Yogaville Community Karma Yoga project, 2021. Photo by Bill Geoghegan

I don’t know about you, but the spirit of sacrifice and service has never come easy for me. In the early days of my spiritual journey, due to my self-absorption in “taking care of Number 1,” I used to cringe whenever Swami Satchidananda (Gurudev) talked about Karma Yoga—which was pretty much every time he spoke.

With reticence, I accepted that service was the dues I needed to pay to join “The Spiritual Seeker Club.” I figured it was the “hazing” that new members were forced to endure to be accepted in the fraternity. Once I was a full-fledged member then I could get down to the “real” practice of Yoga. That was my understanding in those early years and gratefully I outgrew that notion.

Before becoming a monk—now 47 years ago as I write this—I probably should have read the fine-print in the “swami manual”—the part about living for God and serving all the names and forms that are, in essence, God. Thankfully, the truth dawned on me: Karma Yoga is a must for me. While I experience the tremendous benefit of all the teachings of Gurudev—including asana, pranayama, and meditation and would never consider giving them up—I am finally beginning to understand his emphasis on selfless service.

As long as we spend most of our time in the experience of the body/mind being “me,” and the desire for Self-Realization is competing with a bunch of other desires, then tamas and rajas are still prevalent in our heart and mind. I occasionally contemplate the idea that “I am That” (Jnana Yoga). And as best I can, I try to be more devoted to the Supreme Being (Bhakti Yoga). But the ego is a hard nut to crack, and, in my humble opinion, nobody gets established in the Truth of our essential-nature by force of will. This awakens in a sattvic mind.

I see now how Karma Yoga is essential for moving beyond rajas and tamas. Forget about selfless action, just finding any action that pauses our Netflix streaming and gets us off of our couches, begins to shakes off our tamas. It the selfless part that deals with rajas. A good start is being honest about our motivation for our actions. Usually, if I look closely enough, I can uncover some personal reason and benefit that I am looking for. But, at least, now I’m also acting out of care for another person; it is not all about me. I may not be able to “give until it hurts,” as Mother Theresa recommended, but I can feel a good stretch as I move outside my comfort zone.

So, I try each day to live up to Gurudev’s guidance: “The dedicated enjoy Supreme Peace; therefore, live to serve.” The Sanskrit word for dedication is tyagat. It can also be translated at letting go, renunciation, and surrender. Tyagat means first letting go of the result of the action. But, ultimately, tyagat means letting go of the illusion of a self separate from the whole that is performing the action. The separate self—the ego—can never enjoy Supreme Peace; it is what’s in the way of the experience of that Peace.

The way I now understand Gurudev’s teaching is: Those who have let go of the illusion of separateness experience their essential nature as Supreme Peace, and have no other purpose for living but to be of service.

I believe that the practice of Karma Yoga is an attempt to recognize that the one true Self—the one essential nature that we all share—is performing actions through the instruments of the body/mind, which I falsely assume to be “me,” or a separate self. The dissolution of this sense of separate self will result in the experience of pure love and connection— and that is the true inspiration behind Karma Yoga.

Questions for Reflection:

• What is Karma Yoga for you?
• What obstacles have you found to the practice of Karma Yoga?
• Have you found any connection between your meditation practice and your capacity to offer pure Karma Yoga?
• Has the practice of Karma Yoga helped you to move more deeply into Jnana and/or Bhakti Yoga?

About the Author:

Swami Asokananda, initiated into monkhood in 1973 by Sri Swami Satchidananda, is the spiritual director of Integral Yoga Institute of New York, co-director of the Integral Yoga Global Network, and one of Integral Yoga’s foremost teachers. He is the primary instructor for the Intermediate and Advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Trainings offered around the world. He has deeply studied the Bhagavad Gita for many decades and is currently writing a commentary.

The post My Spiritual Journey with Karma Yoga appeared first on Integral Yoga® Magazine.

Photo: Arjuna requested Sri Krishna to place the chariot between the two warring sides.

In Part 5 of this series, we went over the first verse of the first chapter. I’d like to skip ahead now to the twentieth verse of the first chapter where Arjuna says to Sri Krishna: “Place my chariot in the middle of the two armies, O Krishna, so that I may behold those who stand here desirous of fighting and know with whom I must fight as the battle is about to commence.”

A big battle is about to take place. It’s a war between the sons of the blind king, and his wife Gandhari, and believe it or not they number 100. They are in battle against the sons of Pandu, the blind king’s brother, and there are five of those brothers called the Pandavas. So, actually, it’s a war between cousins! Sad! But, the esoteric meaning of that is that they’re representing two parts of you and I. These two parts coexist within our same heart: the self-centered part and the altruistic or virtuous part.

