Undoism.com launches

Have a spiritual question? Get clear answers to life’s big questions via the new website: Undoism.com. SISProject.org is pleased to announce the launch of Undoism.com, featuring “Ask Undoism” – a real-time question-and-answer option.

“Undoism” (trademark pending) is a term coined in 1973 by Swami Satchidananda that summarizes the practical spiritual approach he taught in order to undo everything that seems to veil or disturb our essential nature of peace and happiness.

“We can’t get peace and happiness by doing something. It’s time to undo all we have done to disturb our essential nature of peace and happiness.”
–Swami Satchidananda

As he traveled the globe as a Yoga master and world spiritual teacher, Swami Satchidananda was often asked what his religion was. He would usually reply: “Undoism.” Then, he would explain:

“We don’t need to do anything to be happy. We are happiness itself. We have done many things to disturb the mind and that has only brought unhappiness. We have forgotten our child-like innocence. Babies aren’t ‘doings’ but are Beings. When you undo all the conditioning, all the imposed limitations, problems and disturbances, then you will see yourself as you essentially are: pure peace and happiness.

“Thousands of years ago, the Vedas plainly said that to realize your True Self you need not do anything. Rather, undo all that is non-essential to who you are and your essence will be revealed. This is why I call my religion, ‘Undoism.’ We’ve done enough damage by too many ‘isms’ and ‘do-isms.’ Let’s undo all the becoming and just be.”

NOTE: This website is hosted by SISProject.org (headquarters: Spain). It was inspired by Swami Satchidananda and the question and answer section draws from Yoga and the perennial wisdom’s vast teachings. The site is generously supported by the Harry M. Wadhwani Family Foundation.

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Consider this report on the epidemic of stress in 2021. The CDC estimates that stress is a causal factor in an estimated 80 percent of primary care doctor visits. This is only getting worse with the pandemic. I’m grateful that Integral Yoga gave me the tools to train stress management teachers.

One reason for what people regard as police misconduct is the non-stop stress of their job and not having the tools or the managerial support to cope in a healthy way. You can’t make accurate assessments of a situation if your internal state is on constant high-alert for danger. One retired police officer, Justin Boardman, recently reported in the Washington Post: “We are scared to death out there. We all experience trauma on a daily basis. And it builds up. We are not taught how to chisel that plaque off our beings. We are not given those tools, and it is not part of the culture, so you start treating the public badly.”

Supporting the police to build resilience in the face of stress would be one small way to help create a cheerful, service-oriented police force. If we could also help at-risk populations cope with their day-to-day trauma through stress reductions skills, we would probably see more peaceful interactions all around.

I know this is one small piece of a complex challenge. I’m profoundly grateful to those who can think and function on a large scale to tackle big problems. The world desperately needs those visionaries. It’s just not what I’m called to do. My path is: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can,” which is a quote by the great Arthur Ashe. This attitude reduces my stress, and helps me know that I can do something meaningful to help resolve the many crises I see in the world.

If ever you find your good will turning into frustration, sit down and breathe deeply and gently for a full minute. This one practice alone can help you be a presence of peace in your small part of the world. Then you can share that peace with someone in need.

PROGRAM NOTE: Swami Vidyananda and Swami Ramananda will be teaching Stress Management Teacher Training via Yogaville Online from August 8 – October 3, 2021 (weekly: Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays). This virtual training and certification program is open to Yoga teachers and health professionals who wish to gain the essential skills and confidence to teach Yoga as stress management in a wide variety of environments, including the workplace, healthcare facilities, schools, and Yoga studios. Register here.

About the Author:

Swami Vidyananda, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, has enjoyed many different roles in her life, including radio news reporter, translator for Swami Satchidananda, and video producer. She is a senior monk who has received training as a hospital chaplain. She has been teaching Integral Yoga since 1972. She is a versatile teacher, who helped develop the Integral Yoga Stress Management Teacher Training program. She specializes in workshops on stress management as well as Yoga and the emotions. Swami Vidyananda has taught in the US, Canada, Europe, India, and Australia. For more information, please visit: www.swamividyananda.com.

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India COVID Relief
India, the source of the Yoga teachings, is struggling with a second wave of Covid infections. AY is donating 10 percent of the proceeds to AID India’s COVID relief fund:

Scholars Program
AY’s brand new Scholars Program will offer grants to Yoga practitioners from under-resourced communities to participate in a 200-hour basic Yoga teacher training of their choosing. These grants are intended to support diversity in the field of Yoga teaching.

Scholarships to our Events
A portion of the funds will be used to support scholarships for the upcoming Accessible Yoga Conference Online, October 14-17, 2021 so that this exciting event can be financially accessible to all who wish to participate.

