The bhagavad gita, or however your pronouce it

Wow, even after reading only the first two chapter so the Bhagavad Gita I can tell that it is going to be an intense book.  Never mind the fat that I cant pronounce the title of the book correctly, let alone any of the characters.  The story has a very epic tone to it, while bringing in philosophy to a point that I really havnt seen in many other epic tales. Im excited to get into the book and butcher all the names.  Moving on past those first few ramblings, the key issue that is brought up here is the dire contrast of courses of action for the protagonist, at least I think he is so far, Arjuna.  As a the leader of a “rebel” group within the kingdom he is trying to gain the throne as it is rightfully his.  The only issue is that those on the throne are his uncle and family.  So the moral dilemma begins.  Does Arjuna follow his quest to right the wrong done by his family and gain the throne, or does he not because in doing so would bring about the slaughter and destruction of his own relatives.  It really is a catch 22.  The funny thing is Ive been in a somewhat similar situation. Prior to earning my pilot slot for the Air Force I was looking heavily in going into special operations.  I had gone to an orientation course that is designed to give the selectors a first look at those interested and dedicated enough to try out, and those attending the ability to see first-hand what the job is and what those men do.  After this I applied for a selection and was invited to attend.  This is where my own moral dilemma begins.  I am in a very committed relationship and care deeply about my family and have a very strong idea of the type of husband and father I want to be. Learning about those jobs and careers and meeting men in them, I learned that it would not allow me uphold the way I wanted to treat my family.  Even though it was what I wanted to do, and I was dead set on doing it.  It took a lot of thinking, and guidance to make my decision and I am interested to see what type of guidance Arjuna gets considering the heavy yoga philosophical influence.

                Continuing on with the asana practices in class, I would like to see the time taken with those to increase. Part of that is because I am really enjoying them a lot, and the other part is because I don’t think the discussions over the Bhagavad Gita will take nearly as much time as those over the sutras and other philosophical aspects of yoga. However, I have a hunch that I am wrong based in that regard. The other thing that I would like to see in the asana is more of a flow time.  I think that would be really cool because it would let us see how far we have come since the first day, and then doing that occasionally would let us see our progress in a way, both in terms of flexibility and stuff but also in terms of the types of poses we have learned.

                Lastly, this past week was also rough on my personal practice. With midterms and papers to write I was very busy and stressed out and dint have time to do yoga.  Which is ironic because yoga is something that is really good at de-stressing me and allowing me to calm down and focus.  I just get caught in the moment of what is going on and the stress and pressure placed on me that I don’t think to stop and do yoga to calm down and center before moving on and dealing with the stress and other things I am trying to do.

Yoga From the Inside Out

After reading the memoir Yoga from the Inside Out by Christina Sell, I have very mixed feelings about a lot what is said.  Before I go in depth on my feelings about the book, I must preference this.  I have limited exposure to both yoga and more importantly, the deeper philosophy of yoga.  I also have a very unique perspective on both the so called “sleeping world”, which I will get into later as well, but also the relationship of God, spirituality and the divine as well because while I consider myself having a spiritual walk with God, I am again no means an expert or well learned in that aspect either.

            To begin, I did enjoy reading the memoir and the overall message I received from it.  The idea that people today are too involved in what Ms. Sell calls the “sleeping world.”  This sleeping world, at least to what I understood it as, is people buying into the society’s view of what is acceptable, right, good, beautiful, fill in the blank with any adjective and you have the idea.  I do think that people and society as a whole has adopted a unrealistic image of beauty. Not only has the image of beauty been set at a bar that is impossible to reach by many, the pressure to reach that goal also carries an unbearable weight sometimes.  I personally feel that weight, as I am sure many other men do.  Take a look in any men’s fitness magazine or blockbuster movie.  The guys all have extremely well defined muscles all over; abs, back, arms, pecs.  Not only is that what is paraded around what a man should look like, but it is also shown as what is needed to be successful in most aspects of life.  Those men typically are very wealthy, have wives or girlfriends who also are the epitome of the definition of beauty for the sleeping world.  Do I feel that is right to be set as the standard? No, but I also don’t think that it is entirely wrong.  The image of well defined muscles and being lean is more than just something that is purely aesthetic.  It also shows fitness and overall health.  To have that type of physique, you have to be in shape and be in good shape.  This means you are taking care of your body by working out, being careful about what you fuel your body with, etc. Even more with my profession, staying in a good, healthy state is imperative. Personally, wanting to subscribe to those standards of the sleeping world, is not bad because it simply means I am in better shape and more capable of performing my job.  Should it be taken to the extreme of eating disorders and such no because then it becomes something that is unhealthy and harmful, but wanting that goal and striving for it, I don’t see anything wrong with that at all.

