Month: October 2012

Gratitude. It is a magical, life-changing word. It is only one word, but it is so powerful. Learning to live life with an attitude of gratitude is a simple, natural, and easy way to bring an immediate positive change into your life.  It is the key to opening the door to the seemingly elusive world of joyful living. Everyone would like to bring more joy into their life.  Cultivating more gratitude is a clear path to unlocking this state of mind.  Bringing gratitude to one’s heart and prayers can immediately make life more positive.     It means learning to give thanks for what we have.  During especially challenging times it can seem very difficult to do this, but the key is shifting the mind to see things in a little different way.  With practice, it becomes easier.

Lately, at the end of my Meditation practice, I have started to give thanks for whatever comes to mind. A common theme has been thanking my parents for everything they gave me.   Both of my parents have been deceased for many years.  But as time goes on and I move through the aging spectrum (I am now 55 years old), the perspective I have toward them has changed. It has allowed me to see how they set me up for a nice life through their care and love as I was growing up.  Besides the love and care they gave me, I received sufficient experience and education to allow me to pursue whatever I needed to do in this life.  I know they went to great sacrifices to raise me and I feel directly grateful to them for all that they did.   At the end of my meditation, I started a ritual of giving thanks to them for everything that they did for me and I feel great when I do it.

I also give thanks for anything else that comes into my mind.  A recent thought that came into my mind is being thankful for having a meaningful job that allows me to live a comfortable life with the resources I need. For many years I struggled with learning to have a loving attitude toward work. Now I am just starting to realize it is a privilege to go to work every day. Retirement from the job is still probably a few years away, but as it gets closer I can put the work portion of my life in a new and better-understood perspective.  Having the opportunity to contribute to the world in a positive way through work is a gift to be cherished.

Often I find myself giving thanks for being born in a time and place that is peaceful, has clean air, clean water, and enough leisure time for spiritual practices like Yoga and Meditation.  It is so easy to take this for granted when we live in a place like this day after day and year after year. But how often in history have humans had the opportunity to live this kind of life?  I have had fantastic teachers and the time and resources to practice.  I don’t know if I am learning as much as I could with this opportunity, but I am grateful for being given that chance.

One thing I love to be thankful for is when I arrive home safely after going out into the world. Whether I drive, walk, or bike somewhere, I am so thankful to arrive home.  It is a great feeling and I love to give thanks for it.  Since I started acknowledging with gratitude this act of arriving home, it has now become a highlight of my day. I simply love to give thanks for this and feel great when I do it.

I don’t know why or how this newfound attitude of gratitude came to me, but I am grateful for it. It has brought more joy into my life.  I did notice that I started giving more thanks at the end of my meditations at about the same time that Vimala, a friend from the Meditation Center in Minneapolis, went into a hospice situation.  While visiting with her recently I told her about the topic of this essay.  She said to put this in the essay: “Gratitude is a Game-Changer.”   Thank you, Vimala, for that.  It was clear that moving to an attitude of gratitude allowed her to shift from fear and resentment about her illness to peace, contentment, and acceptance.  I had the privilege of spending time with her as the health of her body declined over time.  Her spirit remained high, but I watched her breathing become more and more labored.  It reminded me of how every smooth-flowing breath I have is a healing gift of relaxation and rejuvenation.   As I watched her become more homebound and more dependent on others for their basic needs, it reminded me of how nice and pleasant we have when we are in good health.  She passed away during the process of writing this essay, on October 12, 2012.  Her passing caused me to again come face to face with the fact that someday I will eventually move on from this physical plane.  Observing her reminded me again about how precious and short is our limited time on the planet.

Since starting this practice of gratitude, when I finish my twice-daily Meditation practice, many thoughts come into my mind about the various things I have to be thankful for.  These thoughts come naturally and without effort, and I am grateful that they do.  I have not listed all the things that I am grateful for in this short essay. The list is endless and keeps growing.  One thing I want to be sure of and mention is my gratitude for having a loving and supportive wife.   But no matter what situation in life we find ourselves in, single or married, poor or rich, healthy or not, with or without a job, there is always something to be grateful about.  Since I have started the practice of cultivating gratitude I have become a more positive and joyful person.  I know I have a long way to go, but I wanted to share this helpful practice and am grateful to the AHYMSIN Newsletter for allowing me to do it.

Editor’s Note:

Daniel Hertz (RYT 500 and Certified Biofeedback Practitioner) lives in Minneapolis and is on the faculty of the Minneapolis Meditation Center. He is the author of Swami Hari: I am a simple forest monk. It is available on Amazon .com and several other online sites. In India Swami Hari: I am a simple forest monk is available at the Swami Rama and SRSG Ashrams in Rishikesh, HIHT in Jolly Grant, and SRIVERM in Malethi.

