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Greetings!
Greetings from the Saint Paul Yoga Center! Our fourth session of 2010 started Sunday, May 30th. There are several changes
to our schedule. We canceled four classes, but added six new classes. Yoga for kids will take a break for the summer from June 12-Sept. 16. We have a new teacher, Mya Olson! We bid a fond farewell to Bonne and Velleda and send them off with our blessings and with deep gratitude for their contributions to the St. Paul Yoga Center.
As of May 30th, we closed the
Dunlap studio and consolidated our classes in the Selby and Corner studios. The
Dunlap studio, the smallest of our three studios, has also been the least used. By
returning the Center to two studios, we will use our space more effectively.
This necessitated some schedule changes, which are posted on the home page of our website.
Chris
Gordon has now taken over the space that was our Dunlap Studio.
Contact
Chris for information on taking classes or receiving Thai massage from
him: chris@bigriverbodyworks.com
We
wish Chris the best in his new endeavor.
If you haven't registered yet, fear not! You're welcome to register when you come to class. Pre-registration is not required. Also, some students find that their busy summer schedules make drop-in classes more attractive. (The article in this newsletter looks at time and our relationship to it.)
We hope to have our new (and definitely improved) website up and running before Session IV is over. We're also working on improvements to the center to make it more comfortable and attractive.
We're happy to announce our very first summer special. For session V *only* (Aug. 1-Sept. 11) we're lowering the drop-in class rate to $13 and discounting the session cost to $11/class (which comes to $66, since Session V is only six weeks long). We're also very excited to offer an Unlimited Class Pass for that session for $100. That's right: take all of the classes you want to during Session V for $100. Now that's a great way to end the summer!
We look forward to serving you this summer.
Namaste, Saint Paul Yoga Center
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It's About Time
Our fourth session brings with it the formal start of summer, though it already feels like we've had a good taste of summer. Busyness can happen any time of the year, but summer has unique challenges just because of the sheer volume of activities available to us and our desire to squeeze every second out of the summer months. The stimulation and abundant activities of
summer can leave us breathless. As a result, yoga practice often suffers during the summer, even though our need for yoga is just as great.
Yoga addresses and influences all of our
relationships, including the very important relationship we have with
time. Our look at transitions in the last newsletter examined one of the many aspects of time. Exploring your relationship to time can deepen your yoga practice, and your yoga practice can help you transform your relationship with time. Our view of time touches every aspect of our lives. It is a doorway into attempting to understand the universe and find meaning in our lives, powerfully shaping the quality of our lives.
Measuring
Time
Life has a combination of simplicity and
complexity. When life is balanced, we could say that simplicity and
complexity are expressed appropriately. When we take the beautiful
complexity and mystery of life and over-simplify it, and when we take
the graceful simplicity of life and make it unnecessarily complex, life
may seem to be out of balance.
We see space expanding and contracting,
folding in on itself, warping, and changing qualities. Our current scientific view
of time and space as a continuum suggests that time is just as malleable
as space.
Even so, we try to grasp time, to rigidly define it and to control it, as if we could change its multidimensional nature and make it one-dimensional. This linear view of time is artificial. It is disconnected from nature's rhythms and our natural rhythms. Measuring time with breaths (e.g., holding a pose for six breaths), seasons, and other natural cycles can help us re-connect with nature.
"One of the great mysteries (our
ancestors) discovered was that time is not
stagnant or linear but flows in great transformative cycles. In fact,
it is only recently modern historians have begun arguing that time
travels in a straight line. Within the limited period of historical
examination these modern historians are viewing a snap shot of history
and believe this snapshot represents the entire picture."
