Listening: The Energy Body 

Natural Yoga's approach is based on the traditional Art of Listening and the principle of less is more.

Natural Yoga is never about straining, and equally it is not about collapsing. It is always about actions that are appropriate to the moment that can only be revealed by innocent attention to things as they are now.

Natural Yoga is the practice of reconciling extremes. The means is listening to the flow of your breath and the result is harmony with the flow of Life.

Our knowledge based societies are wondrous and yet they cause a loss of freedom because they have entrained us to live in our heads, in a world of concepts and ideas. This causes our energies to be locked into mechanical patterns of neuro-muscular tensions and we do not perceive the body. We experience an image of the body which is an intellectual response to what our sense doors perceive as the physical body. In this way our bodies have become an idea (the I-image), rather than something living, something felt.

At the core of all matter lies energy, and your body is no different. The authentic, energy body, is a template for the physical body. It is the vital life-force, chi or prana, that surrounds, permeates and animates your physical body. The breath is your bodymind's principal source of this life-force and all of its abilities depend on it. So your body in its wholeness has a much greater extension than we generally realize. The authentic body is awakened through innocent attention in the timeless present, Listening.

In this listening we allow the body sensation to unfold without anticipation. One's I-image does have a role to play in the initial phase as 'making it happen';

Once the pose (centre) is established the role of the I-image is complete. The ending of 'making it happen' is the switchover to the phase of 'letting it happen' and the pose is held for a time.

This process is centered on the fourfold flow of respiration:

a) 'making it happen' is coupled with inhalation;

b) the switchover is coupled with the pause after inhalation;

c) 'letting it happen' is coupled with exhalation;

d) holding the pose is coupled with the pause after exhalation... (the pose is held for a time that intuitively feels right while breathing naturally)

The whole process avoids the reactions of the I-image because it is driven more by feeling than thinking. First this energy is felt in particular parts of the body, localized, and later we come to the whole body as one mass of innocent sensation - the global sensation.

It is the energy feeling that is the real healing factor (or optimization of natural health by removing obstructions) in the body. Instead of the old pattern of heaviness, resistance and density we discover a body that feels light, transparent and expanded in space. We feel ourselves without centre, without border, one with SPACE.

This feeling of openness, of expansion frees us from our ego-centred world and leaves us open to the timeless. Otherwise the body is largely a defense mechanism to maintain our ego. If we approach the postures without first awakening the energy body we merely reinforce the old encrusted patterns and our practice is repetitive, tedious.

The Postures

When we do a yoga asana, pose, we live from moment to moment in the sensation, we are one with the feeling, there is no intention or goal which could only come from the I-image (I-entity). The posture is allowed to unfold organically, it does not involve imposing the posture on the body. The muscles, the whole structure works in an entirely different way. There is a total integration. There is no repetition. Each time we do the posture, it is fresh, it is new - now.

At times we will do the posture only on the energy level, without moving the physical body; at first this is a mental activity; later it is felt sensation. Thus we free ourselves further from the patterns and restrictions.

Each posture stimulates particular parts of the body and the greatest benefit, the re-orchestration of energy, occurs during and continues after the practice.

Breathing

The same restrictions that afflict the body and mind can also been seen in breathing. Through fear, tension, and deriving our identity through the content and activity of the I-entity our breath is largely reaction. We tend to grasp the inhalation and push the exhalation, a continuous psychic manipulation.

In our practice we learn to listen to the breath as respiration and circulation, we learn to feel it in different parts of the body and in the global sensation. We give the breath the opportunity to become spontaneous, natural, as in our infancy.

We use the breath, the prana, in certain yogic techniques to calm the mind, to stimulate and harmonize the body's energy. Spiritual attunement is facilitated by emphasizing the Space between the breaths/heartbeats, which is the background of breathing, and this flowers as a forefeeling of our real nature.

The current of the Breath is the single greatest secret of all esoteric traditions. The current of the Breath anchors you in the NOW. Breath is the Spirit, the essence, that animates the body and the mind. Breathing is the coupling of Respiration and Circulation

Freeing the Senses

A significant aspect of the practice is the deep relaxation of the sense doors: skin, mouth, nostrils, ears, eyes and brain. Unconsciously the senses have also become entrained in grasping, which means they are contracted and tense.

Through the use of mental clarity and listening, allowing the sensation to unfold, comes an openness and relaxation. Objects are allowed to come to the senses, and we live with pure perception, without the accomplice of the I-image. This is innocent attention where the senses are free and the whole body participates in seeing, hearing, etc....

Meditation

The living understanding of Yoga is Meditation.

This understanding is the union which acknowledges the structure of the poses and honours the the freedom of your body, breath, senses, and mind - Essence~Substance as Presence~NOW

Here we no longer emphasize the object, the body, but our awareness, presence. This is the switch-over mentioned above where the asana has completely unfolded in awareness and there is a release into Global Space.

In this Space, there is no one who meditates and nothing to meditate on. It is not concentration. It is innocent awareness, the Seeing Itself - Presence.

Transposing the Teaching the Ease of Being

It is important that the understanding gained through the practice be transposed to all aspects of life. When we are no longer identified with the I-image, an object, we are not bound psychologically to a situation, we live in our wholeness, and solutions to the challenges of life unfold from this global understanding. Only then are we really functional.

In the Art of Listening, the I-image is absent, we are Space Silence Stillness and the old mechanical patterns of fear and tension have nowhere to take hold. “Only in our absence are we truly present”. This is the abiding Oneness with Space~Flow that is Yoga.