In our life there comes a time, an event where nothing seems to work where and how it used to work before.

This creates a shock to the system – and out of this comes a range of emotional responses that disrupt us.

Here we are at a “Destiny crossroads” which implies a choice – but we miss the nature of the cross roads and act as if we have no choice. In fact, we fall into negative reactive patterns and responses.

Then we feel we must act decisively and react at greater and greater speed. We fall into stress and distress. We begin to create a dissociation and loss of contact with our deeper selves and our capacity for mindful awareness.

We are now caught in a circle that typically escalates and amplifies stress and distress and which fails to address the real issues. We are in fact literally trapped in a vicious circle or spiral.

The first key is that people miss the truth that they have a choice – “If you want to know the source of the river you have to swim against the current.”

If the river we are caught in is the river of reactive “busyness”, swimming against this river means coming to standstill.

This means going against our reactive busyness. The first step is to stop and take “time out”. To interrupt what we always do and come to a place of stillness and silence – to turn inwards and attain a state of “inner dwelling”. The capacity to dwell inside our inner self with a quiet awareness and non-judgmental attitude.

The first thing this achieves is to break the reactive circle and heal the dissociation. We are now back in connection with ourselves – and the inner spacious awareness out of which our sense of possibility can emerge, and further on our ability to find our own deepest responses to our life situation. Once we have accessed this wonderful quiet awareness.

How to make optimal use of this stopping and indwelling:

Here we can start by using the two-minute exercise and the seven steps to prepare us to enter a meditative state.

With these processes you begin to awake to the nature of your own suffering. Then you attune deeper to yourself and learn how to listen to the language of your heart – and ultimately to hear the “song of your heart” and to understand its deepest true longing.

You learn to discriminate between the words of your intellect and the song of your heart. The deep ability of listening develops and you discover the capacity for self-empathy; you experience in your own heart the pain you have caused to yourself and to other people.
Integrity and authenticity develop out of this courage of our self-witnessing, and you discover that these qualities are aspects of your true Nature.

You experience a great inner light within that begins to radiate from the inside out through your face and eyes.

This is the basis of the profound training within the meditative practice of the Himalaya Tradition:

To learn to listen to the song of our heart is the practice and the purpose of this way.

Having attained the gift of knowing the song of our own heart we realise that within this song is the seed of our true destiny. We realize the song itself opens the door to our true inner teacher, and when we open our hearts to our inner teacher, in silence and tranquility, we will discover that she will bring us insights about our own future destiny and the path we must follow to attain it.

Yama and Niyama Kriya – Part One

I have yearned for a deeper understanding and experience of the yamas and niyamas for many years. Their promises, as revealed in the Sutras, are filled with hope and mystery for me. I still yearn for that state of existence in which these ten topics are effortlessly and perfectly expressed.  This yearning has given rise to a very very long experiment.

Initially seeking to create harmony at the levels of speech, action, and thought, I began at the level of speech.  Topic by topic, I would study what the sutras offered as initial, book understanding.  Then I would select a personal expression of the topic and begin my experiment.  For example, the first experiment of ahimsa (non-killing, non-violence, non-harming) was to seek twenty-one consecutive days without speaking anything negative.  Each time I would utter some negativity, I returned to day one and began again.   It took me four months to complete the experiment.  Ironically, or perhaps not, the beauty of the practice came in through the “failures”.  With each “failure”, I returned to the sutras to understand why THAT failure occurred. The kleshas offer a perfect road map to these inner workings.  Armed with the academic learning of the sutras, each “failure” provided me a real, concrete opportunity to experience the kleshas at play in ME.  The sutras also kindly offer many methods for managing, controlling, or eliminating the kleshas, so that each time I returned to day one, I had new insights with which I could engage MY kleshas within ME.  The experiments became incredibly playful and delightfully consuming and nobody knew that I was “practicing” yoga!

Topic by topic I worked through the yamas in this way.  Then, topic by topic, I worked through the niyamas also at the level of speech.  With each yama, I disciplined myself to   NOT DO something.  With each niyama, I disciplined myself to DO something.  For example, the first experiment of santosha (contentment) was to speak the word “enough” with a sentiment of satisfaction each time I was offered something … anything, for twenty one days, training my mind to believe my words.

If we consider our individual karmic nature to be a large mud puddle which we are striving to make drinkable, the yamas offer us the means whereby we no long throw mud into the puddle; the niyamas offer us the means whereby we pour pure water into the puddle, making it clearer, drop by drop.