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Bringing Yoga Therapy into Hospitals and Academia

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In this interview, Becca Pulliam talks with Nancy O’Brien, ment Therapeutic Applications of Integral Yoga Teacher Training (a partnership with Integral Yoga in San Francisco and Yogaville Virginia, and  Integral Yoga New York) about updates in the 800-hour Integral Yoga Therapy Certification course.

Becca Pulliam: What is a Yoga therapist?

Nancy O’Brien: A Yoga therapist uses all the practices of Yoga, the eight limbs of Yoga, whether movement, poses or asana, meditation, deep relaxation, the philosophy of ahimsa, non-judgment…the whole gamut. Yoga therapy applies all of Yoga to a person’s journey toward healing or recovery and wholeness.

BP: How did you get interested in Yoga therapy?

NOB: Twenty years ago, I had a medical misadventure that left me in a coma for several weeks and then on a ventilator, laid up for basically two years. At that time, luckily, I was connected with Integral Yoga therapists. That enabled me, in the midst of huge medical challenges with which I still deal today, to connect to my peace. That gave me hope. It gave me strength. There was more supported movement and compassion as opposed to sticking strictly to a Western medical approach. Western medicine definitely helped and continues to help with my recovery, but my being able to incorporate the Yoga therapy that I received—at a time when I was unable to walk or sit—enabled me to access my peace. It empowered me and gave me hope. It has continued to deepen since then and has been my path to healing and recovery. I’m grateful to be able to offer that path to others now through our Yoga Therapy Certification Program.

BP: Are there specific aspects of Integral Yoga that makes this program unique?

NOB: Swami Satchidananda said that all Yoga is therapy. Integral Yoga has presented its teachings as Yoga therapy for years, and now we finally do what one of the founders of the Integral Association of Yoga Therapists encouraged us to do when the certification was in the nascent stage (not that many years ago). We embrace our dharma—the dharma that Swami Satchidananda imparted throughout his life. And now Integral Yoga has united globally and collaborates across locations as a certified school for providing Yoga Therapist certification. It’s an 800-hour program, and we have an incredible embarrassment of riches in terms of faculty and mentors across the globe on whom we can draw. Now much of that is online. That opens the door wider, as people don’t have to be in New York or Yogaville or San Francisco to access the programming required for the 800 hours of training that leads over several years to certification as a Yoga Therapist (YT). I was talking to someone who called me for general information about Yoga, as happens frequently. She had just finished her 500-hour program with Yoga Works and was seeking advice about Yoga therapy. I mentioned Integral Yoga. And she said, “That’s like the Harvard of Yoga teacher training!” I love that we have that well-deserved reputation as one of the leaders in this field, and when you look at the website and the teachers—Dr. Mala Cunningham, Nischala Devi, Cheri Clampett, Arturo Peal, Steffany Moonaz—we have so many experienced and inspiring people teaching in our program.

BP: Why is this a good time to become a Yoga Therapist at Integral Yoga?

NOB: A lot of the people supporting Yoga therapy are researchers, whether at Harvard or studying the physiological responses that show the benefits of various Yoga practices. In Western medicine for the past 20 or 30 years, mindfulness has been coming to the forefront. More and more research is being done. With so many medical people recommending Yoga for de-stressing, pain relief, and cancer, with so many more medical people having their own practices and seeing the benefit and then being able to rely on high-quality research, now is the time to become a Yoga therapist. And when you have a certification, it’s easier for medical clinicians to feel more confident about referring their patients to Yoga. So there’s a much broader call for certified Yoga therapists now. The benefits are becoming clearer, they’re being backed up by excellent research, and they are accessible because there are more Yoga therapists out there.

Yoga therapy is being used in schools, in prisons, in hospitals for specific causes. COVID-19 is one of the places where I think it’s really going to be helpful. For people whom they call long-haulers, people whose symptoms are not disappearing after two weeks, people who are dealing with recovery issues, I think Yoga Therapy is going to be especially helpful.

BP: What is the benefit of certification through Integral Yoga?

NOB: Integral Yoga (and its global headquarters in Yogaville) are taking a very active role in supporting virtual trainings for Yoga therapy. Under the auspices of Laksmi Sutter, Swami Ramananda, and Swami Vidyananda, we’ve just had a workshop for all the teacher trainers and mentors in the Yoga Therapy program, to support them with specific tips and guidance about how to do their trainings by Zoom. They learned what programs to use, how to schedule, how to break up into smaller groups, and the difference between live interactive content and content that people would absorb on their own.

The Stress Management Teacher Training that Swamis Ramananda and Vidyananda recently taught will be available in different formats. We are working on the Yoga for Arthritis that I do, and have taught for years, to move it online. I’m grateful every day to Integral Yoga and Yoga Therapy for my ability to function.

