Nisarga
Yoga
Energy Body
Yoga
Yoga Exercises | Breathing Yoga
The practice of Nisarga Yoga is about being rather than becoming - the journey is the destination. It is a discipline and process that is akin to music and dance that is celebrated as it is practiced instead of something that you engage in to get to the end.
"And we thought of life by analogy was a journey with a pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing, or to dance, while the music was being played." ~ Alan Watts
Spirit ~ Mind ~ Body
Nisarga Yoga has three themes:
- the Space of your body,
- the Silence of your mind, and
- the Stillness of Yoga.
Space Silence Stillness
- Body: Intuitive Intelligence flowers in Space
- Mind: Intellectual Intelligence flowers in Silence
- Spirit: The Whole, which is Intelligence Itself, flowers as Stillness
(the Whole contains yet transcends rationality and intuitivity without self-contradiction)
The union of Space and Silence flowers as Stillness and the first connection with Stillness is localized. It is the centre, the heart. The centre is the tranquil space between understretching and overstretching.
The centre is the space where all energies meet.
The centre, the pose, is discovered by feeling your way via your energy body sensations that are seen by means of Awareness. The pose is the stillpoint of unity where the stretch to the left is married with the stretch to the right, up with down, forward with backward, inside with outside, etc. The centre is the space that simultaneously facilitates the release from the entangled web of doing and where the matrix of being effortlessly, naturally, unfurls.
The process is a kind of switch-over where the pose completely unfolds from silent self-awareness to the non-state of self-Awareness as your bodymind flowers in Openness. This is the here-now where the communion of your mind and body is true.
In the words of Jean Klein...
Questioner: Did you practice yoga to come to deeper levels of surrender and alertness?
Jean Klein: The word practice generally means habit. We must use it only in the sense of becoming more and more aware of body and mind. We must see that the body is a field of fear, anxiety, defense and aggression. However, the emphasis must not be on the body but on presence, on listening. What is important is to become acquainted with the field of tensions and see that the constantly interfering I-image is not separate from this field but belongs to it. When this is clear, tension finds no accomplice, the perception is freed, and energy integrates in its totality. The traditional approach is through listening to the body, not mastering it. Dominating the body is violence. But one can sweep the floor or wash the dishes and be in listening. It makes no difference.
Exploring the body brought me to deeper layers of relaxation and this relaxation brought about the cessation of repetitive patterns in the body and mind. In welcoming the body I became more and more aware of the feeling of letting go, so in this way the yoga participated in the fore-feeling of reality. But it only led me to where I no longer emphasized the object, the body, but the ultimate subject. Yoga brings you to a kind of alertness, a tranquility, and a tranquil body reflects tranquil mind. But of course you can come to the peaceful body-mind without yoga!
Listening: The Energy Body
Nisarga Yoga's approach is based on the traditional Art of Listening.
Nisarga 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.
The means is Awareness as 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, 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 is generally realized. 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 mental activity as the I-image or Id-entity does have a role to play in the initial phase as 'making it happen'; Once the pose is established the active role of the mind, like an actor on a stage whose lines have been said, 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 Id-entity because it unfolds as Awareness of feeling sensations rather than thinking. First this energy body 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 Awareness as the energy feeling that is the real healing factor (or healing as 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, a flower that is 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 reactive defense mechanism to maintain our ego, our Identity. 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 Id-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 thinking mind 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 stretch it, 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 Stillness between the breaths/heartbeats, which is the background of breathing, and this flowers as a forefeeling of our true nature.
The current of the Breath is the single greatest secret of all esoteric traditions. The current of the Breath is living union of yoga as Breath is the link. Breath is the Spirit, the essence, that animates the body and the mind.
Breathing is the coupling, the interconnectedness, of respiration and circulation.
"When you become more sensitive to the body you have the impression that the inhalation-exhalation is no longer localised. It is all around you. It is important to see how we live mainly in our heads. Think with your whole body, feel with your whole body. In the whole feeling, the global sensation, you go into your room and touch your whole room. You go outside and touch the clouds, the trees, the water. You do not live in isolation. In your radiation you are in communion with all things. In this expansion there is no place for the ego because the ego is a contraction. Love is expansion, a feeling of spaciousness." ~ Jean Klein
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 localized, contracted and tense.
Through the use of mental clarity and listening, allowing the sensation to unfold, comes an openness and relaxation. This is Being Awareness where objects are allowed to come to the senses, and we live with pure perception, without the interference of the I-image. In this innocent attention the senses are free and the whole body participates in seeing, hearing, etc.
Meditation
The living understanding of yoga is Being Awareness as Meditation - it is Welcoming. This understanding is the union which acknowledges the structure of the poses and honours the the freedom of your body, breath, senses, and mind.
Here we no longer emphasize the object, the body, but Awareness, presence. This is the switch-over mentioned above where the asana has completely unfolded in awareness and there is a release into global stillness. In this stillness, there is no one who meditates and nothing to meditate on. It is not concentration. It is innocent Awareness, the seeing Itself.
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 you are no longer identified with the mentally generated I-image, an object, you are not bound psychologically to a situation, you live in your wholeness, and solutions to the challenges of life unfold from this global understanding. Only then are you truly functional.
In the Art of Listening, the Id-entity is absent, you are Awareness as Space and Silence, and the old mechanical patterns of fear and tension have nowhere to take hold. This is the abiding Stillness of Yoga.
“Only in our absence are we truly present” ~ Jean Klein.
Namaste'