Tantra- not just some sorta new age sex thing

There is so much confusion around Tantra.  Tantra is a life philosophy.  The Tantra branch of yoga grew from the common man's desire to connect with the divine and one's true self while still engaging in the trials and joys of every day life.  It is a series of ancient practices and techniques designed for "the householder" to allow them to skillfully and mindfully engage in modern life while also taking the path of self-realization.  The householder is the person with the family or job or obligations who is engaged in the world who cannot escape to a remote cave to practice yoga like the ascetics of old, but who still wants to benefit from the practice of yoga. 

The Tantric yogi or yogini does not try to transcend the body to find God, but delves deep into the physical senses of the body to "wake up" awareness of the true self, not just the prattling of the mind, and directly engage with the divinity in each of us. Tantra is not a exploration of sex and intimacy (see Neo-Tantra).  Tantra is not a religion.  Tantra is a health-promoting path for everyone and anyone who wants to live a better life.

I hope you will find the classes, practices and teachings of Tantra as beneficial as I have found them to be in getting to know myself and the goodness that is in me and each of us. 

Ahimsa and our planet: will we be a blessing or a curse?

This month I was asked to have a theme to offer more information to students who come to Thursday’s Vinyasa class at Yoga Six.  My manager recommended the Yamas and Niyamas, or the first two limbs of the 8 limbed yoga path as described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I thought it would be a great opportunity to reconsider them.  They’re one of the first things you learn in teacher training- yoga basics. 

The “Yamas” are ethical observations towards others that help us align ourselves with the yogic path.  (The Yamas and Niyamas:  Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice by Deborah Adele) I’ve heard them described as morals, but while morality is more of a Western concept of right and wrong, ethics are more of an evaluation of considering the cause and effect of our actions.  Morals appear to be more black and white, allowing lots of room for judgement and sanctimony- both qualities that separate us from others and even divide us.  Western religions speak of morality and we have all seen the divisions some of these start morals cause in our own country. 

I think of ethics as part of an expanding consciousness, or awareness of how our actions affect other living beings.  Ethical observations thus leave more of a grey area and compassion towards those with less expanded consciousness.   I also think this is where the paradox or grey area of the Eastern wisdom traditions can be seen as what is right for me might not feel right for you.  The same experience for one can result in an entirely different perspective or experience for another.   (The Yamas and Niyamas:  Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice by Deborah Adele)

The first yama of five mentioned by Patanjali  is “Ahimsa” in Sanskrit.  Many scholars have interpreted this to mean no harm or compassion for all living beings.  It asks us to consider the effect our choices have on other living beings.  (Adele)

At no time has the observation of ahimsa or doing no harm to other living beings been more important as we face the ultimate challenge to sustain human existence on earth.  We are intimately and essentially connected to all life and until we acknowledge this deep connection and act to stop harming our earth mother, we will continue to let others destroy it.  If you don’t believe me, David Attenborough just came out with his latest documentary called   A Life on Our Planet.   Attenborough, age 93 calls this work his witness statement to the need to act now before it is too late. 

What can we do?  We can simply make a commitment to our planet with our most cherished societal value- our money.   We can offer our society’s ultimate prize, as consistent support to those whose consciousness has long ago awakened and who have been fighting for all life on this planet for decades. 

Last night I had the great pleasure to engage with two amazing people who have dedicated their lives to save our plant from the ravages of our own greed and ignorance that we are somehow both above and separate from our natural world.  Mark Dubois has been a champion of our earth since the 1970’s and has literally risked his life to protect it.  His organization, Friends of the River has been working to educate people and connect those among us with the least opportunities to nature. www.friendsoftheriver.org

Claire Dubois runs Tree Sisters (www.treesisters.org) and fights to empower woman and restore balance in our world by planting trees.  Claire works  to restore balance in our natural environment and prevent further destruction to which is critical to our human survival and champions woman as their continued subjugation around the world are the critical link to values of creation, restoration and peace.

Many of us were raised with formal religion.  While I don’t find the religion of my origin compelling to my beliefs now, one of the greatest powers I witnessed in organized religion is the concept of putting our money where our values lie in the form of tithing.  All organized religious organizations ask you to commit significant financial support to perpetuating their values.   

What if we transitioned this concept of financially committing our money into or urgent need to restore our planet and insure human survival?  In religious organizations, everyone is asked to give of what they can even though in Hebrew tithe means “ten” (or ten percent).  Dave Ramsey, a famous financial advisor  and author says, “… when it comes to tithing, it’s more of a spiritual discussion than a financial discussion. Because tithing isn’t about the money—it’s about the heart. It's living with the attitude that we’re blessed to be a blessing.”

