1m . ..
u: ‘ i

{if

. w .uwsun."
um
w . «a»

5?.
L. z...

.7.
On

. a“.
...

Mumnugmna

tnmhﬁ... 1..
yuammylklurh.
.1. 1a. .9... am»
Ilia-2......
.1"
2-. . . .
. . "4:33 .r
.Kmﬁv t

314:.
1.:
I

mix: {nun
wllawrm ﬁtu.

 

A I... ‘

. all .u

».).»L
r

t.’ 11“ In. 571....
. .

.4.

2

F§¢v

“bah... 3.,

1...: n

 

This is to certify that the
thesis entitled

YOGA PHILOSOPHY AND PERCEPTIONS OF SELF

presented by

CHRISTOPHER JENTOFT

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

MA. degree in Bioethics, Humanities & Society

 

 

WWHM

Major Professor’s Signature

S/u/o’j

Date

 

MSU is an Afﬁnnative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

 

LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

 

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6/01 c:/CIRC/DateDue.p65-p. 15

YOGA PHILOSOPHY AND PERCEPTIONS OF SELF
By

Christopher Jentoft

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Bioethics, Humanities, and Society

2004

ABSTRACT
YOGA PHILOSOPHY AND PERCEPTIONS OF SELF
By
Christopher Jentoﬁ

How does lengthy study of yoga affect contemporary, American practitioners’
conception of self? These students encounter yoga in a sociocultural context different
from that in which the complex system of practical philosophy arose. The practical
elements of the philosophy build on an ontology and epistemology are unlikely to be
shared by most American students of yoga. I develop a tentative answer through a
comparison of the classical philosophy of yoga with the experience of a small sample of
current practitioners, with particular interest in the conception of self and the
understanding of mind in relation to self. For the former, I studied the classical text, The
Yoga Sutras; for the latter, I did ethno graphic research (participant observation and semi-
structured interviews) in an advanced yoga class in Lansing, Michigan. The students
expressed a transition in self-conception, ﬁom identifying mind as self to identifying it as

an instrument of the self.

To Fred Roberts, for his extraordinary support, and to Julie O’Day, for hers.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I offer thanks to Ruth, for all her kindness and openness to me (and my little black
notebook) and to the students of the yoga class who were welcoming and supportive of
me from the outset. Susan Applegate-Krouse, a guide and friend during my graduate
studies, performed an essential task: she reminded me that I was writing a master’s thesis,
which is necessarily ﬁnite. Tom Tomlinson, asked some very difﬁcult questions that led
to signiﬁcant improvements in this work, even if they were questions that, at the time, I
did not want to answer. Fred Roberts, pulled me from the brink of several tangential
excursions, offered continually supportive and helpful criticism of all aspects of research,
and carried quite a load in my journey: There and Back Again. I would be remiss if I
neglected to acknowledge the hospitality of the various cafés around Lansing, so my
thanks to the management and employees of Espresso Royale, Beaners, and the

Chapbook Cafe.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1

CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOGA PHILOSOPHY ......................................................... 4
Yoga in the context of Indian philosophy ..................................................................... 4
From the Core to the Periphery: Yoga Ontology .......................................................... 8
From the Periphery towards the Core: Yoga Methodology ......................................... 13

CHAPTER 2

THEORY AND METHODOLOGY .............................................................................. 26
Theory ....................................................................................................................... 26
Methodology ............................................................................................................. 30

CHAPTER 3

NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF THE YOGA CLASS .............................................. 44
Before class ............................................................................................................... 44
Getting There ............................................................................................................ 49
Arriving ..................................................................................................................... 53
Centering ................................................................................................................... 57
Om ............................................................................................................................ 68
The Asanas ................................................................................................................ 69

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 99
Conclusion of Findings .............................................................................................. 99
Contributions to the Field ........................................................................................ 104
Further Study ........................................................................................................... 107

APPENDICES ............................................................................................................ 109

INTRODUCTION

This research project addresses the question: How does lengthy study of yoga
aﬂ’ect contemporary, American practitioners’ conception of self? These students
encounter yoga in a vastly different sociocultural context from that in which the complex
system of practical philosophy arose. The practical elements of the philosophy build on
an ontology and epistemology that reﬂect Hindu roots and are unlikely to be shared by
most American students of yoga. Considering the millions of Americans who regularly
practice yoga, this study may be of practical concern, as well as of theoretical
importance, for the ﬁelds of anthropology, religious studies, psychology, and philosophy.
I develop a tentative answer through a comparison of the classical philosophy of yoga
with the experience of a small sample of current, American practitioners, with particular
interest in the conception of self and the understanding of mind in relation to self. For the
former, I studied one translation of and exposition on the classical text, the Yoga Sutras
(Iyengar, 1996); for the latter, I did ethnographic research (participant observation and
semi-structured interviews) in an advanced yoga class in Lansing, Michigan.

Yoga is a complex system of practical philosophy. In its classical conception, as
expressed by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras (Iyengar, 1996), the purpose of yoga is to bring
one to awareness of one’s true Selt‘, or atman’. The practice does so by enabling the
practitioner to develop the capacity of citta vrtti nirodha, reducing the ﬂuctuations of the

mind. This reduction enables one to learn to remove from one’s attention all that is not

 

' The lower-case ‘5’ self and capital ‘8’ Self are meaningfully distinct. The former reﬂects an identity
without ontological distinction from the physical, psychological, and social individual; Self refers to an
ontologically distinct Self, like spirit or soul. Arman receives clariﬁcation in Chapters 1, the distinction in
Chapter 3.

2 English spellings of Sanskrit words surface frequently and are italicized.

Self and to undo the illusory identiﬁcation of Self with its social, psychological,
emotional, and physical manifestations.

I did ethnographic research at a yoga center where I have personal connections
through my wife. She has worked at the center since its inception and is good ﬁiends
with Ruth, the owner of the center and instructor of the class in which I did my work.
The students who participated in this research had, at the time, studied yoga from three to
ﬁﬁeen years. Most students began to take yoga classes to address physical injury or
illness; some started yoga to manage stress. None began to study yoga with the intention
of gaining a deeper understanding his or her self. Almost every student has experienced
some changes in his or her understanding of self, particularly in the relationship between
self and mind.

Chapter 1 presents a summary of yoga philosophy. While some of the elements
of the phiIOSOphy ﬁnd little or no substance in the analysis of the ethnographic data, the
complexity of yoga philosophy — the interdependence of the various terms — demands this
comprehensive treatment. Chapter 2 addresses the theoretical and methodological bases
of the research. The heart of the analysis is Chapter 3, in which I present narrative
descriptions of experiences related to me by students and describe their relevance both to
yoga philosophy and to the primary themes that arose in the analysis of the ethnographic
data. Chapter 4 concludes the presentation with discussion of potential biases, relevance
to the research to other ﬁelds of inquiry, and potential for ﬁlture research

The central question arose from personal experience. In the fall of 1996, I began
to take yoga classes with no understanding of its original purpose. Within months of my

ﬁrst class, I had an experience that caused me to reconsider my understanding of myself

at a ﬁmdamental level: I felt my conscious awareness dissociate from my brain and drift
through my body, exploring various internal regions’. The questions that arose ﬁ'om this
experience led directly to my graduate study and to this research project. I continue to
attempt to reach a more clear understanding of that experience and its consequences

through my own practice and this research.

 

3 A more comprehensive description of this experience is in Chapter 2.

CHAPTER I: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOGA PHILOSOPHY

Eastern thought takes one through the layers of being, outwards from
the core, the soul, towards the periphery, the body; and inwards from
the periphery towards the core’ (Iyengar, 1996, 11).

This quotation expresses an apparent paradox in yoga philosophy: the necessary
but contrasting processes of evolution ﬁom initial principles towards complex reality and
the individual’s journey in the reverse direction. The ﬁrst, an ontology characterized by
an outward direction, describes the evolution of the cosmos from original sources. The
second, a methodology characterized by attention inward, provides the aspirant, or
sadhaka, the capacity to reverse the direction and to wrest consciousness from its false
identiﬁcation with its corporeal manifestation’. The methodology results from the
ontology: the nature of the cosmos determines the individual’s method of returning to the
core. The ontology has become clear as a result of the methodology, through the

experience of the practitioners that established yoga.

It should prove helpﬁrl to begin with a brief overview of the history of yoga.

YOGA IN THE CONTEXT OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

Yoga is an ancient form of philosophy and practice. Its origins are unclear, but
certainly date back at least 2,500 years to its ﬁrst known scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita,
assembled ﬁ'om other texts during the 5th century B.C.E. The various oral teachings of

philosophy and practice were consolidated in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Patanjali

 

‘ Iyengar’s use of the term “Eastern” in this context makes an unfortunate error of reducing a complex
cultural phenomenon (e.g., “Eastern thought”) to a single characteristic, painting over a vast and intricate
mural with an exceedingly broad brush. While many “Easterners” may not think as he describes, Patanjali
certainly did.

5 This distinction between ontology and methodology is a heuristic nicety that does not reﬂect a split
inherent to the philosophy.

wrote this, the core text of classical yoga, in either the mid 3rd century B.C.E. or mid 3rd
century CE (Feuerstein, 1998, 214). The discrepancy results ﬁom some uncertainty as to
the person of Patanjali, arising ﬁ'om what appears to be two different ﬁgures, one mythic
and the other historic. The mythic Patanjali was a “svayambhu, an evolved soul
incamated of his own will to help humanity” (Iyengar, 1993, I), speciﬁcally to develop
yoga and to teach human beings how to overcome the illusory identity of Self and world,
to achieve Self-realization. The historic Patanjali was a scholar who wrote texts
concerning grammar (the Mahabhasya) and medicine (Ayurveda). Some believe the two
to be separate individuals; others, including B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of the school of
yoga of interest to this research project, believe them to be the same. Regardless, the
Yoga Sutras remains as the foundational text of yoga.

The etymology and deﬁnition of “yoga” suggest the basic tenets of the
philosophy. The root of yoga, according to most scholars (e.g., Eliade, 1958, 5; Iyengar,
1966, 19; and Feuerstein, 1998, 6) is yuj, meaning “to yoke (as in a team of oxen) or to
join,” referring to two different forms of union: the process of bringing together the
disparate elements of the person, including the body, mind, and soul; and the outcome,
which is the union of the seeker with the source, the individual consciousness with the
soul°. Thus “yoga” describes both the methodology (uniting) and the end (union). The
classical deﬁnition of yoga is the second sutra (aphorism) of the ﬁrst pada (chapter) of
the Yoga Sutras: “yogah cittavrtti nirodhah,” or ‘yoga is the cessation of movements in

the consciousness” (Iyengar, 1993, 49-50). These ﬂuctuations, the results of mental

 

6 The ninth century CE. sage, Vacaspati Mishra, author of the second known commentary on the Yoga
Sutras, the T attva- Vaisharadi, suggested the root of “Yoga” to be “yuja”, which entails “concentration,”
rather than yuji, which entails “conjunction” (Feuerstein, 1998, 6). As this meaning is cited much less
frequently and as Feuerstein presents both but prefers yuj, I follow suit.

activity, prevent the sadhaka from perceiving the Self by occupying the consciousness
and thus making impossible the clarity and stillness that would allow true Self-
perception.

The sadhaka is inﬂuenced by the self on the one hand and by objects

perceived on the other. When he is engrossed in the object, his mind

ﬂuctuates. This is vrtti. His aim should be to distinguish the self from the

objects seen, so that it does not become enmeshed by them. Through

yoga, he should try to free his conscious-ness from the temptations of such

objects, and bring it closer to the seer [purusa] (Iyengar, 1996, 52).

As above, this deﬁnition serves to describe both the goal (the quieted consciousness) and
the means (learning to limit the ﬂuctuations) of yoga; again, yoga is both the process and
the result of that process.

Yoga is one of six main orthodox (accepting the authority of the Vedas’) systems
of Indian philosophy. While accepting the Vedas, yoga arose and draws legitimacy from
other premises and the learning and experiences of its early practitioners (Chatterjee,
1948, 8; Feuerstein, 1998, 4). As with many other systems, it begins with the
understanding of human existence as characterized by suffering that results ﬁom
ignorance of the true nature of the Self: the soul or true Self mistakenly perceives itselfas
the body and mind. Yoga stands out from other Vedantic systems in its exhaustively
practical and speciﬁc methodology for the liberation of the Self ﬁom the illusion of
identity. The methodology is sufﬁciently independent that, according to Chatterjee
(1948, 337), it has been adopted by followers of other philosophies because of its

practical efﬁcacy in furthering the practitioner in his or her progress towards Self-

realization.

 

7 The Vedas, dating to 4500-2500 B.C.E., are the foundational texts of the Indus civilization, the earliest
records of Indian literature and the foundation of much of later philosophy.

The Yoga Sutras is a collection of 196 aphorisms (sutras) organized into four
chapters (padas): Samadhi Pada, On Contemplation; Sadhana Pada, On Practice;
Vibhuti Pada, On Properties and Powers; and Kaivalya Pada, On Emancipation and
Freedom. The aphorisms exhaustively, if elliptically, explain yoga philosophy and
practice. The Sutras are a collection of brief statements that reference teachings common
to the teaching of yoga at the time. The brevity, which at ﬁrst can seem irnpenetrably
obscure, reﬂects the function of the sutras — to remind readers of well-known or
previously learned teachings or to guide them to particular understandings thereof. Given
this brevity, it comes as no surprise that scholars have written many commentaries
exphining the sutras. Vyasa wrote the ﬁrst known such commentary, the Yoga Bhashyas,
during the 5th century CE. The present discussion of yoga philosophy draws on B.K.S.
Iyengar’s translation and exposition, Light on thngga Sutras of PM (Iyengar,
1993).

B.KS. Iyengar, founder of the Iyengar School of yoga, is widely recognized as
among the most revered teachers of yoga (Feuerstein, 1998, 276). He ﬁrst came to
America in the 19605, and is largely responsible for its early start and popularity on the
West Coast. The hallmarks of Iyengar yoga are meticulous attention to the physical
details of the asanas (the physical postures) and the processes of pranayama (techniques
for breath control); use of various props, such as wooden blocks and cloth straps, to
enable beginning students to develop proper alignment despite insufﬁcient ﬂexibility,
strength, or stamina; an invitation to all interested in yoga to participate; rigorous

protocols for introducing new material to students (e.g., not teaching pranayama until

students have developed a solid asana practice); and an often controversial attention to

the importance of the physical body in spiritual practice (Ruiz, 2001 ).

FROM THE CORE TO THE PERIPHERY: YOGA ONTOLOGY

Yoga philosophy conceives of the cosmos as arising in a well-deﬁned process
from a fundamental split between purusa, unchanging energy, and prala'ti, ﬂuctuating
matter. This dichotomy, deceptively similar to Platonic and Cartesian dualisms, separates
the realm of the soul or Spirit“, purusa, ﬁom the material realm. The latter, pralcrti, or
Nature, includes principles of both physics (e. g., physical properties and processes) and
metaphysics (e.g., mind and consciousness). Purusa consists of the spirit or soul, either
in the universal Brahman or the individual atman. This purusa is the core of the cosmos
and of the individual; it is the animating principle, that towards which the sadhaka strives
through the practice of yoga and, as such, is understood to be the true Self. Purusa
remains single, indivisible and constant, while prab'ti proceeds through a complex
process of evolution that produces complexity out of simplicity. The material realm
arises in a layered evolution, an unfolding from subtle and undifferentiated basic forms to
a gross and complex assortments of discrete elements. This unfolding occurs along a
progression identiﬁed by discrete and identiﬁable stages. An onion serves as a helpful
metaphor, with purusa at the core and successive layers ofprakrti forming around it,
such that each layer presents a distinct whole that envelops and obﬁrscates, but does not

nullify or alter lower layers.

 

8 I follow Iyengar in capitalizing a few words, notably “Self” (discussed above), “Spirit”, “Nature”, and
“Brahman”. Iyengar capitalizes both “Sprit” and “Nature” but neither purusa nor prakrti, and I do not
know why. The capitalization of “Brahman” follows, I infer, ﬁom the use of that name to refer to a divine
entity, God. “Arman” receives not capitalization in regular use.

The relationship between Brahman and atman presents a puzzle. How can
something that remains single, indivisible, and constant be at the same time Brahman and
the substance of the atman that is at the core of every individual? How can something
that is indivisible be divided? One possible solution may be that the puzzle results from
an error in perspective: when we see many, individual atmans, we participate in the basic
fallacy of citta vrtti, the false identiﬁcation of the prakrti self with the true, purusa Self.
An illustration may prove helpful: imagine a bright light inside a dark box with many tiny
holes puncturing its sides. From the outside, the viewer sees many individual points of
light. The apparent individuality of each light results from the obstruction between the
viewer and the source of the light. Perhaps the many atman seem individualized from the
perspective of the individual, whose consciousness is enmeshed in the particularity of the
cosmos. Brahman may not separate out into inﬁnite specks of atman, but one may call
atman that tiny glimmer of Brahman that one perceives when gazing deeply within.

Evolution, in the context of yoga philosophy, is not understood to be the process
of natural selection. Yogic evolution refers to the process of unfolding ﬁom basic
properties described in the development of the four stages of the cosmos; the
characteristics of this process are transitions ﬁ'om simplicity to complexity, generality to
speciﬁcity, and subtle to gross matter. Evolution’s opposite is not devolution, but
involution, the process of reducing complexity and dissolving the distinctions that deﬁne
dichotomies in pursuit of unity. The former largely informs the cosmology. The method,

or practice, of yoga, is addressed below in the section concerning the journey from the

periphery to core.

The unfolding evolution of the cosmos consists entirely of the unfolding of
prakrti, in four stages: Alinga, “unmarked”; Linga, “mark ”; Avisesa, “universal” or
“ncumonal”; and Visesa, “speciﬁc” or “phenomenal” (see Appendix 1, Table 1). Each
marks a separate ontological level; the features that obtain in visesa are absent in avisesa,
and so on. The potential for each further complexity arises out of the initial dichotomy of
purusa and prakrti. These levels continually develop new, speciﬁc manifestations of
previous latencies without the loss of basic matter: “whatever comes into existence is not
a completely new production - out of nothing as it were — but rather the manifestation
(avirbhava) of latent possibilities. Furthermore, the disappearance of an existing object
does not mean its total annihilation but merely its becoming latent again (termed
tirobhava)” (Feuerstein, 1998, 242—3). Hence, the potential for an evolute (something
that appears as a result of evolution) that manifests in each stage is present in its
predecessors.

Alinga, the ﬁrst stage, consists of mula-prakrti, or “root nature”. It is pure
potential, completely undifferentiated and uniform. Only through intuition (a form of
knowledge deeper than that of the intellect and accessible only through profound
meditation) can one access this stage. The gunas, three basic constituents of prakrti,
come into being here. Guna, meaning “strand,” denotes “the irreducible ultimate ‘reals’
of the cosmos,” much as atomic structure denotes the irreducible ultimate ‘reals’ of the
physical cosmos” (Feuerstein, 1998, 12). The gunas are: sattva, illumination, which
gives rise to knowledge and wisdom; rajas, vibrancy, which leads to the capacity for
action; and tamas, inertia or darkness, which gives us the potential for lethargy,

resistance, and consistency. The varying natures of the gunas in subsequent stages make

10

potential the ﬂuctuating nature ofprakrti, thus the nature of the physical world as we
experience it. The gunas exist here in equilibrium, such that no differentiation ofprakrti
results.

Linga marks the origin of the phenomenal cosmos, that which can be sensed, but
not phenomenology, the perception thereof. In this stage arises Mahat, “cosmic
intelligence... the great principle, embodying a spontaneous motivating force in nature,
without subject or object, acting in both creation and dissolution” (Iyengar, 1993, 25).
This is the ﬁrst speciﬁc formation of prala'ti. The gunas (sattva, or illumination; rajas, or
vibrancy; and tamas, or inertia) fall out of balance, leading to the constantly shifting
mture ofprakrti. The particular nature of this imbalance determines the manifestation of
prakrti; the greater the rajas, for example, the more active the manifestation. The
complex array of possible interactions among the gunas would require a lengthy
discussion of little relevance to the current study9. It is also in Linga tlmt individual
consciousness, citta, ﬁrst arises. Citta, which receives greater attention below, is the ﬁrst
recognizable manifestation of individuality; its constituents provide the link between
purusa, the individual soul, and prakrti, the psychological and physical manifestation of
the individual.

In Avisesa, the immediate underpinnings of the perceivable universe evolve. This
stage is accessible by the intellect, but not the senses. The tanmatras, the “subtle
characteristics” of the senses emerge: prthvi, smell in earth; ap, taste in water; vayu, sight
or shape in ﬁre; and akasa, sound in ether. These characteristics resemble the atomic
structure of the elements: materially real, imperceptible, but intellectually identiﬁable

basic constituents of matter. Here, the constituents of citta - manas, mind; buddhi,

 

9 For those interested, see lyengar’s explication of chapter 2, pada 19 (Iyen gar, 1993, 126-128).

11

intelligence; and ahamkara, egol0 — emerge. These elements remain undistinguishable
and separate until the next and ﬁnal stage of evolution.

Visesa is the stage at which Nature (in the sense of the fully complex
manifestation of ﬂuctuating prakrti) comes fully into being. This level, in which we are
aware of our existence, is ﬁrlly accessible to the senses. Here, the individual elements of
citta differentiate, creating the internal tensions among these constituents — mind,
intellect, and self-conception — that lead to false Self-perception. Here also the 16
“principles of nature” emerge: the ﬁve elements (earth, water, ﬁre, air, and ether); the
ﬁve jnanendriyas, organs of perception (ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and skin); the ﬁve
karmendriyas, organs of action (arms, legs, mouth, generative and excretory organs); and
manas, mind.

The development of human beings follows the same evolutionary process as that
of the cosmos: increasingly complex, speciﬁc, and gross levels emerging consecutively
ﬁom more basic potential. The split of prakrti ﬁ'om purusa creates the potential for this
individuation. Individual evolution follows a pattern of developing consecutive levels
that host the emergence of increasingly speciﬁc potentials coming to ﬁ'uition in layers
consecutively removed ﬁrrther from the core. This process creates an illusory
identiﬁcation ofpurusa-Self with the prakrti-self, the root of suffering. The function of

yoga is to undo that process.

 

'0 This is not the Freudian understanding of Ego. It is perhaps unfortunate that scholars of yoga have
chosen to translate ahamkara in this way, for the meaning is more clear in the other expression of “‘1’-
principle,” or basic understanding of self as an individual entity. While “ego” means “I” in Latin, the
terms seems to have taken on additional meaning due to the English translation of Freud’s work.

12

FROM THE PERIPHERY TOWARDS THE CORE: YOGA METHODOLOGY

The methodology of yoga guides the individual development of the sadhaka
towards Self-realization, an involution from the periphery to the core. Iyengar’s
description of this process is very complex, mapping the development along many
channels (see Table 2 in Appendix 1). The features measured by these channels often
overlap, while the boundaries deﬁning transitions between stages therein are often
staggered; the overlapping and staggering results in a conﬁrsing panoply, a result in part
of the great cultural and chronological gap separating the context of the Yoga Sutras from
Iyengar’s explanation and my reading of both. However, the broad patterns of
development surface in three main categories: the structural description of human nature;
the eight yogic disciplines, or Astanga Yoga; and the development of the individual
sadhaka. Each of these categories presents a distinct characterization of the same process
— the movement of awareness through and integration of the understanding and control of

the external, gross manifestations ofprakrti towards the core of root-matter and purusa.