The problem is that the self-centered part (represented by the children of Gandhari and the blind king) number 100. But, the Pandavas, the virtuous part, the part that actually cares about others and looks for the unfolding of the soul only numbers five. So it’s a 20:1 ratio. You could say that for every selfless thought we have, we have 20 thoughts of What about me? This means that we tend to be preoccupied with the proverbial “taking care of number one.”

Arjuna is the middle son of Pandu and his wife Kunti. And those who know more about the Mahābhārata know that’s not totally accurate. But to keep things simple for today, let’s say that’s true. The name “Arjuna” means “the one who makes sincere efforts.” So he’s been purified to the point that he has become a genuine seeker and someone who is sincerely trying to understand the purpose of life.

The name “Krishna” comes from the Sanskrit root krish, meaning “to draw.” Sri Krishna represents the Consciousness at the core of our being that is continually drawing us back to the Source. This battle is taking place because the Pandavas have been in exile for 13 years and their exile has just ended. It had been arranged that after the 13-year exile, they would return and reign over a certain part of the kingdom. But, the blind king’s son Duryodhana has reneged on the deal. And there seems to be no option. They did their best but now they have to stand and fight for their right to reign.

You could say that a part of us—you can call it “the soul”—also has been in exile for a long, long time. If you’re reading this, you may sense that after many lifetimes of hard knocks and difficult lessons, the noble part of you is seeking to return to its rightful reign, to being the chief guide of our being and our psyche. And, the Bhagavad Gita is the guidebook on how this conflict—between the part of us that is determined to stay asleep and the part of us that aspires to wake up—is going to be resolved.

My Guru, Swami Satchidananda, says, “This battle didn’t just happen some thousands of years ago. It is constantly happening. It is within each of us.” So the homework assignment for this week, if you would like to join me, is to ask yourself these questions: Do you feel that there is a part of you that’s blind and wants to remain asleep? If so, how does that manifest?

About the Author:

Swami Asokananda, initiated into monkhood in 1973 by Sri Swami Satchidananda, is the spiritual director of Integral Yoga Institute of New York, co-director of the Integral Yoga Global Network, and one of Integral Yoga’s foremost teachers. He is the primary instructor for the Intermediate and Advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Trainings offered around the world. He has deeply studied the Bhagavad Gita for many decades and is currently writing a commentary.

The post The Bhagavad Gita in Daily Life: Part 6, The Inner Battlefield appeared first on Integral Yoga® Magazine.

I’ll read you the first verse of the first chapter:

Dhritarāśhtra asked, What did the Pāndavās and my sons do when they assembled on the holy land of Kurukshetra, eager to fight, O Sanjaya?

So let’s talk about who Dhritarāśhtra is. He’s a king. He’s the ruler of the country. He’s also blind, a metaphor in the Gita for spiritual blindness. You can be a good king when you’re a blind man, but his blindness isn’t limited to his physical eyes. His eyes, which represent individual consciousness, also can’t see or at least can’t see straight. So in this country, we have a blind ruler, unfortunately. Blindness represents the fact that even though we’ve read so much and know so much we still tend to look outside for our fulfillment, even though we know that’s not going to happen.

Our tamas (inertia) also blinds us by covering over the inner light. Our rajas (restlessness) pushes us outward and makes us focus outside of ourselves. And we also are blind to how our conditioning is functioning—our samskaras are mostly operating under the surface. They cause us to see things in a filtered and distorted way and then we react to what we see in a preprogrammed way, with deeply ingrained patterns. And this kind of seeing is actually worse than blindness. A blind person at least knows they can’t see, but we think that we’re seeing reality when it’s just not so.

So I gave myself a homework assignment for the week that I’ll share with you and encourage you to take on as well. This week I’m going to focus on the fact that my point of view may not be truly objective. I’m going to listen more deeply to different points of view and watch my reactions when people see things differently from the way I do.

About the Author:

Swami Asokananda, initiated into monkhood in 1973 by Sri Swami Satchidananda, is the spiritual director of Integral Yoga Institute of New York, co-director of the Integral Yoga Global Network, and one of Integral Yoga’s foremost teachers. He is the primary instructor for the Intermediate and Advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Trainings offered around the world. He has deeply studied the Bhagavad Gita for many decades and is currently writing a commentary.

The post The Bhagavad Gita in Daily Life: Part 3, Spiritual Blindness appeared first on Integral Yoga® Magazine.