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Accessible Yoga just announced that despite the cancellation of their anticipated fall conference in Portland, Oregon, you will still have the opportunity to learn and build community with them this October: the fall 2020 Accessible Yoga Conference is moving online!

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Prior to a Yogaville online program (Graceful Exit: Death and Dying from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition) that Andrew Holecek offered via Yogaville, he shared his reflections on what the benefits are in not avoiding the subject of death and dying, but rather delving into the it from the richness of  Tibetan Buddhist and other traditions.

One of the most important things we can do to prepare for death is to think about it. Bring it into your life, and as Don Juan said, “Use death as an advisor.” What would you do if you had six months to live? What would you cut out of your life? What would you do if you had one month, one week, one day? The Indian master Atisha said: “If you do not contemplate death in the morning, the morning is wasted. If you do not contemplate death in the afternoon, the afternoon is wasted. If you do not contemplate death in the evening, the evening is wasted.”

One of the best ways to prepare for death is to acknowledge that we really are going to die. We are falling in the dark and have no idea when we will hit the ground. Buddhist scholar Anne Klein says: “Life is a party on death row. Recognizing mortality means we are willing to see what is true. Seeing what is true is grounding. It brings us into the present.”  We all know that we’re going to die. But we don’t know it in our guts. If we did, we would practice as if our hair was on fire. Trungpa Rinpoche said that until we take death to heart, our spiritual practice is dilettantish. Author Sam Harris wrote: “While we try not to think about it, nearly the only thing we can be certain of in this life is that we will one day die and leave everything behind; and yet, paradoxically, it seems almost impossible to believe that this is so. Our felt sense of what is real seems not to include our own death. We doubt the one thing that is not open to any doubt at all.”

We see others dying all around us but somehow feel entitled to an exemption. In the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, the sage Yudisthira is asked, “Of all things in life, what is the most amazing?” Yudisthira answers, “That a man, seeing others die all around him, never thinks he will die.” If we acknowledge death and let it counsel us, it will prioritize our life, ignite our renunciation, and spur our meditation. The Buddha said: “Of all footprints, that of the elephant is the deepest and most supreme. Of all contemplations, that of impermanence is the deepest and most supreme.”

Realize that life is like a candle flame in the wind. Visualize friends and family and say, “Uncle Joe is going to die, my sister Sarah is going to die, my friend Bill is going to die, I am going to die.” Put pictures of dead loved ones on your desk; put sticky notes with the word “death” or “I am going to die” inside drawers or cabinets to remind you; read an obituary every day; go to nursing homes, cemeteries, and funerals. The essence of spiritual practice is remembrance, whether it’s remembering to come back to the present moment, or recalling the truth of impermanence. Do whatever it takes to realize that time is running out and you really could die today. You are literally one breath away from death. Breathe out, don’t breathe in, and you’re dead.

Death is one of the most precious experiences in life — if we are prepared. The karma that brought us into this life is exhausted, leaving a temporarily clean slate, and the karma that will propel us into our next life has not yet crystallized. This leaves us in a unique “no man’s land,” a netherworld the Tibetans call “bardo,” where all kinds of miraculous possibilities can materialize. At this special time, with the help of skillful friends, we can make rapid spiritual progress and directly influence where we will take rebirth. We can even attain enlightenment.

Tibetan Buddhism is not the only Buddhist tradition that teaches the bardos, but it is the most complete. Other faith traditions also have different views of what happens after death. For some of these views see How Different Religions View Death and Afterlife, edited by Christopher Jay Johnson, Ph.D, and Marsha G. McGee, Ph.D; and What Survives? Contemporary Explorations of Life After Death, edited by Gary Doore Ph.D.

Even for spiritual practitioners, death often remains a dreaded event. We dread it because we don’t know about it. We do not look forward to death because we don’t know what to look forward to. For most of us, it’s still the great unknown. Death is the ultimate blackout, something to be avoided at all costs. With bardo yoga we can bring light into this blackness, see where we’re going, and go in a fruitful direction. The purpose of bardo yoga is to radically alter our relationship to death, and to embrace it for the opportunity it truly is.

About the Author:

Andrew Holecek is an author and spiritual teacher who offers talks, online courses, and workshops in the United States and abroad. As a long-time student of Buddhism, he completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat and frequently presents this tradition from a contemporary perspective – blending the ancient wisdom of the East with modern knowledge from the West. Drawing on years of intensive study and practice, he teaches on the opportunities that exist in obstacles, helping people with hardship and pain, death and dying, and problems in meditation.

He is the author of many books, including The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy, Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, Dream Yoga; Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep,  Meditation in the iGeneration: How to Meditate in a World of Speed and Stress.  His newest book is: “Dream Yoga: The Tibetan Path of Awakening Through Lucid Dreaming.” For more information, visit: AndrewHolecek.com

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