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| Matsyendranath |
Here’s the second excerpt, which is about what we will miss if we just focus on practicing the asanas.
—Nina
GF: Take the asanas from their spiritual context—I would use the term advisedly—is fateful, because it shortchanges the student who thinks they are doing yoga. Whereas there is this vast background that is really designed to uplift the person from their present state of ordinariness of confusion of basic human suffering and need. Uplift them from that into something far more sublime and give them a vision of who they could be. And it is reducing yoga to a level . . . that’s what it moved away from. That is why it was designed.
—Nina
GF: Take the asanas from their spiritual context—I would use the term advisedly—is fateful, because it shortchanges the student who thinks they are doing yoga. Whereas there is this vast background that is really designed to uplift the person from their present state of ordinariness of confusion of basic human suffering and need. Uplift them from that into something far more sublime and give them a vision of who they could be. And it is reducing yoga to a level . . . that’s what it moved away from. That is why it was designed.
Health.... I have nothing against cultivating health. People say, “You are down on exercise.” I’m not. It is important to cultivate that, especially if you feel the need for it. It is important to cultivate in the same way an intelligent mind to be informed about what is going on, not just live like a zombie, but be up on events, see what this life is about.
But more important than any of that is to see who we are in spiritual terms and to do something about that. Because without that there is no way we can relate to the rest of it in any deep sensitive way.
RR: It just becomes an exercise without any firm basis.
GF: It just becomes a shell. You are exercising the shell; you are training the dog. And you salivate when the bell rings. But beyond that, there is nothing. There is no sense that behind that brain there is a great mind. Behind that great mind there is a great reality. People are not told about that. So the hunger for something more remains. And since there is no pointer in the right direction they will continue to look for happiness in the wrong places. And continue with their cycle of suffering.
When you have understood enough about the traditions, then there is a desire growing in yourself to reduce others’ suffering, like you want to reduce your own. And be a compassionate presence in your work, in your life, in your family life.
RR: I like the way you always relate the teachings to a larger picture, not just yourself you’re concerned with. It’s other people; in fact, it is the whole planet.
GF: We are everyone. The sooner we understand that, the better. Because right now, even our consumption pattern, we live in total isolation and delusion. We think that this is what we deserve. We deserve this great lifestyle we have in America. By the way, not everybody has it in America—there are many, many hungry people on the streets who used to have good jobs—but I think we delude ourselves into believing that we deserve any of that. We delude ourselves into believing that this is how it is pretty much around the world. Pretty much around the world is hunger and frustration. You just need to go to any country in Africa and Asia and you know you encounter what is really happening.
If we think in isolation, we will suffer isolation. We cannot grow. We need to have a sense of our place in the midst of things. To be able to pick up a paperback on the Rig Veda or the Gita or the Upanishad or Kashmir Shaivism is a tremendous privilege. It is not just plunking down your money to get a book. It is a privilege to have that book, to get that teaching. You don’t have to travel for six months to find that teacher who holds the teaching.
RR: You don’t have to prove yourself.
GF: You don’t have to prove yourself in pain sitting in front of the door [laughs] and the teacher says come back in a month. So I think the quicker we understand that all of us are in this together and that this realm we are in is not a pretty sight. There are nice moments, but on the whole, it is not a pretty sight. We must have not only responsibility for our own upliftment, but for everyone else, because on our own, we are not going to make it. That is part of the process. We have to care for everyone.
RR: That gives a more universal definition to yoga, to the word union, you are aware of your union with everything around you.
GF: It is not a traditional definition. The yogi has always been primarily concerned with his/her own liberation, but the whole moral laws of Yama are how the yogi relates to the environment, the social environment, and there is always profound concern. The concern is to manifest higher values in the social relationships, especially non-harming. How little we respect that law, in so many ways. Even going on the bus and not yielding your chair to someone in need. We just ignore others. Or you walk by someone obviously unhappy, you give a smile, even if you don’t know the person, you know? Give a grin, nod, whatever. This is non-harming. Anything else...if we withhold our own energy we have already failed in the spiritual process.
RR: I remember you making the point about ahimsa, that it is a positive force. It is not just withdrawing and avoiding violence, but it is something that you actively do.
GF: We extend our own life energy to others. I think that in the ideal of the bodhisattva that has become a nicely polished diamond. In previous teachings it was largely implied. But there it was made the idea of the practice, that, yes, we must strive for liberation or enlightenment ourselves.
We must do that—that is the spiritual process—but who do we do it? We do it to uplift everyone, because we cannot bear the idea that all these beings are related to us. We are related to them. We only look at our own family nowadays, and even then…. But in the past, there was more of a sense of belonging to a larger group, whether a clan, the village. Now we don’t have that. We isolate and exclude. In spiritual practice we must then come back—especially in our times—come back more to a sense of “we are everybody.”
