November 2021
Mary Taylor
Looking Again and Again
Q: I heard you speak about this metaphor many years ago and have just recently begun to get a sense of what it might mean. Can you re-explore the action of drawing the sacred circle and then erasing the circle as being at the heart of yoga?
That simple metaphor “Draw a circle and erase it” is, indeed, a summation of what is at the core of yoga practices and philosophy. They are teaching us in practical and theoretical ways to be fully engaged in the present moment with an eye to understand, while simultaneously continuously looking again and assessing more closely.
It is vital to practice thinking and discernment--learning as much as possible about something and then coming to a conclusion about what we are thinking or experiencing. This is what it means to “draw a circle.” However, it is equally important to then set our theories, predispositions, preconceptions and sacred spaces aside and to look again. This would be when we “erase” the circle. At which point the cycle begins anew--looking deeply, assessing, discerning, and setting down.
Without this process guiding us in the background of our thoughts, speech and actions, we eventually become either stuck, formulaic or too vigilant in our thinking (not able to erase the circles we’ve drawn), or we become ungrounded, wishy-washy, or lost (operating with the false belief that it’s best to only go with the flow without any engagement, circles or discernment whatsoever).
Whether in asana or prāṇāyāma practice, in philosophy or everyday life when we draw circles and erase them have a greater capacity for living intelligently--alive in the present moment.
Q: Is sound breathing different from ujjayi breathing? Should ujjayi breathing be there all the time during ashtanga yoga practice? I hear different things about that.
Great question! You’re not alone in wondering what to call the breath we practice during asana. Hopefully this will shed a little light on it for you:
It’s helpful to distinguish between ujjayi prāṇāyāma and ujjayi breath. Both are ways of training the breath and bringing focus to the internal vibratory and grounding sensations of breath by making a soft aspirate sound.
In āsana practice we learn to practice moving with internal focus on the wave of this quality of breath. We make the gentle sound with the breath by slightly closing the glottis while softening the tongue and palate. As we move, it’s like riding the wave of the breath and we bring awareness internally while steadying the gaze. This ujjayi breath (which some call sound breath) becomes an instrument to guide us through the āsana. When the breath becomes strained or choppy, we know to soften, to possibly back out of the posture slightly, or to release muscular tension in the mouth, head or other parts of the body where we are straining. Sometimes it can be audible and at other times a nearly silent and smooth whisper. We maintain this quality of breathing throughout the practice until the corpse pose when we let everything be.
Ujjayi prāṇāyāma would be a similar approach to the sound of the breath, but would be practiced in the context of a more formal prāṇāyāma practice in which one focuses on the quality of the breath and also on extension and retention of the breath.
Both practices have the same, even, smooth, unifying quality to them though.
Q: I have cobbled together a working definition of 'the true nature of reality' which is: Accurate assessment of the resources at my disposal and the forces acting against me.
In the effort to be free from the myriad corporate and government programs I have found this to be useful.
Thank you for your question and also for your thoughts as to how you came to this definition of the true nature of reality. We’ll first attempt to offer our perspective on a working definition of the nature of reality and then will reflect on your follow up thoughts on ancient texts.
We would agree that assessing things as accurately as possible, or discriminating awareness, is a critical step toward understanding the nature of reality. it is important to identify and recognize our resources, or those things that we can tap into for support and insight. In so doing it is helpful to consider as broad a picture as possible as to what our resources are. They could be our mind, our body, our circumstances. They could also be logic, mathematics, science, philosophy, even other sentient beings or nature. An important resource is also an understanding of the truth of impermanence, and so on.
These givens exist within various contexts and as you say one of these contexts is “the forces acting against our.” By the same token, another context is the forces acting in our favor. Perceiving reality with clarity means to not be blinded in our perception by the challenges we encounter, nor to become complacent due to things that support us. Though it is not easy, the most accurate assessment of reality any of us can work toward is one that continuously unfolds the more we are able to hold multiple contexts simultaneously.
