I hate it when that happens.

– James W. Douglas, human rights activist and writer

– Jules Henry, quoted in Walking on Water by Derrick Jensen

Aldous Huxley
Quoted by Michael Pollan in The Botany of Desire

Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire

Book 1, Sutra 30: Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained – these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles.

I’ve been thinking about obstacles. New York is full of them. About a month ago I went to the kirtan at Sonic and one of the song we did was a chant to Ganesha. One of the cantors talked about Ganesha as the remover of obstacles, or the one who carefully places obstacles in our way when we need them. I didn’t understand this later explanation and it’s been nagging at the back of my mind.

In Book 1, Sutra 30, Patanjali talks about the nature of obstacles, and their residence in the mind. Despite that I consider my biggest obstacles to live outside of my own body, Patanjali reminds me that the true obstacles are within, in the mind. Linking this to Book 1, Sutra 4, I realized that the most effective way to remove obstacles, internal or external, is to change my mind about them.

I thought some more about the cantor’s description of Ganesha. The Prana has a sense of humor and a sense of deep compassion. There are obstacles within me that I have been turning away from for too long. I deal with them by avoiding them. So Ganesha, in his wisdom, forces me to deal with my obstacles by placing other obstacles in my way that I must respond to, ones that I cannot turn away from. And in dealing with those obstacles, I am being forced to deal with the bigger obstacles within.

I need to slow down, to learn how to make and stick to boundaries, to find my edge and live there – mentally and physically – so he handed me a yoga practice so intense that I have a sore bum and the need for far more sleep than usual. I have no choice but to slow down and consider what it is that I’m really trying to do with this life. For too long, I’ve been so worried that if I slow down, I’ll miss out. I’ll lose an opportunity or a lucky break.

Since I was a child, I have struggled with insomnia. My mind and my body literally couldn’t calm down and go to sleep. Now almost 2/3 of the way through this yoga teacher training, I am sleeping better than I ever have in my life. For 18 minutes a day, I think about these two Sutras. I think about changing my mind, and I wait. And the opportunities, better than ever, are showing up. I don’t need to keep looking around for a better life. The one I have is amazing; now’s the time to slow down and appreciate every moment.

“As a man adorns worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” ~ 2:22

On Labor Day weekend in 2009, my apartment building caught fire. I was almost trapped inside and only by following my intuition was I able to get out in time. Almost all of my belongings were lost to extensive smoke damage. September 5, 2009 was a kind of death date for me; a date when stripped of almost all my material possessions, I realized that none of it mattered at all. I stood outside in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, holding nothing but my keys, watching my apartment building burn. Looking back, I think of that day as a day when I stepped out of my old, worn-out Self, and into a new frame. I still don’t know what the art inside this new frame will look like just yet. I’m a work-in-progress.

Verse 2:22 in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the texts I had to read for my yoga teacher training, resonated with me, as does that image of Shiva, the Destroyer, dancing in a ring of fire. Sometimes we get in the way of our own personal development. We get bogged down with belongings, material and emotional. We need not stand on a burning platform, literally nor figuratively, to recognize that change is needed. Yoga can be the practice that helps us recognize our truth, our purpose, our dharma.

Verse 3:19 speaks directly to the danger that surfaces when we get lost in the demands of our society, demands that others put upon us that do not align with our own personal truths. “The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. The wise…have abandoned all external supports.” After my fire and after studying these simple words laid down in the Bhagavad Gita, I’ve come to believe that being “resulted-oriented” and “goal-driven” cause us to miss so much of life. To be shooting for the result while remaining blind to every step leading to that result denies us the beauty of practicing the yama asteya, nonstealing. Yes, where we’re going is important, and it is equally, if not more important, to be mindful of how we’re getting there. If we miss the journey, we deny ourselves the wonder of discovery.

Bearing this sentiment in mind, I read the Bhagavad Gita as if it were a map, laying out a method of living whose goal is boundless freedom. And from that freedom all good things come – kindness toward others because we no longer see them as competitors but partners; justice because we recognize in realizing our own freedom that all people everywhere have the right to be free; peace because all we’re really fighting for is our own self-discovery which doesn’t involve any type of harm to another.

Several years ago, I read a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves. Although the actual words and anecdotes are different, the message is the same as the one delivered to us by the Bhagavad Gita around the question “How do we acquire freedom and mastery of the mind?” The answer: “crawl through the window of a dream.” The window may be small. Undoubtedly, we will have to leave things behind in order to continue our journey through it. We may wonder why on earth we have to struggle so much, why we should even try at all when the big room full of our belongings is really just fine.

That window will not be ignored. It will continue to stare at us until we take up the challenge of crossing over. Through that tiny little frame, lies samadhi, enlightenment. The only thing stopping us from getting there is our courage, our own belief in our abilities to make the journey at all. Arjuna struggled with this same quest, just as we struggle with it. We’re all in this together, across the globe, across the centuries. The struggle does not change; we have to change. The only way forward is through.

My brain is growing exponentially. I’ve been practicing yoga, mostly at home, for 11 years. I read about it, write about it, talk about it, practice it almost daily, and yet this teacher training is growing my practice and consciousness by leaps and bounds, and we’re only two weeks in to a 12 week program. Today Will Duprey, one of my teachers, taught us to fly by grounding us.

For almost 90 minutes we practiced a vigorous standing practice. We came into Utkatasana (chair pose) and held, and held, and held. We followed that up with Utthita Parsvakonasana (extended side angle), Trikonasana (triangle), and Anjaneyasana (low lunge). And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I thought we were just tiring out our bodies to prepare for final relaxation.

After grounding us, Will asked us to lightly assist one another to fly into hand stand. My body seized up. “I can’t do hand stand,” I thought. Even assisted I’ve never done hand stand. My arms just aren’t strong enough. I’m not coordinated enough to do hand stand. The fictions we tell ourselves.

There was no end to the panicky voice in the back of my mind, but I had no choice. I had to at least assist my classmate to help her get into hand stand. Watching her fly with ease (she’d never been able to do hand stand either) I gave it a whirl, and I found that my arms actually aren’t weak. I am coordinated enough, and I can fly. Truth is indeed stranger, and more powerful, than fiction.

— S. Boynton
via Vanessa Barg, of Gnosis Chocolate
(the best chocolate, hands down, I have ever had)

— William James
quoted in Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life