The Structural View - The Kosas

The structural view of human nature is very similar to the cosmology described
above: a series of layers, or sheaths, that have evolved around a core ofpurusa. Each
sheath is the site of the unfolding of distinct evolutes that arise from the potential inherent
in previous layers. These sheaths, kosas, surround the core Self (see the ﬁrst colurrm
Table 2 in Appendix 1). As the sadhaka progresses towards Self-realization, his

awareness penetrates to increasingly “deeper” kosas, integrating increasingly subtle

13

elements of his natural existence in his awareness. Kosas are not the speciﬁc evolutes,
but the stage at which those evolutes become manifest; e.g., Annamaya Kosa is not the
structure of the body, but the stage of evolution in which physical structure is prominent.

The natural condition of hunnms prior to the journey towards Self-realization is to
be ﬁrmly absorbed with the material world of the physical body, activity, and sensory
stimuli. Here, the Self is fully engaged in the illusory attachment to prakrti; the soul
falsely apprehends itselfas identical to the evolutes that are associated with it. The
development of the sadhaka reverses the processes that led to this false belief. The
description of the kosas reverses the order of the evolution in cosmology, following
instead the order in which one encounters or becomes aware of them.

In the ﬁrst two sheaths, the anatomical and physiological dominate. Annamaya
Kosa contains the structural, physical body — the skeleton and basic tissues (e.g., organs
and connective ﬁbers). Pranayama Kosa consists of the physiological processes, most
notably breathing and the movement of energy throughout the physical form. (Prana
means both “breath” and “vital energy”) Together, these sheaths deﬁne the gross body,
or the full physical manifestation of the individual. That yoga philosophy conceives of
the structures and processes as linked but distinct demonstrates the importance of the
development of both awareness and control of the body, and of different forms of control:
the sadhaka learns “to know the body well and to distinguish between motion and action:
motion excites the mind while action absorbs it” (Iyengar, 1993, 29).

Manomaya and Vijnanamaya Kosa, stages of the “subtle body,” contain the
mental evolutes. The functions of the senses and the mind — the tanmatras and manas —

arise in the ﬁrst; the ego and intelligence — ahamkara and buddhi - arise in the second.

14

The ﬁrst gives rise to the capacity for emotional experiences; the second enables
reasoning. Manas, ahamkara, and buddhi are the constituents of citta. Manas, the outer
covering of ahamkara and buddhi, provides the capacity for information to travel
between the consciousness and the body and the senses. Manas is “the eleventh sense,”
the only element of an individual that can access both the external - prakrti and its
evolutes — and the internal - citta and atman. Manas conveys information between
physical body and citta. Mind is understood to be entirely distinct ﬁ'om the Self. Mind
functions both as an implement for developing greater discrimination and clarity of
apprehension as well as a potential source of distraction — the stimulation of the mind is
the source of citta vrttis, disturbances of the consciousness.

The ﬁfth sheath, Anandamaya Kosa, “blissful sheath,” is the “causal body” that
provides the capacity for discrimination. It receives very little description either in the
Yoga Sutras or Iyengar’s exposition. Discrimination (viveka) is the perception of vrttis as
they are: the false understandings and thoughts resulting from the inﬂuence of the gross
world on the sense, hence the mind, and hence the consciousness. The extent to which
one can discriminate vrttis is another channel for measuring the progress of the sadhaka —
the greater the capacity to discriminate, the nearer the awareness to the Self. At the stage
of complete development, viveka is the true perception of the distinction bean purusa
and prakrti.

Citta and Arman — consciousness and Self— form the core of the individual. The
Yoga Sutras and Iyengar’s exposition are ambiguous on the question of whether one
ought to consider them to be individual and separate sheaths, or the constituents of the

core, surrounded by the sheaths. In some instances, Iyengar numbers the kosas at ﬁve

15

(corresponding to the ﬁve elements, Iyengar 1993, 12, 51) and, in others, at seven
(including citta and atman, 100, 141). This conﬁrsion marks the general problem of
accounting for the dualistic relationship ofpurusa and prakrti in the form of Self and
individual, reminiscent of the basic trouble with Cartesian dualism. How does one
account for a causal relationship that cuts across the boundary between the realms of
Spirit and Nature? Neither Patanjali nor Iyengar offer a clear solution to this dilemma.
This solution lies at the end of the journey towards Self-realization; the answer may be
accessible only through direct experience of the soul without awareness of the elements
ofprakrti that attach themselves thereto, which is the deﬁnition of samadhi. This
resolution is the ultimate purpose and end of yoga. As I have not had that direct
experience, this issue necessarily remains unresolved here.

These sheaths form the context of the sadhaka ’s journey within. The question
remains: what moves through these sheaths?

Citta is the basic element of the individual, the least evolved element ofprakrti
that can be understood as individuated. It is distinct from the Self, atman. At its base, it
is the potential for individual identity and the reﬂection of the total awareness and
experience of the individual. Citta takes on discemable characteristics in the particular
manifestations of its constituents - manas, buddhi, and ahamkara, or mind, intelligence
(intellect), and ego (sense of self). Manas is the outer layer of the consciousness, the
least subtle of the constituents, and serves as the portal through which external stimuli
(via the organs of perception and motion) enter the consciousness. The lower one’s skill
in ﬁltering these stimuli (discrimination), or the weaker one’s Self-awareness, the greater

the inﬂuence ﬂuctuations have on one’s consciousness (citta vrtti). Buddhi is the

16

individual manifestation of the universal intelligence, Mahat, which is identiﬁed with and
serves the individual. This intelligence in its pure form provides the capacity for reason
and discrimination. Ahamkara, the basic conception of selfas individual, binds the
consciousness to the mind — it is that element of the citta that provides identity as an
individual and with the mind — and thus completes the continuum from gross body to
soul.

What of the relationship between mind and brain or, more broadly, mind and
body? Manas is ontologically and methodologically distinct ﬁom and intricately related
to the body, but the terms of this connection are not entirely clear. Consider the
following:

It shouldbeunderstoodtlmtthebrainisapartofthemind. Assuch, it

functions as the mind’s instrument of action. The brain is part of the

organic structure of the central nervous system that is enclosed in the

cranium. It makes mental activity possrble. It controls and coordirmtes

mental and physical activities. When the brain is trained to be consciously

quiet, the cognitive faculty comes into its own, mking possible, through

the intelligence, apprehension of the mind’s various facets. Clarity of

intelligence lifts the veil of obscurity and encourages quiet receptivity in

the ego as well as in the consciousness, diffusing their energies evenly

throughout the physical, physiological, mental, intellectual and spiritual

sheaths of the soul (Iyengar, 1996, 13).

The relevant issues here are complicated: at this stage, it should sufﬁce to posit that mind
and body are both evolutes ofprakrti and thus differ in ontological origin ﬁ'om the Self,
they manifest at different stages of evolution; they share a particularly intricate, mutually
eﬂective and causal relationship in which events in each can produce reactions in the
other.

The self that moves through these sheaths and integrates the complex of citta-

ahamkara-manas is asmita, which has different meanings that connote a subtle and

17

remarkably ﬂexible concept of selfas a reﬂection of atman. Asmita can mean both “sell”
in the sense described here, and “ego,” in the sense of a misconception of the self:

In the temples of India, we see a base idoL an idol of stone that is
permanently ﬁxed. This represents the soul (atman). There is also a
bronze idol, which is considered to be the icon of the base idol, and is
taken out of the temple in procession as its representative, the individual
self.

Asmita ’s existence at an empirical level has no absolute moral
value, as it is in an unsullied state. It takes its colour from the level of
development of the individual practitioner (sadhaka). This, ‘I-
consciousness’ in its grossest form may manifest as pride or egoisrn, but in
its subtlest form, it is the innermost being, nearest the atman (Iyengar,
1993,11)

The development of the sadhaka correlates to the development of the relationship
between asmita and the kosas - the more ﬁrlly asmita is enmeshed with gross nature, the
less developed the seeker. As the seeker progresses, asmita disentangles ﬁ'om prakrti
and moves nearer to the core, thus reﬂecting more closely the atman, the process

necessarily integrating more elements of deeper sheaths into the understanding of self.

The Eight Disciplines of Astanga Yoga

Astanga yoga, the eight disciplines or eightfold path of yoga, is the list of
practices that form the complete practice of yo ga. These practices enable the sadhaka to
develop the skills necessary for Self-realization.

The yogic disciplines are yama (restraint) and niyama (practice or
observance). These disciplines channel the energies of the organs of
action and the senses of perception in the right direction. Asana (posture)
results in balance, stillness of mind, and power to penetrate the
intelligence. Pranayama (control of energy through restraint of the
breath) and pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) help the sadhaka to
explore his hidden facets, and enable him to penetrate the core of his
being. Dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (total

18

absorption) are the fulﬁllment of yogic discipline, the essence or natural

constituents of yoga. They develop when the other ﬁve disciplines have

been mastered (Iyengar, 1993, 29-30).

Each discipline cultivates a particular skill to aid the sadhaka on the path towards the
Self, whether by limiting the causes of citta vrtti or by increasing the depth of the
perception within. While the seeker pursues each discipline on its own in the order listed,
and while the skills learned are distinct, there are important relationships among the
disciplines. Capacity in one may lead to an afﬁnity for another — as with the yamas and
niyamas — or may be necessary in order to begin to learn a later discipline - as asana is
for pranayama. The order of the disciplines largely reﬂects the periphery-to-core
ordering of the kosas — the ﬁrst stages address more external and peripheral concerns then
moving consecutively towards the core; however, each discipline is added to rather than
eclipsing its predecessors, remaining an important element of the work for the sadhaka
throughout the journey towards Self.

Yamas and Niyamas, the ﬁrst stages of the yoga practice, are moral codes of
restrictions and Observances that assist the seeker in cultivating an appropriate attitude for
the spiritual practice of yoga. The yamas are ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmcarya, and
aparigraha, or non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence or chastity, and non-
possessiveness. The niyamas are sauca, santosa, tapas, svadhya, and Isvara pranidhana,
or cleanliness, contentment, fervor, study of scriptures and of Self, and surrender of Self
to God. Each individual guide provides an important foundation for the journey to the
Self, each providing a basic tool necessary for the journey. These guides are neither
elements of abstract morality, nor arbitrary rules to follow; yoga philosophy holds that

the yamas and niyamas have the practical result of reducing the distractions that lead to

19

citta vrttis. They also have a cumulative effect: “the Observances of yama brings about
niyama, and the practice of niyama disciplines one to follow the principles ofyama”
(Iyengar, 1993, 31). The yamas and niyamas reduce the causes of the suffering, the
klesas, or aﬂlictions: avidya, asmital 1, raga, dvesa, and abhinivesa, or ignorance, egoism,
attachment, aversion, and clinging to life. Yamas and niyamas must be maintained
through the duration of the journey to Self-realization, even should the sadhaka realize
the goal. Even the ﬁrlly realized adept, who has achieved samadhi and witnessed the

Self, can fall back into the suffering of Self-misidentiﬁcation if he fails to adhere to these
injunctions.

Asana, or “posture,” is the most physical discipline ofAstanga Yoga. It is the
practice of assuming physical positions to develop ﬂexibility and stamina so that the
sadhaka may sit still for meditation. This discipline is the subject of a great amount of
detailed extrapolation. TO begin, there is a broad distinction that applies to all asanas:

Asana has two facets, pose and repose. Pose is the artistic assumption of a

position. ‘Reposing in the pose’ means ﬁnding the perfection of a pose

and maintaining it, reﬂecting in it with penetration of the intelligence and

with dedication (Iyengar, 1993, 31).

This distinction reﬂects the yogic distinction between action and motion, mentioned
above in the discussion of annamaya and pranamaya kosas on pages 13-14. More
speciﬁcally, there are hundreds of individual asanas, and hundreds of ways to combine
them, such as particular orders of postures (often called sequences) and theories
concerning how one ought to assume or move through postures. Asana also “forces us to

live intensely in the present moment,” without attention to concerns about the past or the

future, which

 

” This is another use of the word asmita, here referring to the capacity of self-understanding to limit the
true Self-understanding, along the lines of citta vrttis.

20

has both a strengthening and a cleansing effect: physically in the rejection
of disease, mentally by ridding our mind of stagnated thoughts or
prejudices; and, on a very high level where perception and action become
one, by teaching us instantaneous correct action; that is to say, action
which does not produce reaction. On that level we may also expunge the
residual effects of past action (Iyengar, 1993, 32).

The dedicated practice of asana also prepares the body for pranayama.

Asana is both a stage in the process and a microcosm reﬂecting the whole of
yoga. Asana trains the seeker to penetrate the full physical body with the mind and the
intellect, thus beginning the process of involution, in which the distinctions among
particular evolutes dissolve as the speciﬁcs resolve into the more basic, latent potential.
This penetration limits the body’s capacity to create citta vrtti by developing control over
some of the root causes of these ﬂuctuations. As a microcosm to the macrocosm, asana
can demonstrate the full process of individual development.

Asanas act as bridges to unite the body with the mind, and the mind with

the soul. They lift the sadhaka from the clutches of afflictions and lead

him towards disciplined ﬁ'eedom. They help to transform him by guiding

his consciousness away from the body towards an awareness of the soul

(Iyengar, 1993, 32).

The aim [of asana] is to recreate the process of human evolution in our

own internal environment. We thereby have the opportunity to observe

and comprehend our own evolution to the point at which conﬂict is

resolved and there is only oneness, as when the river meets the sea. This

creative struggle is experienced in the headstand: as we challenge

ourselves to improve the position, fear of falling acts to inhibit us. If we

are rash, we fall, if tirnorous, we make no progress. But if the interplay of

the two forces is observed, analysed and controlled, we can achieve

perfection (Iyengar, 1993, 12).

Pranayama is the controlled movement of breath and “vital energy”. The Yoga
Sutras indicate a speciﬁc relationship between asana and pranayama: stability in asana
practice must precede beginning pranayama study. Iyengar explains that pranayama

entails very detailed control of the muscles surrounding the lungs and the spine:

21

“Inverted postures, forward bends, backbends - the whole range of postures — are
therefore essential if we are to derive from pranayama the maximum beneﬁt with the
minimum strain” (Iyengar, 1993, 33). The individual practices of this discipline are
varied and precise, involving very speciﬁc control of the muscles and structures of the
respiratory system, similar to the physical speciﬁcity of asana practice. Pranayama
divides breathing into three portions: inhalation, exhalation, and cessations between the
two. Iyengar calls inhalation “internal pranayama, ” and describes it as rising ﬁom the
core towards the surface. When the in-breath is completed, “the purusa embraces

pra ”’. Exhalation reverses this order, moving ﬁ'om the external towards the core: “It is
involution, or the descending order ofprakrti to meet its Lord, purusa” (Iyengar, 1993,
165).

Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses from the external world, and marks the
ﬁrst step in controlling the senses and the mind. Rather than a simple closing down of
the avenues through which stimuli come into awareness (e.g., closing one’s eyes), this
practice entails the development and exercise of control over the attention, the extent to
which the citta draws directly and without discrimination ﬁ‘om the senses. Practicing
pratyahara, one need not close one’s eyes to avoid seeing, if one’s visual attention is
turned inward. This practice effectively seals the citta and its constituents off ﬁ'om the
external, cosmological, and material realm. It enables the practitioner to feel
indiﬂ‘erently towards the material realm, thus limiting afflictions (klesas) and the sway of
the sensory stimuli. To this stage, yama, niyama, asana, and pranayama have prepared
the seeker to turn the attention, the light of the consciousness back onto the consciousness

and, ultimately, to the source, atman.

22

Through pratyahara, he develops willpower, detaches himself from the

organs of senses and acquires clarity of thought. This is the beginning of

culturing the brain. Once he has become indifferent to worldly matters, he

is ﬁt to proceed on the inner quest, enriching the mind through dharana

(Iyengar, 1993, 178).

This discipline is the last of the external aids of yoga and marks the beginning of the true
practice of yoga, citta vrtti nirodha, which occurs in the practice of dharana, dhyana, and
samadhi. The transition ﬁom pratyahara to the following practices marks the end of the
practices of yoga that Iyengar describes as varying individually to those that practitioners
experience universally (Iyengar, 1993, 173).

Dharana and Dhyana, or concentration and meditation are the stages of
controlling the mind and stilling the consciousness. Dharana is the practice of “ﬁxing
[the] consciousness on one point” by reducing and eliminating the interruptions of the
mind, whether the objects of those interruptions are external or internal. It is the
“sublimation of the mind” (Iyengar, 1993, 178). Dhyana is the “steady, continuous ﬂow
of attention directed towards some point,” or the application of the concentration of
dharana over an extended period of time. It is the “sublimation of the consciousness”
(Iyengar, 1993, 179).

Samadhi is clear perception and apprehension of the true Self. The cormnon
translation ofsamadhi is ecstasy; however, Eliade’s interpretation of the meaning as
“enstasy” seems closer to the point (Eliade, 1958, 77, Feuerstein, 1998, 3). “Ecstasy,”
with the preﬁx ec-, meaning “out, ” indicates a state (stasis) of standing outside of
oneself. Samadhi, as Eliade rightly indicates, is the terminus of the journey within, hence
his use of en-, meaning “in,” or standing inside oneself. Iyengar describes samadhi as the

level of meditation in which the object of meditation engulfs the meditator, who loses his

23

or her sense of self-awareness (Iyengar, 1993, 181).

The Development of the Sadhaka

The Yoga Sutras offer one elliptical phrase regarding the ordered development of
the sadhaka: “There are differences between those who are mild, average and keen in
their practices” (Iyengar, 1993, 76). However, from the earliest commentary, sages have
offered a more detailed overview of the progression of the sadhaka. This process
consists of four stages (Appendix 1, Table 2, “Level of Sadhaka”), which describe the
characteristics of the practitioner and the extent to which the mind, consciousness, and
awareness can penetrate towards the core Self. A brief overview of these stages follows.

The mrdu, or mild practitioner, is aware only of the mechanical nature of the
physical realm and, thus, only of his existence at the level of the structural, anatomical
body (annamaya kosa). The beginning student starts to develop an understanding of the
gross body through the behavioral and physical disciplines of yoga, yama, niyama, and
asana. As yet unaware of the nature of the relationship among Self, consciousness, and
mind, the sadhaka ’s effort focuses on the development of the capacity to disengage from
external sensory stimuli.

As the seeker moves into the madhya, or medium, stage of development, his
attention shifts to the more subtle level of the gross body as the attention and
consciousness can now penetrate to the physiological processes underlying the
anatomical structures. This correlates with the pranamaya kosa, the second sheath, and

the movement of energy, as developed in the practice ofpranayama. In addition, and in

24

part as a result, he begins to develop pratyahara, the capacity to withdraw the senses.
This capacity enables the awareness to begin to move towards the internal forms Of the
individual, the subtle body.

Having developed the capacity to observe and calm ﬁrst the structures and then
the processes of the gross body, the adhimatra or intense sadhaka turns his attention
towards the constituents of the citta-consciousness, manas, buddhi, and ahamkara. With
the practice of dharana comes the consistently deepening awareness of manomaya kosa,
the sensual and emotional mind, vijnanamaya kosa, the psychological and intellectual
mind, to the underlying anandamaya kosa, the blissful body, and ﬁnally to the buddhi,
the underlying intelligence of consciousness. By developing the capacity of
concentration, the seeker subjugates desires and limits the brain ﬁmctions, which make
possible mental quietness. Once the seeker can ease the previously tumultuous activity of
the mind, he can ﬁnally see past the gross and subtle bodies to the underlying, core
constituent of the individual, citta itself.

The ﬁnal stage, of dhyana and samadhi, is the realm of the adhimatraman, or
supremely intense practitioner. Here, one witnesses the root of the citta, the stage at
which the constituents (manas, buddhi, and ahamkara) are balanced in an integrated,
non-individuated whole. Citta vrttis nirodha — the sadhaka quiets the ﬂuctuations of the
mind. One would experience ﬂeeting moments of enlightenment, but the work is, as yet,
incomplete. Only through sustained, even heightened, eﬂbrts of renunciation and
practice can one develop the capacity to see past the consciousness to the depth of the

Self, the atman. This is samadhi — enstasy (or ecstasy) and enlightenment.

25

CHAPTER 2: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY

THEORY

The teaching and practice of yoga in the modern, American context differ greatly
from those of the classical era, as described by the writings of Patanjali. While a ﬁrll
description of these differences lies far beyond the scope of this work, some become clear
in a brief comparison of the teaching and learning of yoga in the very different contexts
of classical, Indian yoga and modern, American yoga. Then:

If a man wanted to study yoga, he would ﬁnd a guru. If the guru chose,
the man would be permitted to tend the yard. If he proved reliable and
showed promise, he would later gain the privileges of gardening and
hanging laundry. If he persisted, he would eventually be invited to
clean the interior of the home, perhaps eventually coming to cook for
the guru and his disciples. Eventually, he might come to sit with the
guru and students and to begin the education in earnest. The tasks in
the preceding period of time served to emphasize the yamas and
niyamas and to allow the guru to observe the character of the would-be
student (Palkhivala, Aadil, 2003, personal conversation).

Now:

A person, more often a woman than a man”, interested in yoga looks
through a phone book or magazine, searches the intemet, or asks a
ﬁiend for a listing Of a yoga teacher or yoga center. She might call the
teacher before coming to her ﬁrst class or may attend unannounced.
The class consists of a centering activity, likely sitting quietly, an asana
practice, and concludes with savasana, or corpse pose. After class, the
student pays the teacher for the class, or perhaps signs up for a
sequence of classes spanning several weeks. '3

These dramatically different scenarios demonstrate some of the more prominent

differences in the social and pedagogical contexts of and characteristics of teaching of

 

'2 The individual, personal pronoun used to refer to students will shift from masculine to feminine to reﬂect
the significant majority of women participating in yoga either as teachers or students at the center.
Similarly, “teacher” replaces reference to “guru” and “student” replaces “sadhaka”.

‘3 I wrote this from personal observations of several new participants in yoga classes at the yoga center. I
formatted as though it were a quote (indented and single spaced) to match the format of the Palkhivala
quote.

26

yoga. Other signiﬁcant differences arise in the reasons that people begin to study yoga
and the relationship between yoga and the dominant culture.

One basic shift that may underlie many of these changes is the secularization of
yoga. The practice of asanas was, in the classical system, a signiﬁcant step in a full and
complex, spiritual - if not religious — philosophical way of life for few dedicated and
carefully selected men; asana is now an activity open to all who choose and can afford to
pursue it. The ethical, philosophical, and spiritual limbs of Astanga Yoga have largely
disappeared, save where they surface through the microcosrnic representation of asana
and in advanced training outside of the Monday night class. People of many faiths,
including major religions, eclectic “New Age Spirituality,” and atheism, attend yoga
classes and ﬁnd God, Goddess, Divinity, Self, or self through the same practice; this
diversity is apparent even in the limited sample of this project. One incurs no religious or
spiritual obligation simply by attending class and practicing asana.

The social context of yoga teaching has changed entirely. In classical teaching,
students lived with their gurus and participated in an exchange based entirely on service.
Current teaching at the yoga center, representative in this respect of modern, American
yoga, occurs in weekly gatherings and is conducted through ﬁnancial exchange.