It took me a bit more than two years to complete my first round of experiments focused on the level of speech.  It took me a bit more than two more years to complete the second round of experiments where I sought to affect both speech and (physical) action.  Do you recall Swami Veda’s teachings concerning the three levels of meaning conveyed by a word which we must simultaneously understand in order to grasp the full meaning of the word or text: adhibhautika, adhyatmika, adhidaivika?  Collectively, these first years of my experiments, focused on speech and gross actions, have given me a deeper understanding and experience of each yama and niyama at the level of adhibhautika (as it relates to individual entities acting in the world, the gross level).  I have just moved into the second phase of experiments, seeking to understand each yama and niyama at the level of adhyatmika (as it relates to something happening within the human person, subtle level, the mind level)  I am intending two rounds of experiments in this phase. Currently, I am seeking twenty-one consecutive days without a negative thought in the conscious mind.  I hope this takes some time, because the
“failures” are becoming more precise and helpful.  When I do complete all of my experiments at the  level of conscious mind, I will repeat at the level of the subconscious mind.  It has been clear from the beginning that I need to ultimately work at the level of the subconscious; I have been gradually moving from the gross to increasingly subtle layers.  This second phase of the practice will take many, many, many years!  I am aware that I do not have the capacity, yet, to complete this phase.  If, however, my capacity increases, allowing me to complete phase two within this life, I will then move to a final phase of understanding: adhidaivika ( as it relates to things happening in the universal forces of nature and the conscious forces behind the forces of nature, the divine level).

There are those in the world of yoga who have said that the yamas and niyamas do not suit modern human existence and/or are too much for the average person to pursue.  As an average person living a human existence, I have not found evidence to support such claims.  To the contrary, I believe the time is fertile for human existence to turn from the tremendous progress we have made in the external world and focus our efforts internally.  Future suffering CAN be avoided!

Yama and Niyama Kriya – Part Two

I have learned a tremendous number of lessons through this practice, each lesson leading to new inquiries and subtleties of experimentation and observation!  Here are a few of the more significant lessons I’ve learned:

• The brilliance of Patanjali’s system constantly reveals itself through this practice.  The Sutras provide ALL of the challenges needed for me to succeed as well as ALL of the answers to the challenges.  It is simply up to me to apply them lovingly, skillfully, and selflessly.
• Do you recall the maxims that Swami Veda described in chapter six of Philosophy of Hatha Yoga?  From a slightly different vantage point, this practice has offered me valid proof of his maxims, which I summarize as “all that occurs at the gross level is a consequence of that which occurs at the subtle level”.  Encouraged by such proof, I am confident in progressing to subtler and subtler levels.
• Several of the experiments have been sufficiently powerful to have motivated me to make long-term commitments.  For a period of forty years (with the option to renew), I have vowed to not speak anything negative, to not speak anything untrue, to ingest only that which is pure, and to make daily contemplative study of my namesake upanishad, tejobindu.
• I have twice given up, with amused “frustration”, my attempts to eliminate the words “I”, “Me”, and “Mine” from my speech.  It appears that my attachments to these false identities remain stronger than the power of my intentions.  Please try it.  To the one who successfully completes the experiment without going into silence, my deepest respects.
• When I have tried explaining this practice to friends, it just sounds like a lot of work and a big discipline commitment.  I recall Swam Veda’s helpful words “Why suffer a discipline when you can enjoy a pleasure?”  This is no longer a discipline for me but has become both the source of and pursuit of true pleasure!  Now, I hold myself to a funny little private standard: I pretend that my teacher could call me at any time, 24/7, and I should be able to effortless answer two questions “What are you practicing, right now?” and “What are the results?”.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is has become my opinion that from within the state of samadhi (perhaps samprajnata or perhaps only asamprajnata samadhi, I’ll have to get back to you), the yamas and niyamas are assumed.  Until that time, a systematic, skillful, disciplined pursuit of these ten topics provides a comprehensive methodology for attaining the supreme goal of yoga, the supreme goal of life: Realization of the Self.

There will always be aspects of my practice which involve each of the limbs of yoga.  But I have semi-jokingly said in classes before that if I were a skilled enough teacher, I would teach nothing but ahimsa, in all of its subtleties!  Such is my belief in the power of this small aspect of what Patañjali documented for us.  I give thanks to all who support and encourage me in this practice: to those beings to realized this science, to Sage Patañjali for writing it down, to our Gurudev for lighting this path for me, to Swami Veda for both his gentle love and his precise academic clarity, to Pandit Dabral who first opened my yearning mind, to the countless mind-beings watch over me each day, and to the countless physical beings who lovingly deliver my challenges. May God continue to bless us all and may we one day realize that fact.

Editor’s Note:

Pandit Tejomaya is a pandit in the Himalayan tradition and has a yoga center in Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada.