I was sorely tempted to title this, “Eddie Stern goes to jail,” but I will resist the blogger/trolling impulse for cheap hits.
Although, getting more eyes on this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. This is a wonderful story to share.
It deals with Eddie Stern’s visit to the Richmond City Jail. You might recall that Eddie wrote about the Robbie Norris, who teaches yoga at the jail. Reminder link to Eddie’s blog is right here. A key piece:
So, when Robbie Norris, who has been teaching yoga for free in the Richmond City Jail for three and a half years, sent me this letter from Bryan Shull, one of his students serving time, I thought, man, this guy has landed himself in prison, but now he is working on himself, and has tapped into what yoga is truly about. In LA and in NY, we are in a different type of prison – of glamour, of beauty, of overwork, of struggling to succeed. We don’t need to do yoga to help us reach those ephemeral goals, we need it to help us see that they are ephemeral.
Now, I’ve come across Robbie’s story about Eddie’s coming to the jail. It is definitely worth the read, especially since we have our double days off this weekend. No excuse not to stretch the muscle between your ears. A little part to whet your appetite:
Picking up Eddie at the train station, I amusedly saw that he was also a cheerful, dapper, sartorial connoisseur; and super sharp, with easy, graceful humor. His clarity, transparent honesty, cultured passion for teaching and telling stories, and scholarship are why people speak so respectfully of Eddie. He has become known worldwide in Ashtanga circles and beyond, without advertising or seeking attention; his studio didn’t even have a website until just over a year ago. Every year for 20 years Eddie traveled to India to study with Pattabhi Jois, and he translated two of Jois’s books into English. Steeped in yoga practice and study, Eddie exudes intrinsic kindness, precision, and lack of pretension. Michael Pepe, a student who has been practicing with Eddie for about a dozen years, and now lives partly in Richmond, and so practices at both studios, seemed so pleased when I told him of my impression of Eddie. ”And the wonderful thing, Robbie, that you’ll find if you continue to know Eddie,” Michael said, “is that he’s always like that, very consistent.”
The real hero in this tale, as I’m sure Eddie would be the first to say, is Norris. He’s the one who continues to bring yoga to the inmates and, judging by the letter mentioned above, helping change lives for the better. A link to his site about teaching yoga in the jail is here, for those interested.
I should also note that Robbie’s blog mentions that David Swenson has donated yoga mats to his effort at the Richmond City Jail. Ashtangis uniting around a good cause.
We have wonderful models to follow in these senior teachers, as they did.
Yoga Workshop — I think there’s still some time to enter its Yoga Ruins Your Life contest — has a new “Ask the Experts” up, and this time it has nothing to do with asana.
Well, not directly. Well, OK, it does. But not in the usual way. Here’s the question (and the link to the post):
Why is ethical self-discipline often presented (explicitly or implicitly) as a first step of the spiritual path? And aside from merely behaving with self-discipline, how might one use ethical self-discipline to adjust one’s mindset?
Does anyone want to tackle that? How about just guess what Richard Freeman will have to say? Here’s just a taste — for the full meal, you’ll have to head over to Freeman’s site:
Ethical self-discipline, the yamas, is considered important because it involves our relationships with others and then our relationship to things and objects in the world and in the environment. … Relationships trigger the strongest emotions and emotions affect our ability to concentrate, breathe, plan, and function. If your relationships and emotions are not good other practices are not effective and might even be harmful.
If you have read Richard’s Mirror of Yoga or, I suspect, taken an intensive study with him, you’ll be familiar with how he describes our relationship to the world as a web of impressions and reflections, the maya that keeps us from realizing the Shining Self. In this answer, and in a very few words, he describes how the first limb of yoga establishes the framework (probably the wrong word) for seeing, or understanding, clearly.
It packs a big punch, in other words. Go read the whole answer. It isn’t too much longer than the above.
Posted by Steve
We all are familiar, I’m sure, with the videos of Guruji and the senior Western students — Tim Miller, Eddie Stern, Richard Freeman, etc. — practicing for posterity’s sake. They were recorded in 1993.