The Vedas are divided into two sections—the karma-kanda, which is the action section, and the jnana-kanda, which is the knowledge or wisdom section. The karma-kanda deals with how to lead a secure, pleasurable life, but mostly with an eye to reaching a higher level, which we can call heaven. The jnana-kanda is working with the knowledge, wisdom and spirituality. The culture that grew up around these teachings took place originally in North India, the Indus Valley. And they called it sanatana dharma, the eternal truth, the eternal way. Later, when the British occupation occurred, since they were in the Indus Valley they called the people the “Hindus,” and that’s where the term came from. But the true essence of Vedic and Yoga teaching is really sanatana dharma. It’s very broad thinking. You can believe God had form. If you believed God was with form, you could choose the form—whichever form you were most drawn to. You could also believe God had no form and was an all-pervading underlying Consciousness. There was no need to believe in a “Creator God” in sanatana dharma.

The essence of sanatana dharma, or the essence of the Vedas, is called Vedanta—the end of the Vedas. In Sanskrit, “ve” means “without, “danta” means “teeth.” In other words, when you’re old and gray and can’t chew your food well, that’s when you would study these teachings. But, that’s probably too late, so it’s best not to understand Vedanta in that way! You need to have some energy to practice Vedanta. The essence of Vedanta in 700 verses is called the Bhagavad Gita.

Before the Bhagavad Gita starts, there are nine verses called the Gita Dhyanam, or the meditation on the Gita. These verses are designed to help prepare the mind for the study of the Gita. And to prepare the mind I can think of three things that these verses do:

1. They help us to be more focused, concentrated, undistracted, so we put our full attention in the Gita study.
2. They help us to humble our ego so that we get more attuned and aligned with Sri Krishna’s teachings.
3. They prepare the mind by giving us faith, so that when we’re studying the Gita, we’re studying not just with our head but with our heart.

In The Living Gita, Swami Satchidananda’s commentary on the Gita, he lists just a few of the nine verses of the Gita Dhyanam, which are so inspiring and so I have memorized these:

OM, O Bhagavad Gita, by which Arjuna was illumined by Lord Krishna himself and which was composed of eighteen chapters
within the Mahabharata by the ancient sage Vyasa;

O Divine Mother, Destroyer of rebirth, who showers the nectar of oneness on us;
O Bhagavad Gita, my affectionate Mother, on Thee I meditate.

All the Upanishads are the cows, the milker is the cowherd boy, Krishna;
Arjuna is the calf; people of purified intellect are the drinkers; the milk is the supreme nectar of the Gita,

My salutations to the Lord who is the source of supreme bliss, whose grace makes the mute eloquent and the crippled cross mountains.

There are a few key points these verses highlight:

o The Gita is composed of 18 chapters within the Mahābhārata by the ancient sage Vyāsa…so the Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses from this sacred epic poem.

o It says, O Bhagavad Gita, “my affectionate mother, on Thee I meditate.” I like that. The Sanskrit word used is “Amba,” meaning “Divine Mother,” “Affectionate Mother.” This Mother is very patiently lifting Arjuna and us up, elevating us.

o Chapter by chapter, we’re moving further along the spiritual path.

o It also says “O Divine Mother, Destroyer of rebirth, who showers the nectar of oneness on us.” So the Bhagavad Gita showers a nectar of oneness on us. The nectar is that if there’s only oneness, there’s no one and no thing to be afraid of.

I would like to close this article with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

“When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face and I see not one way of hope on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort me and immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meaning from it every day.”

About the Author:

Swami Asokananda, initiated into monkhood in 1973 by Sri Swami Satchidananda, is the spiritual director of Integral Yoga Institute of New York, co-director of the Integral Yoga Global Network, and one of Integral Yoga’s foremost teachers. He is the primary instructor for the Intermediate and Advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Trainings offered around the world.

The post The Bhagavad Gita in Daily Life: Part 2, Sanatana Dharma appeared first on Integral Yoga® Magazine.

With his unique humor and enormous depth of wisdom, Swami Asokananda is a master in presenting the great teachings of Yoga in ways that are deeply relevant to key issues in modern life. In this article, he shares the benefit of his experience from his personal journey on the mat and in front of a classroom for five decades.

There are different intentions that people bring to Hatha Yoga practice. My personal experience has been that asanas lead me into a higher state of awareness. I’m using the body as a portal, or doorway, to connect with my true Self. It’s good to have some clarity and a stated intention for our practice—not that we can’t have multiple intentions. In my own case, I do want to maintain a flexible, strong, and healthy body, and sometimes I want to address some therapeutic things. But my main intention is to connect more deeply with my Self. The intention of your practice has an impact. If you start your sadhana with a specific goal in mind, it does help you to reach that end.

