an inherent, self-existent “me” operating in an inherently self-existent world.
As suggested in the satsang, the trajectory of our yoga of becoming whole (rather than remaining fragmented) – of cultivating the wisdom which understands that our world and ourselves exist interdependently - could be explained like this:
1. Stop being somebody
2. Start being nobody
3. Become everybody
Stop being somebody
We can become whole by stopping the way the mind turns. Detach from trying to “be somebody” in our jobs, our relationships and, more deeply, in our spiritual communities themselves. “Somebody” is powered by ignorance - that there is a somebody at all, to protect, to enhance, to praise and so on. All of our afflictions are based on this misperception.
Start being nobody
Stop the perversions of the mind by subverting the ego’s desires to hurt others, manipulate others and so forth to get ahead. Trying to be nobody means we attempt to rest in the emptiness or infinite potential of others and ourselves.
In the ashram, the residents greet each other with the mantra “Hari Om.” This is a practice of bowing to the light within others and ourselves - the infinite potential we all have to realize our “nobody-ness.” We speed up our spiritual evolution, we reach the goal of yoga, by practicing the final goal of yoga - recognizing the enlightened state in all beings, here and now.
Rather than grasping to all the things we dislike, feel jealous about, feel pride over and so on, we subvert the ego’s attempt to focus on negative and selfish desires, and instead focus the mind on the emptiness - the infinite potentiality - of all.
To really become nobody, we must, in deep meditation, rewire the hard disk of our minds that believes we are somebody. We stop the perversions of the mind through meditating on emptiness, detaching from the illusion and trying to perceive reality directly.
Become everybody
Accustomed to the translations of yogash chitta virtti nirodhah from my own lineage, I appreciated the slight tweak of the viewfinder that Swami Atma’s description offered. “Dropping all thoughts that are unnecessary,” reminds us that yoga is also an integrated practice, out in the world. Once we begin to apprehend the real “real world” in deep meditation, we can then practice the yoga of approaching every situation in our outer world mindfully and responding in whatever way is appropriate, relative to the situation. Yoga is mindful integration, dropping any thoughts that are unnecessary, un-useful or irrelevant. On the basis of our practice of being nobody in retreat, we have a launching point to morph into whatever and whoever the situation calls us to be.
From the beginning of the Yoga of Wisdom retreat, Lama Marut encouraged us to relax, to be free and to consider all of our action “play” instead of “work.” By releasing ourselves from kartavya or the compulsion to act - the compulsion to “be somebody” - we are able to still our energies and dissolve into a more centered, balanced and whole mindset.
This contentment, imbued with the wisdom that understands the way our world is truly working, means that we can be active, but not busy. We can work hard, but be relaxed. We can act in the world with understanding and with no worries. Yoga is this union, this integration, between our outer and our inner worlds.
Relaxed in the perspective, the mind’s asana, of “no worries” is wisdom, and wisdom is true yoga.
Cindy Lee teaches Tibetan Buddhism, meditation and yoga philosophy with Lama Marut in retreat settings throughout the U.S and abroad. For more information, please visit: http://siddha-songs.com