Tapas - right effort

Tapas is variously translated as right effort, sustained practice, and heat. Tapas is the heat that burns away impurities as well as that which kindles the sparks of divinity. The heat of tapas is generated by our non-habituated and enthusiastic commitment.

Tapas, therefore, is not a concept only limited to our yoga mats or even to some sort of obtuse philosophical side road. Tapas is the commitment we show towards our mates, towards our children, towards our work in the world, towards ourselves. Cultivating tapas really begins at the source of these commitments. Discipline which becomes competitive or habituated is not tapas. Commitment is chosen out of enthusiasm and connection. We connect to our partners, our work, our children, ourselves in joy and out of that connection, our commitment grows.

Tapas is an important step along the path of the yamas and the niyamas as it is the hinge between the internal and external practice – it is a conscious turning inward toward growth.

In asana, tapas is naturally created as we step onto our mats. Asana burns away toxins and releases impurities. To continue this, we need only make a commitment to stepping onto our mats regularly and enthusiastically connecting our body and our breath.

Santosha - contentment

Yoga Sutra 11.42:

samtosat-anuttamah sukha-labhah

“contentment brings supreme happiness.”

Santosha is a feeling of deep contentment. Although it is not a permanent state, it is also not fleeting, such as the joy one feels at an external event. The state of santosha is an essential ingredient in many of the yamas. For example, the way to stem greed (aparigraha) is to cultivate deep contentment.

And so, as with the other yamas and niyamas, santosha is a cultivated state. It is as natural and available to us as air, we need only open up and allow it. Greeding, hatred, lying, etc all mask santosha. If we can accept that it is our true nature to be content, we can release these masks.

How does contentment come into your work on the mat? In asana, we cultivate this balance between challenging ourselves and non-attachment to outcome. That balance point is santosha. When you are struggling in a pose, moving back and diving into your breath can bring you back to santosha.

Saucha - purity

Saucha, as with all of the yamas and niyamas, strives for cleanliness in thought, word, and deed. We may think exclusively of external cleansing, yet even our notions about being clean can be examined.

Cleansing the body:

Externally: Dinacharya, an ayurvedic guide for daily purification.

Internally: Asana and pranayama, healthy (sattvic) food and herbs

Cleansing the mind:

We have begun the work of cleansing the mind through our practice of the yamas, particularly when we focus our intentions on our thoughts: cultivating non-harming, truthful, pure and nongrasping thoughts.

All work with saucha exists in a cycle, for cleanliness is a transient state. For this reason, we return to our mat on a regular basis, we can read inspirational works, journal, engage in reflective communities, among other things.

Asana practices, particularly heating poses such as utkatasana (chair pose), chaturanga dandasana (four limbed staff pose), and pranayama such as kapalabati (skull shining breath) and nadi shodana (alternate nostril breathing), burn our toxins and impurities. Internal cleanliness radiates beauty and joy. Impurity brings rigidity in the body, mind and energy field. By contrast, internal cleanliness and clarity allows us to come into both physical and energetic balance.

Turning

“As we begin to shift our sense of what our lives are about, we’ll notice that our focus starts to change. Instead of always pre-occupying ourselves with trying to get what we think we want or need, we’ll start to quiet, we’ll start to listen. We’ll wait for that inner prompting. We’ll try to hear, rather than decide, what it is we should do next. And as we listen, we’ll hear our dharma more and more clearly, and so we’ll begin turning more and more of our acts to that place of deeper wisdom. As that happens, all our fascination with our roles and our plans and our desires and our melodramas will begin to fall away. More and more, we will open ourselves to just being the instruments of the dharma. And then we’ll discover that we’ve lost our lives – and found them. “  - Ram Dass

As we transition from working with the yamas (restraints) into the niyamas (observances), we let go of assuming the role of school marm to an untamed mind. We are starting to get a sense of what’s external, including our bodies. We’re getting that it’s not really wise or efficacious to boss our bodies or others around (ahimsa), to be fake (satya), to take what’s not ours, including a deep forward bend when our low back is sore, (asteya), to direct energy towards our most magnificent self as well as the MMS of others (brahmacharya) and to get in our bodies and in our closets that more, more, more of anything doesn’t serve (aprigraha).

We now observe within – we look inward to our natural state – a state of purity, contentment, austerity, self-understanding and surrender.

Oh, no. It’s really there. Trust me.

But, in order to make that transition, we have to take a 180 of sorts. Instead of the arduous discipline of excavating our deepest held violences, falsities, thefts, lust, and greed, we are now just allowing the cleansing wind (prana) to blow all excess away as we watch and listen and begin to open our internal eyes to just how magnificent we truly are. To our innocence, joy, dedication, beauty and absolute and unshakeable support. We won’t decide to be any of these things. We’ll just accept that we are.