The main thing I share with students is that asanas are a journey and to really enjoy and pay attention to each moment of the journey. Don’t wait until you have achieved the pose; move into it as a living, organic experience. Feel every moment and with each breath, feel that there’s a shifting of that experience so there’s no time when you say,  I’ve reached the end of this asana—you are still traveling in the asana.

A part of deepening one’s practice, as we move from a beginner’s level into a more advanced asana practice, is to look at how we react to resistance we may feel in a posture. If we back away from any sensation that is different and always go to comfort, we don’t find the place where we need to grow. I want my Hatha Yoga experience to be fully enjoyable. A part of that for me means learning to distinguish between the resistance to going deeper vs. the body defending itself and contracting because it’s in pain.

I think we have to develop a healthy relationship with our edge. If we rush toward it, the body contracts. If we ease ourselves toward it, stay with our breath, and listen with great sensitivity, the body will find no cause to offer resistance. We want to respectfully approach what feels like our limit, rather than to bull past it, either due to unconsciousness or aggressiveness. By acclimating to the sensations and relaxing into them, often the edge will shift and we can comfortably move a little deeper into the pose–into the next edge. The distinction I make is one of pain vs. good discomfort. You should be able to breathe comfortably in the asana—use that as an indicator. If you can develop this attunement to your edge, with meditative wakefulness, then your asana practice becomes a living experience and you’ll love it even more.

As my practice has deepened and evolved over the years, I have found it helpful to, once a year or so, find a teacher whom I feel is moving in a direction that feels right to me. Then, I take a workshop or a few classes with that teacher. I think it’s valuable to keep learning and see what others are doing to connect to a higher source. It keeps my practice from becoming stale, and I can learn from that.

The power of asana, for me, starts with practicing with ahimsa and satya. Ahimsa means no violence or harming the body in any way. The first principal of practice and of teaching is: Do no harm. Practicing with satya means to be truthful about where I am in a pose rather than thinking what the pose should be or how it should look. This is the starting point, which leads me to the place where I begin to feel the pranamaya kosha or energy body. When you start to practice from this kosha, you begin to discover your Yoga—it’s not coming from someone else, your teacher, or anything outside of you. The energy is discovering the optimal way to move and you are sensitive enough to pick it up and smart enough to follow it.

There’s a lot of discussion in asana practice about alignment. Alignment usually means that someone, who knows a lot, is helping you find the way to stack bones, ligaments and muscles so that your prana flows most freely. I define alignment as the place where your prana flows optimally. The Integral Yoga approach says that we find the place where we’re in touch with the prana and we let the prana align the body so it flows most freely from the inside out. We ask ourselves, “How is my energy flowing? What do I need to do to respond to how the energy feels?”

In terms of teaching Hatha Yoga, each school will have a different idea of the best ratio between details given and quiet time. Many Yoga teachers feel they are teaching when they are speaking, but, in Integral Yoga, a lot of the teaching is in how we use the silence so that people can feel what’s going on. If I’m being constantly told by the teacher, “Do this and do that,” and focusing on one part intensively, I’m missing the rest of my body. By skillfully parsing out information, we allow the mind of the student to move inward. I believe that this is teaching in the highest sense—you are helping people discover their own true Yoga.

I was taking class at our Integral Yoga Academy. I was obediently following the instruction of the teacher. Then, the teacher became quiet. My mind also quieted down, and I found just the right place for that asana for me at that moment. That’s what a good teacher does—helps the student find the expression of that asana, in that body, at that moment. Find the right talk-silence ratio that allows space for inner exploration. I don’t want to sound too rigid or critical about studios that play music in class. I occasionally teach a class with music. But we don’t want to distract from the meditative, inward experience of the practice.

Ultimately, the time on my mat is only a training session. It’s the place I gain the learning I need to help me move about my life with awareness. I don’t want to diminish the benefit of asana practice as a preparation for meditation. There’s no doubt a regular, heartfelt practice of asana and pranayama will let you sit still and comfortably for your meditation. The nice thing about being in touch with the inner energy in an asana is that it also brings quietness to the mind for the freest flow of energy, and helps us stay in the present moment. That’s a powerful meditation technique in itself. Then, when you get up off the mat, you don’t have to stop that. You can go out, do your daily activities and they really become Karma Yoga, because you are not generating more karma by your ego getting lost in what you are doing.

I travel all over the world, and I think there’s really something unique about Integral Yoga teachers. There’s something special about a teacher who is able to quiet the ego and understand that it’s their connection to the Whole that brings the most beautiful experience to the class. I still feel my ego come in when I teach or train teachers, but, I also try to stay connected to the truth that teaching Yoga is not about me wowing my students and knowing that, when I stay connected, something can come through that will bring a great experience to everyone, including me.