One of my favorite ways to think of Ahimsa or non-harm comes from the psychologist Kelly Flanagan.  He sums up our ethics to others as being one of two things:  either we can choose to be a blessing or a curse.  I love this because we all have so many choices every day.  And as Mark Dubois said last night “every cent we spend is a choice”. 

Our choices express our values and determine where our energy flows.  Certainly our daily expenses are all blessings or curses to our planet, but so are our savings.  Will your investments be a blessing or a curse?  Did you know you don’t have to choose between a return on your investments and our planet?  My husband Piet works for UBS Financial who just made it their mission to be the world leader in sustainable investing.  And there are no compromises to those who invest because these profitable companies invest in our future are booming as proven by my own IRA which has been sustainable for years. 

Yoga is a practice of action that asks us to live in reality.  I’m not going to grovel in my mistakes, in my years of eating commercially raised meat or excessive use of our precious water.  I’m going to let go of the illusion that things could have been any different and take action in my current awareness.  I’m committed to ahimsa or non-harm in all the ways my consciousness opens it to me.  I’d love for you to join me on this journey and hope I can also support you in expanding our compassion for this beautiful planet  that hangs in the balance of our choice: to be a blessing or a curse. 

I’ll be donating ten percent of my class earnings to planting trees and I can’t wait until my forest melts into yours on a planet where our kids have a future. 

Namaste!

"Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is Optional..."

"Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is Optional..."  (Quote attributed mostly to Haruki Murakami)

Unfortunately, this summer hasn’t started out so well.  The first week involved me admitting my sixteen year old son to a detox hospital for three days. Not fun.  And he’s doing better and working towards wellness, but it’s a road I wish he didn’t have to travel.

Thank heavens for my family, my practice, and all of you to keep me present and whole. 

I’ve also been blessed to have a really fun book series that I can escape into when I don’t want to have to feel all my feelings (or any of them).  This series of novels called the Orphan X series by Gregg Horwitz was thrust upon me by a friend who shares my passion for reading, but who generally likes a different genre of novel than I do.  You see, I generally eschew the garden variety thriller.  But my friend was very persistent (and just wouldn’t shut up!) about these books so I gave it a shot and am glad I did.

I promise no spoilers. The main character, Evan Smoak, comes off as one cool cat.  When he’s not out kicking butt simply to use his “bad-assery” to save one poor soul at a time, he meditates, eats from his living wall and uses the Eastern wisdom traditions for inspiration. He’s my kind of guy. 

I really like the books and wasn’t surprised to find the inspiration for this post from Evan Smoak’s enlightened mentor: “Pain is inevitable; Suffering is optional.” 

Clearly, everyone suffers- and everyone poops.  We just don’t post about it on social media.  Seriously though, it's part of the human condition. But is it optional like the quote suggests? 

Suffering or Dukkha in Sanskrit has many causes and is discussed at length in the Four Noble Truths of both Hinduism and Buddhism and is also discussed in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Chapter 2.15.  All of these wisdom traditions talk at length about why we suffer and all of them suggest that one main reason for suffering is our inability to live in reality.  We suffer when we relive the painful memories or perceptions of the past, when we bring our past conditioning into the present moment, and when we fear the future (aka: anxiety).   

 We might experience many painful moments in life, we can practice presence so that we don’t have to relive them.  While we can skillfully act and do our best each moment, no one has a crystal ball to see what the future holds.  Clearly COVID-19 became a marvelous teacher of this point.  

 Jon Kabot-Zinn, is known as the father of the Western term mindfulness which simply means being present without judgement.  Of course, this new term has old origins in the traditions of yoga and meditation which Kabot-Zinn studied extensively.   He  made this term mindfulness famous by successfully treating patients with chronic pain.  These patients reduced their pain, their fear of pain, and also realized that even with chronic pain, there are moments of peace and ease that can only appreciated with presence. 

 When we choose to question our inner dialogue about the past and future we also have the potential to reduce suffering.  One of the practices I employ daily to suffer less is to ask myself a simple question when I start to feel myself going down into the pit of despair.  It’s this.  What would this moment be like without this painful thought?  I learned it from Byron Katie.  At a minimum, it helps me find presence and clarity.  Usually, I snap out of it and even find it funny. Oh the places that lying mind wants to lead me!

 Every day, I practice the art of not suffering any more than I have to. It’s kind of like my practice around laundry- I only do it when I have to.  I use all my tools of yoga asana and meditation and communion with people who let me shine on and reflect back the light of collective consciousness.  Pain most certainly is unavoidable, but I wish you the best success on your practice of keeping suffering “optional”.

 Namaste,

 Krista

But How Does It Make You FEEL?

