from The Heart of the Yogi...
I've never really studied yoga; my background is more in tai chi and the various internal Chinese arts. But now on Mondays I'm working out of the Tahoe Yoga and Wellness Center in Truckee (doing acupuncture). They have a small bookstore, and I've picked up "Yoga and the Quest for the True Self" by Stephen Cope, and now "The Heart of the Yogi: The Philosophical World of Hatha Yoga" by Doug Keller. Now it's becoming apparent how true is the phrase, "magick is the yoga of the west".
Here's a section that strikes me today:
"In that case, yogic 'attainment' is not really the attainment of anything that wasn't already there -- it's instead the liberation from what we're not -- from the very idea and state of separation that sent us out looking for our Self in the first place. The ego would love to credit itself with the 'attainment' of the Self of which yoga speaks, but it is precisely the ego that stands in the way of what already is 'attained'. This is the paradox: we must make an effort in yoga, and it is by the ego that we make this effort. But without right understanding, this very effort is what holds us back. It is by something more than just effort that the Self is attained -- for it was never really lost -- and so our interest in yoga is not just with the effort involved, but rather with that 'something more.'
Thus, understanding the purpose in yoga has a lot to do with understanding how we get in our own way -- and how to get out of our own way. As long as we allow our yoga to be a project for the ego in the same way that we leave other tasks in life to the ego, we will forever stand on the 'outside' of the true experience of yoga, never even looking 'in'. The problem with my 'self' as an ego is that 'I' think 'my' happiness depends upon getting results, and so 'I' get caught up in struggles with success and failure, without ever inquiring more deeply into the very nature of my own selfhood, and into the true source of joy and fulfillment. As an ego, 'I' think I have to work for it and be rewarded with it; 'I' would never dream that happiness could be an independent, unconditional state of being.
In general, we hold our fulfillment at arm's length; this is especially the danger for us in our yoga practice. The practices of yoga by their very nature are effective, produce concrete experiential results that are quite fulfilling, and we judge our practice by the results and sense of progress. And so in yoga, even as we seek to know ourselves, we are just as much in danger of forgetting ourselves. We are not even so much in danger of putting the cart (our practice) before the horse (our Self) as we are of forgetting entirely that there is a horse. The ego thinks that by sitting on the cart and driving it -- doing the practice and so on -- it (the ego) is making the wheels turn (the Kundalini to rise, the Chakras to open and so on), while in truth everything happens only because of the horse -- the Self. It is for this reason that the key element in our practice of yoga is the remembrance and opening to Grace.
It follows that, as we go deeper and become more 'accomplished' in our yoga practice, we run the risk of merely gilding our cart (the body-mind) rather than transcending our ordinary realm of experience as presided over by the ego. Quantifiable accomplishments that we take as benchmarks for our practice (How long? How much? How far? How deep?) are little more than relative achievements that have significance only for the ego; they are meaningful only by comparison -- yesterday to today, self to other. Our abilities to manipulate the body, breath, or mind are firmly in the province of the ego, and may ultimately serve only to fulfill the agenda of the ego rather than take us beyond it....
The difference between limited self-awareness and the true Self-awareness of yoga comes down to this act of transcending one's sense of ego, both through intention -- the burning desire to know God through the experience of one's true Self -- and attention to the quality of one's Self-awareness in any practice that one undertakes. Both of these rely upon a good deal of discrimination or Viveka as the key to recognition of the Self. And it is the quality and right understanding behind our intention and attention that marks our openness to grace, and is the path to fulfillment."
Here's a section that strikes me today:
"In that case, yogic 'attainment' is not really the attainment of anything that wasn't already there -- it's instead the liberation from what we're not -- from the very idea and state of separation that sent us out looking for our Self in the first place. The ego would love to credit itself with the 'attainment' of the Self of which yoga speaks, but it is precisely the ego that stands in the way of what already is 'attained'. This is the paradox: we must make an effort in yoga, and it is by the ego that we make this effort. But without right understanding, this very effort is what holds us back. It is by something more than just effort that the Self is attained -- for it was never really lost -- and so our interest in yoga is not just with the effort involved, but rather with that 'something more.'
Thus, understanding the purpose in yoga has a lot to do with understanding how we get in our own way -- and how to get out of our own way. As long as we allow our yoga to be a project for the ego in the same way that we leave other tasks in life to the ego, we will forever stand on the 'outside' of the true experience of yoga, never even looking 'in'. The problem with my 'self' as an ego is that 'I' think 'my' happiness depends upon getting results, and so 'I' get caught up in struggles with success and failure, without ever inquiring more deeply into the very nature of my own selfhood, and into the true source of joy and fulfillment. As an ego, 'I' think I have to work for it and be rewarded with it; 'I' would never dream that happiness could be an independent, unconditional state of being.
In general, we hold our fulfillment at arm's length; this is especially the danger for us in our yoga practice. The practices of yoga by their very nature are effective, produce concrete experiential results that are quite fulfilling, and we judge our practice by the results and sense of progress. And so in yoga, even as we seek to know ourselves, we are just as much in danger of forgetting ourselves. We are not even so much in danger of putting the cart (our practice) before the horse (our Self) as we are of forgetting entirely that there is a horse. The ego thinks that by sitting on the cart and driving it -- doing the practice and so on -- it (the ego) is making the wheels turn (the Kundalini to rise, the Chakras to open and so on), while in truth everything happens only because of the horse -- the Self. It is for this reason that the key element in our practice of yoga is the remembrance and opening to Grace.
It follows that, as we go deeper and become more 'accomplished' in our yoga practice, we run the risk of merely gilding our cart (the body-mind) rather than transcending our ordinary realm of experience as presided over by the ego. Quantifiable accomplishments that we take as benchmarks for our practice (How long? How much? How far? How deep?) are little more than relative achievements that have significance only for the ego; they are meaningful only by comparison -- yesterday to today, self to other. Our abilities to manipulate the body, breath, or mind are firmly in the province of the ego, and may ultimately serve only to fulfill the agenda of the ego rather than take us beyond it....
The difference between limited self-awareness and the true Self-awareness of yoga comes down to this act of transcending one's sense of ego, both through intention -- the burning desire to know God through the experience of one's true Self -- and attention to the quality of one's Self-awareness in any practice that one undertakes. Both of these rely upon a good deal of discrimination or Viveka as the key to recognition of the Self. And it is the quality and right understanding behind our intention and attention that marks our openness to grace, and is the path to fulfillment."