               The other major problem I have is more philosophical and religious in nature.   Even after all the discussion in class over the sutras, and reading quite a bit about yoga and the philosophy, I am struggling to see how it is not a religion by itself. At least in the way it is practiced and discussed in a lot of contemporary literature.  All of the talk of the divine and spiritual and the way you need a guru to interact with it and to show you the path has a awkward juxtaposition with my personal faith background.  It seems like it has quite a few places that any religion, including Christianity, can fit in and work side by side with yoga.  Many of the core values are the same, but there is a disconnect still that is hard for me to explain, much less put into words.  The easiest way I can break it down is how the first yoga teacher, if you can call her that, explained it to me.  Mary Francis is a very good friend of my mothers, and our families are close.  Mary Francis has become a yoga instructor after starting yoga herself and teaches restorative yoga. For various reasons my mom began going to take yoga from Mary Francis and dragged me along one time I was home.  The way that Mary Francis told me, was to incorporate yoga into your faith, not your faith into yoga. It just seems that so much faith is worked into yoga. At least that is the way it is portrayed.  Something about that bugs me, and I don’t have a good explanation why.  If I ever figure it you, if anyone ever reads this blog, yall will be the first to know.

The 8 fold path

While reading the eight-fold path, I got a little confused to be honest.  So I get there are 8 limbs, and what those are.  Next there are the yamas.  And I understand what those are. Lastly, there are the observances, and I get what those are.  What I dont get is how they all work together. Im assuming it is like some of the earlier sutras where the different aspects are how you work towards the higher goal, and then there are what get in the way of that.  So are the 8 limbs the higher goal, with the yamas being how you achieve them and the nthe observances get in the way? I know we will go over it in class today but right now trying to get into them myself is a bit of a struggle.

As far as class goes, I am still loving the yoga.  It is the main reason I took this class in the first place and we are starting to get into some of the more advanced poses, but also how the sutras and what we discuss at the beginning of class interact with those poses.  The discussions are still good and I think its really cool that we are able to spend so much time getting into what they mean that we are kinda forced to stop so we have time to do a small asana practice.  I still wish I was more flexible so I was able to do some of the poses better, Im pretty good with the shoulder stand and things that require more muscle than flexibility simply because that is what I have always focused on.

As far as my outside practice, Im starting to get a bit discouraged.  Just because with life and classes and everything else going on I have struggled to find time for it.  Not only am I struggling to find time, but the more we get into the sutras, the more I realize that my personal practice is kinda pathetic. Knowing it is something that takes persistent devotion to achieve, I see myself not doing that and being somewhat of a perfectionist and someone who takes pride in working hard to achieve a goal but not seeing many fruits, it is hard to want to keep trying to find time and do the little bit I can.

How Yoga Works

So today I finished the book How Yoga Works. I can honestly say that while I would love to go on and on about the ending, I fear at least one of the three people who have viewed my blog have not read the book.  For that reason I will spare all the details of how I feel on paper as to not ruin it for that one soul who has yet to experience it.  But my, what a book.  I was genuinely surprised and pleased  at the book.  And that was only for the story line.  When you actually get into the details and philosophy of how yoga works, and how yoga is intended to work in someone, it really brings a new dimension not only to the book, but also to the discussions over the sutras we are having in class.

The class discussions are actually starting to become more of my favorite time in class, even over the yoga which is surprising even to me.  Having the little background of yoga that I do, I know that I really enjoy the asana poses because they help limber me up and help me find a peace and calmness to my otherwise hectic days.  But going over the sutras, and How Yoga Works, and the discussion of how they are to apply to my life, in even the most minuscule way, is really cool.  It is another way to think about things and is another way that I can stop and take a step back and think about things which causes me to slow down and get more of the peace the same way the asana does.  More than that, it is quite deep and gives me something to think back on during the week more than any of my other classes.  I mean there is only so much deeper you can do with European history or American policy decisions.

Outside of class I really tried to focus on my personal practice, especially with missing almost all of last week and not really being diligent there.  While I have probably taken a few steps back in terms of my practice because of it, I am able to stretch myself further in the sense that I am doing more poses and incorporating it more than just good stretches and limbering up, however that is still a lovely benefit I am getting. In fact, just this morning I noticed how much closer I am to touching my toes while bending over while standing and that was a nice visual to show me how much I have improved in such a relatively short time.

Week 4

So I missed last week due to a lot of different reasons, and this week is going to be incredibly short as well.

Due to lots of different reasons of family coming in, tests starting this week and other factors, I have been way to stressed out and busy to keep up with my personal practice and has even affected me getting the reading done in time so I cant comment too much about that other than it is interesting how everyone now wants Friday to teach them yoga to heal physical ailments when the Captain and Friday have gone so far beyond the physical healing of yoga and moved onto the deep philosophy of why the yoga does heal physically. That contrast is something that I think is interesting and cant wait to read more so I can see how everyone else progresses in their yoga as well.