Last week I wrote about the Manomaya Kosha or mental, emotional and sensory sheath of our beings. I wanted to shed a little more light on this layer of our being since it tends to be the most dominant layer of the five Koshas recognized by the ancient yogis.  It's such a big part of how most of us operate in the world that I thought there was a bit more interesting stuff to share (at least to me). 

Most of us know Maya Angelou's famous quote, "I've learned people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel."  Maybe, like me, you sense some truth in this idea. But did you know that this idea that feelings trump thoughts or actions actually has proven to be a useful and powerful scientific theory?  It's called the feeling tone theory. 

Developed back in  1986, feeling tone theory suggests that our amazing brains file our many thoughts away as feeling tones or emotions on which we rely to make our primary decisions.  Basically, it suggests that if we process our world as feelings process thoughts through feelings, we need to understand these feelings to make good decisions or change or grow.  

Feelings shape every memorable experience or event in our lives.  Emotions are the body's physiological reactions to our thoughts and external sensory stimulus.  These emotions then create what we call feelings.  This is a fascinating process scientifically and if you want to geek out on that simply check this article out. Most of us consider ourselves to be fairly logical and rational, but the same thoughts can feel very different for me and can generate completely different feelings for someone else. Have you spoken about politics with someone who feels very differently from you lately? It’s a frustrating experience and gets to the root of a big polarization in our country right now. We all just feel very differently about the information we are receiving.

Do you know anyone who tries to intellectualize every situation instead of feeling their feelings? This is very common in our society which values the intellect and reasoning so highly. But, what would our world look like if everyone felt what they were feeling and were able to process their feelings healthfully without supressing (consciously) or repressing (unconsciously) these feelings or try to explain them away for logic and reasoning? And what does all this feeling mumbo jumbo have to do with yoga?  

Well, as the great Dr. David Hawkins surmises in his book The Pathway of Surrender, "consequently there is a scientific basis for the observation that self-awareness is increased far more rapidly by observing feelings rather than thoughts. The thoughts associated with even one feeling made literally run into the thousands. The understanding of the underlying emotion and its correct handling is therefore, more rewarding and less time-consuming than dealing with one’s thoughts.“

In short, we expand consciousness by feeling our feelings. 

Dr. Lori Desautels says it well in her article about How Emotions Affect Learning, Behaviors, and Relationships:

"We need all of our emotions for thinking, problem solving, and focused attention. We are neuro-biologically wired, and to learn anything, our minds must be focused and our emotions need to "feel" in balance. Emotional regulation is necessary so that we can remember, retrieve, transfer, and connect all new information to what we already know. When a continuous stream of negative  emotions hijacks our frontal lobes, our brain's architecture changes, leaving us in a heightened stress-response state where fear, anger, anxiety, frustration, and sadness take over our thinking, logical brains."

The field of somatic therapy has confirmed that the path to healing trauma lies in our ability and willingness to work with our layers of feelings and emotions around any past trauma in order to unwind and ultimately release this stored pain to create lasting healing.  Sometimes in a crisis there are so many overwhelming feelings that keep getting triggered by habitual thoughts that it might take quite a bit of self-awareness (or a skillful somatic therapist) to unwind all of the layers of emotions that might be keeping a stuck in mental patterns that don’t serve us. My research around somatic therapy seems to point to the work of Peter A. Levine for a proficient exploration of this large body of work. 

As we look back in our lives, we can witness the residue of past crises that shape our view of the world and trigger us into reacting in ways that are serving us.  For example,  people who know me well know that I'm afraid of all dogs.  No matter the size or age or the purported friendliness or your dog- my traumatized brain has a hard time believing this dog is not a threat. This is because I hold deep within me the residue of this trauma from my several experiences with surprisingly aggressive dogs.  Trust me when I tell you that this is something I wish to rid myself of and I constantly work to bring conscious awareness to this often irrational fear when I'm around your cute dogs so that I can release these emotions and be free.  

It's working.  I'm slowly starting to lay my fear down and enjoy the company of many dogs to the point that I honestly consider my friend Piper's dog Poncho to be my spirit animal.  He's so awesome.  I hope that some day I can offer even half of the joy that Poncho gives out on the daily.   ; )

I know that yoga can give us a great work out and stretch.  But if you’re ready to practice something greater than a good sweat or a good stretch then this practice also offers us an opportunity to bring some awareness not just to the physical body, but also to our feelings. 

We can also practice lifting consciousness by releasing old emotions. We can find freedom. One of my favorite teachers, Donna Farhi takes this idea one step further when she says,

"The world doesn't really need more people who can bend their bodies into amazing positions. What it needs are kinder, more connected, compassionate, and generous people."

When we work on releasing negative emotions and building a higher awareness, we become more more of what we want to see in the world and it all comes from within each of us.