A Life Worth Breathing: A Yoga Master's Handbook of Strength, Grace, and Healing

ONE

The Yoga Revolution

We live in a unique time in history, both promising and ominous. As technologies continue to develop at an unbelievably increasing speed, it seems mankind is not maturing nearly fast enough to adapt. And so we find ourselves in a global crisis. Billions of people now covet the industrial world’s wealth and are replicating its system of modern consumerism as rapidly as possible. But what they are ignoring, perilously so, is the fact that as materially well off as the West is, we are also chronically living what Henry David Thoreau coined a life of quiet desperation. In America alone, over 40 million people, rich by the rest of the world’s standards, exist on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, while over 80 million people use sleep aid drugs. And if the emerging nations obtain the wealth and technology they desire, it is likely they will discover the same shocking revelation that Americans have discovered: They are still not happy.

In the Western world we have more time-saving devices than any other culture in history, yet how many of us have any extra time to show for it? In America, we try to make sense of life where it is considered acceptable behavior to watch TV for four hours a day. (The average American watches four hours of television per day, which equals two months of nonstop TV watching per year.) So, then what has become of our collective nervous system? We don’t have to look far to see the answer. Americans are depressed and stressed out. How could this be in the most materially rich country on earth?

What can be deduced from this is that our careers, cars, computers, and even our flat-screen TVs will not ultimately make us happy, healthy, or safe.

In contrast to our forward surge in technology, the direction of religion worldwide continues to careen backward to the Dark Ages, more tribal than transformative. From holy wars over holy lands to holy wars in our own minds, each religious camp is flying their gang colors. Each has determined that their own Messiah of love or Prophet of peace should be pronounced the absolute. And if you don’t submit, these gangs will destroy you, despite clear instructions from their Prophet or Messiah to the contrary. Democracy and Christianity delivered in so-called smart bombs; Islam delivered in car bombs. As the world unifies economically, it is fragmenting and dividing culturally.

One of the great hopes in all this is that in the past decade there has been a huge upsurge in people embarking on self-examination. People are again asking the big question, What is this life about? And no matter how hard we may try to deny it, the answer we are left facing is a spiritual one. Because of this reawakening, yoga is sweeping across the globe at a dazzling speed. Many are turning to yoga not only to exercise, but also as an alternative to the experience of a spiritual gathering they cannot find in a church, synagogue, mosque, or on a Web site. The reason for this lies in the chief difference between religion and Western yoga: Yoga is usually offered in a nondogmatic format, which makes it inclusive as opposed to divisive. If one needs reminding of the perils of divisiveness, one need look no further than the morning newspaper; all family, tribal, state, national, and international warfare begins with the template of divisiveness. The lower mind first divides, then derides, and then destroys.

In my view, the reason for yoga’s nondogmatic approach to healing and spirituality is that the first purveyors of yoga who came to America wanted to make it more accessible for Westerners, so they excluded much of the traditional spiritual components. What is fascinating is that even though their intention was probably self-serving, the unintended consequence was that students were led by the practice—without dogma—to a more pure spiritual experience. This is because yoga takes one’s spiritual life and vitality into one’s body, healing it while removing stress and pain. After a time, the drugs one may have depended on to battle depression, sleeplessness, and anxiety are thrown in the wastebasket. It seems evident that the exclusion of dogma is essential for a broad outreach into humanity and that is what yoga in the West has inadvertently done.

Because of its message of healing, unity, and a simpler life, yoga may be one of the great rays of hope for our future. Why? Because yoga is being embraced primarily by college-educated, upper-middleclass thinkers and businesspeople in positions of power—the very strata of society that has the power to make the changes this world so desperately needs.

In my own experience as a teacher of yoga, I witness many white-collar businesspeople park their $85,000 cars, turn off their cell phones, and walk into a yoga room in a courageous attempt to transform their bodies and emotional states without the use of pharmaceuticals. The transformation is powerful to observe. First, they begin to detoxify and de-stress the body, and then both the mind and body begin showing signs of renewed health. Then something they weren’t expecting happens: One day, they experience a sense of calm, radiating beingness. This wondrous heart-opening consciousness triggers the profound realization that a ninety-minute, fifteen-dollar yoga class fulfills many of their essential needs, more than any of their other possessions they have worked like dogs to obtain. This life-changing insight compels them to reassess their very purpose in life: Who am I? Why am I? Where am I going?

It is my opinion that the shift we are witnessing is no less than a spontaneous, magnificent cultural/spiritual revolution. A new world culture is developing before our eyes at an astounding rate as yoga is being embraced primarily by motivated, college-educated, upper-middle-class thinkers and businesspeople in positions of power. This is no small thing, because yoga is exposing this powerful stratum of American society to radically nonmaterialistic and unifying philosophies rooted in the practice of kindness, honesty, and peace.