When you teach, it seems you are the most powerful person in the room. You are telling people what to do, how to move and they follow your instruction. It’s not a surprise that the ego would feed off that, but there’s something in the way the Integral Yoga teachers are trained—the foundation is there so that, if there is any power flowing through them, it’s used to empower the students. If my motive for teaching is to get love and approval from my students, my students will get stuck at a certain place and so will I.

Some teachers feel threatened when their students grow. Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev) was so beautiful and inspiring to us because he always said, “I will be happy when my students surpass me.” It’s human to need love, approval and recognition, but the classroom is not a good venue for achieving this. When we teach, it’s about the students’ needs and creating a safe and supportive environment where their needs get met.

I really love and revere Gurudev’s teachings and approach to Hatha Yoga. A main specialty of the Integral Yoga method is to make sure the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga stay together. When we practice asana and pranayama we include the yamas, niyamas and pratyahara. Even in Yoga Nidra you have an experience of dharana, dhyana and maybe even samadhi. Hopefully more and more schools will guide their students toward the rest of the limbs of Yoga and not leave them at asana and pranayama.

About the Author:

Swami Asokananda, a monk for over 40 years, has the look of an ascetic but the down-to-earth wit that shows his New York City roots and his five decades of study with the great Yoga master Sri Swami Satchidananda. An excellent Hatha Yogi, he helped to develop and facilitates Intermediate and Advanced Integral Yoga Hatha Teacher Training programs, which he has taught to students in many parts of the world. In addition, he is a scholar of the Bhagavad Gita. His popular classes and workshops on this great Indian scripture make it accessible and useful to modern spiritual seekers. He is also the cohost of the popular podcast, “Two Old Fogey Yogis.” Both practical and mystical, Swami Asokananda is one of the most requested Integral Yoga speakers, presenting programs worldwide

The post Deepening Your Hatha Yoga Practice appeared first on Integral Yoga® Magazine.

One of my main sadhanas (spiritual practices) at this time is to be more aware of what energy, what intention, what motive I am bringing into each interaction. Why am I speaking with this person? What outcome am I looking for? Have I thought about it? As I watch more closely, I’m discovering that there are different forces at work within me that are going on in pretty much all my conversations.

Even in our own sangha (spiritual community) there are people with very diverse points of view—as is often the case in any family. How am I reacting to points of view different from my own? How well can I listen and take in what the person is saying? What can I learn about myself from this interaction and my own behavior? Am I creating further division or am I fostering more unity? If I want to bring about positive change during these turbulent and polarized times then first I’m going to have to deal with the turbulence and polarity within me.

It is important to remember that we are all products of our experiences. Though it seems obvious to me that my point of view is accurate and true, it’s vital for me to keep in mind that in all likelihood I’m often overlaying the facts with assumptions, judgments, and opinions that have been fed into me from who knows where and when.

To see our conditioning is not easy. To shift it is even harder. One of the reasons that Sri Gurudev founded the Integral Yoga Institutes & Centers was this recognition that spiritual growth is difficult without a supportive community. As we watch our own thoughts and try to live with integrity, sangha means that we are also looking for ways to support and lift up one another. Also, our being a part of any Integral Yoga center gives us the field where we are able to move from a small self-interest to a larger, shared interest. We come together so that we can connect to something bigger than ourselves. We have an opportunity to play a role in the evolutionary shift in the consciousness of the planet.

COVID-19 safety precautions have changed how we connect with each other and share the teachings. There are still plenty of ways you can be of service to and deepen the benefits you can receive from coming together as a sangha. Think: What can I offer? What skills or experience can I bring to the table? If you can’t think of what would be useful, reach out to any center. We will find just the right Karma Yoga for you, according to the time you have available. Through this mutual caring for this beloved organization, we will bring out our own potential and keep Integral Yoga centers shining bright for our cities long after this pandemic ends.

About the Author:
Swami Asokananda, a monk since 1973, is one of Integral Yoga’s foremost teachers, known for his warmth, insight and good humor. His teaching comes out of his own practice and experience, having absorbed the wisdom of his Guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda, since the age of nineteen. While he enjoys sharing the practical wisdom of the yogic philosophy (especially the great Indian scripture, the Bhagavad Gita), he also loves his practice of Hatha Yoga and is one of the primary instructors for Intermediate and Advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Training. In the past, he has served as the president of Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville and he currently serves as president of the New York Integral Yoga Institute.

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