Teachers today have much less opportunity to observe their students than did the co-
resident gurus. Similarly, today’s student has limited access to the knowledge and
guidance of the teacher. Should a student want to pursue an interest not covered in class,
she must do so independently. To this end, signiﬁcant collections of books covering a
seemingly endless array of topics related to yoga are available at bookstores and libraries,

as are popular-press magazines — The Yoga Journal, Yoga International, and Yoga — and

27

a massive number of websites. 1"

The extent of knowledge accompanying the development of the physical practices
for current students contradicts the order prescribed in the Yoga Sutras, suggesting a
signiﬁcant change in the structure of the practice. Current students can develop quite
advanced asana practices and remain largely or entirely ignorant of the other seven limbs
ofAstanga Yoga. More broadly, students can do yoga without understanding the role of
the physical practice, and the reasons for doing it, in the context of the system of practical
philosophy. This difference reﬂects the relationship between yoga and the dominant
culture. While yoga stands as its own system of philosophy and practice, it arose in a
predominantly Hindu cultural context, the inﬂuence of which is clearly expressed in
some key elements of yoga philosophy, such as the division between spiritual energy —
purusa - and the material cosmos — prakrti, the confusion of the latter for the former as
the source of suffering, and contemplation of the former alone as the route to liberation
ﬁom that suffering (Chatterjee, 1948, 299). These ideas would have been more readily
accessible to people socialized in that context, those culturally literate in their own
society’s dominant ideas. In modern America, these ideas challenge or have little
relevance to the dominant cultural context.

The practice of yoga presents present-day American practitioners the opportunity
to engage in a form of introspection and of inquiry into the nature of the self that may be
quite different from those otherwise available to them. In my experience, this

opportunity provided a surprising experience that had a profound affect on my self-

 

" As examples of this commercial proliferation, a book search on Amazon.com (December, 2003) with
subject, “yoga,” results in 2305 listings; amazon.com has a separate web page, called “Yoga Comer,” and
titles include perhaps the high-water mark for the universal accessibility of yoga in America today, a ﬁg
for Dummies video.

28

conception. This experience, which occurred early in my ﬁrst regular study of yoga,
posed questions that have led directly to formulation of the central question of this
research project.

Just after entering savasana, closing my eyelids rolling my eyes up to
concentrate my attention inward, I felt a tremendous tug inside my head
from deep inside my body. It was not painful, and I remain unsure of the
physical nature of the experience. The metaphysical experience, however,
was profound. I was suddenly, starkly, sensually aware of the interior of
my body. I found myself traveling down my throat and into my stomach.
I saw and felt the soft, orangish-pinkish—brownish lining of the dark,
cavernous pouch and heard the soft rush of ﬂuids. I wandered around the
interior of my physical form with a light and gliding motion and a
wondering gaze.

I was no longer looking out on the world through my eyes.

Returning to normal awareness, I found myself disoriented, confused,
and delighted. I knew that the physically reductive view of humanity was
missing an absolutely essential element, that the body and the spirit
coexist in a mutually necessary, symbiotic relationship. The form is not
simply some shell that houses a Cartesian mind, nor is mind some
biological property arising out of neurophysiological complexity. We are
more than we appear. I understood then, as physical certainty, anirnisrn,
higher selves, ﬁee will, right action, the role of bodily health 1n spiritual
practice, and the desire of the Creator for human beings simply to be
happy. These bits of information welled up from inside me, ﬁ'om my own
relationship with my inner self, from my intuition. I brieﬂy tasted the
complete epistemic privilege of knowledge one generates within one’s
own experiences.

Most of this knowledge and understanding, sadly, has faded. What
remains, indelibly imprinted, is a certainty that neither the dualism of
Descartes nor the physical reductionism of modern science offer a
satisfactory explanation for my experience that evening. I did not
experience a stark division between body and mind, but an intricate
relationship, less a dichotomy than a cline, an intermingling of two entities
such that the centers of each are visibly distinct, yet no clear boundary
separates them as they gradually fade into each other. Nor was what I saw
mere visual hallucination, but a uniﬁed, complex, multi-sensory,
experience.

This experience inspired some questions in the moment that have informed my
thoughts and study for the years since. One of those questions, regarding the nature of

the self, has led almost directly to the central question of this research project: how does

29

the practice of yoga affect the individual’s understanding of self? And a corollary
follows: How does this effect compare to what one would expect ﬁ'om the philosophy of

yoga?

METHODOLOGY

Given that the yoga class offered the only consistent experience across the group
as well as my only opportunity to observe and interact with them, I did participant
Observation in the class and designed the interviews to reﬂect the class. An initial interest
in phenomenology led me to curiosity about consistencies and changes across the
students’ experiences of the asanas, themselves. In addition, yoga phiIOSOphy is very
practical, emphasizing the importance of development through the practice of doing
yoga. The practice of doing asana is a meaningful, spiritual endeavor on its own, as well
as a stage in a complex process.

I cannot argue that the experience and understandings related by students in the
context of asana practice reﬂect the experiences of asana practice alone. It is simply
impossible to discount or to control for and keep separate those thoughts and feelings that
have roots in other realms of experience, such as study of philosophy, pranayama,
meditation, childhood experiences, social encounters, and life in general. For some
students and teachers, asana is of secondary, even tertiary importance behind other
practices, such as pranayama and meditation. Most of these more advanced practitioners
have encountered these other elements of yoga in this modern context and that after

prolonged asana training. So while this is not a pure study of the impact of asana on

30

self-conception, it maintains an asana-centric viewpoint and, more importantly, a valid

point of comparison between classical and current yoga practices.

Participant Observation

I started this research as a project for ANP 829: Research Methods in Cultural
Anthropology (Spring, 2002). The primry data sources for the ethnographic portion of
this project are ﬁeld notes ﬁom observation and participatory observation and interviews
with students and the teacher from the yoga class. I collected ﬁeld notes from observing
the class as a non-participant (sitting in the back of the room and jotting in a small
notebook) every Monday from January 28 until March 25 of 2002. From April, 2002 to
December, 2003, I attended the class as a participant observer. 1 took “head notes”
during the class and wrote them down following the class. These notes are of varying
depth, breadth, and utility, as my capacities of observation and recollection improved at a
ﬁ'ustratingly slow pace.

I initially approached Ruth, the teacher and owner of the yoga center, with a
request to do research at the center and in her class two weeks before I began. Ruth’s
agreement to allow me to do this research reﬂected both her openness and my personal
relationship with her. She and my wife, Julie Ann, had been good ﬁiends for several
years. Julie Ann has worked at the center, and served as informal assistant director, since
its beginning in 1995. Ruth was one of the ﬁrst people I met when I moved to town in
the fall of 1999, and has been a close ﬁ'iend, as well as yoga teacher, for the intervening

years.

31

I started collecting data by sitting quietly in the back of the room with a notebook
and pen. At the beginning of the ﬁrst two classes I attended, Ruth introduced me as
Chris, “Julie’s husband,” and explained that I was here to do some research for “medicine
or anthropology, or something”. At the time, I was not well known at the center, having
only intermittently attended classes. That I was Julie’s husband served me well, and
granted me a level of immediate acceptance among the students that I would not
otherwise have enjoyed. As Simon told me, “I knew you were Julie’s husband, and
anybody’s who’s with Julie is okay by me”.

After two months, I began to participate in the class as a student and an observer.
I still had my notebook and pen and jotted down short-had notes during the class and take
head notes. After class, I extrapolated these to more extensive ﬁeld notes. During this
time, I felt conﬂicted by dual roles of observer and student. The ﬁrst required me to pay
attention to details in my immediate environment; the latter required me to turn my
attention inward. My observation of other yoga students limited my experience as a yoga
student. I often felt anxiety that I was overly sacriﬁcing one for the other or doing neither
well. After roughly one year of participant observation, I set the pen and notebook aside
and came to the class as a student only. I enjoyed this transition very much, and found
that my awareness of my experiences in yoga signiﬁcantly heightened in the period
following my active ﬁeldwork. Perhaps due only to the end of this continual
“distraction” from my introspection, I ﬁnd my capacity to “look within” improved

signiﬁcantly.

32

Surveys

I used a simple survey (see Appendix B) to collect basic, mainly demographic
information about the students in the class. I learned ﬁom this survey that no student had
started yoga to develop a deeper understanding of the self, that all had done so either to
deal with a physical illness or injury or to learn relaxation skills. The survey also showed
that students had practiced yoga for an average of six years, ranging ﬁ'om three to ten
years. I also used the survey as an initial screen to determine which students might be

willing to participate in an interview.

Interviews

Before starting to conduct interviews with students, I recorded two open-ended
conversations with Ruth. I had written some questions and notes prior to the interview,
but used those notes only as a guide during the conversation. She told me how she ﬁrst
encountered yoga, how she decided to study it with the intention of teaching, and how
she came to open this yoga center. Her ﬁrst experience with yoga came following an
injury. While performing as a theatrical dancer, she fell and sustained a serious neck
injury. Frustrated with the lirnitated success of initial medical interventions, which only
subdued the pain, she turned to yoga at the suggestion of her dance instructor. It worked.
She quickly grew enchanted with yoga and, when she learned of other students training
as yoga instructors, leapt at the opportunity. She Opened a yoga center in Santa Cruz,

California (which remains open at the time of this writing) and, after moving to Lansing,

33

Michigan, opened this, her second yoga center.

I used convenience sampling, “a gloriﬁed term for grabbing whoever will stand
still long enough to answer your questions” (Bernard, 2002, 184) to select students for
interviews. After class, I stood near the doorway and asked students whether they would
be willing to participate in an interview. I did this three times. During this time, 14
students expressed their willingness and I recorded their names and contact information.

I did not record the names of those who chose not to participate in the interview, but
recall that they indicated busy schedules as their reasons. Of the 14, I was able to
schedule interviews with 10; I missed the remaining four because of continual schedule
conﬂicts. I recruited three additional interviews through similar, although more casual,
requests following classes as my research progressed. I attempted to capture a range of
ages and also to interview all of the men (three) who attended class.

The students who agreed to be interviewed did so enthusiastically. Many
students, engaged in academic professions, saw the interview as an opportunity to
participate in the research process from the unusual position (for them) of participants or
subjects. All who agreed described the interview, or agreed with others’ observations,
that the interview should provide an opportunity to discuss something of importance to an
attentive audience.

The semi-formal interview had three sections (see Appendix 2 for an interview
questionnaire). First, questions addressed personal history and previous experience with
yoga (e.g., why the student started and how they came to participate in this class). The
second portion of the interview consisted of a yoga practice that reﬂects the general tenor

of the yoga class. I chose postures that were common to most, in most if not all classes,

34

and presented them in the order in which they normally appeared. Beginning with
centering, one of the two most consistent portions of the class (the other is savasana), I
led students through the practice using instructions Ruth had given for those postures
during my observation of the class. The interview followed the pattern of the class with a
series of seated postures before beginning the practice in earnest with downward dog,
standing postures, and inversions. It ended with savasana, corpse posture, as every class
did. During most postures, I included comments from Ruth that I had noted while
observing the class. Some of these comments were direct quotations or paraphrases of
common comments (e.g., “Find the stillness; check the mechanical part and then sink into
the stillness”). Others were less commonplace; for example, I only noted one occasion
on which she said, “Dump the contents of your brain onto the ﬂoor”; and students often
remarked with surprise that Ruth would say such a thing. Some of Ruth’s comments
preceded the posture (e.g., “Before going up into headstand, organize your mind”) while
others attended it. Before beginning the asana portion of the interview, I told the student
that they could respond to the prompt at their comfort, whether that meant speaking while
in the posture or after coming out of it. I asked the students to share their own
understanding of the comment and how it felt to attempt to put the instruction into action.
I explained that I wanted them to relate their own experience, rather than what they
thought Ruth meant"

The interview was not an authentic representation of the experience of an asana

practice. As one student pointed out, “I mean, this is a bit of an artiﬁcial [setting]”. The

 

'5 As seems obvious now, these were not entirely separate. The attempt to understand the intention of the
instructor in the instruction was part of the individual experience of attempting to follow that instruction.
Students made this clear in a number of ways, sometimes by explicit reference to what they thought Ruth

meant.

35

many distinctions between the interview and the home practice included my presence, an
individual who both led the practice (i.e., naming the postures) and asked questions about
the experience of doing yoga. If a student practices at home, she often does so alone. In
the rare instances of students who practiced at home with somebody else (three out of
twenty), both practiced and, if one asked questions, they were of a very different nature
(e.g., concerning physical alignment: “Are my hips level?”). Students, even those who
practice with others, limited conversation or avoided it altogether. For those who
practiced in company, the conversation stopped after centering.

The interview resembled the class more closely than it did home practice. Both
interview and class consisted of asana practice in a social setting and a structured order
of events. However, the interview occurred with only two people present rather than 20-
25. In the interview, interaction was largely interrogative, in contrast to the congenial,
social scene of the class. Students participated in the interview with the understanding
that they should not only perform the asanas and note the experience as a personal guide
for deepening their personal practice, but also pay explicit attention to how the asanas
caused them to feel and to report those experiences - a very unusual experience, save,
perhaps, for some who have pursued yoga teacher training. The observer effect clearly
had an inﬂuence on the process and outcome of these interviews (see Conclusion, page
103).

I attempted to mitigate this inﬂuence by participating in the asana practice with
the students. At the beginning of a posture, I stated both the Sanskrit and the English
names, as was the practice in the class. Then I enter the posture with the student and read

the prompts while in the posture. At times, this presented an awkward, even comical

36

situation. In several interviews, my reading of a few prompts were mufﬂed by the
exertion of a posture. That we both participated in the postures comforted the students
during the interview, particularly as they came to understand that proﬁciency in postures
was not an important consideration for the interview. Many students spoke openly and
without prompting of a sense of self-consciousness or discomfort concerning their asana
practice. This ﬁagile sense of self-consciousness could have easily led to an awkward
experience of the interview, if they had felt vulnerable due to my observation. My
participation eased most of this potential concern and, in most cases, assisted students in
sinking more fully into the experience of their asana practice.

The interview clearly presented an alternative, perhaps strange, setting for asana
practice. I would stretch the truth, perhaps to the point of breaking, if I claimed that my
ﬁndings reﬂected consistent and common aspects of yoga practice even for this limited
sample. However, no yoga practice is predictable and no two practices are the same.
Most teachers regularly remind students that bodies change daily and that minds do so
even more. That these interviews are distinct thus neither invalidate nor impugn the
resulting data.

The relationships among my reading of the yoga philosophy, my observations of
the class, these interviews, and my own experiences present a broad body of data from
which to draw general conclusions about the relationship between yoga and
comprehension of self for these students who incorporate the practice of yoga into

complex and often very busy lives.

37

Analysis of the Data

The analysis has been a lengthy and complicated process. I began to analyze
interview transcripts and ﬁeld notes with an inductive approach, following the approach
of grounded theory (Bernard, 2002, 463). I developed themes from the transcripts,
collected excerpts from transcripts in appropriate categories, and developed models based
on the relationships among these excerpts and themes. The themes that arose in initial
analyses were: mind, body, breath, going within, energy, progression, and relationship.
These themes arose because students repeatedly commented on them with emphasis: they
came to be of importance to me because they seemed important to the other students.

As my understanding of these themes increased, I developed further reﬁnements,
dividing each major category into more and more subcategories. These divisions seemed
to offer the capacity to make very precise measurements of discrete elements within the
broader and vaguer themes. For example, I thought it proﬁtable to divide “Going
Within” into “Decreased External Awareness” and “Increased Internal Awareness”. I
continued to specify terms, introducing further divisions of these sub-themes. The ﬁrm]
version of this coding scheme (Appendix 2) proved very complicated; it took great effort
to explain the meaning of and distinction between sub-sub-themes. Finally, when
attempting to review data collected under this rubric, I found this extent of speciﬁcation
not useful. As a result, I set this scoring template aside and began again with a different

theoretical outlook.

38

The addition of the study'6 of the Yoga Sutras introduced a more concrete basis
for comparison. At the center of the complex system of Yoga are the paired processes of
evolution and involution, the latter speaking directly to the central question of my
research I attempted to incorporate some relevant and important elements of yoga
philosophy into my next round of analysis, particularly those elements that relate to the
Self (atman) and its relationship to its manifestations (e.g., citta — consciousness, manas
— mind, the senses, and the body). With lists of central ideas from yoga philosophy and
of early inductive themes, I began the ﬁnal round of analysis. This stage consisted of
another close reading of all interviews, noting quotes relevant to yoga as a practice of
developing self-awareness. I marked the start and end of each quote by hand on printed
copies of the interviews and gave it a reference number. I kept supplemental notes, in
which I commented on each quote’s meaning, importance, or relevance to other ideas. I
then tabulated these quotes and comments. (A subset of these data is in Appendix 2).
This master table contains entries for 422 quotes.

To prepare for analysis of the interview transcripts, I sorted the quotes by their
source, to which the interview question each statement was a response. For each section
of narrative (organized by the interview structure, in turn based on the class chronology),
I separated out relevant comments and printed a separate table of only those quotes and
comments. For example, I excerpted all quotes ﬁ‘om responses to the question, asked
during centering, “What does going within mean to you?” and used those quotes,
primarily, to draft the narratives. I often found individual quotes, pulled out of context,

confusing, even inscrutable. In order to understand the comments more fully, I read

 

'6 At the outset of my research, I had not intended to incorporate the philosophical work. I introduced this
aspect of the project in response to some difﬁcult but helpful questions from a professor.

39

interview text preceding and following the quote and sometimes used word searches or
recollections to ﬁnd other portions of the interview that addressed the same or similar

ideas.

The Narratives

In the following chapter, I present my analysis of the interviews and participant
observation through a description of one session of the yoga class. While I never
observed the exact sequence of events presented here, I assembled the following narrative
to describe and emphasize elements prominent in most classes. I use brief vignettes to
portray the thoughts and experiences of the students. I developed these descriptive
portraits primarily ﬁom the transcriptions of the interviews, with support ﬁ'om participant
observation, and my lengthy familiarity with the individual students. For each moment
of the class (e.g., arriving, centering, and individual postures), I used relevant quotations
as primary material from which to write the narrative; given the complexity of these
experiences, I also found it necessary to rely on the context of these comments, ﬁom both
the interview and my familiarity with the individual students. For example, in describing
Tori’s experience in centering, I used comments from the centering portion of the
interview as well as later portions, follow-up questions, and my experiences of having
watched her seem very peaceful during class and admit to having turbulent mental
activity. These portraits are ﬁctional: while based on interviews and observations, I
paraphrase heavily, use comments out of the sequence in which they appeared, and

include my own observations without distinction in each vignette. These ethnographic

40

ﬁctions allow me to communicate, more intimately and subtly, the nature of these
experiences and the meanings students attribute to them in the complex context of lived
human experience. This format also allows room for my non-narrative, critical ‘Voice”
that speaks between narratives and discusses the students’ experiences in reference to
yoga philosophy. Given my particular gifts and limitations as a writer, I found (through
much trial and slightly less error) that the use of these portraits enabled me to express,
simply and clearly, some subtle and important points about why these people do yoga and
how they understand their experiences in the practice. I often rely on the narratives to
emphasize important points while still in the narrative voice of the student without further
extrapolation in my more analytical voice.

The instructor, Ruth, is almost entirely absent ﬁom the narrative description of the
class. She appears only in a brief description of her and in the frequent inclusion of her
instructions as prompts (both in the interview and to mark the distinct sections of the
narrative). This absence resulted from a choice to focus on the experiences of the
students rather than one not to describe Ruth, who is the central ﬁgure of both the social
context of the class and my relationship with these students. My interest, in the present
work, is to attempt to understand the impact of yoga practice on self-perception of these
students. Ruth does not participate in the group activity of the class from the same
perspective; rather than coming to class to gain experiences and to learn about her self (or
her Self), she comes to class as our teacher, our guide. Hers are the responsibilities to
provide us the tools necessary to look within and to ensure that we do so safely, in terms
of our physical, emotional, and spiritual health Ruth’s understandings of self and Self

have changed dramatically as a result of her study in yoga. During a number of

41

conversations, I have learned much ﬁ'om her about yoga and Self, among many other
subjects (including marriage, children, and cooking).

This exclusion of Ruth ﬁ'om the narratives is perhaps the greatest distinction
between the following narrative analysis and what it is like for us, the students, to attend
yoga class. She is the central ﬁgure of the class, due not only to her role but also to the
particularly ﬂamboyant and ebullient way in which she ﬁlls it. Her instructions are only
one way in which she inﬂuences our perceptions and experiences. She models yoga as a
way of life, directly and indirectly. She offers direct guidance when she advises certain
types of practices for certain times of day and certain seasons of the year, recommends
dietary and hygiene practices based on yogic principles, and oﬂ°ers general guidance
about how to live in a way that reﬂects central yogic principles, such as the yamas and
niyamas. Her less direct guidance takes the form of descriptions of her own experiences
with postures when teaching them, veiled hints at broader truths in instructions (e.g.,
“Find that deep understanding of yourself”), the décor of the center (signs guiding
visitors to be respectful of how their use of the bathroom may affect that of he or she who
will next use the same), and through the public performance of her life as a yoga teacher
in the broader community.

Ruth’s inﬂuence has signiﬁcantly impacted the experience of yoga for many of
the students who participated in my research My research tools — the observations and
interviews — proved insufﬁcient in distinguishing Ruth’s inﬂuence from other inﬂuences,
such other teachers, study of yogic literature, and direct experience in asana or other
practices. Nonetheless, I found a rich body of data in the students’ descriptions of their

experiences in the postures as well as their responses to Ruth’s instructions. In the

42

following chapter, I attempt to present a cogent analysis of these experiences as
experiences, acknowledging that the signiﬁcance of the inﬂuences (Ruth, other teachers,
philosophical study) remains vague.

Individual experiences both vary and share signiﬁcant commonalities. The bulk
of the narratives and discussion reﬂect that latter, with prominent exceptions noted. The
potential resulting sense of uniformity is an artifact of the presentation. The many strong
commonalities that run through most accounts of asana experience are of greater interest
to me than are the distinctions, because it interests me that a group of people should have
such broadly comparable experiences of this practice. The distinctions that I consider the
most important and interesting, and to which I devote more detailed attention, arise in the

interpretation of the nature of the self at the moment of deepest experience thereof, in

savasana, the ﬁnal posture.

43

CHAPTER 3: NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF THE YOGA CLASS

BEFORE CLASS

The yoga center is housed inside a small and nondescript brick building near a
large university in Lansing, Michigan. The entrance to the building is on a large and
busy road, with constant and occasionally heavy trafﬁc. The parking lot and building are
set back ﬁ'om the road, behind other large buildings, so that the center and its immediate
vicinity are buﬂ‘ered from the road by some distance. Nothing on the exterior of the
small, oﬂice complex style building indicates that something very different ﬁ'om small
ofﬁces lies within.

The center entryway is a mix of activity and calm. The activity results ﬁ'om the
mixing of groups, as ten to thirty people arrive while similar groups depart, often crossing
each others’ paths while removing or donning shoes, jackets, and other acoutrements of
daily life. Shelves for shoes, hooks for coats, and benches for sitting and removing both
line the narrow, ‘L’-shaped hallway. The calm atmosphere results in part from the
trappings of the center: a small, electric fountain provides a light sound of spilling water,
posters present artful depictions of yoga postures, and a general softness of color all
contribute to a muted and easy ambience. It has been my experience, shared by many
other students, that the calming of the center exceeds the combined contribution of these
physical elements. Whether due to their patterns of thought and behavior or to some
inherent character of the center (or both), the students all ﬁnd the entrance welcoming

and soothing.