One of the seminal messages of yoga is that we do not need a bunch of stuff to make us happy; instead, yoga teaches that we already possess everything we need to be happy within ourselves. So, what we are seeing, perhaps, are the movers and shakers of modern society becoming the seekers of stillness and joy. The corporate powers do not understand this movement, as corporate ideals are often diametrically opposed to this philosophy. There is no way to sell things to a populace that already feels it has everything it needs. How can you market the philosophy of nonmaterialism? Pleasure you can sell; joy you cannot. Of course they try anyway, creating something now dubbed the Wellness Industry. But there will always be merchants outside the temples selling the doves to be sacrificed or the relics of saints to buy for worship; this seems to go with the territory.

The world at large could reap untold benefits as the core of the world’s white-collar workforce becomes more concerned with opening their hearts than filling their wallets. Any yoga teacher in the world can attest that yoga is visibly de-stressing and healing countless people each day. This new wave of peace and tolerance can be felt rising, and not just in America; the wave has now stretched across the seas to Europe, the Far East, and even the Middle East. International power cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Berlin, London, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv all offer yoga classes in impressive yoga centers. Lives are being changed, relationships healed, and souls inspired to reach beyond themselves and into the possibility of a greater world through peace, nondogmatic spirituality, and a joyous, conscious life.

For what we seek is within, and in yoga, this is where we dive headfirst.

TWO

Our Situation

There is an old story of a simple farmer who overheard some merchants discussing the concept of lowering one’s overhead in order to increase one’s profit. While plowing his field the next day the farmer was struck with what he thought was an ingenious idea to lower his overhead in order to increase his meager profits. He decided that if he didn’t have to feed his hardworking plow ox, he would reap considerably more profit. The farmer had heard of great saints who had given up food altogether and lived long lives, so, he planned to very gradually decrease the ox’s food over a year’s time until the ox learned to live on nothing but water. Almost a year later, the farmer’s plan seemed to be working smoothly: The ox did the same amount of work while eating almost no food. It eventually worked for over a week without any food at all, and the plan seemed like an astonishing success, but then the ox unexpectedly fell over and died, foiling the farmer’s plan. The farmer lamented to his friends about his bad luck; it was such a perfect idea and clearly had been working just as planned, if only his ox had lived to see the experiment through.

The farmer was somehow oblivious to the fact that the ox had died due to starvation.

This story illuminates the human condition—how we will fight to the end to prove that our ideas are right, our value system is best, and our likes and dislikes are the most supreme. The only problem is . . . we are not happy. Our cleverness, vanity, and intellectual certainty will often mask the clear fact that our life may be a disaster, yet we’ll fight to the death asserting that everyone else should think and live as we do. Everything was perfect till the ox died—the ox being our spirit.

EXERCISE

Answer these questions:

Is your state of health less than optimal?

Do you feel that you are always seeking but never satisfied?

Do you tend to be depressed?

Do you sleep poorly at night?

Would you say that you have a stressful life?

Conclusion:

If you answered yes to two or more of these questions, it is time to implement a new strategy. We are in charge of our lives, and therefore must carefully examine our actions to make certain they are serving our fundamental needs and our highest ideals.

Do your actions and choices make you and your family happier, healthier, and more enlightened?

Albert Einstein once said, The height of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Finding Our True Purpose

So many of us are dismayed because we cannot seem to find our destiny—our true purpose in this life. But in order to find our purpose, we must first have a sense of who we truly are, and this is often nearly impossible to achieve. We cannot see ourselves as others see us. Because much of our emotional infrastructure is invisible to us, we must seek help from the outside. The exercise below is simple, clear, and beyond valuable. If you have the courage to listen to the truth, it will exponentially accelerate your growth. Remember: In order to embody a new perspective, you must first discard your old perspective.

EXERCISE

Choose four or five people you respect and trust, and who respect and trust you—people who know you in many aspects of your life. For example: your mate, your employer, your best friends, a teacher, or a grandparent. The task at hand is to make an appointment to meet with each in private, one at a time, for the purpose of critiquing you. I advise you not to choose someone with whom you have an emotionally triggered relationship, such as a parent or sibling, as they may not see you as you are in the present, but may be stuck on their idea of who you were as a child.

Guidelines for Those Critiquing You

Bring a notepad, or, even better, record the sessions.

Begin with, I’d like you to tell me what you feel my strengths are. Tell me what you think I am doing well. Tell me what my talents and gifts are as you see them. Tell me how you see me in this world in terms of my life’s work—how I can be of most service to the world. Please speak of my strengths first, and then we will cover the areas where I could use some work.

Then afterward, Now, I’d like for you to offer some suggestions on what I could do to improve. What are my weaknesses or blind spots? Are there ways that you see me sabotaging or deluding myself? What are your suggestions on how to remedy these issues?

Guidelines for You

You must assure those critiquing you that you will not interrupt them or become defensive. You will listen well, and record the session or take notes so you don’t forget any of the important details. If you don’t understand something you can ask them to clarify, but you must never interrupt, disagree, argue, or explain why you do things the way you do. The point of this exercise is to discover the truth as they see it. By gathering this information from a group of people you will see common themes, and it will become clear what your strengths are, as well as where you are weak or deluded about