In preparation, try this:

Begin by finding a comfortable seated position, closing the eyes lightly, loosening the shoulders down away from the ears, and settling in to focus on the breath.

Deepen your interaction with the breath by drawing the inhale fully into the whole torso – to the front, the sides, the back and all the way down to the tailbone. Let the exhale release its way up the spine. Feel the crown of the head draw up and the spine lengthen. Continue this way as each breath lengthens the spine, creating space between the vertebra. It’s as if you are growing taller with each breath.

Now, begin to open up to the full capacity of the breath, the fullness of life energy (prana) circulating through you. Take a full inhale. Pause and take in an extra sip of breath. Now release the breath, letting go completely. At the end, pause, and, using the strength of your navel chakra, pump the last bit of stale breath out of the body. Repeat this process, and, as you inhale, imagine bringing in everything that’s available to you – breath, and also support, ease, joy: more than you could have imagined. As you exhale, visualize releasing all that doesn’t serve your body, heart and soul: discomfort, toxins, self-limiting beliefs. Actually feel these things leaving your mind, your heart, your body – releasing down into the earth.  Repeat this cycle 10-15 times.

Release the breath work and move back into a steady, easy inhale and smooth exhale. Notice the change in the quality of your breath and your energy (prana). Use this technique whenever you are holding on too tightly or feel blind to your blessings. Know that you have enough, you do enough. You are enough.

xoxoxom

Namaste,

Amy

Aparigraha - non-greeding

When we are greedy, we rob ourselves of contentment. More subtle than asteya (non-stealing), greed is an internal seed which disrupts our ability to accept the flow of goodness in our lives. According to Iyengar, “one should not hoard or collect things one does not require immediately…collection or hoarding of things implies a lack of faith in God and in [one]self to provide for [one’s] future.” The anitidote, Iyengar claims, lies in trust that “everything [one] really needs will come… by itself at the proper time.”

“Whatever you stockpile – be it diamonds, big houses, fame, money, proficiency at advanced yoga poses, or less flashy things, you will inevitably encounter two certainties. First, all will be lost. Second, these things, in and of themselves, will never satisfy your cravings, which are expressions of your feelings of fear and emptiness.” (Lasater, p. 107).

Try these affirmations:

There is enough

You are already whole.

In asana, trust that you have enough – enough energy, enough support, enough breath. In pranayama, work with breath retention. Within the space of retention, consider the pause. Rest in the space of greedlessness: neither grasping for inhale or exhale.

Brahmacharya - Non-lusting

Brahmacarya may be the single most contentious tenet on the yogic path. Perhaps because, on the surface, it appears to draw such a hard and fast line between the ascetic in the cave and the householder. It is classically translated as “chastity” or “celibacy” and not as easily clarified. If you were to really look into the classical roots of this concept, you would almost need to understand the whole of the history of Yoga and all of its branches and manifestations.

Suffice it to say, a more helpful modern interpretation of the word Brahmacarya is to “walk with the divine.” In the same way that a renunciate may choose chastity in the form of sexual celibacy, we householders and modern yogis may choose to purify our own energy (prana). We can do this by staying in the present moment and expressing our prana wisely. We don’t want our energy to leak out in frivolous pursuits. We want to channel it so that we are in line with our dharma, or right path.

In asana, we can work with the energies of the chakras to purify what we manifest in our poses. The “lower” chakras – particularly muladhara, the root chakra, and svadisthana, the sacral chakra – are what tie us to the Earth and our own creativity. We channel that energy up and through our heart, anahata chakra, and manifest it into the world. A great practice for this is udiyanna bandha, or the abdominal lock.

In general, consider your own energy in your asana practice. When you move into a pose, breathe there and consider the flow of prana through your body. Make any adjustments that feel right to facilitate that flow. Keep your awareness in the present moment – bringing together your body, your breath, your prana as one seamless manifestation of the divine.

Asteya - non-stealing

“The only thing worth stealing is a kiss from a sleeping child.” – Joe Houldsworth

B.K.S. Iyengar calls the impulse of stealing: “The desire to possess and enjoy what another has.” In this regard, in our asana practice, we may be tempted to “steal” a pose that our body isn’t ready for. This then leads back to the first two yamas: ahimsa and staya. Accept your body and be kind to it. This will tame the temptation to move beyond your own body’s limits right now. Further, it can encourage each of us to see our bodies anew with each breath -- meeting our body moment by moment.

Yet, deep within, there is a strong undertone of accepting abundance (pusti) and releasing a fear of scarcity, as stealing “grows from believing we cannot create what we need” (Aadil Palkhivala). In asana, we may resist moving fully into a pose due to a feeling of lack in regards to our own energy. To counter this, we can cultivate a trust in each pose’s inherent ability to provide the energy required to do it, to breathe, and to accept our own magnificence!