A True Yoga?

A True Yoga?

You cannot enter the door of yoga without kindness and compassion towards others

Changkya Cited in the Mystical Hours

Brother Wayne Teasdale gives us some important background on this observation and then outlines the deeper or fuller meaning behind yoga…

“Changkya (1717-1786) was a Tibetan Buddhist master of yoga who taught the seventh Dali Lama and the Emperor of China. The ancient Yogic tradition went far beyond the physical postures and practices that we have embraced here in the West. It is an entire tradition designed around the path to enlightenment. 

The essence of yoga is the transformation of the heart. Yogas reconnects us with the Source and frees us from the lesser impulses of the ego, the instinctual desires, and the false self. Yogas has to be grounded in compassion and in kindness. In order to practice yoga effectively, we have to bring an awakened heart and mind to the activity.”

I was never attracted to learning yoga. Not fully sure why, other than the early attitudes that are formed from being raised in a machismo world where yoga seemed only suitable to thin stick figure women and for effeminate men who would be terrible at real sports anyway!

The principal way I was given a lasting appreciation of body positions and their connection with consciousness and meditation was through the martial arts. There was a period of stretching before the classes began, and afterward, a quiet time for meditation and centering one’s energies from the training and exertion.

Similarly, while in my 20’s through my 40’s, I was given “Psycho-Calisthenics” as a disciplined set of exercises for enlivening the body, stretching the muscles and activating the endocrine system as a part of the Arica training. That is as far as I got with anything that resembled yoga postures even though there was the enduring value in an introduction to chanting, malas, and other ways of focussing the body and breath that I still find use in my meditative life today.

In later adult life, I was introduced to the body postures and prayerful positions known as asanas, through my initial studies with the teachings of the Marharishi, but it was still an odd or awkward fit for me.

Much later in my Christian studies, as a spiritual director, I was taught about the value of body prayer and Centering prayer. That approach to movement did resonate because it reached back into my psyche and recalled those ancient echoes of that earlier exposure.