You know the ones. Here’s the excerpt from the Second Series video:
Well, my question is: Is this really the source for them? The website’s address is kpjashtanga.com but it had not, until just now, ever come up on any Internet search I’d done. Here’s its description of the first two Series:
The Beginning or Primary Series is labeled “Chikitsa Bhaga”. This translates as the curative or therapeutic section. The intent of this series is to first prepare the way. To remove the obstructions structurally, organically, emotionally and mentally thus enabling the practitioner to move on to the higher forms of yogic practice.
The Second Series is labeled “Nadi Sodan,” which translates asnerve or channel purification. The Second or Intermediate Series builds on the skills learned in the First, or Primary Series. It is only after a certain degree of mastery of the Primary Series that a student is taught the Intermediate Series. The postures of Second Series are added “one-by-one”, in the words of Pattabhi Jois, to the practice of First Series. As a student gains proficiency in the new postures more are added until the entire new series is learned. In fact this is the method of progression in all the series of Ashtanga yoga. Progress is based on the ability of each student.
The site also has a classic, and familiar, video of T. Krishnamacharya.
The site has a PayPal avenue to purchase color copies of the videos. Well, I’m not sure “purchase” is the right word. They talk about donations, and that a portion goes to Heal Africa.
Anyone know more about this site?
Posted by Steve
We will keep updating this throughout the day as we encounter other remembrances of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. We’ll start with Eddie Stern’s, which is right here and here’s a little exerpt:
Guruji considered going, and spoke to the Head Master at the Sanskrit College to get his opinion about it. The Head Master told him, ‘If you go, Sivananda will get all the credit for your teachings, but if you stay here, one day your name will spread around the world’. So Guruji stayed in Mysore and dedicated himself to his students, and his name, his love, and his teachings, indeed spread around the world. Thank you, Guruji, once again, for your tireless devotion. May we live up to your example.
Eddie has a great series of pictures with his post. Check it out. Here’s just one:
And other remembrances and thoughts:
- Thad, our friend at elephant journal, has a few thoughts up.
- Peaceloveyoga has the video we posted earlier, thoughts and pictures.
- Me and my yoga has thoughts up.
- Realizing Mysore has a thanks to Guruji.
- First update: Native Yoga.
- Second update: Savasana Addict’s got a photo and Me and My Yoga does too. Plus, photos (on Facebook) from the morning puja at our shala, which Bobbie attended.
- Third update: Yoganatomy. Photos from Pineapple Yoga (on Facebook).
- Update four (on Sunday): Life after Mysore. Ashley Von Arx (I think I have that right).
We will keep adding — feel free to let us know of any in the comments section.
Posted by Steve
New compilation video honors Guruji
At some point later today, our intent is to pull together any remembrances of Guruji that we can find. For now, though, as Bobbie heads out the door to a puja before a Led Primary and I prepare for a home practice morning, here’s a new mash-up video honoring Guruji. Looks like it pulls from a number of videos already online. But now, all in one place.
Thanks Guruji.
The video was uploaded in December, but it only has had about 700 views so maybe it pops on searches today because of the anniversary.
Posted by Steve
Remembering Pattabhi Jois
Today, May 18, marks the third anniversary of Pattabhi Jois’ passing. Sort of hard to believe it’s just three years. It more or less marks when I really started practicing Ashtanga with sincerity.
AP photo
I know because Bobbie dragged me down to Tim Miller’s for his remembrance ceremony, the night before he went to Mysore for the gathering there. We also went to Diana Christinson’s for a memorial 108 Sun Salutes. (As I’ve mentioned before, everyone said something before each Sun Salute — passing from one person to the next. It was very moving.)
None of us would be practicing were it not for Guruji. Let’s remember him today.
Here’s a little from the New York Times piece from three years ago:
Mr. Jois’s following in the West brought him fame and influence, but people close to him say that it did not appear to have changed him much. He never altered his early morning prayer rituals and put all of his students, including the celebrities, through the same tough regimen, Mr. Rangaswamy said.
“Everybody got the same training,” he said. “There was no difference, even for me. Even his own grandson had the same training that his students had, maybe a little tougher.”