Q: Soon after Ashoka's violent conquest of Northern India the doctrine of non-violence was spread with equal verve. This is a reminder that the great books were not written or preserved by the suffering classes. For example there was a significant political environment evolving during the time of yoga philosophy's flowering. Sūtra I-23 stand out as incongruous, a political gesture, amidst the lists.
And as another example at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gītā when instead of attending to 'the resources at his disposal and the forces arrayed against him,' Kṛṣṇa redirects Arjuna’s attention to something vast and unknowable; which results in the abandonment of economic, political, and martial striving.
All this makes me wonder, how can this be seen as liberating philosophy? A relaxation of mind for millionaires? Does this not leave the spheres of politics, economics and war open to be attended to by the truly wicked?
Great thinkers, artists and philosophers are often products of troubled times, responding in a quest for personal (and often cultural) liberation to their own perception of the “nature of reality” in the moment. If the thinkers are truly solid they have as an underlying intention the desire to help reduce the suffering they see around them, assessing available resources for bringing humanity back into the mix in order to counter those who are scrambling for power and domination. Just because a text is a product of a troubled time and may not have improved the overall social situation or consciousness of the era, it does not necessarily mean the text is irrelevant and that it was not or cannot be liberating. It may or may not contain important lessons and perspectives relevant to the times from which it came or that remain relevant many generations later.
Throughout human history there have been more or less extreme phases of this playing out—where greedy, short sighted people, countries or corporations cause huge suffering by competing and fighting with each other. And it is often during these very times that some of the most profound thinking takes place. For example, the Gītā or the Yoga Sūtra are introducing the middle path of discriminating awareness and an appreciation of the interdependent nature of all phenomenon.
The emperor Ashoka , according to the story, was quite aggressive, violent and mean in his taking over of most of India. Then he was converted to Buddhism where he became probably the most skillful, culturally respectful leader in the history of ancient India. This of course, does not excuse the violence and suffering he originally caused, however it does demonstrate some potential for transformation—even for the most evil among us. Under a reformed Ashoka, Buddhism spread to Thailand and then throughout much of South East Asia in a way that respected local religions and cultures. This allowed communication along side the synthesis and evolution of religions and communities.
As we see today, this can be devastating for those not in power, those who are under served or under educated and this same me-first mentality, which objectifies and dehumanizes others, can even destroy the natural environment. For this reason now, as in other troubled times in history it is very helpful to dig deeply to discern what we see to be the nature of reality and then to discuss that with others. In order to understand the Yoga Sūtra or the dialectics of Nāgārjuna one should be familiar with the Rig Veda, the early Upaniṣads, and the geo-political history of the time. The works of Antonio T. D’Nicholas as well as those Roberto Calasso also give one a hint of the brilliance that existed—in spite of the social and political difficulties within these ancient cultures.
In today’s troubled world your questions are particularly poignant. We are facing a time where there are some pretty “wicked” forces afoot. When we become aware of this—as we discussed in the Insights column of this newsletter—it can feel overwhelming. We can become filled with fear, confusion and despair. However, particularly at this time in history when the capacity to communicate is so easily accessible—at our fingertips day in and day out—there is the opportunity to share doubts, troubled thoughts and even feelings of outrage and anger in a spirit of evolving together. Perhaps together we can see through the immediate context and seeming “reality” without vilifying or becoming victimized by the circumstances in order to overcome the undercurrent of unpleasant or evil forces that will probably always be part of the mix.
Which is why we are so grateful to you and others who question, become uncomfortable at the thought of just swallowing doctrine without inquiring or seeing it in context and who care enough about others to take the risk of starting a conversation. It is through communication with an intention to help reduce suffering that these age old patterns of misappropriated and imbalanced power will be replaced by kindness and caring.
If you've got a burning philosophical question or one about yoga, asana, meditation, or pranayama, or if you wonder about how yoga intersects with your life, please submit a question here and we'll try our best to answer! We'll also publish one or two in our newsletter and, if you wish, please give us your initials and where you're from so we can include them in our answer. Thank you!
