My Story of yoga and dance

I was 3 when I took my first dance class and in a couple months I will turn 33. Dance was the only thing I ever knew for sure I loved as a child – well let’s face it, also as an adult – and as I grew older I also knew it was the only thing that had kept me whole in times of trial, though I never could have explained why.

As a young adult, dancing, teaching and working in Washington, DC, I found myself drawn to yoga as a supplement to my dancing. Too poor to afford classes I landed a work/study job at a local studio in Adams Morgan. In exchange for classes the owner tasked me with transcribing the many notebooks that she had accumulated from her training in India. Previously I’d only known yoga as a series of postures and the experience of those on my mat. But as I typed, I slowly began to see, through her short-hand, the underpinnings of an ancient tradition, embodied in the wisdom of generations of yogis, and how deliberately that wisdom had been given to me  – – – as if it had started to “wink” at me from the depths of history. Continue reading →

It’s been awhile since my last entry, so I thought I would quickly revisit why Yoga and Recovery is of interest to me, and why it’s possibly relevant to You.

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When first realizing the urge to write about the parallels of the two traditions, naturally it occurred to me to write from the the perspective of the “ailment” that first brought me to the doors of a room where the 12-steps were made available: alcoholism.  But, in truth, I know about more than that. I also know the way of the drug addict, sex addict, shopaholic, relationship junkie, spiritual seeker, transcendental experience junkie, slave of material security, and addict of maintaining personal appearances in search of other’s approval.  Like all of us to varying degrees, I was just another individual running around grasping and groping for some sense of peace, trying to find something good that might last, all the while not knowing that what I was looking for would not be found in my surrounding circumstances.  So let me say this again, I’m interested in Yoga and Recovery because the root of addiction is common to all of us, and both traditions aim to cultivate a certain new relationship with that root, because their interest is the deepest spiritual evolution. Continue reading →

In the last blog entry it was suggested that the twelve steps of recovery and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali parallel each other as spiritual systems.   Let’s keep looking at this idea.

First, both traditions understand that healing must take place on many levels, and both support healing by proceeding gradually, in very specific stages or steps.   Second, in both traditions the first level of healing is designed to stabilize the everyday mind.

I find it extremely interesting that novice Yogis and addict/alcoholics are prescribed essentially the same regimen in the initial stages of their journey.  And though I understand that there are important differences between the average Joe and the alcoholic, let’s be honest: have you observed misperception at work in your life? How many times have you made up your mind to do x only to end up doing y?  Or, have you ever been sure that he said x, but later found out that he did not? Continue reading →

Picture taken by Nicolas Pippins at Circle Yoga Shala

Most of the great spiritual traditions offer maps of human development that show a way to be free from the delusion and fear that arises out of ignorance and its habitual behavior – -like addiction.   My interests lie in the tradition of Yoga and that of Recovery.  I have been active in both for the last two decades, and I have deep respect for them as spiritual programs that show a way to express our fullest human potential.  In recovery there are 12 stages or steps, and in the Yoga Tradition the famous 8 Limbs in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Over time, I came to marvel at the depth of the twelve steps, and at how a certain level of participation in the program actively freed so many from the grip of what seemed to be the deepest possible pain. But more than that, I also saw how something suspiciously like the intelligence of the steps unfolds in the Yoga Sutras.  This vision of their parallels soon became too great to ignore.  If we look at them simultaneously, we can see that Patanjali’s process map, and that of the recovery tradition, converge around a triad of key concepts: addiction and ignorance, and the personal sense of self. Continue reading →

Picture taken by Nicolas Pippins at Circle Yoga Shala

About two decades ago, after entering into a 12-step program, I heard the most wonderful saying, ‘we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience’.   I’ve heard it since in different circles, and I don’t know to whom it should be credited, and I’m not sure that that matters anyway.  It brought a smile to my face and resonated with something deep inside my being.  So it became catalogued in my mental bank of clichés and beautiful sayings, and repeated now and again without any inquiry into its essential meaning.  But then again, the meaning is obvious and needs no heady effort to understand, right?

If there is a deeper understanding to be had here, all we have to do is look at what we do: we make grand efforts to become spiritual, to avoid negative experience(s) like pain, sorrow, suffering, loss, betrayal, and so on.  We go to even greater lengths to predict the future so that we get only that which is thought to be good and pleasurable. Why not simply trust being human if the essence of that is always already spiritual? Continue reading →

Bethesda Fountain, San Francisco, CA, Courtesy of: F. Diez

Philip and I just finished recording the first episode of The Highly Played Game of As If: A Podcast Exploring Creativity in the Light of Sacred Texts. In it we look specifically at a story from the Gospel of St. John, interpreting it in the style of Maurice Nicoll, a British psychologist and student of Carl Jung and G. Gurdjieff. Our conversation includes a brief introduction to the underlying concepts — which you can read about more at the post, Introducing the Highly Played Game of As If — as well as our analysis of the Miracle at the Pool of Bethesda, from John Chapter 5. As I said, our commentary stands on the high shoulders of the British psychologist, Maurice Nicoll, who wrote a ground-breaking book called The New Man, in which Nicoll offers a number of deep insights into the parables and miracles of Christ as described in the New Testament Gospels of the Christian Bible. You can listen online using the player below, or download the file directly at this link: The Highly Played Game of As If, Episode 1.