-Jay
Weidner, "The Alchemy of Time: Understanding the Great Year & the Cycles of Existence"
Time and Stress
Just as a linear view of time and egoic personalities are
mental
fabrications, so is the pressure we feel as a result of the constraints
we perceive from time. When I notice myself feeling tense in a situation in
which I'm running late or "running out of time," I can recognize that
the stress is internally created. Seeing that, I have an opportunity to
let it go. While a sense of urgency about something may be reinforced by others, we have to internalize that feeling of urgency and feel pressured by it in order to feel stress over it. Even the desire for spiritual attainment can become a source of stress.
The Sanskrit word "dukha" is often translated to mean suffering, but the roots literally mean "bad space." This relates to the axle holes in horse- or ox-drawn carts. Dukha meant having a bad axle hole, leading to unsteadiness and discomfort. Sukha, or good space, meant having a well-placed axle hole, moving from the center. When our relationship to time and space is good, we tend to feel santosha, or contentment.
A Case of Mistaken Identity
The
yoga sage Patanjali described five kleshas, or afflictions, that are obstacles
to the union we seek through yoga. The first, avidya, is the root klesha that produces the other four.
Avidya is ignorance. It is described as the condition of confusing the
impermanent for the permanent, the impure for the pure, and pain for
pleasure. For example, we tend to identify with our body, our thoughts,
and our sensory experiences.
Through yoga practice we can
cultivate discernment, or viveka,
to remove avidya's veil of ignorance.
"In Sutra 2:26, Patanjali introduces 'viveka', or
discernment. The
opposite of avidya, viveka is the ability to discriminate between two
similar objects. A discerning mind distinguishes between black, white
and all shades in between. In such a mind, avidya is more easily
recognized and the klesas are less likely to take root. This is a mind
not motivated by prestige and power, not running towards or away from
anything, and not driven by fear. It is stable and free. Incorruptible.
All behavior based on viveka is more appropriate to the task at hand.
With discernment, we find ourselves moving through life with increased
confidence, ease and grace." -robert
birnberg, "yoga for life, the yoga sutras of patanjali"
The
ego is identified with the impermanent and is thus bound to a limited
view of time. The ego fears its own annihilation and acts on the basis
of fear. Fortunately, we are not who we think we are.
Immortality
The quest for immortality is as old as human history. Not surprisingly, it is found in yoga literature. A Sanskrit Invocation for Peace exclaims "Lead me from death to immortality." The important yoga text The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes ten mudras, or seals, that it says will eliminate old age and death. In fact, it says this about just one of them, viparita karani: "He who practices it daily, even for two
hours, conquers death." Since yoga sees the true Self as timeless, it views immortality of the soul as a given.
The seemingly never-ending searches for a literal fountain of youth points to our attachment to and identification with the impermanent.
"The ancients thought that to be immortal was to perform great deeds as a
hero and be remembered forever. But great heroes of even just a few
thousand years ago -such as Achilles and Hector- are already being
forgotten. Their great prowess, deeds, and fame are certainly not going
to be remembered forever. Even Lord Buddha predicted that what he was
teaching would only last so long before it was swallowed up by the
"Imperishable." Eventually Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, Abraham,
Confucius, etc. will all be forgotten. No matter how famous and powerful
or influential we become or in what sphere of life (political, social,
athletic, spiritual) - it will come to an end."
-Vac
Magazine
"A day
for me is like a
hundred years. It holds so much richness and so
much content."
-Rudi
Rudrananda
Keeping Things in
Perspective
Hindu texts
call the age we are in the Kali Yuga, or the Iron Age. This age is said
to last for
432,000 years. That puts todays news headlines in perspective. If we
take a larger view still, the universe is over 13 billion years old by
current estimates. Keeping a sense of perspective helps us maintain a
healthier and more balanced relationship with time. It helps us see how
many things are truly small as we try to "not sweat the small stuff."
The tradition from indigenous peoples of considering the effects our
actions will have on the next seven generations can help us maintain a
proper sense of place and time.
Busyness Happens
Busyness is a disease, and it's contagious. We rationalize it by trying to turn it into a virtue, thus reinforcing our skewed relationship with time. When is the last time you heard someone talk about how much extra time they had or how much sleep they were getting? We brag about how busy we are.