Mr. Jois’s first exposure to the West came in the form of a student from Belgium, André Van Lysebeth, whose 1967 book “Yoga Self-Taught” highlighted Mr. Jois. Since then, Westerners have sought him out and have come to his institute by the hundreds.
Mr. Jois was never fluent in English, but he knew enough that most of his students could understand what he wanted them to do or focus on, Mr. Rangaswamy said, adding, “He could teach us what he wanted to teach.”
Kind of humorous to see him get the NY Times’ proper salutation. Also, if anyone isn’t getting it: Mr. Rangaswamy is Sharath. The Times, for what it’s worth, spells his name “Sharhat.” Not sure I’ve ever seen that particular spelling.
You can tell by my easy distraction that I still need a lot of Ashtanga and a lot of focusing of my concentration.
Thanks, Guruji, for leaving us the practice and your memory.
Posted by Steve
More evidence Guruji was right: No coffee, no prana!
A major government study out this week suggests that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of dying from a variety of diseases in comparison to people who drink little to no java.
NY Times image from Getty Images
At this rate, your Confluence bloggers will be here long after Facebook is ancient history!
Here’s a roundup from the New York Times:
The report, published online in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, analyzed the coffee-drinking habits of more than 400,000 men and women ages 50 to 71, making it the largest-ever study of the relationship between coffee consumption and health.
Previous studies have offered conflicting results on the relative benefits or harms associated with regular coffee consumption. While coffee contains caffeine, a stimulant that may temporarily increase heart rate and blood pressure in some people, coffee also contains hundreds of unique compounds and antioxidants that may confer health benefits. Further confusing much of the research into coffee is the fact that many coffee drinkers are also smokers, and it has been difficult to untangle the relative health effects of coffee and cigarettes.
To learn more, researchers from the National Institutes of Health analyzed diet and health information collected from questionnaires filled out by 229,119 men and 173,141 women who were members of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) between 1995 and 1996. The respondents were followed until 2008, by which point 52,000 had died.
[snip]
Over all, the risk of dying during the 14-year study period was about 10 percent lower for men and about 15 percent lower for women who drank anywhere from two cups to six or more cups of coffee a day. The association between coffee and lower risk of dying was similar whether the coffee drinker consumed caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.
I’ll admit those last three words don’t exactly warm my heart, but I’ll ignore that and go downstairs and get another cup of joe (yes, right now my office floor is sans coffee maker. The horror!)
For you real studious types, here’s a link to the study.
Posted by Steve
“Don’t be afraid”
I wonder if you’re familiar with these lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.
And these lines from the Yoga Sutras:
II.3 Avidya asmita raga dvesa abhiniveshah klesah (“The causes of suffering are ignorance, egotism, excessive attachments, unreasonable aversions, and fear.”)
Tim Miller is our translator here, so I’ve heard him discuss these lines many times, and his commentary often hones the translation. He describes the word, “abhiniveshah” as “stubborn clinging to the known.”
Yep. That’s me.
This morning I told Jörgen in one of those confessional moments, just after you’re done practicing. At the time, though, I thought I was asking for something. “Tim thinks I need my ass kicked,” I said. “True,” said Jörgen, “but you are afraid. Take small steps. Breathe. Don’t be afraid, and everything will be o.k.”
Steve is struggling to learn to surrender. I’m trying to let go of the life preserver of Primary. Both of us are afraid to sit down quietly with our Selves, stubbornly clinging to the known.
So I was reflecting on this, J. Alfred rattling in my head as I sat down to check the morning email when “You Are a Tourist” by Death Cab for Cutie came on the radio:
I think the universe may be trying to tell me something. Thanks to my teachers for being such good mirrors.
Posted by Bobbie
We’ve talked a few times about the Tim Miller story of learning to surrender. As a refresher (and from a post with a similar theme):
He was — if I’m remembering the details correctly — in Mysore and with another student who was stubborn and unwilling to give in, to surrender. Tim makes it sound like a bit of a 1970s American mentality in the guy. He wasn’t going to not be in control of himself.