The class takes place Monday evenings ﬁom 5:30 PM. until 7:30 P.M.. Twenty
to twenty-ﬁve students gradually come into the Center for Yoga, Movement and
Massage. One student is Hispanic, the rest Caucasian. Ages range from 19 (an
undergraduate student) to the mid-50$, with more towards the latter than the former. A
few students attend the local university; one young woman works at a local health food
store; and three have retired or live on their spouse’s income. The rest of the class
consists of business owners, professors, lawyers, scientists, physicians, and other people

with similarly advanced and well-paid professions. Most lead very busy lives.

Students Interviewed

Anna, whose eastern European accent ﬂavors her speech, is a warm and ﬁiendly
woman. She and her husband, Simon, both work as lawyers for the state. They are both
quite weary with their employment and see this class as an escape from and a balm for
the business of their days. Simon, a tall and lanky man, is exceedingly ﬁiendly. He
warmly greets just about everybody he encounters in the center. He is always among the
ﬁrst to arrive. He and Anna have incorporated yoga ftrlly into their lives, viewing it as of
equal importance as eating or sleeping (as he has told me on more than one occasion).
They have turned their living room into a permanent yoga room, furniture shoved to the
side, mats and props spread out, ready for use, and a tapestry hung in front of the
television. Both have read a great deal of yoga philosophy, including practical asana

guides and the philosophical commentaries on the nature of Self.

45

Jackie, short and muscular, is among the more physically gifted students of asana.
She is quiet and reserved among people she does not know, but becomes warm and chatty
after initial acquaintance. She leaves her children, a young girl and twin babies, with a
baby-sitter for the two hours of the class, making her time at the center all the more
precious and relaxing. During the time of the study, she was working only part-tirne and,
with the ﬁnancial support of her parents, getting back on her feet after her divorce.

Tori, a teacher and student, spends all of her time in the center in what seems to
be a state of constant pleasure, as evidenced by her constant smile and warm greeting.
Whether she is sinking deeply into a posture or ﬁnding a physical limit she would rather
bypass, she responds with a soft-voiced comment of “well, that’s yoga,” and a gentle
laugh. She seems unirnpeachably happy. She holds an appointment as a professor at the
university.

Kathy, who also teaches at the center, has made a serious study of the full system
of yoga practice and philosophy for a number of years. Her presence, ﬁom the muscular
body, remarkable spill of frizzy, black hair, and a combination of self-conﬁdence and
willingness to speak her mind makes her quite noticeable in nearly any setting. She
attributes her retirement from a tenure-track position at another university to her
experience as a student and teacher of yo ga.

Jerry is a quiet and affable fellow. His conservative appearance of short hair and
plain clothes made his history with eastern philosophy surprising to me. He has
investigated philosophies and meditative practices of eastern origin for many years, yoga
the most recent and long-lasting among these. He is the executive director of a state-

wide, non-proﬁt agency.

46

Blaire, a petite woman with short, sandy blond hair and a very quick smile, also
teaches at the center. Her manner in the center seems to reﬂect a quiet sense of
conﬁdence and case. She occasionally substitutes as a teacher for this class. She has
recently retired from a research position in the university in order to pursue the study and
teaching of yoga.

Sarah is a very tall woman whose physical presence demands attention. Despite
her imposing physical presence, she is very quiet and unobtrusive. She started to study
yoga just after a transition to a stressful new position at the university. Since then, she
has retired ﬁom the position, a decision that she attributes to her experience in yoga, and
is training to teach yoga.

Amy, a tall, slender, and athletic woman, started practicing at the same time that
she begin to explore trauma from her early childhood. While she began yoga for physical
reasons and therapy for emotional reasons, the two have become deeply intertwined in
her experience. She has a long-standing interest in what she calls “Western Buddhism”.
During the time of my study, she was a graduate student in a scientiﬁc ﬁeld and taught at
a community college.

Liz, a full-ﬁgured woman with a slight touch of southern accent, seems so
naturally ﬂexible as to do the postures without effort. Her bright smile and ready laugh
were an enjoyment for the time that she attended the class, before she moved away.
During the time of my study, she did not have professional employment. She had
recently moved to Michigan ﬁ'om outside of Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, and with

whom she would return to the south shortly after our interview.

47

Erin, a very slender, athletic woman, has an interesting and distinct history with
yoga. Her mother taught yoga professionally and exposed her to the practice in her early
years. During her early teens, she grew distant from her mother and grew to dislike the
manner of her mother’s presentation of yoga, which she described as “a great excuse to...
indulge herself and think that you’re doing something great for the universe”. She is now
quite skeptical of outward display of spirituality. She holds a tenure-track professorship
at the university.

Tammy, pregnant during most of the duration of this study, came to yoga through
dance, likely explaining the ease and grace with which she moved through postures. She
seemed shy when I ﬁrst met her, but soon showed herself to be ﬁiendly. During the time
of the study, she was a graduate student, doing research towards her dissertation in the
social sciences.

Sally is a short and quiet and shy woman. When she does speak, she often
comments about the physical difﬁculty of the postures and her struggles to do them. She
spends very little time in or around the center before or after class. She had no
professional employment during the time of my study. Her quiet, unobtrusive presence
makes her difﬁcult to notice, and thus to describe.

Ruth, in her early 40$, married with two young boys (who turned 7 and 10 during
this research), has been practicing yoga for 20 years and teaching for 18. She is short
(just over 5’ tall), slender, with a great shock of curly red-brown locks (reminiscent of the
mane of Bonnie Raitt). She is a remarkably popular yoga teacher in the Lansing area,
where she has taught for nine years. She teaches ﬁve classes each week, each ﬁlled with

20-30 students. For the bulk of her teaching in this area, she has focused almost entirely

48

on teaching the asana yoga; that is, she has concentrated on teaching how to enter and
hold physical postures. She expresses, in word and action, a great enthusiasm for
teaching yoga. Her manner is bubbly and excitatory, peppering classes with stories of her

children, little bits of song, and singsong versions of instructions.

GETTING THERE

*****17

Leaving her ofﬁce, Anna once again ignores the not-always friendly jests from
her colleagues about riding the bus. They don’t understand why anybody would choose
to ride public transportation when she could afford the luxury of a car. Ah, well, she’s
not trying to convince anybody of anything. She just wants to follow her own heart.

On the bus, Krishna Das sings to her through her headphones, drowning out the
noise of city and people, providing a precious buﬁ'er between the surrounding chaos and
the inner search for peace. It’s a long journey from here to there, and she hopes to make
it during class tonight. With the day’s work of intense mental activity, she needs all the
help she can get. It’s harder to let go of the thoughts than it is to relax the muscles, and
more important.

****¢

The faculty meeting is calm, thankfully, so Tori feels quite comfortable leaving at
her usual 5:05. The students and faculty have come to accept her regular Monday
absenteeism. She used to feel ﬁercely defensive about leaving so early. They remember.

She closes her eyes for a moment, and offers thanks for her newly developed sense of

 

'7 The ﬁve centered stars indicate a transition into, between, or out of narrative description.

49

equanirnity about leaving early for yoga class.

She hopes that the trafﬁc is light. With no big delays, she’ll get to the center early
enough to have about ﬁfteen minutes before class begins. It’s important to get to the
center before class so that she can begin to tell her brain that it’s okay to relax, that it
doesn’t need to be in charge.

*****

The other lawyers in his ofﬁce don’t call him “Mad Dog” any more; he’s lost that
courtroom ﬁre. He doesn’t miss it.

Simon dabs a bit of holy basil water on his neck and breathes deeply, beginning to
let go of the day’s mental exertion and tension as he walks to his car. He’s glad for the
short drive between his ofﬁce and the center, as he always gets there in time to set up
mats and blankets for Anna and himself. But Monday’s class starts at 5:30, which
doesn’t leave him enough time to stop at home, so he has to change out of his work
clothes at the center. That’s too bad; he’d much prefer to leave all work-associations,
physical and mental, behind before getting to the center. It’s hard enough to clear the shit
out of his head without bringing the smell of the ofﬁce into the center.

*****

I sit at my desk in the back room of my house. The pile of papers to one side and
stack of books to the other vie for my attention. There is always something else to read,
something else to write, something else to grade. I am distracted and a bit worried about
the upcoming class. I know that I am not as advanced a student ofasana as are most of
the other students. So I fret, try to spend some time before leaving calming myself down,

and lid some more.

50

And I wait for my wife, who will drive me to the center. I like to get there before
5:15, before most of the other students have arrived. Today, like most days, I am lucky
to get out of the house at 5:15. On the way to the center, I am ﬁazzled, equally glad to be
going and regretting the loss of several hours of what could be valuable time for other

work.

*****

From the outset, these students describe mental stillness as one of main reasons
they come to class and do yoga. It is of such signiﬁcance and so difﬁcult to attain that
they begin to work towards it even before they leave their workplace for the center. We"
agree that we rarely reach this stillness during the centering period at the beginning of
class, during which we sit silently, with our eyes closed, chant brieﬂy, and do some
preliminary postures. Sometimes we reach this state later in the class, perhaps during a
posture with which we’re particularly comfortable. Our best opportunity for stillness
arrives in savasana, the least physically demanding posture. It isn’t guaranteed,
however; we go through some classes without achieving the quiet mind, which allows
perception of what lies beneath the conscious comprehension of the self.

We mark the yoga class as a special time of the week, consciously identifying the
two hours we spend in the class as qualitatively distinct ﬁom the rest of the week, as

evidenced by comment and action: students comment on their commitment to class and

 

1’ Through the analysis, I use both the third person plural, “they,” and ﬁrst person plural, “we,” when
offering general observations. This switch reﬂects my relationship to the class as both researcher and
practitioner. When my ﬁndings reﬂect my own experiences, I use “we”. I use “they” in describing
ﬁndings that do not reﬂect my own experiences, or when I attempt to set aside my opinions while analyzing
questions of mind and self.

51

how they shape their very busy schedules to accommodate the class. During the opening
of every class, Ruth says, “this is your sacred time that you have set aside for yoga” (or
something very similar).'9 This marking is reminiscent of Victor Turner’s description of
rituals as liminal (Turner, 1986).

The concept of liminality offers several ideas instructive to an understanding of
the ritualistic nature of this class. As mentioned above, the participants understand the
time and place as separate from “normal” life. In this distinct setting, the class is a form
of cultural performance, in which participants both repeat known patterns of behavior,
such as the seated “centering,” sounding the 0m, and ending class with savasana, or the
corpse posture; and improvise others, such as the varying series of postures and foci that
deﬁne each class. In this performance, the teacher and students can act in conscious
criticism of elements of society, reshaping themselves and the manner of their
participation in the social order. In a departure ﬁom Turner’s description of liminality,
the participants in this ritual attempt to restructure not the social order, but the personal
and internal order. The focus here is explicitly on the individual’s internal relationship
with his or her self, a reordering among mind, body, and spirit. Returning to Turner, the
practice is reﬂexive: “The ‘self’ is split up the middle — it is something that one both is
and that one sees and, furthermore, acts upon as though it were another” (Turner, 1986,
25)”.

At its core, the practical philosophy of yoga aims to guide the practitioner towards

a deep experience and understanding of his or her self or Self. This term, “self,” is

 

'9 The meaning of “sacred” varies across students, as discussed under Centering, below (pages 66).

2° While Turner used the term to describe individual, rather than repeated practices, such as rites of passage
and pilgrimages, in which the liminal stage separates two socially deﬁned stages of life, the underlying
concept ﬁts neatly here.

52

problematic and quite complicated, as the earlier description of yoga philosophy
indicates. In its truest, most yogic sense, this self refers to atman, that the spark of
Brahman that lies at the ontological and methodological core of the person. Both “self’
and “Self” are complex, prismatic terms. A more conclusive discussion of these terms
and the meanings students attribute to these experiences follows in the discussion of the

ﬁnal posture, savasana (pages ).

ARRIVING

Before class, students take off their shoes in the doorway and hang up their coats.
Some students come dressed in their yoga-clothes, others (the majority) use one of the
Center’s two bathrooms to change. Their yoga clothes are typically tights or shorts and t-
shirts or tank tops. Conversations begin and grow, as does the number of students. If a
class is ending in the studio during this time, then students tend towards caution and
softness of voice. Gradually, the students ﬁlter into the large studio and begin to prepare
for class.

Students gather the yoga mats and props21 and move to their spot for the night.
For some students, this spot remains the same week after week, while others move from
place to place. Once in the room and settled in place, students begin stretching in
preparation for class. Many students repeat a fairly consistent pattern of stretches. For
others, the stretching seems something of a second thought, as they engage in

conversation with other students. Many of these people clearly like each other and have

 

2‘ Props are straps, blocks (wooden or foam), bolsters (cushions), and other implements used to support
students working towards the ﬂexibility, strength, and stamina necessary to enter and maintain postures.

53

developed close ﬁiendships over a number of years. Some students rarely interact with
any other students, whether out of preference for silence, social discomfort, or simple

reticence.

*****

The studio is dark and quiet. Only Simon, Tori, and Tammy are here at 5:15,
ﬁfteen minutes before class usually begins. Simon is at his usual spot, at the front of the
room, next to Ruth’s spot at the front of the class, and the doorway to the prop room just
beyond. He relishes the opportunity to say hello to everybody as they go in to grab their
traits, blankets, and props, even though that’s not why he chooses to sit there. He
indulges in a sense of community, of participating in this group endeavor so far off the
current of the mainstream. It’s pleasant to share company with like-minded people, so
different ﬁom the people in the environment he just left. He sits, stretches his hips, and
waits for the rest of the class to come in.

taste

Tammy has set up her spot, directly in ﬁ'ont of Ruth, as always, but is currently
stretching out at the rope wall. Her pregnant belly protrudes out and down as she extends
into downward dog, adho mukha savasana, hands and feet on the ﬂoor, hips up and
pulled back by the ropes attached to the wall, head hanging down.

*****
Tori stays close to the ﬂoor. She does some seated and kneeling postures to begin

bringing her attention in to her body. It’s a struggle, pulling her conscious thoughts away

54

from the electron diagrams and chemical equations, but mostly from the challenges of
working in a department dominated, apparently, by the pursuit of ego and self-
advancement. It might be nice to do some standing postures, but she knows that she
would just, ssshwip”, leave the present moment for memories or worries. So she stays on
the ground.

*****

By the time Anna walks in, most of the class has arrived. This is the drawback of
her decision to take the bus. She walks swiftly through the studio, greeting people,
wishing to go change now. But, glad to see her ﬁiend, she stops to embrace Tammy.
Then she goes to the prop room, where Simon has put their bag, and gets her yoga
clothes. After she’s changed out of work and into yoga clothes, she comes out to sit next
to Simon, and to begin doing some simple stretches to get her body ready for yoga.
Sitting all day has left her hips and hamstrings tight, and the writing and typing has led to
tight shoulders. She hopes that Ruth will be a little late, as she often is. That’ll leave her
enough time to lie on her back with her legs splayed out on the wall, getting rid of the
junk in her head.

***¢*

I’ve just now switched to a new spot in the room. I’d grown quite comfortable in
my spot at the back of the room, near my former spot of observation and note taking. But
it’s time for me to take a brave plunge further into the class, to set up where people can

see me, as well.

 

22 This “sshwip” was a sound-effect that she made during the interview. It communicated so clearly a sense
of sudden departure that I chose to include it here.

55

I didn’t get here as early as I’d like. The pursuit of stillness is such a challenging
task, particularly as I try to follow not only my own work in yoga but also the actions and
interactions of my teacher and fellow students. I lie on my back, knees in the air, and
gradually rock my legs back and forth, swiveling at the hips. My mind races to my
research, to my class work, to my wife, to the next band practice, to my body and the to
other students in the room. I’m not good enough; I don’t belong. I don’t practice
enough, hell, can’t even stand still in parsvotrikonasana. I take a deep breath in and let it
out, close my eyes, and try to follow the breath only the breath.

*****

The period before the class serves two primary purposes for the students:
preparation and socializing. For some, these activities are mutually exclusive, for others
complementary.

We use the time between our arrival and the ofﬁcial beginning of the class to
prepare physically and/or mentally for the class proper. Most students do some light
stretches or postures to prepare the body for the strenuous class most of us expect to
follow. For some, the primary focus for this time is on loosening stiff joints and muscles.
For others, the primary struggle is to begin quieting the mind. For many, these two
struggles are not distinct. The tightness in the body reﬂects tightness of mind, and vice
versa.

Many of the students engage in conversation while stretching. These interactions
begin with fairly standard greetings and inquiries as to well being often heard at an ofﬁce

or a grocery store. Discussions vary ﬁom there.

56

Most intentionally and explicitly mark this time as the start of the journey within,
the search for stillness. During this time, we act independently, for the most part, many
of us improvising our speciﬁc actions in pursuit of the larger goal — stillness of the mind.
Tori draws on her knowledge of postures to pick ones that address how she feels each
day. She may do a posture that addresses a particular physical limitation or tension; she
may follow a more intuitive, internal sense of working towards stillness to guide the

choice. She always stays close to the ﬂoor, but varies the postures.

*****

Ruth enters with the class nearly ﬁrll, only the physicians yet to arrive, talking in
her singsong way about the changing season, her boys, and her new sweater, and walks
through the studio to change in the bathroom. By the time she sits at the head of the
class, the pre-class chatter has dwindled to silence, and we all sit quietly, legs folded,
backs straight, awaiting her instruction to close our eyes, sit straight and tall, and go
within.

This period marks the ﬁrm] transition between the profane world of and the sacred
world of the yoga class. The ritual takes hold at Ruth’s instruction, and the class proper

begins.

CENTERING

*****

Ruth speaks ﬁ'om her seat at the front of the room:

57

Okay, come forward to sitting. Sit straight and tall.

Exhaling, close your eyes from top to bottom.
Feel your sit-bones, spread your weight evenly over them.
Draw the tongue off of the roof of your mouth.
Let go of the worries of the day, of the tasks that await you on the outside.
Inhaling, lift your spine from the top of your head
Exhaling, lift your spine from the base. And look within.
Find that deep understanding of yourself
Remember, the frontal brain is soft and receding.

This is your sacred time for practicing yoga. 2’

*****

With these words, Ruth marks the beginning of class-time. We all sit quietly in
virasana, knees folded and feet tucked alongside hips, some on blocks, and others on the
ﬂoor as bodies allow. Conversations have stopped, and silence ﬁlls the studio. Students
attempt to follow Ruth’s instruction, or “invitation,” as Simon phrases it, to “ﬁnd that
deep understanding of yourself.”

Asanas act as bridges to unite the body with the mind, and the mind with

the soul. They lift the sadhaka from the clutches of afﬂictions and lead

him towards disciplined freedom. They help to transform him by guiding

his consciousness away from the body towards an awareness of the soul
(Iyengar, 1993, 32, cited above, page 21).

*##$*
Tori sits still on her soft block. To the observer, she seems quiet, still, peaceﬁrl.
She is not. Her mind races, as it does most of the day when it is not immediately
occupied with the intricate details of analytical chemistry. She knows the feeling of
stillness, knows it well enough to note its absence. She wrests her attention ﬁom
thoughts outside of the room, outside of yoga, by taking a deep inhalation and following

it with her awareness within.

 

2’ I present all instructions and comments made by Ruth in this format: centered and italicized.

58

Seeking silence, she struggles with her brain, which races, unwilling to relinquish
its normal control. She has spent nearly her whole life living in her head. She has some
memory of dancing as a child, not as a mental but a physical experience. But that was a
long time ago. Today, she is on the other side of decades of intellectual, analytical life
experience. Her brain is primary and enjoys its place of authority, determining what will
happen and when.

Yoga, as she experiences poignantly during centering, is one of the few
opportunities she has to allow her brain to take a back seat to other experiences and forms
of action, primarily the emotional and the physical. But the process is not easy, and
success rarely immediate. So she sits, trying to bring her attention into her body and
heart-center", by focusing her mind on her breath

She wonders how on earth she will do it tonight.

****¢

The noises of the room ﬁll Anna’s awareness, dragging on her awareness as she
tries to pull it inward. Another student breathes deeply and loudly. A car passes, bass-
line thumping. She thinks about the food she’ll buy after class. She struggles to bring
her attention within, but feels pulled outward by all these distractions. There is so much
stimulus going on in the room now, so much ﬁom the day just past, and so much in time
yet to come.

When Ruth says, “This is your sacred time for practicing yoga,” Anna remembers
that this is not like the rest of her day. She’s rushed to get here, to the center, in order not

to miss any part of the class, but she reminds herselfthat she need rush no longer.

 

2" The heart-center, although physically located, is important in its function as the seat of emotions and love
in the individual. It is one of the nodes of the chakra system.

59

One deep breath allows her to begin to let go of the rush, the sense of needing to
hurry. Another breath brings to her an awareness of how hard and tight her mind is from
the intense cerebral work of the day. Her ﬁrst stop on the journey inward is the brain, a
far cry ﬁom the experience of a deep understanding of self. She begins to soften her
brain by turning her attention away from it.

She begins to let go.

*****

Simon turns his awareness inside his head, into his brain. He feels the tautness of
his overly exercised mind. It’s tight like a muscle that has been overworked, strained and
knotty. He rolls his eyes up, visualizes his third eye” turning inward, and intentionally
eases the thoughts to loosen the tightness. He reminds himself, cued by Ruth’s comment
about the frontal brain, that this is not a time to think his way through things, but to watch

himself and to watch his body, to do these things without analyzing them.

#**#*

Before the intensely detailed physical practice of the class, the teacher and
students explicitly mark the activity as an opportunity to work towards a deep
understanding of the self. As is clear from the narratives above, students broadly share
agree that the goal of this work is to ﬁnd the self that lies beneath the distractions
resulting from the mental business of daily lives, such as concern for events past, worry

about those pending, or general preoccupation. Even though an experience of deep

 

2’ The third eye is an element of the chakra system of the energetic body, thought to serve as a portal for
non-physical energy to pass into the individual from the outside world, the universe. It often is described in
mystical or magical terms, but for Simon it seems a more practical, physical element.

60

understanding is uncommon during centering, students explicitly emphasize its
importance as a primary goal of their yoga practice. For most, such moments of
awareness are reached only through the signiﬁcant effort of the asana practice.

The central question, both of this research and of yoga, remains: what is this self
that is to be deeply understood? And in what ways are students’ conceptions of it similar
and different? While a complete answer to this question is not (now nor may ever be)
accessible, I can begin to describe some of its general characteristics, beginning with
terminology.

Descriptions of this deep understanding vary: Simon calls it the “big self’; Amy
describes an “energy body”; Liz uses the term given in the instruction, the “true self’.
Several students (Tori, Jerry, Blaire, Sarah, and Erin) describe this self in terms ofhow
they experience rather than giving it a name; they describe the experience of ﬁnding “the
deep understanding of yourself’ as moving attention within and ﬁnding a sense of
stillness or quiet. Only Kathy, a student and teacher, uses the Sanskrit term, atman,
which is the personiﬁed distillation of Brahman that serves as the most divine aspect of
an individual human being. Jackie refers to it is the Spirit of God within herself, drawing
on her Christian belief, but uses a Hindu story of a god ﬁnding the best place to hide from
man inside man’s own heart.

The character of this deep self is, at this early stage of the class, experienced as
memory ﬁom previous practice, meditation, or other moments of clarity, than as a current
experience. For example, as is clear from Tori’s comment above, she knows what that
understanding feels like and is keenly aware of its absence. Anna describes it primarily

as a journey within, lessened awareness of the external and increased awareness of the

61

internal. Simon describes it in philosophical terms, as an opportunity to encounter “the
big self, not the little self, not the ego.” Rarely does a direct experience of the deep self
occur this early in the class. Of the twenty to twenty-ﬁve students who attend class, only
a few have regular, or even occasional experience of the deep understanding of self
during centering, which reminds students that the purpose of the class is to work towards

this understanding.