Busyness tends to put blinders on us, giving us a kind of tunnel vision that disconnects us from the fullness of life. It can overwhelm us, seemingly burying us and stifling our creativity. Chronic, excessive busyness is a sign of an unhappy (and unconscious) relationship with time. The discomfort it creates is a wake-up call that we can easily ignore if we become too accustomed to the discomfort. The stimulation of busyness can become addictive. Let's start a new conversation, one about
becoming un-busy. Picture your life as full but not busy.
Deadlines and Lifelines
There is an old Zen saying: "Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment:
chop wood, carry water." Your actions may appear identical outwardly, but your inner experience is very different. Seeking freedom through outward experiences simply ensnares us in the time-bound limitations of the ego. While time management techniques can be very helpful in dealing with our day-to-day lives--with all of the deadlines and seemingly time-sensitive opportunities--transforming our relationship to time is what we are called to do.
Give yourself the gift of a block of truly unscheduled time, with no plans or agenda. Let yourself feel that you don't know what's about to happen, reconnecting you with life's mystery. Bring this idea of unscheduled time into your yoga practice. Take Savasana or do your meditation when you don't have something scheduled right afterward, and stay without regard for time. Letting go of time in your practice can allow you to go deeper.
"You can't let a day go by or an hour go by where you
can't open and love
the people around you."
"You know what your problem is? You THINK you have time!"
-Rudi Rudrananda
Sign(s) of the Times
What are some of the signs that our relationship to time needs an overhaul? Busyness is certainly one, along with its close friend impatience. In this age of sound bites and information overload, a short attention span is another. Feeling trapped or stuck. All forms of distractedness point to an unhappy relationship with time. Not feeling present means feeling disconnected from ourselves and from life, leaving us feeling unsupported.
Simplify and Slow Down
My mother's mother had a plaque in her house that read, "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get." Paradoxically, practicing patience may be the quickest way to progress on our journey (as The Tortoise and the Hare--an apt fable for the middle path of yoga-- taught).
When we slow down, our perception of time can shift. Conversely, when our perception of time changes, the paces of our lives change. (The key to longevity, according to Ayurveda
teacher Robert Svoboda, is to live slowly.)
Slowing down, we can notice the pauses between things, empty spaces, the words not spoken or written. This may allow us to experience timelessness within time, stillness within movement, and silence within sound. These are doorways back to our own center. When we open deeply, we allow ourselves to
be moved.
"It is
always a
principle of growth that
simplification conserves energy
and allows it to rise to a higher level."
-Rudi Rudrananda
If we apply Occam's Razor to our lives and cut out the non-essential, we are left with the essence of a good life. One way of looking at that is to let go of whatever is not important.
Remembering
What is Most Important
My first teacher, Lar Short, spoke of "remembrance practices," which are part of many traditions of inner work. Forgetting our true nature, a kind of amnesia, seems to be part of the human journey. There are many practices to help us rediscover our true limitless nature.
Ajahn Chah describes a remembrance practice:
"Within itself the mind is timeless, naturally peaceful, unmoving. Rest in this natural state. If changing sense impressions cause the mind to forget itself, to be deceived and entangled, your practice is to see this whole process and simply return to the original mind."
A simple exercise to help bring your values and actions into greater congruity is a Values/Activities grid. Make five rows and five columns, using a grid. This should give you 25 boxes in your grid. Above the columns, list your five most important values. Beside the rows, list the five activities you spend the most waking time doing. For each value that is supported by one of the activities, put a check in the corresponding box. If all five activities supported all five values, you would have 25 checks. The results should be informative and helpful. (If you didn't list yoga as one of the activities and freedom as one of the values, try adding these to the grid and complete the exercise again.)
Keeping a "time diary" can give you a clearer sense of how you actually spend your time. If you are brutally honest, this will be very educational. What we actually do tells us what we are committed to.
