10/28/2020 0 Comments An Introduction to UG KrishnamurtiUppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti (9 July 1918 – 22 March 2007) “The greatest living Yogi I have ever met,” Krishnamacharya said of UG Krishnamurti. The fact that Krishnamacharya recognised U.G.’s realization of Yoga is profoundly significant. Krishnamacharya, who was deeply informed of humankind’s wisdom traditions from primordial to modern times, considered U.G. a living example of Yoga, of which there are very few. U.G. brought clarity to the heart of yoga. Raised by a philosophical grandfather who was deeply involved in the Theosophical society, as a young man U.G. became a spiritual seeker for many years. He studied with Sivananda for seven years (until he found him hypocritically eating banned pickles in the cupboard in the middle of the night). He visited sages such as the great Ramana Maharishi, but was unimpressed by religious models that posed that some people were enlightened and others weren’t, which he later called “the social model of disempowerment.” U.G. soon was known as a brilliant speaker, and he became a follower of the older Jiddhu Krishnamurti (no relation), who had rejected the spiritual organisation he was chosen to lead, declaring that “truth is a pathless land.” However, U.G. was critical of how J. Krishnamurti said this, yet still presented a path by sitting in a special chair giving long philosophical lectures. After 17 years of following J Krishnamurti, he said he realised that “I was in the state he was talking about,” and walked out of the tent where the teaching was happening, whereup an “explosion” of life took place in his system as he stopped believing himself second to anyone. He later called it his “calamity” because the usual mind, the limiting structure of thought, disintegrated in him. He just walked away from the social dynamic that confined him as a seeker. He literally walked out of the tent. “Calamity” was his word for “enlightenment” because he said it was nothing like the state of beatitude that is speculated about. A Yoga process began for U.G. that he described as an immense and ongoing explosion of life, followed by spontaneous and beautiful body movements with the rhythms of breath. He described it as the whole body renewing itself after the clinical death of all limits of body and mind. The intrinsic polarity/collaboration of the male and female union of life took hold within him, and in his relationship with the outer world. “People call me an 'enlightened man' -- I detest that term -- they can't find any other word to describe the way I am functioning. At the same time, I point out that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all. I say that because all my life I've searched and wanted to be an enlightened man, and I discovered that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all, and so the question whether a particular person is enlightened or not doesn't arise. I don't give a hoot for a sixth-century-BC Buddha, let alone all the other claimants we have in our midst. They are a bunch of exploiters, thriving on the gullibility of the people. There is no power outside of man. Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear and not God.” — UG, from ‘The Mystique of Enlightenment To cope with these feelings, U.G. sought help from Desikachar, who said “there is one person who might be able to help you — my father.” U.G. went to Chennai and studied with Krishnamacharya for three and a half years, before going to him with a problem: he found that the yoga he was doing very subtly “reversed his life current.” Krishnamacharya humbly admitted that this was outside of his realm of experience, and that he did not understand. U.G. loved Krishnamacharya for this honesty, and Krishnamacharya loved and respected U.G. because as a natural man, he was an extremely attractive person. U.G. had also been identified as a jivamukti (liberated person) by Hindu orthodoxy through the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram (like The Pope of Hindus), who Krishnamacharya also loved and respected. (Although U.G. would deny this, saying “there’s nothing to be liberated from!”). Krishnamacharya therefore bowed to U.G. and accepted U.G.’s perspective, admitting to him that it was not in his own experience or understanding. U.G. loved Krishnamacharya because he said he was “an honest man” and later jokingly called him “my Guru” out of respect. Mark suggests that this humbling and yet beautiful encounter was a pivotal moment in the evolution of Krishnamacharya’s teaching. The two remained lifelong friends. In this way, U.G. held Krishnamacharya to the fire of his own teachings, insisting that yoga must be fitted to the person, not the person to yoga — not only in terms of asana, pranayama, and other forms of practice, but more importantly in the very psychology and mood of practice: that the person is already perfect and perfectly functioning, and the yoga is purely participation in this, not manipulation in any way. U.G. was a fierce critic of the perfect person (or the God-realised person), and religious-seeking and Yoga-seeking based on that model. He emphatically dismissed conventional yoga and all seeking. He was so certain about this that many around him were instantly relieved of their seeking by the force of his mere presence and logic. Many others, though, were bewildered because the usual assumptions of doctrine are so deeply ingrained in us as the axioms of our thought structure. We have been misled, or worse, brainwashed. This is why he was so fierce in his condemnation, standing in his own ground as life itself; and speaking (often shouting!) for the end of human delusion and suffering. Society’s automatic assumptions that we have to find truth are so strong that many thought U.G. an enigma or iconoclast. However, those with no point of view to argue found him the most purely loving and natural person they ever met. U.G pointed out how the thought structure of seeking is the very mechanics of mind that prevent you from noticing the wonder of your own reality. Insight into the habits of subtle or gross seeking release you from the mental and emotional patterning that hide the power, consciousness, energy and beauty that you actually are. It’s a logic worth listening to. The model of the perfect person implies that everyone else is not perfect. This creates the mind that seeks for a future state and denies the present wonder of existence. It puts everyone on the “merry-go-round” of seeking, therefore denying each person’s intrinsic perfection of reality itself, in which we all appear. Even trying to practice meditation creates the persona of the person who is trying to meditate. This becomes a very encrusted imagined identity that has no basis in reality. As his friend, Mark Whitwell has felt inspired to communicate what U.G. brought forth. Mark says, “I have seen immediate relief response from thousands of every kind of person, many who were not able to meet U.G. nor perhaps would they have understood him if they had. I was particularly struck by U.G. saying that the model of the ‘perfect person’ that civilization’s power structures are built upon is destroying humanity, and he predicted it! We have strayed a long way from indigenous wisdom cultures where if God or Spirit is proposed it is in all ordinary conditions of our natural world. Not elsewhere. Human disintegration and climate chaos are now tangibly obvious, hence the urgency for this communication to give humankind an alternative. Through the denial of life, humanity is insane and there are even many who are clinically insane and dangerous.” U.G. was popularly known as a so-called “enlightened” man, so how could he be dismissive of the perfect person, ideal, or culture!? Isn’t that what enlightenment means? He was known as a natural man, in the natural state. He was very attractive as one is attracted to a cat in a room, in the corner sun. Natural and at ease. Responding naturally to everything happening. A person without social strategy at all. Ram Dass once went to visit UG and sat with him, enthusiastically presenting spiritual ideas and experiences. “Everything I said, you shot it down like skate shooting,” he said, “but I have the feeling that you wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Year later on Maui, Mark reminded Ram Dass of this encounter. “Tears came to his eyes,” recalls Mark, “as he remembered the meeting with UG. He talked about UG’s special power to take away the seeking, he was very strong and get as gentle as a flower.” U.G. clarified the very idea of enlightenment and all the archaic language of enlightenment that has entrapped humanity. He would have none of that language or allow any identification to land on him in any terms. He dismissed all such identification and anyone present or past assumed to have it. In refusing to be identified as liberated or enlightened, U.G. clarified the very meaning of a Jivamukti; a Jivamukti or Buddha cannot be identified or described, requiring no identification or definition. In fact, the very nature of a Jivamukti is that he or she is indefinable because they are at one with reality itself as it is, as we all are! U.G. clarified and purified Yoga and the teaching function in the same way we might say the Buddha healed Vedic culture in ancient India from the heavy burden of ritual and superstition. U.G. would talk about how the historical Gautama Buddha did not want any remembering of him, no image, no teaching, no places of remembrance. In other words, no way or method to be left behind in his name. It is not required. But look what happened. Likewise, U.G. did not want to be remembered. He did not want any teachings left to create a method of becoming, because it is the method itself that creates the problem. In fact U.G. was fond of saying, “There is no need for a teaching. Life itself is doing a fantastic job of looking after you, thank you very much!” U.G. is thought of as an enigma, but only to those still in an enlightenment model of thought. The perfect person of culture is so axiomatic to our structure of thought and