External to Internal

I have come to understand the students’ descriptions of their experience of this
“journey within” as a clinez‘5 rather than as a dichotomy, that positively values the internal
and negatively values the external. The elements of this cline include sensory stimuli and
thought processes. Noises and lights in the room and around the center lie towards the
external, and physical experiences of the body lie towards the internal. Anna, for
example, hears the noises of trafﬁc passing. Thoughts from the day past or towards time
after class (perhaps even later in the class) lie towards the external in contrast to quiet,
non-narrative awareness of physical and emotional states in the particular moment.

When Jerry’s mind wanders to errands he needs to run, he reminds himself, “Okay, we’re
doing yoga now,” and brings his attention back to his body.

The movement from external to internal parallels the process of involution and the

increasing depth of the penetration of awareness described in yoga philosophy (pages 13-

 

2" A dichotomy indicates a clean division between mutually exclusive groups, resembling a mathematical
clarity of less than or greater than zero. Clines are ﬁrzzier, describing a gradual progression from one side
to another, like black fading to white along a gray scale. Clines allow for indeterminacy, and thus more
closely reﬂect lived, human experience.

62

18). The deﬁning boundary is neither the structural boundary of the yoga center nor the
physical body of the individual practitioner. It is not clear that there is any such clear
boundary. The positively valued end of this spectrum is the deep experience of self,
however conceived or termed. Emotional, physical, and intuitive experiences seem to
deﬁne its immediate correlates.

Students differ in both their attention to different variables and their emphasis on
the cline. Anna repeatedly refers to the transition from the external to the internal,
describing many experiences of the class in what she calls “the category of letting the
outside world go. .. and focusing inward rather than outward.” She associates this
process with the experience of stillness, which comes to the fore during the discussion of
savasana, at the end of the class. Tori holds to a similar understanding; however she puts
more emphasis on the signiﬁcance of the analytical mind, the thinker of narrative
thoughts of the not-here and not-now. The subjects of thought, such as departmental
politics, ongoing research, and the general business of mundane life, that lead to
distraction along the journey within are external. Simon places far less explicit emphasis
on this transition at this stage of the class, stating only that he visualizes turning his third
eye inwards.

Students generally agree that the cline of external-intemal maps directly (or very
closely) onto the cline of mind and body, such that moving ﬁ'om mind to body is

equivalent to going within.

63

Mind and Body

As may already be apparent, centering provides students an opportunity to break
from an implicit, experiential dichotomy between mind and body. The dichotomy arises
as an absence of awareness of the physical through consistent attention to the mental.
Most students are engaged in professions that involve mental rather than physical work
and identify themselves as intellectuals. The dichotomy between mind and body has
arisen by default, as those who have led mind-centered lives came to neglect their
physical existence. The body has become secondary and fallen out of regular conscious
awareness”. Tori says of the relationship between mind and body, “this has been one of
the foremost battles of my life. I would say, before yoga... 90%, 95% of my life was
lived ﬁom the neck up”. Sarah recalled an experience from her teacher training”, which,
she said, “really reinforced to me how much my head ends up controlling my life”. Yoga
offers an opportunity to turn attention from the mental to the physical Through this
experience, students gradually come to ﬁnd a relationship best described as a unity, or a
very close interweaving.

The axis of mind and body maps along a spectrum of tightness to softness. Just as
asana is a process of developing physical ﬂexibility ﬁom tightness, it also leads to a
mental softening. Ruth’s reminder that the “frontal brain is soft and receding” appears to

hit close to home for some students”, as they describe the experience of moving away

 

27 It is important to understand that this neglect of the physical does not refer to a neglect of physical health
such that bodies fell into disrepair; most student got enough exercise and ate well enough to maintain their
health.

2’ She had experienced some irregular heartbeat patterns, for which she received no reasonable explanation
from her health care providers. Her diagnosis, by a physician working at the center where she did her yoga
teacher training, concluded that most of her energy was in her neck and head, very little of it in the body.
2’ For others, this quote makes little sense. They do not rem ark on it and presume either that the actual

64

from mentally dominated experience into the yoga practice as a softening of the mind.
Tori “can consciously ask it [the brain] to sit back, soften, and let go to the experience
that will happen.” Simon hears Ruth’s comment as an invitation “to loosen the grip... of
the cerebral.” Anna describes the experience of letting go: “to ﬁrst get the focus away

from [the hardness of cerebral work] and then letting it soften.”

The Sacred and the Profane

The time and the place are special, both in and of themselves, and in their
distinction ﬁ'om the business of mundane, quotidian lives. The students each have
cormnitted the weekly time slot to the class, setting all other activities as secondary.
Ruth’s comment, “This is your sacred time for practicing yoga,” makes this separation
explicit. For most, this statement conﬁrms their perception of yoga class as a sacrosanct
time, during which they only attend the practical details of the asana practice and the
journey within.

While most students accept Ruth’s description of yoga class as sacred time, they
vary in their understanding the meaning of “sacred”. Some (Simon, Anna, Tori, Kathy,
Jackie, and Sarah) describe the Selfin religious terms comparable to the yogic conception
of Self as atman. Others accept the term, “sacred”, without the religious connotation.
For these students (Jerry, Amy, and Erin), the experience of removing attention ﬁom its

normal foci and drawing it within is a sacred act. Tammy described this understanding of

 

practice lies beyond their capacity or that Ruth used the ﬁ'ontal brain as a metaphor, which they do not
understand. Students occasionally ﬁnd Ruth’s instructions inscrutable. When this occurred during the
interview, the student would say that they do not understand the quote and make little other comment upon
it. It appears that students are accustomed to missing the meaning of instructions but not dwelling on that
lack of understanding.

65

self in purely secular terms, stating that the deep understanding of self is “too much for
me”. Sally, who repeatedly emphasizes her Christian belief, had a simple understanding
of this internal awareness: “I work more on just being calm and in the present more than
anything else”.

That students set other details of their lives aside means that the yoga class is
special, in the sense of Imique and separate from other times. Ruth’s use of the word
“sacred” implies an additional signiﬁcance”: the endeavor of yoga is predicated on a
journey towards Self and an identiﬁcation of that Self with the Divine, as suggested by
the purusa nature of atman. While a few students chafe at or ignore this term", most
acknowledge that in yoga class, and yoga practice more generally, one has an opportunity
to experience something of a wholly different ontological order than a deep but still
individually identiﬁable self, directly related to one’s psychological and social identity.

Mircea Eliade, an early 20th century scholar of religions”, described this
experience in this and other contexts. The sacred, as described by Eliade, lies wholly
outside of the profane world; it is something ‘ﬁrvholly other”. Eliade describes the role of
hierophany, “the act of manifestation of the sacred in some ordinary object” (Eliade,
1959, 12). This awareness of the wholly other ﬁindamentally differentiates an
individual’s ontology from that of one who has no such understanding. A religious
person understands the world to be porous, penetrable by the sacred, where a

nonreligious person sees a closed cosmos. Without such an experience, “desacralization

 

3° I understand this to be Ruth’s understanding from many conversations about yoga we have shared over
the past several years.

3 ' Tammy says that “But because I’m not a religious person, those words usually - I don’t connect to that
language...,” but agrees with the sentiment of yoga class as a special time.

’2 Eliade wrote a great deal about yoga, including ma: Immortality and Freedom (1958) and Patanjali and
19g; (1969).

66

pervades the entire experience of the nonreligious man. . . he ﬁnds it increasingly diﬂicult
to rediscover the existential dimensions of religious man” (Eliade, 1959, 13).

Here, it is necessary to descrrbe the relationship of the sacred and the profane to
the paired relationships of internal and external and mind and body, in terms of Eliade’s
division. These spectra map on to each other directly: the sacred is the conscious
relationship of the deep self (internal), the profane that which distracts us from that
awareness (external). Note that when the hierophany occurs within the individual, the
sacred manifests in the physical experience of the student. Applying Eliade’s
understanding to the experience of the yoga student, it follows that if some element of the
individual, some aspect of or part within the self, can manifest the sacred, then the
student encounters the possibility that he or she may be something more than a physical
being. The capacity to experience this internal hierophany can introduce a radical change
into the individual’s perception of the self”. Just as the tree or stone becomes special due
to its sacredness, so, too, must the individual. How does this juxtaposition of the wholly
other and the self affect those who encounter it? How do they understand it? Does it
shape their later experience and, if so, how?

Of interest here is whether this description applies to the experience of the
students, raising the interesting problem of whether yoga should be considered as a
religion, a spiritual practice, or a secular activity. I suggest that this determination
depends on individual choice and experience; students, of course, vary on their
interpretation of this issue, depending in part upon their personal history prior to
beginning to practice yoga and in part upon their experience of yoga. As with the terms

used to describe the deep understanding of self (above), the majority of students who

 

3’ It did so for me. Other students’ experiences have varied. See the discussion of savasana, pages 87-99.

67

participated in an interview used spiritual or religious terms to describe their experience
of yoga. Tammy and Erin", the most secularly inclined students, both used the word
“spiritual” to describe some aspect of their experience with yoga. Sally scrupulously
avoided all possible echoes of non-Christian religious origin, not participating in
sounding the 0m, chanting, or saying “Narnaste”. She still described the ﬁrnction of
yoga in religious terms: “if you clear your mind, you have an empty space and then God
can come in. I just have to make it’s my God”. While many different views of yoga as a
spiritual endeavor surface, the experience of looking deeply within intersects with each

student’s understanding of their own spirituality.

OM

Every class begins and ends with a group sounding of the syllable, 0m. Ruth
starts by inviting us, as we sit with our eyes closed, to bring our hands together at our
heart and to join her for three Oms. We each join our hands together, as though in prayer,
inhale, and listen for her to begin. The syllable sounds like a very drawn out “aum,”
lasting as long as each person’s breath, let out very slowly, allows. The class tends to
harmonize, so that the sound itselfis pleasant. Sounding an 0m requires a low but
constant vibration of the vocal chords, which, in contrast to the experience of chatter or

of silence, is noticeable. We feel as much as hear the 0m.

 

3‘ Tammy, who had a great deal of experience in dance, came to yoga with an understanding of physical
exercise as an important element of her self-awareness and incorporated yoga as a more detailed version of
the same. Erin had been exposed to yoga through her mother and, based on complications of that
relationship and other reasons, was very hesitant to adopt and even critical of, spiritual elements of religion.
She was particularly concerned to avoid “new aginess... it gives all of the salvation without any of the
repentance”.

68

The nature of the syllable, the syllable, 0m, is the verbal pronunciation of a
Sanskrit symbol. According to the Yoga-Sutras, 0m is the audible and visual
representation of “The self that is untouched by troubles, action, success, or memories,”
the true self that lies beneath the activities of daily consciousness. “He is represented by
the sacred syllable aum, called parvana. The mantra aum is to be repeated constantly,
with feeling, realizing its full signiﬁcance” (Iyengar, 1993, 80-81). According to yoga
philosophy, then, the sounding of the 0m is not simply an act of concentration, of
marking transition, or of attending to the physical in the present moment, but an explicit
attempt to gain insight into the nature of the self.

Experiences of students during the 0m vary. Some, such as Simon and Anna,
who have an interest in yoga philosophy, have studied the meaning of Om and embrace
its philosophical importance. Sally does not make the sound at all. Most enjoy the
experience of sounding the long syllable with the rest of the class, but put little stake in
the meaning of the experience. The experience of internal and external vibrations is
cormnon. Everybody enjoys the experience of this Vibration. This moment is one of few
in which students have increased awareness of those around them, if only through the
medium of the sound, consistently agreeing with Erin: “I ﬁnd the 0m is kind of a

centering thing, it brings us all together”.

THE ASANAS

Ruth calls the class out of centering and into a posture practice. “On an exhale,

release your hands. As you inhale, gently open your eyes.” She leads us through a set of

69

opening stretches and postures that varies little over several weeks: while seated in
virasana, stretching arms overhead with ﬁngers interlocked, sweeping arms together into
a twist, and a gentle side-to-side twist of the torso. We then come out of virasana to
upavista and then boddhikonasana. These poses nearly always move us into the more
active physical portion of the practice. Following these poses, classes vary dramatically,
focusing on types of postures, such as standing postures, backbends, inversions, or areas

of the body, such as hips or shoulders.

Upavista
Plant the heels on the ground, press the thighs into the ﬂoor,
and stretch open the backs of the legs.

Inhaling, lift the pit of the abdomen out of the pelvis.
Allow the energy to ﬂow up and down”.

*****

Jerry looks down at his legs, checking their placement and rotation, then lifts his
eyes and attempts to activate the leg muscles, to put some energy into the posture. He
pushes down with thigh muscles, grounds his heels. As he bends over, he runs through
the details of the physical posture: press hands together, lengthen out ﬁom the hips and
thighs, lengthen the back, broaden shoulders, open the chest, straighten the spine... As he
lifts up and bends to the other side, he smiles, looking forward to the day that he

experiences meditation in motion.

*****

 

3’ I had not intended for students to comment on the physical instructions of upavista, having intended them
only to serve as reminders of the class. However, given the importance of postural detail in the class, these
comments proved fortuitous, as the students’ descriptions of the struggle to balance the physical and mental
demands of the postures taught me a great deal about how the active practice of yoga has a mentally
sedative effect, as will become more clear in the discussion of downward dog.

70

Two surgeries to repair torn tendons in her left knee and really tight hamstrings
make upavista a less-then-enjoyable posture for Amy. She pauses, propped up on a
bolster to relieve pressure on her lower back, to remind herself to respect her limitations
and not to judge herself for not being able to stretch as far as she thinks she ought to.
Remembering previous experiences, she reaches out to her energy body, tries to feel it
occupying the same space plus a little more than her physical body. After relaxing into
the posture, she feels more integrated between the two.

**¢*¢

Blaire inhales deeply as she stretches up with her torso and out with her legs, then
exhales deeply as she folds over to one side. She trusts her breath to lead her body into
appropriate alignment. She inhales deeply and the breath lifts the pit of her abdomen;
exhaling deeply ﬁom the lower abdomen straightens the lower spine. And so it goes.
She knows that energy moves through her along its normal pathways, but she cannot yet
feel it. That comes later in the practice.

*****

Kathy stretches out into the posture, thinking through the physical details. While
she focuses on the physical, she is closed to the more subtle awareness of the energy.
Once she is comfortable in her balance and in the stretch, she begins to let go of that
attention to the physical. But here, in upavista, she doesn’t have such a sense of energy
moving, but of groundedness, of sit-bones ﬁrmly pressing into the ﬂoor and of being

ﬁrmly rooted in place, both physically and energetically.

*****

71

These comments demonstrate a basic tension, experienced by all students,
between actively assuming complex, sometimes physically challenging postures, and
passively relaxing into the posture. This tension summons a complex of issues relevant
to yoga philosophy: involution (opposite to evolution), the development of increasingly
subtle awareness, the distinction between motion and action, and that between posing and
reposing in asana. The latter two receive further attention in the discussion of adho
mukha savasana, downward dog, below. The ﬁrst two reﬂect one basic idea, although
they receive distinct treatment by Iyengar". Involution describes the general process of
resolving singularity from complexity, moving from a differentiated periphery towards a
uniﬁed core. The penetration to increasingly subtle layers describes the individual’s
experience of moving through and integrating, outer layers towards the core.

Among the interviews, I have noticed a common theme of tension between
attention to the physical details and deepening awareness. Doing the postures — attending
to the particular physical details of hips open, knees pressed, thighs activated, heels
down, and the rest — is essential to developing the capacity for that awareness. In the
moment of doing a posture, attending to these details engages the awareness at a level
superﬁcial to that subtler layer. Sarah, for example, said of the class that “it feels like a
lot of focus on details of the body, and sometimes, I feel really resistant to that, it’s just
like, let me just do yoga, forget all these little minutiae, you know, I just [want to stop]”.
Through constant attention to this physical detail, students learn the postures and develop
the ability to enter them with decreasing conscious attention on those postural details,

ﬂeeing their awareness to descend more deeply. This deepening is a long-term,

3" That they arise in different points in lyengar’s discussion of the Yoga Sutras does not indicate that they
are unrelated. He returns to idea repeatedly over the course of the text.

72

developmental process. Most often, one begins with little or no depth of awareness, and
gradually develops the capacity to deepen it. This deepening builds not only over the
longer term, but also in the immediate context of an individual asana practice. Sarah
commented that the result of this attention to “all these little minutiae” would ultimately
prove useful: “there’ll be a place and time perhaps where it becomes of value”.

On both scales, within a practice and across many practices, this progressive
deepening of awareness resembles the development of the sadhaka as described in the
Yoga Sutras, particularly in the transition from the stage of the mrdu to that of the
madhya (see page 24-25, above, and Table 2 in Appendix 1). This deepening awareness
reﬂects the movement of the sadhaka through the sheaths, or kosas, nearer to purusa.
The initial sheaths, the annamaya kosa and the pranamaya kosa, are anatorrrical and
physiological. These sheaths describe both the setting and the limits of developing self-
awareness early in asana development.

The comparison falters in that the classical philosophy suggests an orderly and
clearly identiﬁable progress through well-deﬁned stages. The students’ experiences
suggest a messier and less readily segmented progression. The ﬁrst complication is that
of “two steps forward, one step back”. Usually, a student consistently develops during
the course of any individual practice, such that when she beings the next practice, she
will be further along than when she starts this practice. Even this description is overly
simple: sometimes the steps back outnumber those forward. Given the subtlety of the
measure of development and its sensitivity to experience outside of yoga (recall students’
experiences leaving work to come to class), the progress is not so steady. Generally,

these small advances sum up to a general progression, so that the microcosm of

73

development appears choppy and erratic while the macrocosm seems more ﬂuid and

orderly”.

Boddhikonasana
Find that place of stillness, deep inside. Let the stillness seep into your cells.
****¢

Jackie tries to turn her attention to her heart center. All the input — ﬁ'om other
students, from the building’s ambient noises, and from the street - coming through her
eyes and ears drags on her attention as she brings it ﬁrst to the space between her eyes
and then down, towards her heart, where she knows she’ll ﬁnd a sense of stillness. She
closes her eyes. She ﬁnds it, or remembers where she found it before, in the middle of
her chest, in her heart center. She keeps her eyes closed.

tact:

After sitting in boddhikonasana for a little bit, Anna’s groins begin to loosen. She
ﬁnds an emptiness in her mind — a releasing of the junk from the day — and a stillness in
her body together. A warmth and a quiet come, both in the gut and in the brain. She
bounces back and forth, noting the emptiness of the mind, then stillness of the body, and
back and forth. First, a little emptiness starts, then the stillness begins, which grows the
emptiness, and so on, the relaxing brain and body, urging each other towards stillness.

#*#**
Relaxing into the posture, Sarah’s head clears, her brain softens, her breaths ease

and lengthen, and she feels very calmed and peaceful at her center. That sense of cahn

 

’7 The teachers at the center recognize distinct levels of yoga student (e.g., the Level IV class described
here); these levels measure the level of a student’s asana practice, not the development of their journey
towards the Self.

74

and peace expands vaguely, like warmth or light ﬁ'om an uncovered light bulb. It spreads
generally, not speciﬁcally in physical locations, more ﬁguratively than literally.
*****

Jackie’s experience here is reminiscent of comments on the struggle to turn
attention inward during centering. This is a common point, which has been mentioned at
least once during each interview. Sensory stimuli exert a powerful pull on the mental
awareness. This struggle recalls the practice ofpratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses,
through which the sadhaka “develops willpower, detaches himself from the organs of
senses and acquires clarity of thought” (Iyengar, 1993, 178, cited above, page 23). It is
particularly intriguing to encounter this reﬂection of another limb ofAstanga Yoga in the
context of asana practice. One possible conclusion is that, in current practice, the
boundaries between the different practices of yoga are not as well maintained as they
once were; although it is unclear whether they were entirely separate. Another
conclusion, with support ﬁ'om Iyengar’s interpretation of the Yoga Sutras, suggests
instead that this hint ofpratyahara in asana practice demonstrates the
microcosm/nucrocosm relationship of asana to the whole ofAstanga Yoga. In the
practice of the physical postures, one can experience the whole of yoga (as discussed on
page 21).

Anna shows another commonly shared experience — the tight intertwining of the
mental and physical in the progress toward stillness. This comrningling — stillness in one
leading to quiet in the other — surfaces repeatedly in descriptions of the struggle to ﬁnd
comfort and ease in a posture, to get past eft‘ortful to effortless asana. As a student works

towards an awareness of the internal, the physical and mental form a positive feedback

75

loop: the physical relaxation improves mental stillness, which, in turn, improves physical
relaxation, and so on. This progress may reﬂect awareness penetrating through the layers
or the individual’s experience of involution (as touched on above, in upavista, and dealt
with in greater detail below, in adho mukha savasana). As the awareness penetrates to
deeper and deeper levels, these disparate, more surface elements are integrated into an
increasingly singularized and simpliﬁed understanding of self.

Most students see the struggle to balance pain and effort with relaxation as
overcoming the former (which they value negatively) to reach the latter (valued
positively). Erin stands out — she ﬁnds the struggle a useful point of orientation —
awareness of the struggle enables her to reduce the struggle. In contrast, Sarah shows

what might be considered a fairly ideal experience of an effortless sinking into stillness.

Adho Mukha Savasana — Downward Dog

Find that stillness... check the mechanical part, then sink into the stillness.

tease

Erin chuckles to herself. “Great, tell us that and then give us a bunch of
mechanical things to think about.” So she thinks about these details — lifting the ribs,
rolling the triceps down, pressing the hips back, knees open, and heels down. . . and then
realizes that she’s lost in the details of the process, forgotten that there’s a whole posture
for the whole body, a whole stillness for that whole posture. You can think about

everything or you can think about nothing.

*****

76

Tempted to sink into stillness before checking the physical, Jackie knows that she
wouldn’t do the posture correctly, instead sinking into whatever’s easiest. So she checks
the posture, particularly making sure she’s not dropping her chest too much. She cycles
through physical adjustments, again and again, until she feels the crown of her head
resting on the ﬂoor. She pauses to check that her chest is lifted, then stops thinking about
the physical and starts thinking about the spiritual stillness that she seeks.

*****

Before going up into the posture, Kathy reminds herself of her tendency to
struggle in this posture, as though through some gentle resistance, which can lead to an
endless process of tweak and adjust, tweak and adjust, tweak and adjust. . . Once she’s up
and in a reasonably comfortable version of the pose, she exhales deeply and takes in a
ujjayi breath”. That shifts her attention ﬁom an intellectual, detail-oriented way of doing
the posture, to shut off the conscious mind, and to bring thought into balance with
feeling.

*****

Moving past the “mechanical” into “stillness” in a physically challenging posture
is a fundamental stage in the development of one’s asana practice, the sine qua non of a
decent practice for most students. This is a diﬂicult skill to master (and only loosely
transferable across different asanas): downward dog is a physically demanding posture
that requires normally non-load-bearing muscles, such as the triceps, to bear a heavy
load, the relaxation and stretch of other, normally over-stressed muscles, such as the

lower back erectors, and generally unique alignments of most major muscle groups and

 

’8 Ujjayi is a breathing technique that yoga students learn as part of pranayama.

77

joints. To do all of this and then to turn one’s attention away ﬁ'om doing it is more
challenging, and the main reason to practice asana.

