It is the beginning of class, you sit down on your mat and the teacher says “close your eyes and connect with your breath.”  Ugh.  Torture.  “10 minutes of complete silence watching my breath?”  At that exact moment, your mind takes off!  Your thoughts are racing!  “Watch my breath? Ugh.  I don’t have time for this!”  Or “Did I lock my car…yeah I did, I think I did.  Did I?”  Or “ah there is nothing in the fridge…maybe I’ll swing by Barnaby’s on my way home tonight.” And then the instructor draws your attention back, “bring your attention back to your breath.”  And you think “oh yeah, right my breath, I’m inhaling, I’m exhaling, I’m inhaling, I’m exha—wait! Why do we do this again. Oh right, I’m ‘meditating’.”

Meditation. What the heck is it anyway?  When you think of meditation, you likely conjure up some image of a yogi half naked with a long beard, sitting in lotus pose completely still and you assume that his mind is completely still and he is one with, well, everything.  Um, ok.  Here’s the thing, silencing the mind is nearly impossible.  Many people think you can turn off your mind, like you are flipping a switch and that you ‘can’t meditate’ if you can’t sit still.  Turn off your mind?  Would you really want to do that?  C’mon!  You need your mind, don’t you?  The good Lord gave you a body, a mind, emotions so why the heck are we so focused with amputating the mind?  You need the mind so that you can function in this world.  Think of the ‘mindless.’  Or better yet, think of those who have lost their ability to use their mind--Stroke victims, those who have suffered a brain injury, those who are mentally challenged, the chronically mentally ill—we strive hard in our lives to avoid such situations, so why are we looking to ‘shut off the mind’ in meditation?

Here’s the thing, what the ancient yogis and saints were really saying was to ‘quiet the mind’ not shut off the switch.  Even the greats will tell you they still have thoughts come and go. The difference is that their thoughts are quieter.  Your mind gets absorbed in the day to day of life and we need it to do that, that’s its job.  But what usually happens is the mind takes over.  The mind is set to overdrive.  Imagine your mind is set to shuffle and repeat just like your iPod.  It is untamed.  So untamed that it confuses you and draws you deep into a web of what the yogis call, “maya” or illusion.  If you could just turn the dial down a bit, turn off the shuffle option, you’d discover that there is another frequency, another station there that the mind was blaring out.  Guess what?  That other frequency is just as much a part of you as the mind, as the body.  Is it your soul? Perhaps.  Is it the Universe speaking?  Maybe.  Hard to say exactly, how can one even begin to describe it? Is it consciousness?  I like to think of it as that ‘thing’ that ‘place’ that you are trying to ‘yoke’ your mind to in the practice of Yoga--the place of pure potentiality.  Is being in this connected state meditation?  I like to think so.  

Once we get there, what do we do with it?  And how do we get to the state?  Surely there must be other ways then running off to a mountaintop alone, with your mala in hand, sitting in lotus posture, watching your breathing and silencing the mind. Otherwise, it is darn near impossible for anyone here in the West to do it.  Luckily the ancient sages identified ways to get there and they outlined different yoga paths.  Maybe you get there by taking a down dog.  That’s Hatha Yoga. Maybe you get there by helping others, service. That’s Karma Yoga.  Maybe you find it through devotion, prayer. That’s Bhakti Yoga.  Maybe it is studying the scriptures.  That’s Gyana Yoga.  Maybe you find it when you look into your child’s eyes and feel that unconditional love. That’s Mommy Yoga.   Maybe you find it at the football game when you are in a crowd with a thousand other fans cheering on your team.  That’s Pig Skin Yoga.   Maybe you experience it just after making love.  That’s Sexy Yoga.   There is a multitude of ways to experience this state, this state of connection, of pure potentiality, of meditation, of yoga.  With practice, you’ll notice this feeling more and more and more and it will become part of your daily life, not just when you come to your yoga class and sit down on your mat.  What’s the point of only having that experience for 10-15 minutes a day, a week?

More importantly, what are you suppose to do when you get there?  Just sit a trance and be ‘one with everything?’  You already are one with everything, you just can’t sense it or hear it over the blaring static of your day-to- day thoughts. When you feel that connection, don’t waste it.  Do something with it.  Pray, set an intention, talk to the universe.  You never know what you might receive when you speak and listen.

At Dhanwantari, we offer Vinyasa + Meditation several times per week.  In my humble opinion, this format allows you to experience ‘meditation’ as I just described without too much effort on your part.  In this class, you experience Yoga Nidra, or “Yoga Sleep.” You lie in savasana, aka ‘corpse pose’ for an extended time.  Yes, corpse pose.  This is the exact point. I like to think of it as your “Monkey Mind” leaving so that you can have a real conversation with that other part of you.  During Yoga Nidra, in corpse pose, your mind is given something to gnaw on each step of the journey, so it is nearly impossible for the pesky thoughts of the day to sneak in.  “Right Hand thumb… your whole body, your whole body.”  Most importantly, you set an intention, a prayer, a request at the beginning and the end of the practice.  Ta-da!  Easy meditation. 

The key is practice.  Experience it simply at first perhaps through a few yoga nidra sessions at Dhan.  Then you’ll start to see it more and more ‘off the mat’ and before you know it, you’ll be a Pig Skin Yoga Guru!