Making my Niyama Case for Virgosity

Don't  move my salt shaker. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don't bother googling "virgosity." It's a word my husband made up to describe my extreme Virgo-ness. I don't know what it is about being born during late August or most of September, but everyone I know who was born under the astrological sign of Virgo has the same catch-phrase. It is "Don't move my stuff."

My husband coined the term "virgosity" to explain behaviors that to his Leo brain seem completely irrational, like sliding the salt shaker a half-inch to the right so it will be exactly where it belongs, or arranging candle holders so they will be in a perfect non-linear scatter. After I've had some alone time at the yoga studio, the classes arrive to find all the blankets folded identically and stacked with all the fringe facing the same way, a specific number in each stack.

Lucky for me and all my fellow Virgo yogis and yoginis, Patanjali justified our virgosity in the Yoga Sutras, right there in the list of Niyamas. Number one on the list is Shaucha, which is purity or cleanliness. Shaucha refers to both your external environment and, being yoga, what's going on in that mind of yours.

We know that a cluttered mind creates obstacles to the practice of yoga, whether it's asana, meditation, self-study or one of the other branches. What makes this Virgo heart sing is the acknowledgement that a cluttered or dirty environment also creates those obstacles. Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time focusing on work when my desk hasn't been cleared off, as I learned the hard way when I allowed it to get out of control. I have never been satisfied with an asana practice surrounded by piles of laundry.

You can do lots of things to purify the body and clear the mind, but your breakthrough might be stalled under a stack of dirty dishes. The simplicity of life when everything is in its place can free up energy for the internal work.

And if you don't know the exact place for your salt shaker, it's time to make friends with a Virgo.

A shower, my thighs and Ahimsa #365Yoga

A guy rocking Scorpion Pose (Photo credit: FabulousTerrah)

Yesterday, after I finished Insanity Cardio Recovery (a.k.a. the "slow, painful death of my thighs" workout), I was thinking about whether or not a painful workout went against the "nonharming" principle of yoga. I was standing in the shower at the time, and I was also wondering how a non-cardio workout could have made me sweat so much, so don't expect anything too deep and philosophical here.

Ahimsa, usually translated as nonharming or nonviolence, is the first of the Yamas in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The Yamas teach us how to control our personal conduct when dealing with others. In its simplest terms, the principle of Ahimsa asks us to not hurt anyone. But, if it's part of the code of ethics for dealing with others, does it allow us to hurt ourselves?

I've heard yoga teachers point out Ahimsa as the reason we shouldn't push too hard during an asana practice. "Show compassion for yourself!" "There's no pain in yoga!" "Stay within your edge!" I've said these things myself. They are yoga teacher language for "Please don't get hurt in my class." I have to wonder, however, how the guy rocking Vrischikasana never pushed past his edge while learning how to get there. And if he was sore for awhile, like I was when I was regularly working on scorpion pose, did he feel un-yogi-like because he wasn't gentle with his body?

My thighs disagree, but I think using Ahimsa as an excuse not to take reasonable risks with my body takes something away from the Yamas, which are supposed to remind me that it's not, in fact, all about me. The violence we're supposed to be avoiding isn't muscle aches from a good workout, it's the harm we do when we think we're separate from everyone else. It's the pain that we cause whenever we allow differences in race, gender, nationality, religion, living conditions, etc., to create an "otherness" in our thinking. It's the rips in the web of existence that we create every time we come from a place of fear rather than openness.

I'm not advocating recklessness in yoga classes or home practices. We should always practice safely and with intention and awareness, to avoid injuries. I just think we do a disservice to Patanjali when we claim Ahimsa while we're dropping into child's pose but forget to talk about the much deeper commitment nonviolence requires when we step off our mats. After all, Patanjali probably never saw a forearm balance. I know he never checked out Insanity.

Yes, there are awesome yoga teachers out there digging into the Yamas in their classes, but they weren't in the shower with me. It was just me and my thighs, and, Ahimsa or not, we've got another workout tomorrow.

Don't do this, do this #365Yoga

(Photo credit: GO INTERACTIVE WELLNESS)

There is a saying that if you really want to integrate something, you should teach it to someone else. I've found that to be true, especially with yoga. Then creating and teaching a yoga teacher training program really drove home pieces of yoga philosophy that I had been just flirting with for years.

For the session that just started, I decided to narrow the study of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras into an in-depth look at the Yamas and the Niyamas. As a result, I've been researching how different people interpret and apply yoga's ethical guidelines. Like all of the Sutras, I wonder how best to apply the Yamas and Niyamas in the time we live in.

The five Yamas are yoga's "don't do this" list - "don't harm," "don't lie," "don't steal," etc. The Niyamas lay out five better choices to make, including staying clean, cultivating contentment and exploring your inner self. All ten are at once simple and extremely complex.

While what North America has truly embraced is Hatha Yoga, it is interesting to note that, when Patanjali laid out the eight limbs of yoga, he put the Yamas and the Niyamas first and second. Did he believe that the rules for living needed to be embraced before one was ready to tackle the other limbs? Well, that's a question for a group of yoga teacher trainees in a couple of weeks.

Sunday Sutras: Silence (1.1 and 1.2)

Image via Wikipedia

Now that I've finished my series on the Chakras, I've decided to spend some time with Patanjali, the father of yoga. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, a very short book of verses, has been guiding yogis for two thousand years, but I'll admit I haven't opened it since teacher training. To get me thinking about it, I'll tackle a verse or two every Sunday. The translation I have is by Alistair Shearer, so I'll be using that one, but there are others.

1.1 And now the teaching on yoga begins.

The first verse is pretty straight forward. I can picture yogis of old sitting in lotus, listening to their guru say those words. Pay attention, because here's where the good stuff starts.

1.2 Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.

Right there, in the second verse, is the crux of it. Yoga is silencing the mind. It's not eco-friendly rubber mats or butt-lifting spandex pants. It's not headstands or backbends. It's not even breathing deep. It's simply letting go of the stream of thought so all that's left in your head is silence.

Have you ever laid on the grass and watched the clouds? The breeze moves the clouds, forming them into shapes. Your mind starts to associate those shapes with animals, people or things, giving them names, and it watches for the next shape that looks like something. All the chatter in the mind is like watching the clouds, a constant stream of analysis, naming and anticipating. But what if, instead of watching the clouds, you watched the blue sky? What if your mind didn't have anything to associate with anything else? Focusing on the blue sky and ignoring the clouds is like silencing the mind. And silencing the mind is yoga.

That's all you have to do.

My husband hates it when someone says "that's all you have to do," because whatever is "all you have to do" usually requires a big commitment of time, energy, materials or money. When I say "all you have to do is replace that light fixture," he's likely to spend three weekends rewiring the house. I'm sure he just read "that's all you have to do" and cringed.

If you, like my husband, read the second verse and thought that quieting the mind might not be as easy as it sounds, you're right. It's going to take some major rewiring in your energetic house. And if you wondered why you'd want to silence the mind anyway, well, that's for next week...