Another clarifying exercise is to divide a page into four quadrants and label them: Urgent and Important, Important But Not Urgent, Urgent But Not Important, and Not Urgent And Not Important. Sort the things you do and the things on your To Do List into these categories. This will reveal a lot about your relationship with time. Here is a values/activities grid and Urgent/Important worksheet.
Letting Go
Time, the great equalizer, is also a great teacher, or maha guru. One great lesson it continually teaches us is letting go, including letting go of time itself--trying to understand, control, or hold onto it. It reminds us to let go of what is not important. With every exhalation we are connected to the process of surrender.
Cultivating
a Different Relationship with Time
Linear, chronological, artificial time could be called "external." Another kind of time is connected to our inner rhythms. We could call this "internal" time or "soul" time or "mythological" time. Bo Forbes chose the name "extraordinary time."
When I was first introduced to this concept, through mythology, I felt a tremendous relief. In mythological stories, what is presented as a week may be decades in linear time. In this view of time, things simply take as long as they take. I felt a burden lifted from my shoulders when I took this in.
"(Extraordinary time) helps you listen to what sounds, at first, like the merest whisper of intuition, impulses, or dreams but, over time, reveals itself as the clear, resonant voice of your soul."
-Bo Forbes, "Strapped for Time?"
Render Unto Caesar
One approach to making peace with time is to balance external and internal time. This could be described as being in the world but not of it, engaged but not swallowed up. (I had hoped to finish this article a week before the start of Session IV. My relationship to time doesn't seem to change the fact that I didn't do that.)
"All experiences are without self, without independent existence. They arise like the wind, and pass away... . In any quiet moment of seeing this truth...we can step out of all the conditions we call 'self,' to rest in the timeless knowing, the unconditioned. Thus the difficult task we undertake is to know the changing world and not get lost in it."
-Jack Kornfield from After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
Inconclusive
Conclusion
The sage/poet Kabir wrote: "The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears
cannot hear it.
So long as man clamours for the I and the Mine, his
works are as naught:"
Again from Kabir: "I have brought my love and my meditation into the land where there is no
sun and moon, nor day and night." In trying to find meaning in life, we seek what is timeless.
Time is a vast subject. Like energy, our attempts to control it or to explain it on a purely rational basis seem futile. We're in the playground of the universe, dancing with these primordial forces. I like what Robert Grudin wrote in his book Time and the Art of Living: "Like students of art who walk around a great statue, seeing parts and aspects of it from each position, but never the whole work, we must walk mentally around time, using a variety of approaches, a pandemonium of metaphor. No insight or association, however outlandish or contradictory, should be forbidden to us; the only thing forbidden should be to stand still and say, 'This is it.' " Now it seems well past the time to stop.
-Paul Busch, Saint Paul Yoga Center Instructor |
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About Saint Paul Yoga Center
The Saint Paul Yoga Center has been serving the Twin Cities metro area for over 15 years. We are grateful for your support and look forward to many years of continued service to our community.
1162 Selby Avenue
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55104
Saint Paul Yoga Center
651-644-7141
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| In a boat down a fast-running creek,
it feels like trees on the bank are rushing by.
What seems to be changing around us
is rather the speed of our craft leaving this world.
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Untitled Poem
by Kabir
English version by Robert Bly
The flute of interior time is played whether we hear it or not,
What we mean by "love" is its sound coming in.
When love hits the farthest edge of excess, it reaches a wisdom.
And the fragrance of that knowledge!
It penetrates our thick bodies,
it goes through walls--
Its network of notes has a structure as if a million suns were arranged inside.
This tune has truth in it..
Where else have you heard a sound like this?
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Excerpt from "Forty Poems Chosen From 'Moral Proverbs and Folk Songs' " by Antonio Machado
Translated by Robert Bly
Form your letters slowly and well:
making things well
is more important than making them.
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