Iyengar repeatedly stresses the importance of moving past the active, physical
work in asana:

Through asana we learn to know the body well and to distinguish between

motion and action: motion excites the mind while action absorbs it

(Iyengar, 1993, 29).

Asana has two facets, pose and repose. Pose is the artistic assumption of a

position. ‘Reposing in the pose’ means ﬁnding the perfeCtion of a pose

and maintaining it, reﬂecting in it with penetration of the intelligence and

with dedication (Iyengar, 1993, 31, cited above, page 20).

In the beginning, effort is required to master the asanas. Effort involves

hours, days, months, years and even several lifetimes of work. When

eﬂ‘ortful effort in an asana becomes effortless effort, one has mastered that

asana. In this way, each asana has to become effortless. While

performing the asanas one has to relax the cells of the brain, and activate

the cells of the vital organs and the structural and skeletal body. Then

intelligence and consciousness may spread to each and every cell (Iyengar,

1993, 31-32).
This is the central project of asana practice for most of these yoga students, whether the
obstacles they experience are physical or mental, to do the yoga without thinking about it.
Or, in Amy’s words: “That’s the... coveted yoga place of being able to relax in your
poses”. I understand the students’ experiences in light of this process of developing the
capacity to relax in postures that normally require intense effort. The struggle provides
the students a focus for the incessant chattering of the mind; working towards release of
the physical effort at the same time leads to a quieting of mental activity. The result is
perhaps the greatest fruit of the physical endeavor, for the result — achieving repose in the
posture — enables the mind and body to reach greater conformity in stillness and quiet and

thus provides the student the opportunity to look within more deeply and with less

78

distraction. Simon afﬁrmed as much: “That’s very much the meditative aspect of yoga,
which is exerting oneself with great intensity in a physical posture, and then releasing it,
just allowing the body to sink, without bringing to it all this crap that you had going on in

your head during the day.”

Tadasana — Mountain Pose
Use your breath to draw your attention inward.
*¢***

Postures that involve balance, like tadasana, cause Tori’s mind to wander
immediately. When her mind drifts away ﬁom the present, the only way to constrain it is
to ask it to focus on one thing. The breath is the easiest thing for that focus in this
posture, because it involves the movement of the energy into the body and out of the
body. That movement in and out of the body following the breath is the easiest way to
ask the mind to let go of its world.

¢****

Jerry’s mind wanders. “Okay,” he tells himself, “we’re doing yoga now.” Breath
helps bring him back.

****¢

Standing still makes Anna want to do something. She doesn’t need to work on
balance or exerting herself physically to get into or stay in the position, so she has no
activity to occupy her mind. This rmkes mentally falling out of tadasana easy. But the

breath brings her back.

*****

79

Sarah, at ﬁrst tense in the posture, consciously softens her breathing. The casing
of inhalation and expiration allows her body and brain to soften as well. It’s like there’s a
real connection between those three. . . by letting the breath go, she can let the body go
and let the brain go, and so get to that state of peaceﬁrlness.

*****

Breath provides one major avenue for students to bring their attention within.
This holds true for breath in any posture, particularly so in tadasana. The particular
challenge of this posture is to ﬁnd stillness without a rigorous physical effort. In the
absence of physical effort, the work of the posture is only to focus the attention; breath’s
role in that process becomes particular clear here as in centering and in savasana.
Attending to the breath alone brings students’ awareness inside in two ways. First, breath
provides a focus that ﬁlls the attention, thus limiting distraction. Secondly, and more
importantly, it seems to connect the practitioner’s mind with his or her body in a unique
fashion. Iyengar speaks to this special role of the breath:

Bracing of the inbreath is the evolution of the soul or the ascending order

of the purusa. When the self comes in contact with the physical body,

inhalation is complete. Here, the purusa embraces prakrti. The outbreath

moves from the external body towards the seer, layer after layer. It is

involution, or the descending order ofprakrti to meet its Lord, purusa

(Iyengar, 1993, 165).
Students vary in their understanding of the breath Few of these students — primarily
those who also teach and have studied the philosophy —- would agree with the principles
of Iyengar’s description. For most, the role of breath in bringing attention within is
largely experiential, with little explanation, as in the following exchange:

Jerry: Focused on the breathing, that’s—that brings my attention to
myself, into my body, to relax. . . get ready to, ready to do the next posture.

80

Me :9And breath. . . accomplishes that, attention to the breath accomplishes

32%: It helps bring me back.
When asked how breath brings the attention in, non-teaching students tended to respond
in one of two ways: either physiologically — “breathing moves my attention into my
chest,” or an admission that they don’t know — “It just does”. The experience of breath

functioning as a conduit between body and mind, lying underneath any experiential or

philosophical distinction, remains consistent.

T rikonasana — Triangle Pose
*****

This posture is among the most comfortable for Jackie. She steps wide and bends
to the side quickly and easily. She knows, well, her body knows where to go on its own,
without thinking through the physical details. This is being physically grounded, she
thinks, and she moves into an internal level of the posture, not just paying attention to the

muscles. She’s paying attention to the breath from the moment she enters trikonasana.

*****

Parsvokanasana — Side-Angle Pose

F ind your stamina by using your breath. It’s not usually an adversary.

*****

Jerry struggles to ﬁnd the posture... this is a difﬁcult posture, and he ﬁnds

himself holding his breath, which keeps everything tight. He lets his breath go with a

81

quick exhalation and a steadier inhalation, moves his knee back, lifts through the groins,
shifts his pelvis forward. Consciously choosing to breathe eases the struggle. As he
relaxes into a more comfortable pose, he realizes (again) that the struggle was with his
continuous mental chatter about the posture - thinking the posture rather than doing the
posture. He takes another breath.

*****

Sally hurts in this posture. This is where she really feels her ﬁbromyalgia. So she
ﬁghts it, she struggles, and holds her breath She tries to ﬁnd her nice, blank mind; she
tries to breathe smoothly; and she tries to relax. She starts with one (although she doesn’t
know which one, maybe the breath?), then another comes, and gradually they all come
together, step by step. The blank mind, the easy breath, the relaxation of the body... each
brings the others.

*tttt

In both comments, the student describes encountering physical difﬁculty, even
pain, in a posture — not an uncommon occurrence, particularly if a posture is new to a
student or requires the use of muscles compromised by previous injury or illness.
Tightness of breath accompanies the muscular strain, and both Jerry and Sally ﬁnd
themselves holding their breath. Whether the physical, mental, or respiratory block is at
the root of the overall struggle is unclear — and perhaps a meaningless distinction - but
breath clearly plays as intricate a role in reposing in the pose as either the body or the
mind does.

Comments about the importance of breath in asana practice surfaced frequently

during the interviews, often without the prompt of an instruction or question relating to

82

breath. As discussed under tadasana, above, the importance of breath in asana has a
basis in Iyengar’s description of the Yoga Sutras. The classical philosophy identiﬁes
breath and “vital energy” together, the term prana. This relationship goes largely
umnentioned in the interviews and my Observation of the class. Comments regarding
“energy” deal with the concept in terms of either physiological activation, exertion, and
endurance (as in “running out of energy”) or the chakra system (which receives very little
treatment in the Yoga Sutras, and thus little attention here). Particularly intriguing is the
absence of comment on this relationship between breath and energy, of clear importance
to Iyengar:

Prana is an auto-energizing force which creates a magnetic ﬁeld in the

form of the universe and plays with it, both to maintain, and to destroy for

ﬁrrther creation. . . It permeates each individual as well as the Universe at

all levels. It acts as physical energy; as mental energy, where the mind

gathers information; and as intellectual energy with a discriminative

faculty, where information is examined and ﬁltered... This self-energizing

force is the principle of life and of consciousness. It is the creation of all
beings in the Universe. All beings are born through it and live by it.

When they die, their individual breath dissolves into the cosmic breath

(Iyengar, 1993, 161).
One possible cause for this absence may be my own limited understanding of the
relationship. Perhaps I did not (and do not) know what questions to ask or how to phrase
them in order to elucidate information about this relationship. While that may hold some
truth, I asked questions about other subjects that were, at the time, beyond my
understanding, and have come to greater understanding of ideas that were not known to
me before. Therefore, I suggest that this identity ofprana as both breath and energy does
not have the same meaning to American students as it did to those more culturally literate

in the context of the Yoga Sutras. We lack the contextual understanding of prana and

how it functions in our lives to understand its relationship to breath.

83

Salamba Sirsasana -- Headstand
Before going into the posture, organize your mind.
*****

Jackie sets up one foot away ﬁom the wall, acknowledging her psychological
block. She knows that the wall is close behind her (but pretends it isn’t), and goes up into
the posture smoothly, ﬁnding her balance after tapping the wall with her toe only once -
and that one time probably just for reassurance.

*****

Erin gets ready for the big mother pose, headstand. Here, she needs to be
attentive and a little intellectual, thinking carefully about where her hands, forearms,
elbows, shoulders, head, and neck need to be before she even brings her hips up. This
organizing your mind isn’t just being careful... but that doesn’t mean not being careﬁrl,
either.

*****

Coming out of headstand, Sarah relaxes all the muscles that she used -— arms,
shoulders, torso legs. Even though she was comfortable, the pose was physically
demanding. Coming down and relaxing in child’s pose, she feels all the muscles melt...

and the brain does, too.

##3##!!!

The aim [of asana] is to recreate the process of human evolution in our
own internal environment. We thereby have the opportunity to observe
and comprehend our own evolution to the point at which conﬂict is
resolved and there is only oneness, as when the river meets the sea. This
creative struggle is experienced in the headstand: as we challenge

84

ourselves to improve the position, fear of ﬁlling acts to inhibit us. If we

are rash, we ﬁll, if tirnorous, we make no progress. But if the interplay of

the two forces is observed, analysed and controlled, we can achieve

perfection (Iyengar, 1993, 12, cited above, page 21).

A number of students clearly agree with Iyengar’s description of Sirsasana requiring a
balance of courage and caution to develop competence in this challenging balance
posture.

Sarah’s observation of the relaxation after a strenuous posture is another common
feature of asana practice for these students. The extent of one’s capacity to let go and to
relax after a posture correlates directly to the intensity of the physical endeavor. Ruth has
repeatedly emphasized this during class, calling it the ﬁ‘osting or gravy on top of the

substance asana.

Sarvangasana — Shoulderstand

*****

Up in the inversion, Amy struggles to relax. She knows that she can ﬁnd that
switch to relax everything, all at once, in this posture. Somewhere, she’s holding on,
tightly, and that’s keeping the whole thing tight, the body, the mind, the breath. Then,
something changes and, “Oh,” she lets go. She balances easily on the blankets. She
knows that some muscles are still tight — some muscles are always tight —- but she is now

relaxed around and underneath that tightness.

**#**

85

Savasana — The Corpse Pose
Allow yourself to feel the physical, emotional, and psychological release in the body.

Consciously surrender the mind into the body and the body into the breath.
Find that place of openness deep inside... and go within.

*¢***
With these words, Ruth marks the ﬁnal posture of class. We all lie quietly on our
backs, arms and legs splayed out slightly. The only sound in the room is our breathing.
Savasana marks the end of class, opposite to centering. In both sets of instructions, Ruth
speaks directly to the journey within. As with centering, the experiences of savasana
center on pursuit of an understanding of a deep self. The experience of the preceding
strenuous exertion and focused asana practice makes these experiences of savasana quite
unlike those of centering. This attempt at going within is less an active wrenching away

of attention from mental activity than a passive release into quiet.

*****

Jerry sinks inside himself. As he sinks down, away ﬁ'om the sensory awareness
and the emotional and social elements of his self it ﬂits back and forth through a door...
ﬁrst in and then yanked out by some thought about something he ought to have done or
has yet to do. Passing through the door brings a physical sensation in his heart and a
color. Today it’s blue.

*tttt
Jackie notices that there’s a part of her holding on to something on the outside.

She focuses on that. She remembers something Ruth said: “Feel your body sink into the

86

ﬂoor”. This instruction worked, and it stuck in her memory of savasana. She turns her
attention to the sensation of her body sink on the ﬂoor, which pulls her mind, her
consciousness, her point of view, out of the external world, into the breath and then fully
into her body. Now she only pays attention to the breath and to the spirit, inside.

¢****

Tori goes through a lengthy physical preparation before allowing herself to
release into savasana. She knows that she must put her arms, legs, hips, shoulders,
sacrum, sternum, neck, and head just so if she wants any chance of ﬁnding that place of
mental effortlessness underneath her thoughts. The physical arrangement allows her to
feel very safe, very comfortable, and now she has to get her mind to stop, the hardest part
of savasana. She starts by withdrawing her senses in pratyahara, and then turns her
attention to her breath. Perhaps, after a few breaths, her mind will let go and be drawn
down into the heart. Perhaps she’ll just lie there, practicing pranayama for the duration.

*****

This is it for Simon, the culmination of the practice. Savasana is the best shot at
reaching an awareness of the big Self of the Divine. He’s grateful for this, the basic
project of yoga, why he’s done all that work. He knows that, after the intense, physical
work, his awareness of his body is reﬁned and that, if his breathing is right, he’ll
overcome the anxieties and the tape constantly running in his head. He’ll clear that out
and ﬁnd that deep awareness that gets covered by shit in the daily experience of cerebral
work in a shallow, manipulative, nﬁterialistic world. What’s under that shit has been
there all along, he thinks, but covered and inaccessible. He hopes to keep scraping away

until he can consistently reach a sense of peace and touch his inner self.

87

 

*****

Anna begins with a sweep of her body, not so much an inventory, but a checking
in on all the parts. Then the breath takes her in, almost as though some inner eye turns
from the external sensory perception. She knows that, after savasana, she’ll be surprised
to ﬁnd herself in a room full of things and people after this deep dive inward, and
towards... what? Towards what? It’s a very difﬁcult thing to feel, a difﬁcult thing to
describe.

*****

After adjusting her position, socks on, something under her knees, an eye cover,
and — most important — something over her abdomen, Amy begins by focusing her
attention on input from her body. What does she feel, right now? What does she see? A
visual person, she can see things, when she feels them. It’s like she’s seeing behind her
eyes, seeing and feeling different parts of her body. She senses the other body, that
energy body that accompanies her physical body, ﬁlling something like the same space,
but accessible through an alternative route of awareness. That’s the only aspect of your
consciousness, your whole self that you can control, after all, the attention, the
awareness. That’s why she comes to yoga.

*****

Blaire sits, wrapped in a blanket, against a wall. It’s only ﬁve minutes, why
bother lying down? If she were at home, she’d do just a brief savasana, and then sit for
meditation. So she takes what she can get, skips savasana, and sits. She draws her

attention away from the scattered, ﬁ'agmented monkey mind jumping all over, ﬁom here

88

to there to everywhere, and towards an internal experience of oneself. She sinks into
stillness.
*****

Erin lies back and, after counting the spots on the ceiling tiles again, closes her
eyes, and begins to release. She sinks in, mind into body and body into breath, but then
the breath takes her back out again It’s like a Kitchen Maid mixer, whirling a batter in to
the middle, down, and back out again. Going deep inside brings her back out again. It
pulls stimuli, mostly noises ﬁ'om the room, into her awareness, but in a weird way, in a
good way. Rather than disturbing her, this inward-outward—inward cycle creates a still,
calm, comforting kind of awareness of everything around her. She ﬁnds herselfin a kind
of atemporality, a timeless and mysterious now, until breath brings her back to time and
duration... how long is a breath? Now I exhale. Now I inhale. Her body tingles, she
sinks into that suspension, like she’s just hovering in the room, but ﬁrlly and delicately
aware of all the movements and sounds of the room, perhaps as though the room were
somehow part of her now.

*****

Sarah feels the savasana in her body — a complete, physical release. She feels it
in her breath - easy, steady, effortless inhalations and exhalations. But her mind chatters
away, “ja-ja ja—ja ja-ja ja-ja”. In a posture, a more physically demanding posture, her
mind would occupy itself with the physical sufﬁciently to pacify it. But in savasana, it
has nothing to bite. She’s gotten better over the past few years. She has moments

without chatter, but just moments. It’s a time thing, a practice thing, a patience thing.

*****

89

Kathy focuses on the rise and ﬁll of her belly as she breathes. She focuses on her
breath. Her mind begins to slow down, allowing her to bring herself in. But then her
mind moves outward, leaping at something from the practice that caught her attention,
something she wanted to remember. What was that? She lets it go on for a moment,
thinking without her volition. She then turns her attention to the heavy feeling of her
body on the ground and to the tide of her breath She focuses her breath on that tight
spot, visualizes the breath penetrating into that knot, and feels it release.

Senses withdrawn in pratyahara, she ttu'ns her awareness, which is to say, her
mind, to the internal. It moves inside, fi‘om the self towards the Self, ﬁom the personality
and psychology, the physical and the historical, towards that greater sense of who she is,
that unchanging witness, or atman, or purusa.

At least, that’s where she intends to go. It’s a long journey to get there, one she’s
been on for years. She has reached her destination on occasion, though perhaps not

tonight.

*****

The experience of savasana varies across students, as does that for each posture.
Students arrange their bodies with blankets, bolsters, and socks to maximize physical
comfort and release of tension. They lie back, close their eyes, and turn their attention
towards their breath, which brings their attention into their chests. For some, the lack of
physical challenge provides an opportunity to relax completely after strenuous exercise.

For others, the lack provides an opportunity for the mind to take ﬂight in distraction. If

90

successful, they experience a sensation like ﬁlling asleep or passing into another state of
consciousness. Once in this state, this experience can be quite ﬂeeting or ﬂickering - in
and out, in and out. What conditions determine the experience of savasana are not
entirely clear. While the level of physical exertion of the asanas, general stress in life
outside of yoga, and consistency of home practice seem to have effects, the depth to
which they journey within is at least in part independent of all factors external to
savasana itself. Having released the normal contents of their awareness, as deeply as
their basic thought processes and physical sensations, the students still ﬁnd something
that they identify as their self or Self.

The challenges in savasana -— and for some, these are the greatest of the class or
the practice — are to quiet the mental narrative and to withdraw attention from ambient
sensory stimuli. Having spent two hours “thinking about nothing but yoga” (Anna) and
making great physical effort, one has cause to wonder why the mental narrative should
continue. Those students who struggle with the “monkey mind” (Blaire and Sarah) in
savasana all descrrbe their lives and careers as mentally stressful: attorneys, physicians,
professors, students, and other professionals whose expertise are in the analysis,
synthesis, and expression of information. However, some with similarly demanding
professions don’t express the same difﬁculty, while some who don’t ﬁt into this category
do. This mix suggests that the struggle with the mental chatter is more personal than
professional. Nor does the difﬁculty of withdrawing attention ﬁom sensory stimuli
follow any easily predictable pattern.

Quieting the chatter and reducing sensory awareness have similar roles in

inhibiting the journey within. The similarity comes clear in the methodology of the

91

 

journey, in answers to the question: “What goes within?” Students generally agree upon
a single answer: that which goes within is attention, the consciously controllable content
of their thoughts. They use different words, such as “attention”, “mind,” and
“consciousness,” but their description of it centers on the same concept. Here the
comparability of inhrhition resulting from the chatter and the sensory stimulus comes
clear: attention is that which is ﬁlled by both sensory stimuli and narrative thoughts. This
concept relates very closely to the classical yoga philosophy concept of mind, manas,
“the eleventh sense” that can access both the external and the internal, conveying
information between the physical body and citta, consciousness, the outermost layer of
atman. When students bring their attention within, they limit the extent to which it is
ﬁlled with reﬂections of the external world, comparable to prakrti -— the development of
citta vrtti nirodha.

How do students understand this experience of exclusion from the awareness of
all external inﬂuences? What do they perceive at this, the conclusion to the journey
within?

Few students speak clearly on this point. Two, Kathy and Simon, describe their
experience in terms that concur with classical yoga philosophy. Tammy responds at one
point in strictly reductive terms, describing the deep awareness in physical terms, but also
admits to a more ambiguous view: “I think in general yoga connects me with something
in me. I don’t know how I would verbalize it”. Other responses, in agreement with
Tanuny’s comment, are vague and don’t speak beyond the sense of having delved deeply
within, quieted the mind, and shut out awareness of sensory stimuli, without identifying

what’s left. They Offer description by elimination, an understanding of what they’ve

92

learned that they are not, but not what they are. These students generally speak of an
awareness that the mind and self/ Self are distinct, that the former serves as an instrument
of the latter as manas does citta. The awareness of this distinction often comes as a
surprise, as Sarah recalled from an earlier experience, “What the hell are we if we aren’t
our thoughts?”

In retrospect, I realize that the structure of the interview questions may have
contributed to this vagueness. I asked the following questions regarding the experience
of savasana:

What does “going within” mean to you? DO you feel that you go within?

What is it like for you to go within? What goes? Where does it go? How

does it relate to you? How do you come back?

I realize I left out an important question: “What do you ﬁnd there?” The question “Where
does it go?” does approach the matter, but does so indirectly. Even those who offer an
answer, don’t address the basic question.

However, the structure of the interviews is not solely responsible for vagueness
on this point. Many students commented on the diﬂiculty of speaking on this point, most
in clear agreement with Anna: “It’s not only difﬁcult to describe, it’s also difﬁcult to
feel”. Even those students whose responses matched in great detail the yogic philosophy
commented on the difﬁculty. Take, for example, Kathy’s observation:

It’s an incredibly complicated aspect of yoga that is really incredibly

simple at the same time. It’s like, you are this perfect thing, this perfect

thing is you. That is divine, that is you. It’s all the same. And yet, wrap

your mind around that one, you know? Because it’s not about the mind.
So we try to understand it intellectually through words, and it can’t really
be understood. And so, we read about it, and I try to understand it, you
know, as I study, there’s that intellectual aspect of wanting to understand
things. And understanding them intellectually, I’m ﬁnding in yoga, is
very different from understanding them.

93

Another suggested using alternative media, such as drawing or coloring, to express these
seemingly ﬁckle ideas so difﬁcult to conceptualize and to verbalize.

I suggest two standpoints from which to interpret these data and to account for the
confusion: ﬁrst of the journey within towards the Self and, second, that of the journey
towards the self suggesting two competing hypotheses, which differ on ontological
grounds:

(1) Students shift their mind (manas, inwardly-oriented sense organ) ﬁ'om
mechanical to more subtle layers, from the physical and physiological to the
cognitive, emotionaL and intuitive. This view relies on the ontological claim
of yoga philosophy, the basic nature ofpurusa and prakrti.

(2) Students limit the content of their conscious attention, the storage of short-
terrn memory and awareness of sensory stimuli. Rather than attending to the

standard quotidian stuff of their mental lives, they attend to their bodies and
their breath
The ﬁrst hypothesis supposes that Patanjali and Iyengar were right, that the
ontology and epistemology of yoga philosophy presents a valid description of human
nature that can transcend the vast sociocultural divide between classical Indian
philosophy and current, American practice. If atman lies at the core of our being as a
manifestation ofpurusa, then the variance in the students’ capacity to quiet the mind —
the level to which they have advanced in citta vrtti nirodha — causes the variance in what
they ﬁnd when they look deeply within. The greater is that capacity, the more clearly the
student can apprehend the Self.
As suggested by the understanding of the development of the sadhaka (pages 24-
26 and Table 2 in Appendix 1), the internal depth to which one’s awareness can penetrate
and the extent of the resulting integration relates to the level of the practice. The depth of

the journey within is commensurate with the consistency of, devotion in, and surrender to

the practice of yoga. The students vary in many factors that inform this development.

