March 31, 2015

I am just finishing a weekend workshop with senior Iyengar yoga teacher, Kevin Gardiner. It was a great learning experience as these times of study often are, and yet they are not easy.

Teachers of the Iyengar method, in my experience, demand of the students an unwavering presence and a continuous commitment to being with the teacher and with the instruction. We, as students, are asked listen and embody the instructions without checking out, without slipping back into previous patterns or without even sliding into previous understandings that may or may not be relevant to the current instructions and theme. We are asked to come with a prepared body, an open mind and a curiosity that surmounts our knowledge. This requires a willingness to be naked, vulnerable, and clean like a newborn that has no preconceived ideas about what is correct, possible or relevant. As I said, not easy!

I find it fascinating to watch my experience of this. I do want to learn; I even want the correction. At the same time, I have a deep desire to be acknowledged for what I know, for my effort in the practice and with a pose. This desire for acknowledgement is also my protection, my cloak and my armor. The quest for validation takes me away from my self and closes me off as I settle into rigid patterns of my knowing. “I know what I am doing; I have done this pose 10 000 times!” is my internal dialogue. This theme solidifies into a container that bind me to my small self. My true Self asks to be found, the layers of interference peeled away and while the process is not easy, the reward is an awakening that has a tremendous gift of aliveness.

I left the workshop on Saturday afternoon feeling as if my internal body had been wiped clean. I was clear, polished and seeing the world with eyes from which my blinders had fallen away. What an experience!

During the weekend, Kevin talked about seeing through the body. The seer is using the medium of the body to see beyond the body. To be able to see through, the window that is the body must be cleansed of latent impressions, reflections, imprints that prevent an accurate representation of the world around us, the samskaras. It is so easy to sit outside ourselves in judgment, in evaluation and in our desire for external validation. And yet, the work is in sitting inside ourselves.

One of the challenges for me in the Iyengar system is that the method of presentation can take me out of myself. I suddenly am judging myself as less than, I am hearing the instructions through a lens of performance. Can I “do” what is being asked? This is not a process of seeing through but rather another way of checking out. It is a way of disconnecting from myself and from my experience. When I let the instruction in and move toward it with an air of investigation but mind becomes quiet and the part of me that critiques is less present. Instead of doing, I am seeing … what is possible, what is available to me through my body on this day and in this pose. I am bringing my body to the pose instead of the pose into my body. I am seeing through the density that is my form into the clarity that is my heart. All this means that the ego, the part of me that does want to perform the asana and sit in judgment of my worth and ability based on that effort, needs to sit back. The ego (small “s” self) is not in the body and is not what sees through it.

As I mentioned, on Saturday, I left the workshop with the feeling that I was completely clean, clear and fully awake. That is the precious gift of the intensity of practice that leaves me open (and yes vulnerable), awake (even if sleep is comfortable) and free (even if constraint feels safe).