all spiritual assumption, that U.G. seems an odd-ball to the social mind. To call him an enigma is the language of that limited structure, which seems very impenetrable. Many who came around him stayed in that axiom and treated him as an enigma; they didn’t understand what he was saying and its implications. He stated: “There is no such thing as enlightenment,” clarifying that there is “only the perfection of life arising as each person and every thing.” These statements left people confused in that archaic model of thought. They treat him as a mere curiosity and shuffle off his transformative words and presence as simply a puzzle, without hearing him. They either dismiss him or have no way of making use of what they felt in response to him. Or many take pride in having known him and glibly quote U.G., glamorising him in his critical dismissal of culture as if it were their own. They turn U.G. into a nihilist or into one more cultic guru, rather than understand the implication of his life. Yet his argument that dismisses the perfect person has a clear logic that is easily understood and is useful. People of any background can understand that life is a pure intelligence, power, and beauty. It is already given and arising as all of us. Many have been profoundly relieved from the “stranglehold of thought.” Once your attention is drawn to this sincere reflection, it is very helpful. It ends the idea of being less, trying to get more. He rejected all methods of “becoming.” Although U.G. can be difficult to penetrate, to hear him ends that structure of thought that is killing us and awakens a yoga transmission and process. He called the conventional teacher-student relationship the “dynamic of disempowerment.” This keeps the student looking to become something, denying that they are already Something: that which is already the case, pure intelligence, beauty, and the power of Life arising as all life. U.G. had a special skill, a power, presence, or siddhi that extracted the virus from his friends. Even for those who never met him, his words enable the mind to relax from its patterns of automatic assumptions. This initiates a yoga process. It implies the free movement of life (or prana) in you, as you, as life itself, in all. Yoga begins then as free participation in what you are and all relatedness. It is direct embrace of reality itself. That is what yoga is. U.G. says, “I maintain there is nothing for you to attain.” Trying to attain something is the very mechanics of the mind that obliterates you noticing that you are a perfect arising of the power, intelligence, and beauty of life. Without this understanding, yoga practice is only part of the imposition on life, instead of participation in life. “Prana has its own intelligence and movement and knows exactly what to do to maximise itself.” Leave the body alone! To read the original content click here:- https://www.heartofyoga.com/blog
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10/28/2020 0 Comments Reflections on Teaching Yoga OnlineIn this blog post, Mark shares insights from the past four months of teaching online, helping people establish a home Yoga practice during lockdown. In this time of our physical isolation from each other, we have no choice but to reach out and teach online. We have no choice but to teach or, a better word, share our Yoga. Paradoxically, Yoga has always been a personal practice that you do in the sanctuary of your own home and in the temple of your heart which is the whole body. This time of extreme difficulty is the time to establish a home Yoga practice, personally and then in the public. To my surprise, a small silver lining of these pandemics is that I am able to teach Yoga to many more people online than I ever could have met with in person. As we connect around the world, there’s no limits to class size, or barriers on the basis of geography or people’s income. I recently taught a mother of two who was in lockdown in a large city. At first she had felt like her own home had become a prison. She began her daily Yoga practice purely on the basis of prerecorded materials in the online immersion we urgently put out. A couple of months later, she arranged for a meeting on Zoom. I was deeply touched when she reported that her practice had transformed her home into a sanctuary. She said she felt comfortable in her own body and breath, and that this now flowed into a sense of relationship and peace in her home and with her family, despite the ongoing difficulties of lockdown. I have been surprised by how much feeling is possible online— I’d say 95 percent, maybe sometimes more. Sometimes before doing a Zoom call I feel like staying lying down, but as soon as I connect with the people in front of me, it is energising and interesting. The Principles of Personal Practice If you are privileged to have a Yoga that gives you a depth of intimacy with your experience and others, then you have for some unknown reason been selected as one of the ones to share that practice. Your job is not to provide an entertaining or pacifying