Tag / Yoga

by annegallagher

Over and Through

I know.  I know.  I think too much.   That’s just the way it is.

“Aren’t you over that whole burned leg thing?” was the question and of course I nodded and said, “Well yeah.”  I had explored, questioned, delved, dissected and practically fried the whole topic.  This I knew.  But over it?  How can you get over things that are a part of you?  What if I didn’t want to get ‘over it’?  What if I what might seem a devastating experience actually was something I realized had positively shaped my life?

These questions swirled around like noodles in a boiling pan, like so many other thoughts I have.  They arrive simply.  Or they simply arrive.  And then they secure their place in the brain’s parking lot, coming out from time to time when prompted or when another thought crashes into them, upend them or taps them aside the head.  It’s a lot to manage.

I started yoga at the beach about a year ago.  On Saturday morning, I grabbed my pink rubbery mat and walked the sandy shore to the community center, dipping my feet in the water to gauge the temperature.  It seemed eminently swim-able.  Our yoga teacher opened the class with a laugh.  She likes to talk about smiling meditation.  That is, smiling as you do whatever it is you do.  “The heat has been intense all week and everyone has been telling me they are so over it,” she began.  “Well, you know, we never get over things but we sure get through them.  There is a difference.”

I was laying on my back on the mat.  Her comments collided with the dormant thought in my brain.  It woke me up with a jolt.  “Over, she’s talking about that concept,” my brain  spoke to me.  It was just past 9:30 a.m. and I wasn’t ready to dissect anything.

“People place too much emphasis on getting over things,” she laughed.  “We never need to do that.  Just get through them, like the heat this week and everything is alright.  We tend to make ourselves work harder than we have to.”

The class began.  Over.  Through.  Over.  Through.

It made a lot of sense.  I don’t need to get over the experience.  I got through it and grew because of it.

The thought in my head started its engine and drove out of the parking lot in my brain.  There was now room for something else.

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by annegallagher

Moving to the State of No Karma

When I met my yoga teacher Cynthia at the local Starbucks on Sunday, it was ostensibly to help her start her blog on yoga and meditation (www.thespiritedcorner.wordpress.com).  Nagging in the back of mind however was her comment during Saturday’s yoga class a couple of weeks back about reaching a state of ‘no karma’.  Good karma, bad karma — those seem straight-forward but I’d never thought about “no karma” and hadn’t the foggiest idea what it meant.

As she sipped on her shake and me on my non-fat latte, I asked if she had a minute to explain the concept.  Her eyes sparkled as smiled, sighed and said, “How much time do you have?”  We laughed.

“We are all here traveling through time in the dimensional world, having experiences as spiritual beings in a human experience.  We all work on our life lessons due to the karma we brought with us.  The idea is to have no karma so we can evolve away from the physical plane.  When we get to no karma, we have no need to return and we reach the 8th limb of yoga called Samadhi, which is bliss or enlightenment.”

“This seems perfectly understandable but how do we get there?” I asked, feeing that I had a few lifetimes of of good karma and bad karma that needed to balance themselves out. 

“When you finish with life’s lessons, then you are finished with karma.  That, of course, is the difficult part for us,” Cynthia replied, which instead of ending my inquires only made me think of another set of questions.  I was feeling very Socratic with it all.

“Well, then how do we know we have learned any particular lesson?” I asked.  “Like burning my leg.  How do I know that I’ve learned whatever lesson I’m supposed to learn?  Did it mean something I missed?”

“What if it doesn’t mean anything?”  Cynthia socratically replied.  Then she paused.  It added a dramatic effect to the conversation and helped me not to wonder why Starbucks keeps their stores ridiculously cold.  My fingers were starting to feel like ice cubes.

“It can mean everything and nothing.  It can spark something positive or something negative.  It’s all up to you.  What helps us evolve helps us grow,” she continued.

I thought quietly for a minute, rubbing my hands together for warmth.   “I think I”m fine with it, have always been fine with it.  But then I still feel compelled to write the story of it.”

“You think it’s enough but the question is, do you feel it.  To learn any lesson you have to connect the thinking and feeling.  The bridge between the two is the throat, or the 5th chakra, called vishuddhi, which is our communication chakra.  If we are holding back in some way, the gate is closed.  when you open up the energy in some way, it brings the energy from the mind to the heart.”

Vishuddhi Chakra

“The fifth chakra (Vishuddhi) is the chakra of diplomacy, of pure relationships with others, and of playful detachment. It removes all our guilt and remorse when it is opened by the Kundalini, and gives us a kind and compassionate voice. The tendencies to dominate others or to feel dominated by others, the feelings of superiority or inferiority and all jealousies are removed when this chakra is nourished by the Kundalini.”

Subtle system of Ida, Pingla and Sushumna (center) nadis

“So, are you saying that for me, I have to write about the experience to complete the lesson of it?” I asked.

Only you know that but it could be the case.  There are all sorts of ways to process an experience, to get to the heart of the matter so to speak.  I will tell you it’s okay to be stuck on the bridge.  While you are there, be sure to look out and enjoy the view.  You may see and discover something you didn’t expect so don’t be so quick to get off the bridge.  Sometimes we are where we are because that is where we need to be.

When I am experiencing something, I am immersed in it and can’t make sense of things.  That’s when I know I need to be there because I am learning to be there.   When I am aware and awaken to the lesson in it, I am no longer attached to it.  Non-attachment lets the feelings flow and with it, the lesson.  And when we start to see the lesson, we don’t have to have the experience again because we have grown from it.”

I looked up as Cynthia talked, almost forgetting I was sitting in a Starbucks.  She had the ability to package my very situation with a bow on it, even though I had not told her all the details.

“How does meditation and yoga fit in to this all?” I asked, glancing at the clock and knowing I had to leave shortly.

“Through yoga and meditation, we get a glimpse Samadhi, of bliss.  This is where hope lies. When we meditate we find ourselves immersed in feeling and no thought, we are in the no karma zone.  Yoga means union, and when we do yoga we bring the body, mind and spirit together.   Said another way, we get little sparks of what it is like beyond the earth plane,” she said.

It seemed to make sense.  My own experience of moving from mind to heart is indeed stuck in the communications realm — the writing of it all.  If nothing else, our conversation confirmed that I had to continue to trickle along the path of writing and be content to see where all of this goes.

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