The Second Step

Week 2 of these reflection blogs and so far I can only see small progress.  To start with the readings we have done, we started with the actual yoga sutras which are pretty cool. However out book is a commentary and I was trying to read all the commentary and understanding none because of all the Sanskrit words used and the general assumption of baseline knowledge by the author.  However, looking at just the sutras themselves made things easier.  They are very simple and deep which is something that doesn’t really happen today anymore in readings or serious philosophy that I have read. What I didn’t like, but think it will change once we get through them all, was how I couldn’t understand some of them by themselves because they lead to the following sutras.  Once we talk about all of the sutras I think this will change because I will understand what the whole is talking about to look at the individual.  The book, How Yoga Works is also getting really interesting as they are getting into deeper aspects of yoga philosophy within it, it is explaining it all to me as well. Although some areas and concepts like the idea of making the inside the outside, I’m still needing some work or don’t quite understand it yet.

            The class asana times are still just as enjoyable as they have been. The slow pace is nice to have and not adding a lot allows us to focus on the poses we have started and to get better at them because we are doing them so much.  While I would still like to move on to more advanced and different stuff, I like the pace.  Some of the poses, like downward facing dog, have gotten to be a lot easier to do. Not less painful on my hamstrings and stuff, but I feel better in the poses and that the poses themselves are looking better.  Which I think counts for something.

            That same idea of feeling better in poses even if I’m not really doing much better has carried over to my own personal practice.  At least for my hamstrings, they feel better even when I’m stretching but I can’t tell if I’m actually starching farther yet. While I know that part will come, it would be nice if it happened sooner than later.  The other nice part of my personal practice is how I feel after.  Just like after class, feeling relaxed and calm is something that is really nice to have with how busy I am this semester and with everything I am involved in. If I get nothing else from this semester and the class, the ability to take some time and unwind and calm myself is something that I will always use.

Every Journey Begins with a Single Step, or Yoga Pose

So each week for this yoga and philosophy class we are supposed to reflect in different blog posts about different things from class and the reading for the week. Since I always like to be productive with my time and what I do, I’m going to add all them together into one massive entry once a week. Sorry for all yall who were hoping for daily insights into my life.

            Like every class we have assigned readings. Most of the readings have been from the book How Yoga Works which I still cant tell if its fiction or not, but so far the story has kept my interest more than I thought a book about yoga could.  The protagonist is a young girl traveling from her home in Tibet to study under a new yoga teacher in India and because of the quasi-corrupt nature of their police force is arrested and has spent the past months teaching the local captain yoga in hopes of it allowing her to go free.  The interactions between the girl and the captain are the most interesting because that is where the book is teaching the reader what yoga is through their relationship. The rest of the story I have not paid too much attention too so far because it is not as interesting to me as the yoga part. Ya her little dog is cool and the sergeant is a drunken perv, but that part of the story didn’t really get developed until the reading we had for today.  Even with that new development I still am more interested in the yoga philosophy because I would like to see how it affects me with the yoga we do in class and my feeble attempts to do yoga on my own. However, I have really enjoyed it because while I have done some yoga in the past when I am home with my mom, I never got too into the philosophy and history of it.  This makes me appreciate some things more, and embrace the suck of some of the poses because I am about as flexible as a concrete pillar.

             Speaking of my lack of flexibility, the class asana is a lot of fun.  Not as hard as I was expecting due to what I have done in the past, but still really helpful and it is awesome to have time in the day that I don’t have to worry about setting aside to calm down and relax and focus.  Some of the moves, like downward dog, I have done because I mean, who hasn’t done downward dog in yoga.  I have even had the pleasure, if you call it that, of knowing the warrior pose we did from “power yoga” this old Russian lady who grew up in the USSR learning how to be an Olympic gymnast would force my club swim team to do. Most of the other poses I have never done so its cool to learn other ones from what I have already experienced.  Most of the poses are also pretty easy, compared to what I had to do in my mom’s class I attended. Which makes sense because most of us in the class have little to no experience so we need to create a foundation and my mom has been doing yoga for around a year now so she can do more advanced things.  Some of my favorite, and least favorite, things we have done in class is down dog and walking the dog, along with some of the other leg poses because I have always had a problem with my hamstrings being really tight. So while I am trying to suffer my agony in silence during class, I can see and feel them slowly loosening up which is awesome and something I hope to continue all semester with.

            This slow work on my hamstrings, along with the chest and shoulder opening poses we did the first day are hard for me to do on my own so I have been a little slow in getting a set routine established outside of class. Mostly I use poses we have done in class to target different areas for a better stretch and to loosen up after PT or working out. Which while it isn’t a good practice or anything, it does feel awesome and a good start for me to slowly get into a more steady time of going through more poses and things.