experience for your students, or to control people into a certain state or mood, but to give people the breath technology that teaches them how to engage the intelligence and beauty of their own natural state. Just like a music teacher, we arrange for a lesson with our students and then ask them to go home and practice. We teach people how to play their own music, rather than getting them hooked on going to our concerts every night of the week. The lockdown and the virus have shown all of us the importance of being able to make music ourselves. To do this, we are primarily teaching the principles of personal practice and adapting Yoga to each person’s body type, age, health, and cultural background. Give a practice to your student and let them know that it is something very special to have a personal practice that is right for them—inculcate the feeling that it is a treasure. What makes a practice right for a student? The specific asana is the least of it. The length of the breath, the retentions, use of mantra or other sound, the length of practice, the balance of langhana and brahmana, the appropriate inversion, the location, the use of other cultural practices such as japa, prayer, chanting, singing, or yantra. Visualisation, what you hold in your heart, what your yoga is in relationship with. As a teacher, it is okay to use a computer and a camera, do not hesitate thinking that you must have the top-of-the-line equipment. After taking your student through a practice, you can draw it up on paper, take a photo and email it to them. As much as possible, know yourself to be in the same room together—the room of Mother Earth. Am I Qualified to Teach? Many people have said to me that “there is already so much Yoga out there, why would anybody want anything from me?” Whilst there is a lot of what is called Yoga out there, how much of it involves the breath technology that will actually give people a liberating experience? We have all felt a valid distaste for the public spectacle of the Yoga fitness industry swarming into the online space during these past months. It is easy to react against this and not go online at all. But where do we think that this cycle of real human need being met with shoddy goods will actually end if we are not present to share authentic practice? If you have a good teacher, if you do your own Yoga, and you care about others, then you are qualified to teach. If you feel afraid, then feel the fear and do it anyway. I was struck recently when I heard Bruce Springsteen say that in his entire career he never once went on stage without feeling nervous. Fear is good because it gives you the energy to step up and do a good job. It lets you know that the meeting is important and that if you don’t do it, nobody else will. ****** Finally, when you are teaching, you are not practicing. Your practice is something inward, private, and personal and it would be impossible to experience this whilst relating outwards with a group of people. Our practice informs our teaching from an inner well. I suggest that we learn to teach with as little demonstration as possible. The norms of demonstration are what led Ram Dass to say to me that he had never been impressed by Yoga because all his teachers had been show-offs. Even if it is not intended as showing off, demonstrations always carry the risk of setting yourself up as an ideal model to be duplicated by the student. Our minds are already saturated with this habit of comparison and attempt to duplicate ideals, and so we must work actively against this. Some students will be used to watching a teacher to know what to do, but will soon adapt to your voice instructions, and their attention will be freed up for a more internal experience (pratyahara). In my experience, it’s best to observe students rather than demonstrate so you can see what they are doing and give verbal cues in response to that. We become better and better at describing asana with our voice, always teaching the basic principles. Not being able to hear people’s breath is absolutely a challenge. Remind them regularly of the importance of the smooth, receptive ujjayi inhale, especially in any asana that is physically challenging, such as shoulderstand. Help people tune into their own breath and self-regulate, listening for their own smooth and full inhale as the sign that they are safely within their own limits. The breath is the guru. In this way you empower people with self-knowledge, svadhyaya. Yoga has always been a personal practice in the sanctuary of your own home, in the heart’s temple—the whole body. Our sincere offering to the world in its extreme current situation is that the most practical thing we can do is to turn to our wisdom traditions, to be intimate with our Earth and with each other. Release what is old and receive what is new. Empty what is full and fill what is empty. Inhale and exhale with the whole body. Let’s all do this now. To read the original content click here:- https://www.heartofyoga.com/blog/teaching-yoga-online |
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