94

Perhaps more signiﬁcantly, the measure seems very much an internal quality, and thus
diﬂicult to measure by any other than the truly adept. So the varying experiences of the
Selfand comrrrents thereupon may demonstrate the varying extent of the development of
the student in their practice.

If this interpretation holds, then the encounter with the Self in savasana is an
example of what Eliade referred to as hierophany, the manifestation of the wholly other,
purusa, in the proﬁne, the manifestation ofprakrti. This is what Simon means when he
talks about the opportunity to encounter “the big self’ and drives Kathy’s struggle with
language: “And understanding them intellectually, I’m ﬁnding in yoga, is very different
ﬁ'om understanding them”. Both these students are inclined to view yoga in its broader,
philosophical context, the project of encountering the Self; I do not know whether they
understand these experiences in light of that belief or they have come to that belief
because of those experiences. Others, notably Sarah and Jackie, described experiences of .
encounters with selfin savasana that match my own surprise at ﬁnding something of an
entirely different nature but still part of the self beneath the mind, body, and breath.

Most other students, without directly relating such an experience, comment on the
dranﬁtic ways which practicing yoga has changed their lives. Five students (Simon,
Anna, Kathy, Sarah, and Blaire) decided to retire early from successful careers and
attribute the decision to experiences or insights from yoga practice, and four to teach
yoga (Kathy, Sarah, Blaire, and Tori). Only two students, Sally and Tammy, deny any
signiﬁcant alteration in their self-understanding resulting ﬁom yoga practice”. The rest
make some comment, whether general or speciﬁc, regarding some signiﬁcant shift in

self-understanding that they attribute directly to the practice of yoga.

 

’9 The reasons for their difference are addressed in the conclusion, pages 100-101.

95

I would describe this effect as follows: that practicing yoga does this either
through direct experience (e.g., Eliade’s hierophany) or by priming students for other
experiences through an increasingly quieted mind and awareness trained more
consistently inward. If one begins to accept new data, such as inward observations in lieu
of external stimuli, and the new information challenges previously existing philosophy
(how well or poorly thought out), one must choose either to redeﬁne the data in terms of
the preceding philosophy or to adapt the terms of the philosophy itself, to explore again
(or for the ﬁrst time) one’s personal ontology and epistemology.

The second hypothesis accepts yoga as a psychology, but not metaphysical
philosophy. Proﬁciency in citta vrtti nirodha leads not to direct encounter of with the
Self but to an awareness of the unencumbered self. This position leads to the conclusion
that students vary in their capacity to reach a state of mindfulness, of control over the
content of short-term memory, but that this state is explainable only in neurological and
psychological terms. In this view, the explanation for the changing understanding of self,
and of the understanding of mind in the new light, requires no knowledge of Yoga
philosophy to understand. Most of the students in this class would not accept such a view
as ﬁrlly explanatory of their views or experiences”.

I must also consider the possibility that previous experiences have inﬂuenced the
students, who, as a result, ﬁnd in savasana what they expect to ﬁnd, what they believe to
be at the core of their selﬂSelf. Even if something were there below these layers of
awareness, as Iyengar suggests, then previous understandings may inﬂuence an

individual’s perception or description of it. The difﬁculty students have in

 

‘0 While I did not ask them this question, directly, many heard it implicitly in one of the last questions of
my interview: “Have you had any experiences during yoga practice that could be described as mystical or
unexplainable by western science?”

96

 

communicating this experience in apparently ill-suited language makes more likely
students’ use of understandings or explanations external to the nﬁtter at hand.
Additionally, both the development of yoga philosophy and the experiences of current
students are culturally embedded: understandings not explicit in the practice of yoga
inform both its underlying philosophy and the experience of these students. As a result,
students don’t have the necessary conceptual tools - the implicit, culturally informed
understandings, to make sense of yoga in the terms on which it was founded. This
distinction between the origins and current practice should lead to some confusion.

To discern between the two possibilities requires knowing the truth of ontology
and gauging the validity of the students’ representations of their experiences.
Invalidation of the former requires no discussion. The latter reﬂects the basic limitation
of phenomenological and social research: the restriction to ﬁrst-person access of all
experiences. So the mystery at the foundation of this research project deﬁnes the
conclusion: I do not know what really happened when my awareness drifted through my
body during savasana one evening in the ﬁll of 1996.

That this mystery remains does not disappoint me. I have learned much about
yoga, both its classical origins and how others understand their own experiences of the
practice. As with most endeavors one could pursue with devotion and eﬂ‘ort, yoga has
changed us all by becoming part of who we understand ourselves to be and how we view
our place in the world. Moreover, as an intensely introspective endeavor, the practice of
yoga has brought each of our gazes deeply within each of our selves, bringing to our

conscious awareness much that had remained implicit and indistinct. As to that ﬁrst

97

mystery that so affected me, I have come to enjoy its company and expect to do so for

many years to come.

98

 

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION OF FINDINGS

This research project addressed the question: How does prolonged study of yoga4
affect individual understanding of self, with particular interest to the nature of the mind?
It proved necessary to develop a distinct research strategy in order to approach the
question. The methodology, particularly the interviews, provided a unique avenue to
access this difﬁcult question.

A brief answer to the central question seems to be: “More or less, depending”.
Some students experience profound shifts in self-understanding, which led to life-altering
decisions (such as quitting or retiring from jobs at the peak of careers). Some experience
shifts that they incorporate into their lives with less disruption. A few ﬁnd in yoga
evidence to support and clariﬁcation of self-conceptions that they’d held previously with
less detail. Four students, Sally, Tammy, Amy, and Jerry, had views of yoga that require
further description.

Only two, Sally and Tammy, denied any signiﬁcant change in self-perception.
These two stand out from the remainder in that yoga plays a circumscribed role in their
lives. While both practice asana regularly and are, to my eyes, advanced students of the
postures, neither come to the class with much question about self. Tammy came seeking
physical training akin to dance. She descrrhed herselfas a very physical person who had
found self-understanding through other physical activity (e.g., dance) consistently

through her life. Yoga, for her, offered more reﬁned access to her body and mind, but

 

“ Here, I reemphasize that this study is primarily a study of the asana limb of yoga.

99

 

didn’t change how she looked or what she found. Sally, a devout Christian, used yoga as
an opportunity to clear her mind for worship of God and love of Jesus: “if you clear your
mind, you have an empty space and then God can come in. I just have to make it’s my
God”. She did not participate in chants and the sounding of 0m. When the class says, at
the conclusion “N amaste,” she whispers “In Jesus” and then, with the class, “name I
pray,” a clever subversion.

Amy and Jerry, rather than ﬁnding signiﬁcant changes do to yoga practice, found
conﬁrmation of previously existing understandings. They both came to this stage of yoga
practice (participating in this class with Ruth) having already engaged in lengthy study of
other Eastern philosophies (varieties of Buddhism) and related contemplation of the self.
They had developed sophisticated understandings of self that agreed with the distinction
between mind and self suggested above. These students found further clariﬁcation and
evidence in their asana experiences. ‘

The hypothesis that, after prolonged study of yoga, students will not identify the
mind as the self, but as an instrument of the self for the most part holds. At some point
in the asana portion of the interview, usually during discussion of savasana, students
refer to the mind in some utilitarian, third person ﬁshion". The mind is a source of
contention, its sensitivity difﬁcult to contain; its relationship with other ﬁcets of the self
changes during the course of the asana practice. While the initial experience of the mind
tends to be of an uncontrollable locus of activity, through practice the students learn to

steady it, and develop a different understanding of its relationship with the self.

 

‘2 This observation holds for 12 of the 13 interview transcripts. A brief sample of particularly cogent and
self-contained (thus safely extractable) comments is in Appendix 2.

100

In short, most of these students of yoga come to understand selfas something

more than mind, and come to understand the mind as an instrument of the self.

Potential Biases

Two forms of bias merit attention here: my personal bias (expressed through pre-
conceived conclusions and the observer effect) and sample bias.

The following criticism could reasonably be made: I had a conclusion prior to the
beginning of the research As a student of yoga, I had what seemed to me to be a
profound experience that strongly affected my perception of my self. As a researcher, I
investigated whether other students of yoga might have had a similar experience and,
perhaps not surprisingly, found that they had.

The strongest response to this criticism that I can now Offer is this: the changes in
perception of the self although similar in depth, differed both in experiential context and
in the nature of the shift of self-perception. I was ﬁ'ankly surprised that no student
reported having an experience during yoga practice that echoed my own experience.
While many (10 of 12) recounted experiencing unusual perceptions or physical
experiences, none attributed a similarly signiﬁcant meaning to those experiences. I had
what seemed to me at the time an epiphany. Other students described such experiences in
much more mundane terms, not attributing similar meaning to them". Tori likened such
experiences to an orgasm: “It’s a natural release at the end of an enjoyed activity”.

Further, the meaning that I attributed to my experience was that I could not identify my

 

’3 Whether this reﬂects a dearth of inwardly oriented curiosity on their part or an excess of the same or of
narcissism on mine, I leave others to judge.

101

 

self with my body, leaving the question of self and mind unanswered. It is only during
the course of my research in this project, well into the interview phase, that I began to
wonder about my mind’s relationship to my self".

A related concern is the observer effect, or the possibility that the students
answered my questions with what they assumed I would want to hear rather than with
their own thoughts. My use of instructions ﬁom Ruth and follow-up questions on
particular points” raises the possibility that students who had not previously thought
about the particular subject did so during the interview in light of the social context. I
cannot fully deny this possibility — such is the nature of ethnographic research. While
participating in research, both the interviewer and the interviewee not only exclmnge
information but also create knowledge. The relationship between researcher and
consultant is very likely to inﬂuence the nature of that knowledge. However, the form of
my relationship to the students limits the potential power of the observer effect in this
research. I was less experienced in yoga than all of the other students in the class; I was,
in effect, studying up, or doing research among people of higher standing in this social
context. In addition, having thoroughly studied the transcripts of the interviews, I found
very few instances of questions that seem to presuppose an answer, and did not use the
answers to such questions in the presentation of the analysis.

The second form of bias, sample bias, arises in three layers: the selection of this

class as the site of the research, of the students to interview, and of the students whom I

portray in the analysis.

 

’4 In a personal journal, I wrote the following during February of 2003: “I am not my body. I am not my
brain. I am not my mind. What’s left? Breath.”

‘5 I often found it necessary to ask follow—up questions. For example, for the instruction, “Find that deep
understanding of yourself,” I often asked, “What does ‘deep understanding of yourself mean to you?”

102

First, I selected as my research site an advanced yoga class consisting of students
who studied yoga for several years (3-10 years, average 6). The potential bias here is that
these students had already decided to assign a high priority to yoga in their lives. Only
students suﬂiciently committed to maintain a home practice and attend class participate
in the advanced level class. The class also consists of people with sufﬁcient time and
money to afford both forms of commitment. This is an extraordinary group of people,
and I cannot generalize any conclusions that I draw ﬁom this study to a broader
populations.

Second, my use of convenience sampling for conducting interviews may have led
to a biased sample of data. Bernard describes this method of gathering interviews as
useful for phenomenological and grounded theory research, noting that these research
conditions restrict application of conclusions based on the ﬁndings to the sample alone.
Again, I cannot extrapolate ﬁ'om these students to a larger population. However, the
possibility remains that the students who agreed to participate in and with whom I could
schedule interviews have self-selected as a group more willing to talk about their
experiences of yoga and, perhaps, more biased in the weight that they grant to those
experiences.

The third sample bias is that concerning which students appear in my narrative
presentation of experiences in yoga. Have I emphasized, for example, the teachers over
the students? The numbers of individual portraits indicate otherwise. In Chapter 3, I
present 43 individual narratives of 13 students, with an average of 3.3 narratives per
student. Of the four students who also teach, I presented 13 narratives, with an average

of 3.25. The distribution of the number of interviews suggests no such bias.

103

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD

This research project makes two contributions to the interdisciplinary domain
organized around questions of mind, consciousness, and culture. The ﬁrst and more
signiﬁcant contribution is methodological: the design and application of the interviews.

The second is theoretical: the understanding of the mind in relation to the self.

The Interviews

The interviews present an interesting and creative way of engaging in research
into questions of the public philosophy of mind as well as questions regarding the
meaning of spiritual or religious experience. Similar to many modern studies of the
neurophysiology or psychology of meditation (e.g., Austin, 1998, Travis & Wallace,
1999, and Newberg, d’Aquili, and Rause, 2002), the interviews observe participants
during the course of practicing their discipline. Unlike those studies, however, these
interviews allow the researcher access to speciﬁc, phenomenological information during
the course of the practice. Studies of meditation necessarily create distinct times, one
during which one observes the practitioner in meditation, and another during which one
asks questions about the experience of the practice or analyzes the neurophysiology. My
interviews emphasize the experience of doing the practice, thus providing data for the
comparison between those experiences and the meta-awareness that practitioners can

recall later.

104

Ethically, this method of interviewing respects the practitioners’ beliefs and
practices. Rather than asking individuals to practice in a clinical setting, these interviews
can be conducted in a location appropriate to the practice, as I did by doing many
interviews at the yoga center. Rather than imposing alien conditions (other than an
interviewer and a recording device) on the practitioner, the previously established
patterns of practice could be followed. These interviews accepted the given setting as
appropriate and worked within them, as should be the case for ethical and
methodo logically sound ethnographic research.

The structure and method of the interviews suggests an important theoretical
alignment relevant to anthropology, religious studies, psychology, and the burgeoning
ﬁeld called the science of consciousness. Some have argued for the necessity of an
interdisciplinary approach to many difﬁcult questions concerning religion and
spirituality, as well as thorny questions concerning the role of phenomenology in our
understanding of consciousness. Two such suggestions are those of Owen Flanagan
(1996) and of Jeanine Andresen and KC. Forman (1999). Flanagan argued that the
complexity of consciousness demanded an inter-disciplimry approach that combined
cognitive and psychological approaches, neuroscientiﬁc ﬁndings, and phenomenological
accounts of “how things seem”. Andresen and Forman expanded the body of disciplines
to apply to the study of religious or spiritual experience to include subjective experience,
scientiﬁc research, doctrinal analysis, and social expression. This method of gathering
subjective and inter-subjective information offers a promising suggestion for ﬁrrther,
inter-disciplinary approaches to these and other complex issues that combine deeply

internal individual experience with ritualized social phenomena. Further development of

105

such research could beneﬁt the study of other introspective practices and other forms of
religious or spiritual practice, such as meditation, individual or group prayer, and study of

religious texts.

The Mind and the Self

The most intriguing result Of this research is the distinction students have come tO
make between mind and self, or, as Sarah said, “well, if we aren’t our thoughts, then what
the hell are we?” Students previously held an implicit understanding of identity of the
self and mind, and through their experiences in yoga, come to a different conclusion.

Yoga philosophy and the experiences of these students suggest a very different
conception of mind in relation to self — that of an instrument in relation to she who wields
it. This shift offers some clariﬁcation and some complication to the developing ﬁeld of
the science of consciousness. Of particular interest, I believe, is the acceptance that
classical yoga phiIOSOphy presents an ontology and epistemology, although ﬁr removed
ﬁom those that underlie western psychology and neuroscience, that merits signiﬁcant
consideration. The early yo gis may have known something about the nature of the mind
in relationship to the self that could signiﬁcantly and positively inform ongoing research,
although we rely on a vastly different set of assumptions and use signiﬁcantly different

methods.

106

FURTHER STUDY

This project suggests exciting possibilities for ﬁirther study, particular an
extension of this research into a broader project. The appropriate follow up to this project
would be a larger scale study of a group of non-practitioners who engage in a lengthy
program of yoga study. This project would be a longitudinal study of a diverse sample of
people not currently engaged in the study of yoga. The sample should vary across sub-
cultural, ethnic, economic, age, and as many experiential strata as can be managed.
Baseline data should be established by assessment of physical health; study of implicit
(or explicit) understanding of mind, their sense of self and how they relate to their body
(e.g., they are their body; they are their soul, which animates the body; etc.); and a
standard battery of cognitive-assessment tests to assess various cognitive processes (e. g.,
visual and auditory perception, memory, attention, etc).

The participants should begin with one yoga class each week, following a pattern
that starts with asana practice for several months. During this time, researchers would
monitor the group with regular (perhaps monthly) interviews to observe the general
experiences as well as speciﬁc views of the self and feelings regarding yoga practice. In
addition, periodical cognitive re-evaluations should be conducted. Of particular interest
would be all instances of metaphysical experience with particular attention to how the
individual makes sense of them. Ideally, this longitudinal study should last several years.

At a more immediate level, this research suggests that psychological and

neuroscientiﬁc research into the nature of the mind should consider broadening

107

epistemological consideration to consider non-scientiﬁc“ conceptions of mind as helpful
guides. The methodological contribution suggests an avenue for such research to expand
its study beyond the laboratory and the hhrary, to bring questions of mind to those who

pursue them seriously, whether as a vocation or avocation, in entirely different domains.

 

 

’6 This is an interesting, perhaps false, characterization; during an interview, a student asked: “Do you
mean western scientiﬁc?”

108

 

owe». £5 9 808: mm 305830

88.8: RES 383 3085 088303 8 00:0: 8.0 .88 .8 3:03:88 0% 8 3&0”? a
E Esta—83.08 .8 8088—008 8088 08 3 803020.“ .8880 8:080:28 gwwwaxtm ..

x0888 Se 05 €60.85: bmaom>8 93 088% mm 0.58:: 68$

 

0088 0.5M 08 8 we :03 we .AooeowEBE EzeEEEV 283 we.» .955 3:08 =0£00Qm 8e:
.Aow0v 8885? ”8:83:60 8 3:03:88 085 m: 05 Ammoemsomomeoov «£0 8 8803:?
8 £38 300:0qu 08. .3 008030.89“ $0800 02.“ 08 .8 838080050 033m 30%;, thunk

8 893m

 

00:03:08 8238.8: 6885.8 803 05 - 8838 838 Shaun

a 833326 8 83 823 85% 05 5 853830 do 30830.69 .0858. ewes

 

$8.83 032.8585 a mans
20: .0832 8 08033980 00:: ”85% 05 .8 8:980.“ ”@088 8: e802
.0585 .8535 .3 .38 80803089“ ”0.83: 88 30:58 .28 ...:.&e.§.e~§<

:“voxgg:
has.

 

.2302 .8

$5880.60 Data :0 8m 3808a 08 @8308 Emma—3.38858 08m 283$ on 3.33% 5am

 

 

 

 

 

00.88 88038 603—002 8: .3583 8885 080

 

8358.5 .8 30.205 3 033—.

med—<5. a 8:22:

109

 

 

330.00%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20m .08 000000;.
0000.0.»‘0 0500005000802 =0WMNWMWHN0 V 0.80080000m 0.00.3
. 0 05° 323.0 20.6 00.6
0:00:— 3:30
- 0.9.003 08am 005.0098—
. 0 0.9.00 :0:
305030 .082: .8 0300—305“ 80: :5 00 V
. 0.0.0.0000 080$
«0.900000% 28:05:
0300.00A00000m 0000:0330 £03 .8 8500000 00000.3 00:03:00:— :_ 0 800000000 \0
0500
.8 8:03.38 :52
- 00 .50 0 a 0 03.000 0. .8 8.0.80 3:0:m 0.980000:
.20... .8 080.305.
00.00.: A - 02.80% 00.000: 00000800&
0 00.0.0000 «300.00 0: mm. .300: 0.0000 0A0E0=00m
.0 .5 0.300: .3 m m
.8 0300385— 0.000880%
020.00% 00005..
onto—305—
83088080 0002..
0—33
.. 00.80% 0000.:
03000080000... «000E05C 0000: _0>0_ .0585“. 30m 30m 00.020050...
:0 max—0:0 0.0200302
3:000:85 my 00:00.0
- 00.83 00000.:
320380 028.03— 08500.0 .8 _0>0.._ 80:00:05. 05300.! 0mu~whnunx 830.30.:— 800M

22:30 .3030... 23.. 050.582 0.. 02.5.8

808020.59 .8 3080030 "N 030,—.

110

APPENDIX 2: METHODS

l: SURVEY

Remember that all questions are optional - you may leave any question blank Feel ﬂee
to use the back or additional sheets of paper, but please identiﬁ» the appropriate question.

(A) Name:

 

(B) Address:

 

(C) Phone number:

 

(D) E-mail address:

 

 

(E) Profession/Employer:

 

(F) Length of time at current job:

 

(G) Religious or spiritual afﬁliation/faith/community:

 

(H) Marital status (if married, how long):

 

(1) Children (if yes, how many and wlmt are their ages):

 

(J) How long have you participated in this Level IV Iyengar Yoga class (years, months)?

 

(K) How long (total) have you practiced yoga (years, motnhs)?

 

(L) Why did you begin to study yoga (e.g., for a speciﬁc injury, to cope with stress)?

 

(M) Do you participate in any other activities for your physical, mental, emotional, or
spiritual health? If so, what are they and how much do you participate (e.g., hours per
week)?

 

Thank you very much for your time. Please return this form to the envelop labeled
“Chris Jentoft ” in the bottom right drawer of the desk (where the phone books are) in the
front hallway. If you have any questions, please contact me by phone (333-9392) or

email (ientoft@nsu. edu)

111

2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE

I. General questions
A. How did you come to start practicing yoga and to participate in the Level IV Iyengar
yoga class with Ruth?

B. What is Ruth like, as a yoga teacher? Tell me about your relationship with her.

C. Tell me about what it’s like to come into the center and to get ready for class.
[Follow-up for clarity: Do you drive? Do you come to the center from work? Do you
usually need to change clothes?]

D. Do you put your mat in the same place for every class? Why (or why not)?

E. What do you do to get ready for class, before Ruth starts the centering? Do you do the
same thing before every class? Why do you do what you do?

II. Practice
Now we ’re going to begin the practice portion of the interview. I 'm going to guide us
through the practice using some of the same instructions that Ruth uses during class. I ’d
like you to tell me what each pose feels like. During some postures, I’m going to read
you things Ruth has said during class. I am more interested in how you understand her
instructions, and what it feels like to follow them, than in what you think she means.
Okay? I]: at any point, you feel or think of something that you think is important or
interesting, please speak it. You don ’t have to speak only when I ask questions.

F eel free to stay in or come out of the pose while you answer the questions, however you
feel more comfortable.

A. Centering

Okay, come forward to sitting. Sit straight and tall. Exhaling, close your eyes ﬁom top
to bottom. [Sigh] Feel your sit-bones, spread your weight evenly over them. Inhaling,

lift your spine from the top of your head Exhaling, lift your spine from the base. Look
within.

[Pause]

Okay, now I ’m going to read you some things Ruth has said during centering, and I ’d like
to know what they mean to you and how it feels to try to follow them.

1. “Find that deep understanding of yourself ”

2. “Remember, the frontal brain is soft and receding. "
3. “This is your sacred time for practicing yoga. ”

[If still in virasana:] Okay, inhaling, gently open the eyes. Inhaling, stretch the arms
overhead Exhaling, release. Inhale. Exhale and turn to the right. Inhale. And,

112

 

exhaling, come all the way around to the left.

B. Upavista
Okay, come off the black and sit in upavista Plant the heels on the ground, press the

thighs into the floor, and stretch open the backs of the legs. Inhaling, lift the pit of the
abdomen out of the pelvis.