To read more of this interview, see Interview with Georg Feuerstein.
Richard Rosen is a yoga teacher and writer from Berkeley, California. He is President of the board of the Yoga Dana Foundation, which supports Northern California teachers bringing yoga to underserved communities. Richard has written three books for Shambhala: The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama (2002), Pranayama: Beyond the Fundamentals (2006), and Original Yoga: Rediscovering Traditional Practices of Hatha Yoga (2012). He also recorded a 7-disc set of instructional CDs for Shambhala titled The Practice of Pranayama: An In-Depth Guide to the Yoga of Breath (2010). For more information about Richard and the workshops he teaches internationally, see http://www.richardrosenyoga.com/.
Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D. became interested in Yoga in his early teens and studied Yoga philosophy and history ever after that . He did his postgraduate studies in England and authored over 50 books—not all on Yoga. His major works are: The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra (Shambhala 2011), The Yoga Tradition (Hohm Press 2008), Yoga Morality (Hohm Press, 2007), The Deeper Dimension of Yoga (Shambhala), and The Bhagavad-Gītā: A New Translation (Shambhala 2011). For more about Georg and the work that is continued by Brenda Feuerstein, see traditionalyogastudies.com.
RR: It just becomes an exercise without any firm basis.
GF: It just becomes a shell. You are exercising the shell; you are training the dog. And you salivate when the bell rings. But beyond that, there is nothing. There is no sense that behind that brain there is a great mind. Behind that great mind there is a great reality. People are not told about that. So the hunger for something more remains. And since there is no pointer in the right direction they will continue to look for happiness in the wrong places. And continue with their cycle of suffering.
When you have understood enough about the traditions, then there is a desire growing in yourself to reduce others’ suffering, like you want to reduce your own. And be a compassionate presence in your work, in your life, in your family life.
RR: I like the way you always relate the teachings to a larger picture, not just yourself you’re concerned with. It’s other people; in fact, it is the whole planet.
GF: We are everyone. The sooner we understand that, the better. Because right now, even our consumption pattern, we live in total isolation and delusion. We think that this is what we deserve. We deserve this great lifestyle we have in America. By the way, not everybody has it in America—there are many, many hungry people on the streets who used to have good jobs—but I think we delude ourselves into believing that we deserve any of that. We delude ourselves into believing that this is how it is pretty much around the world. Pretty much around the world is hunger and frustration. You just need to go to any country in Africa and Asia and you know you encounter what is really happening.
If we think in isolation, we will suffer isolation. We cannot grow. We need to have a sense of our place in the midst of things. To be able to pick up a paperback on the Rig Veda or the Gita or the Upanishad or Kashmir Shaivism is a tremendous privilege. It is not just plunking down your money to get a book. It is a privilege to have that book, to get that teaching. You don’t have to travel for six months to find that teacher who holds the teaching.
RR: You don’t have to prove yourself.
GF: You don’t have to prove yourself in pain sitting in front of the door [laughs] and the teacher says come back in a month. So I think the quicker we understand that all of us are in this together and that this realm we are in is not a pretty sight. There are nice moments, but on the whole, it is not a pretty sight. We must have not only responsibility for our own upliftment, but for everyone else, because on our own, we are not going to make it. That is part of the process. We have to care for everyone.
RR: That gives a more universal definition to yoga, to the word union, you are aware of your union with everything around you.
GF: It is not a traditional definition. The yogi has always been primarily concerned with his/her own liberation, but the whole moral laws of Yama are how the yogi relates to the environment, the social environment, and there is always profound concern. The concern is to manifest higher values in the social relationships, especially non-harming. How little we respect that law, in so many ways. Even going on the bus and not yielding your chair to someone in need. We just ignore others. Or you walk by someone obviously unhappy, you give a smile, even if you don’t know the person, you know? Give a grin, nod, whatever. This is non-harming. Anything else...if we withhold our own energy we have already failed in the spiritual process.
RR: I remember you making the point about ahimsa, that it is a positive force. It is not just withdrawing and avoiding violence, but it is something that you actively do.
GF: We extend our own life energy to others. I think that in the ideal of the bodhisattva that has become a nicely polished diamond. In previous teachings it was largely implied. But there it was made the idea of the practice, that, yes, we must strive for liberation or enlightenment ourselves.
We must do that—that is the spiritual process—but who do we do it? We do it to uplift everyone, because we cannot bear the idea that all these beings are related to us. We are related to them. We only look at our own family nowadays, and even then…. But in the past, there was more of a sense of belonging to a larger group, whether a clan, the village. Now we don’t have that. We isolate and exclude. In spiritual practice we must then come back—especially in our times—come back more to a sense of “we are everybody.”
To read more of this interview, see Interview with Georg Feuerstein.
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