“What’s the point of surrendering,” he asked Tim.
“To find out what’s on the other side of surrender,” Tim suggested back.
This continues to be a difficult issue for me. (Check out our marital advice blog to see just how much … I kid.) But it has taken center stage in the ongoing battle that Jörgen Christiansson has going with my hamstrings and other less-than-flexible body parts.
On Monday, when he arrived at the shala, I was just moving into the Prasarita sequence. Jörgen got to me at B.
Jörgen’s style is to lean me very far forward, extending the stretch of the hamstring but also surrendering me to his support. On Monday, it was a new extreme. Had he moved, I absolutely would have fallen flat on my head.
I didn’t, of course.
From ashtangayoga.info
When I came up to the transition to C (quick digression, I’m working on bringing a little more lightness, as in levity, to my practice, which is hard to do in the dour early hours, but it is important to understand the next moment), secretly hoping Jörgen would go torture another student, I turned my head to him briefly and said, with a smile, “You know that involves an awful lot of trust, right?”
He said he did, and apparently to demonstrate just how much he understood, he proceeded to adjust me in C and, for the first time ever, get my head to the floor.
Now, I’m sure my legs bent some, although I was working on keeping them straight. And, obviously, having a big strong Thor-like guy helping me along helped me along. But there it was: My head on the floor.
Why? Because of trust. Because I was able to surrender to Jörgen’s assurance that he would be there and wouldn’t let me fall.
Trust, surrender, got me somewhere, benefited me in that moment. In that moment. And that’s a key here, too. It’s a moment on the mat.
But what about off the mat? The real trick, the real challenge, is to bring that same ability to surrender to relationships that don’t just involve someone pulling and shoving on you.
And as hard as Ashtanga is for me, it’s a breeze compared to this obstacle.
But I’m going to keep surrendering on the mat and see if it rubs off at other times, too.
Posted by Steve
Mercury Day poetry: From the Isha Upanishad
As Bobbie noted a few days ago, we’re drowning ourselves in some heavy texts. Among them: The Upanishads.
I won’t bother trying to sum up the un-sum-upable. It is at once familiar and alien, simple and complex, wide open and impenetrable.
However you approach it, though, it is: Super. Good. Stuff.
Here’s just a few lines, from the opening of the Isha Upanishad. You might know it, but it never gets old, right?
This is the Upanishad that Gandhi held in such high regard, saying: “”If all the Upanishads and all the other scriptures happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first verse in the Ishopanishad were left in the memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live for ever.”
One thing I will say is that it is my understanding that this Upanishad is one of the more “personal” or “devotional”. In general, the Upanishads are not especially focused on a person “God” — they are a bit more philosophical. This is a bit more Bhakti, in other words.
Enjoy:
Om
Purnamadah Purnamidam
Purnat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya Purnamadaya
Purnameva Vashishyate
Om shanti, shanti, shanti
From Swamij.com, we get all these various translations:
Om.
That is infinite, this is infinite;
From That infinite this infinite comes.
From That infinite, this infinite removed or added;
Infinite remains infinite.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
That is full; this is full.
This fullness has been projected from that fullness.
When this fullness merges in that fullness,
all that remains is fullness.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
Completeness is that, completeness is this,
from completeness, completeness comes forth.
Completeness from completeness taken away,
completeness to completeness added,
completeness alone remains.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
Brahman is limitless, infinite number
of universes come out
and go into the infinite Brahman,
Brahman remains unchanged.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
That is the whole, this is the whole;
from the whole, the whole becomes manifest;
taking away the whole from the whole,
the whole remains.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
That is the absolute, this is the absolute;
from the absolute, the absolute becomes manifest;
when the absolute is added to or taken away from the absolute,
the absolute remains.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
That is reality, this is reality;
from the reality, the reality becomes manifest;
adding or subtracting reality from reality,
only reality remains.
Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!
Om.
That is perfect,
This is perfect.
When perfection is taken from the perfect,
Perfect alone remains.
Om, peace, peace, peace
***
Let me tell you, if you don’t know already: The 1% is pretty all-incompassing.
Posted by Steve