Okay, here ’s another instruction from Ruth:
1. “Allow the energy to ﬂow up and down. ” What does that mean to you? Do you feel
the energy ﬂowing? How does it feel ? [If they say no, then ask: Have you felt it? How

did it feel ? ]

C. Boddhikonasana
1. “Find that place of stillness, deep inside. Let the stillness seep into your cells.” Do
you feel a place of stillness? How does it feel to let it seep into you cells?

D. Downward Dog
Here are some more quotes from Ruth.

1. “F ind that stillness... check the mechanical part, then sink into the stillness. ”
2. “Dump the contents of your brain onto the floor. ”

3. When a student commented that she hadn ’t felt that good in down dog for a long time,
Ruth told her that “Yes, but your cells remember now. ” What does that mean to you?
Have you experienced that “cellular memory ”?

E. Tadasana
1. “ Use your breath to draw your attention inward. ” [Follow up: what is the role of
breath in your practice? ”]

F. Trikonasana

G. Parsvokonasana - side-angle nose
1. “F ind your stamina by using your breath. It ’s not usually an adversary. ” [Follow-up:

For you, what does it mean for breath to be an adversary?]

H. Prasarita Padottanasana — s s read forward bend

I. Salamba Sirsasana I - Headstand

1. “Before going into the posture, organize your mind. ” [Follow up: For you, what does

it mean to organize your mind? How do you do that? Do you feel different after you’ve
done it? ”]

J. Sarvangasana - shoulder stand
Now we ’re going into sarvangasana, shoulder stand. I don ’t have any questions. Feel

113

free to offer any comments you have.

K. Savasana
1. Now we ’11 end the practice with savasana. First, I 'd like to know how you arrange
your position? Why do you do it that way?

2. Do you vary the way you prepare for this posture? Why or why not?

3. “A llow yourself to feel the physical, emotional, and psychological release in the body.
Consciously surrender the mind into the body and the body into the breath. Find that
place of openness deep inside... and go within. ” [Long pause. Sound bell three times to
come out of savasana] Roll to one side and come up to sitting. What does “going
within ” mean to you? Do you feel that you go within? What is it like for you to go
within? What goes? Where does it go? How does it relate to you? How do you come
back?

L. 0m and Namasté
1. What does it feel like to om?

III. Final questions
A. What is it like to leave the studio and the center after the class has ended?

B. Does the mixing of classes coming and going affect you?

C. What is the rest of your night like? Does Monday night differ from other nights of the
week?

D. Have you had any experiences during yoga practice that could be described as
mystical or unexplainable by western science? More than one? When did it/do they
occur? Did that/those experience(s) affect your yoga practice? What did the
experience(s) mean to you?

E. What do you think about the relationship between body and mind?

F. How important is the metaphysical philosophy of yoga (e. g., the relationship among
boay, breath, mind, personality, and spirit) to you or your practice? Has it inﬂuenced
your view of yourself? How?

G. How has my presence affected your experience of the class?

B. [Follow-up questions]

I. Do you have any questions or comments about this interview or my research?

114

3: EARLY CODING SCHEME

 

A

Body

Awareness

 

Control

 

Distinction between anatomy and physiology

 

Distinction between Motion & Action

 

Not the self

 

CﬁUI-thNr-t

Yoga as physical health care

 

 

 

 

Mind

Awareness

 

a General

 

Control b Disc' . tion

 

Distinction between emotional and intellectual

 

Vrttis (ﬂuctuations)

 

Brain&CNS

 

Not the self

 

gamut» N :—

Yoga as mental health care

 

 

 

Breath

Awareness

 

N

Control

 

Cessation

 

 

 

Self

_

General - theoretical/philosophical understanding

 

General - practical experience thereof

 

a General

 

b Ego (ahamkara)

 

c Consciousness (citta)

 

DlstlnctIOIIS d Self (I-conscious or asmita)

 

Soul (iivatman - purusa, not
e prakrti)

 

 

Journey within

Decreased external

 

Increased internal

 

Reabsorbtion speciﬁc to non-speciﬁc

 

Stillness

 

 

Unsure-t

Other internal experience (e. g., increased subtlety)

 

115

 

 

1 External

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Internal
Energy
1 LiminalitL
2 Consistencies
. 3 Changes
Ritual 4 Sacred
1 At Center for Yoga
. 2 Elsewhere
Envrronment
1 Student-teacher
2 Among students
. . 3 Among teachers
Relationship 4 Community at large
1 Readings
2 Knowledge - epistemology
a General
I) Yamas & Niyamas
Philosophy c Asana
3 The Eight Limbs d Pranayama
e Pratyahara
f Dharana & Dhyana
g Samadhi
l Progression
2 Impact of Yoga
General . . . . l a General
3 Sp n'rt/Sp b Experience

 

 

4 On again/OH again

 

116

 

4: INTERVIEW DATA TABLE EXCERPT

II.A.1: “Find that deep understanding of yourself”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it helps me just to let go of the day and try to...try to pay attention
to... to my own feelings and what they are at the moment... and it
means different things at different times, because the days are
always different. So sometimes... it goes very quickly that, you
know when she says “go inward,” 1 can let go, and sometimes it
takes... you know, several downward dogs, or wherever we are in

 

Source Quote Comment
Jerry C: So, ﬁnd that deep understanding of yourself. [pause] What does Phenomenology of
II.A.l that mean to you? going within -
I: To ﬁnd the peaceful center, which for me is right here [gesture]. physical sensations
C: How do you know it’s right there? accompanying
J: Umm... It’s a place I feel strong feelings, positive and negative. I going within;
just, 1 don’t know, Ijust know it. physical—mental
C: Is it a physical sensation? and their impacts
.1: It can be. When I feel, when I’m feeling relaxed, that part of my outside of asana
body just sort of lets go and the rest of it sort of radiates from there. practice
And if I’m feeling fearful or angry, it’s where I contract. And then I
have to remind myself to breathe. And that’s when - what I’m ﬁnd
is that’s one of the most powerful parts of yoga for me, though the
asana piece about relaxing and working the muscles and all of that is
good, but the breathing, I think has had as much of an impact on how
I live my life daily, which to me is part of yoga, is being able to take
it out of the study into daily life.
Jackie 1: Well, I think that ﬁnding a deep understanding of yourself is Parablel! The
II.A.l ﬁnding that —- what does she call it? The um inner - what’s the heart center is
term? where the deep
C: Heart center? understanding of
J: The heart center. I think that’s what it is, it’s ﬁnding that heart self is!
center and we went — did you make Adhil’s workshop last time you
were there? : He wanted to remain hidden and god said no,
“Someday mankind will reach the top of the highest mountain” and
the lesser god said, “How about the very depths of the deepest
ocean” and this god said, “No. Mankind will someday reach the
deepest depths of the ocean” and it went on and on and on;
suggestions from all these lesser gods. And ﬁnally, the smallest of
the lesser gods said, “Why don’t you hide yourself within the heart
of man himself?” and this god said, “Ah. There, mankind will never
ﬁnd me” and that’s where he decided to hide himself. And I guess
that’s what 1 think of when 1 think of my heart center. It’s trying to
ﬁnd the spirit of god within myself. So that’s what that means to me
when she says that.
Tori That’s hard to ﬁnd. I ﬁnd myself instead diverting my attention to Changes in
II.A.l my breath or something that I can focus on. The deep understanding attention over the
of myself may come more at the end of class. course of the
class/practice.
Anna It’s in the category of letting the outside world go. And focusing Going within —
II.A.l inward rather than outward. I’m not sure that- that’s always possible letting go of the
in a short period of time to talk about understanding your true self, outside/the
but I think... what- what an instruction like that does is it- it helps. . . preceding day —

allows her to attend
her feelings

 

 

117

1T.

 

the practice until... at one point- at some point I ﬁnally realize, yeah,
I’ve let go. It doesn’t always happen during centerﬂ for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tammy Oh, I don’t know if it’s a deep understanding of myself. That might Rejects deep
II.A.l be too much. It’s not something I give a lot of thought to. 1 think in understanding of
general yoga connects me with something in me. 1 don’t know how self - “something
I would verbalize it. 1 don’t know what it is. I don’t call it anything within me” —
in particular but it helps me connect with something in myself. And instead, here she
so that centering, especially now as I’ve been doing more yoga, does connects body and
help me to kind of relax and connect with myself, but it’s not like mind — deeper vs.
disconnected the rest of my waking moments. It’s just yoga is one overall; but this is
way to connect that feels especially good and it connects my body not new (dance?)
and so, ‘cause your body in a spin away expresses things that are What’s new is
going in your mind and in your life. And so, it seems like a healthy more articulate
way to reconnect ‘cause it kind of realigns you, but it’s not the only physical awareness
way. So, I don’t — I’m not sure. Yeah. Yeah, I would say certainly &. control, which
it helps you with, it helps you in understanding yourself but it’s one relates to tension
component. You know, I don’t know that any of this moment that Ends up at
I’m hear I have, when I’m doing this I have a deeper understanding “awareness” —
of myself but rather that contributes to an overall awareness of which must mean
yourself which has to do with how you lead your body, sort of well, that to which she
whatever it was. And it’s not — now yoga is a neat way that I’ve can pay attention
found to do that but it’s not, I don’t feel that I wasn’t getting it
before.
Amy it’s a deeper understanding of what’s going on and what I’m Contrasting social
II.A.l doing, cause I don’t think life’s about a job and relationships and to the most basic
everything, it’s about, you’re here for this time, you don’t know how existential element
long it is, you don’t know why... you know, it’s a time for learning,
or not, dependingon your choices...
Blaire What does that mean to me? I think pretty much what it says. It Attentional shift to
II.A.l means turn in, focus away from things outside of yourself and begin stillness — not to
to move into a place of quiet and stillness. [Is that a physical move mind or body, but
you’re feeling or a mental feeling?] It’s a uh, attentional, it’s more a awareness —
moving of the mind, I think more than of the attention; focus of moving through
attention away from the external to the -- or the internal. static layers?
Erin That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. I think actually what that does Deep
II.A.l is kind of speaks to the third one and that is why am I doing- I mean understanding of
why am I doing this, why am I here, why is this important to me. self is “contextual”
But I have a deep understanding of myself, I interpret to be kind of in what seems to
contextual to what am I doing there as opposed to a self that has me to be a
nothing to do with that class or that is separate. 1 think everything complete contrast
that she says I contextualize within the project of that class. to how others
interpret it
(independent of all
context)
Sally I’m not — oh, golly! 1 think I don’t understand myself. I think 1 Confusion on the
II.A.l understand myself, but I think I work more on just being calm issue — lack of
and in the present more than anything else. I may have just been, awareness or lack
understand myself. I don’t know. If I was maybe conﬁrsed about of conﬁdence?
why was that yoga or something, is that, what she means by that 1
ask myself. But I think I almost just go within...
Liz Yeah, Ijust kind of visualize looking inside of myself and just Some visualization
II.A.l feeling like, your true self, you know, who you are, really are on the — some awareness

 

inside um and you know, apart from your, all your external stuff.
So [just - that’s what I think about, you know, when she says
something like that is just go in, just really go in; just picture, just
picture going inside and then just feeling that true self, your

 

 

that there is a self,
but not clear as to
what that self is

 

118

 

 

 

authentic self.

 

 

 

 

Kathy Yeah, I really like it when she gives those kinds of promptings Here it is, right off

II.A.l because I feel like, what I experience doing those is an immediate the bat: yoga for
drawing inward, um, where you begin to lose the outside the world Kathy is about
and begin to experience not only yourself as you think you are, but, experiencing a
more of a sense of true self. So I immediately start to draw inward sense of true self
in a, in a, in a good way, and, uh, begin to quiet. [Is there a physical
sensation that goes along with that?] Um... not so much, there’sjust
an, more of an over-all sense of uniﬁcation, and overall sense of
calm, more calm, and I kind of feel an imagery of, of, of drawing,
like this sort of circle around me drawing inward, moving towards
the center of the body, but 1 don’t feel any physical sensation of that,
more just an imagery of that.

Sarah 1 think when l was in that centering state, it’s like this is, I think, one Centering -

II.A.l of the most wonderful appreciations that I have for Ruth, is her moving towards
belief in the goodness of each being and I think that’s been a very self — fragile sense
fragile thing with me through most all of my life and that... touches of self - so the
me deeply each time movement towards

that fragile but
important thing is
good

Sarah Well, I think it has come to me at different levels, in a sense, um, Differing levels of

II.A.l when I’m in class, when I’m in home practice, during meditation or “selﬁress” sensed

 

pranayama, it just really is calmness that comes I think at the center,
and, you still up with this little ja-ja, ja-ja, ja—ja, just, you know, let
em go, just let em go, but it really is this sense of peace... which is
wonderﬁtl because my brain has been a chatterer for a long, long
time, and it’s really been I think in this last year a, um, a continued
practice...

 

depending on
practice...
improving over
time - there is an
equivalence drawn
here: sense of self
~ calmness

 

119

 

5: DEVELOPMENT OF THE NARRATIVES

The following passage shows one narrative and most of the interview next that I
drew from in writing this passage. Where correlations between the two are speciﬁc and
clear, I underline the relevant portion of both and mark them with a foot-note style
indication: ', b, ‘, d, and, ‘. The full context of the narrative also includes my observations
and recollections, such that of Tori sitting, seemingly, quiet stilL and peaceful. The main
difﬁculty in drafting these narratives was weaving together the individual observations
and the individual’s broader sensibility that I learned both through the interview and
through lengthy time spent in his or her company. I believe that my efforts have been
largely successﬁil.

*****

Tori sits still on her soft block. To the observer, she seems quiet, still, peaceful.
She is not. Her mind races, as it does most of the day when it is nat immediately
occupied with the intricate details of amalgam She knows the feeling of
stillness, knows it well enough to note its absence. ﬁe wrests h_er attention from
mgaghts outside of the room. outside of yoga, by taking a deep inhalation ang following
it with her awareness within “.

Seeking silence, she struggles with her brain, which races, unwilling to relinquish ‘
its normal control. She has spent nearly her whole life living in her head. She has some
memory of danc' as a chil not as a mental but a h sical e rience. But that was a

loag time ago. Today, she is on the other side of decades of intellectual, analytical life

experience. Her brain is pm and enjoys its place of authorm' , detem’ ' g what will

 

hapmn aad when‘.

120

Yoga. as s_he experiences poigaantly duripg centering, is one of the few

opporttmities she has to allow her brain to takeabackpeat to other experiences and forms

of actioa, pm ' the emotional and the physical. But the process ip not em, and

success rarely immediaﬁ“. So she sits, trying to bring her attention into her body and

 

heart-center, by focusing her mind on her breath.
She wopders how on earth she will do it tonight'.
* t It * *
Interview quotes:

C. Tell me about what it’s like to come into the center and to get ready for class.
And so, that’s usually what it’s like for me at the beginning of a class, is ﬁguring out

how on earth I’m going to let go of it today'.

 

[Later in the interview]
1. “Find that deep understanding of yourself "

Eat’s hard to ﬁnd. I ﬁnd myself instead diverting m attention to my breath or
somethang' that I can focus on. The deep understancm of myself may com_e more at the
end of class. "

2. “Remember, the frontal brain is soft and receding. "

So m_uch of the day is mm leading ﬁom th_e fron_t of the forehead into life'. And yoga is
one of the few opportunities to actually recede thﬂpart of the brain for me, and to ask my
brain not to feel like it has to be in charge, because ﬂ doean’Lhave to be in con_troLI
can consciousﬂ ask it to sit back. to soften. and let go to the experience of wh_aawill
happan“. It doesn’t always like that. Some days it’s easier than others, to ask to stop, to
ask it to recede. Sometimes it’s totally unwilling. Other days, eventually it will do as it’s
asked.

Later in the interview:
E. What do you think about the relationship between body and mind?

What do I think about it? Um, this has been one of the foremost battles of my life.

[Laughs] I wpuld say, before yoga B.Y., llaughsl. 90%. 95% of my life was lived from
the neck up“. My body was in okay shape because I’m an active person, but that much of

my attention, much of my life was centered ﬁom the neck up. But wh_en I was a child. I

 

121

danced a lot. That was not an activity that engaged themajn. So LL kind of like the
mind and the body. in my life. have been separate entities. until the practice of yoga
started forming“. But it’s still the battle that continues is trying to convince my mind that
it’s not in control, and to convince my body that it doesn’t need to be separate form the
mind in order to get what it needs, I’m doing this. So the union of those two things is a
precarious issue for me. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I can’t spend too
much time judging that, the mind wins, when you do that.

122

6. COMMENTS DEMONSTRATING MIND-SELF DISTINCTION

Amy:

Blaire:

Erin:

Jackie:

The attention’s the only thing you really have any control over. That’s
why you, that’s you come to yoga. To me attention is a tiny portal that
you express your choices through, you know, that you form intentions and
express them through your attention. Because you can’t control your
emotions, you can’t control experience, you can’t control how your body
is, you can’t control your thoughts. But you can choose what you pay
attention to. So it’s not all of you, but it’s the one part you have control
over. So in some ways that’s the you, your soul, or your 1 don’t know, I
don’t necessarily adhere to that word, but, because I think that what we are
is not, we don’t posses all that we are. You know, we get this body for the
time that we’re alive and...

. .. [Y]ou become more in tune... both with your mind and your body and
your surroundings so that... eventually there’s [a] better ﬁt, there’s more
center, there’s more spirit in everything you do. . .

I don’t even think you can do... the asanas if you... if you don’t... at the
same time engage your mind and your body.

. . .the idea would be that the mind takes its appropriate seat in the heart. I
mean... in the metaphorical sense, you know... the seat of one’s
aspirations and one’s karma and all those all those kinds of things. ..

So rather than just having your mind ﬂoat around to all the different parts
of the body that need to be in certain positions for this to remind yourself
that there is a whole stillness and a whole pose...

I think that when body and mind are connected in that purest form that you
can possibly reach. . . [t]hat’s when you hit the spirituality of it; when your
body and mind are working together and — oh, how do I put this? It’s
almost like you escape both of them. .

Jerry: “My mind wanders, it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re doing yoga now’. I remind myself

that.”

Kathy:

I’m a very intellectual person, and I think it’s easy, when you use your
mind a lot and when your mind is very strong, to use it in ways that aren’t

123

necessarily—not necessarily—towards the betterment of your personal
growth.

Sally: “You know, my mind says, ‘Get into downward dog’...”

Sarah:
.. .when I’m in the head down postures. .. I really can, with the breath, be
in a place where the mind stops... yakking. And there’s just this
wonderful posture that I’m left in... I love headstand.

Simon:
[After death], you’re not going to have your ego, your not going to have
your body... your mind is going to be going... the same way as the body
is, somewhere else, but there is an inﬁnite energy source, you’re
consciousness, that is left, that remains.

Tammy:
I think savasana is the hardest pose to do and I don’t - I relax in it, but I
rarely let go. My mind is still always there, active. That would be, to
really be able to just abandon that which is part of you, I think that’s the
idea of the pose.

Tori:
...it teaches me a way to let go of all of those things that have been racing
in my mind and pulling at me ﬁom diﬂerent areas, and to try to ﬁnd a way
to consciously let go of those in a one hour period of time. ..
It’s sometimes hard in savasana to lie still. The body will lie still.
Sometimes the mind won’t want to lie still. Simply by watching the
breath, it is able to quiet. . .
Quieting the mind down is for me the hardest part of savasana. Some
people have said that savasana is the hardest pose, it certainly has been the
most challenging for me. Okay, I’ve done everything now that I can think
of, and to make my mind feel as if it’s safe, as if it’s totally comfortable,
as if there’s nothing requiring attention.

124

 

WORKS CITED

Andresen, Jensine and F orman, Robert. “Methodological Pluralism in the Study of
Religion.” Journal of Consciousness Studies. vol. 7 no. 11-12, 7-14, 1999.

Austin, J. Zen and the 13in: Toward an understanding of meditation and consciousness.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.

Bernard, H. Russel. Research Methods in Anammology: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002.

Chatterjee, Satischandra and Datta, Dhirendramohan. An In_troduction to Indian
Philosophy. Clacutta: University of Calcutta, 1948.

Eliade, Mircea. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1958.

Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: the Nature of Religion. Translated by
Willard Trask. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959.

Eliade, Mircea. Patanjali and Yoga. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969.

Feuerstein, Georg. The Yoga Tradition: Its History. Literature. Philosophy aad Practice.
Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 1998

Flanagan, O. “Deconstructing Dreams: The Spandrels of Sleep.” In Towards a Science of
Consciousness: the First Tucson Discussions and Debates. ed. Stuart R. Hameroﬁ‘,
Alfred W. Kaszniak, and Allwyn C. Scott, 67-88. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1996.

Iyengar, B.K.S. Light on Yoga. New York: Schocken Books, 1966.

Iyengar, B.KS. Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. London: HarperCollins
Publishers, 1993.

Newberg, Andrew B., d’Aquili, Eugene G., and Rause, Vince. Why God Won’t Go
Away: B;a_in Science and the Biology of Belj_e_f. New York: Ballantine Books,
2002.

 

Palkhivala, Aadil. Personal conversation. June 2003.
Ruiz, F.P. “Krischnamacharya’s Legacy.” Yoga Journal, vol. 160, 97-101 and 161-171, 2001.

Russel, H. R. Research Methoda in Anjhopology: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Walnut
Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002.

125

 

Travis, F. & Wallace, R. K. “Autonomic and EEG Patterns during Eyes-Closed Rest and
Transcendental Meditation (TM) Practice: The Basis for a Neural Model of TM
Practice.” Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 8, 302-318, 1999.

 

Turner, Victor. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ Publications, 1986.

GENERAL REFERENCES

Cairns-Smith, A.G. “If Qualia Evolved...” In TowardsJa Science of Consciousness: the
Third Tucson Discussions and Debates. ed. Stuart R Hameroff, Alﬁed W.
Kaszniak, and Simon J. Chalmers, 271-280. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1999.

Chalmers, Simon J. “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.” In Towards a Science
of Conscious_nej: the First Tucson DiscussionL and Debates. ed. Stuart R
Harneroﬂ‘, Alfred W. Kaszniak, and Allwyn C. Scott, 5-28. Cambridge, MIT
Press, 1996.

Funderburk, James. Science Stucﬁes Yaga: A Review of the Physiological Data. Oxford:
Himalayan International Institution, 1977.

Harding, Sandra. Whose Science? Whose Kaowledge?: Think—lug from Women’s Lives.
Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1991.

Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind. Boulder, Westview Press, 1996.

Levin, JospelL “Conceivability, Identity, and the Explanatory Gap.” In Towards a
Science of Conscious_ness: th_e Third Tucson Discussions and Debates, ed. Stuart
R Hameroﬁ‘, Alﬁed W. Kaszniak, and Simon J. Chalmers, 3-12. Cambridge, MIT
Press, 1999.

Pals, Daniel. Seven Theories of Religio_n. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Rosenberg, Gregg. “On the Intrinsic Nature of the Physical.” In Towards a Science of
Consciousaess: th_e Third Tucson Discussions and Debates. ed. Stuart R
Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak, and Simon J. Chalmers, 33-48. Cambridge, MIT
Press, 1999.

Stawson, Galen. “Realistic Materialist Monism.” In Towards a Science of Consciousness:
th1e Third Tucson Discussigns aad Debates. ed. Stuart R. Hameroﬂ‘, Alfred W.
Kaszniak, and Simon J. Chalmers, 23-32. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1999.

Yardi, M.R The Yoga of Patafijali: with an Introduction, Sanskrit Text of the Yogas-

Sutras, English Translation, and Notes. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research
Institute, 1979.

126

 

   

4|illilllllllllllllllilllllllllllillll
3 1293 02511 0275