Y-O-G-A L-O-V-E P-R-A-G

Love is one of those words that can make people uncomfortable. It means so many different things to so many different people. And yet even though the word may be worn out, spread in its use over far too wide a range of feelings and meanings, it still points many of us towards a phenomenon of great power and wonder.

Another not so dissimilar four-letter-word that may be in danger of overuse is ‘yoga’. However, the teachings of the yoga tradition remind us explicitly to guard against falling into the trap of thinking that it’s the ‘letter’ of the teachings that counts. The teachings themselves make clear that the linguistic formulae, the verses, the stories, the philosophical presentations; all of these are just meant to be indicators that can usher us towards an experience that is beyond words.

Beautifully though, the written teachings of the yoga tradition offer so many practical pointers and robust references to help us move in this direction. The path of yoga is broad and inclusive, offering us so many different presentations of the teachings and so many different ways to practice. But basically, all these practices are designed to cultivate our innate capacity to be PRESENT. The idea being that once we are able to be fully present in each unfolding moment, we will recognise our ultimate essence. Freed from the burden of the past, and anxieties about the future, we can just be, residing in the present (sat) conscious (cit) fullness (ānanda) that we really are.

This is where ‘love’ can be helpful. When I think of love as a practical tool on the yogic path, I think of another four letter word: PRAG, P-R-A-G: Presence – Receptivity – Awareness – Gratitude.

I’m reminded of this by Prague, the beautiful, golden capital of Bohemia. In the Czech language, Prague is ‘Praha’, which means ‘threshold’ in English: that junction, or crossing point, where we can pass from one state to another.

Yoga is also a junction, the place where seemingly opposed values, such as sthira, (steadiness) and sukha, (ease) can meet and set off each other’s complimentary potential, allowing us to cross into a new realm of experience. So to practice yoga, and to cultivate the innate power of that which is ineffable but which in English we refer to as love, PRAG can be a useful reference.

First, cultivate presence. To meet the other, whatever/ whomever it may be, with love, is to meet it/him/her with presence. When we give this full presence to the here and now, we become more receptive and open to the amazing gifts of the present moment. In this state of receptivity, our awareness expands. As this happens, not only does our perception expand, but we are able to respond from a place of greater insight and so with greater skilfulness, in ways which are likely to be more conducive to sustained harmony. What may have felt like something forbidding becomes an opportunity. That which we might ordinarily have rejected or turned away from becomes something we can learn from. As we experience this, we become a little more attuned to the potential of every experience to be a gift that can teach us. This attitude then invites gratitude. And when we feel grateful, it is much easier to be present, so the four constituents of the cycle bolster and propel each other.

When we engage like this, ‘loving’ the present moment with our wholehearted presence, as it were, we also receive more: the moment ‘loves us back’! This is one way of describing the ‘secret’ of karma yoga, the yoga of action. When we give ourselves to the action of the present moment it becomes its own reward. Unburdening ourselves from expectations based on past conditioning and from anxiety about future outcomes, we learn to relax into being in the only time we can ever experience anything we want, now. As we master this, we can eventually stop creating the past. No longer identified with the fruits of our actions, they no longer bind us, yet at the same time, we are freed to act from a place of greater skilfulness and ease.

So, if we want to live in a ‘city of gold’, in a place of wonder, let us love the present moment, because it’s really all we ever have.

Breaking through the veils/cloaks of the mind

As we practice yoga and explore what it means to be steadily easy, steadily happy, truly balanced; it’s usually not so long before we begin to realise that those things which trap us are often of our own creation. Or at least, we have allowed them to be built up and consolidated, until they constitute a type of prison, which limits us and shrouds the light of our hearts.

This prison could be compared to a very well-made winter outfit: vests and undershirts, a particularly well-made coat: all tailored to our individual specifications, with a very well-made cloak to cover it; ready to protect us from the unexpected assaults of cold, dark winter. We have scarves, hats and gloves to go with it: all beautiful, all comfortingly familiar to us.

Yet all these layers can stifle that most vital part of ourselves, which longs to give, share and express. They can impede our unique gifts, our sincere beauty.

What then can penetrate through these layers? What can make us shed them?

Is it the wind? The tempest? Of course, if our practice is an aggressive, howling protest of storm, yes, it may weather our cloak and coat, and even begin to wear them through. But if our practice is like a screaming gale – if we just push, using only mind as our compass and will as our raft, then likely it will only cause us to pull our cloak tighter, and button our coat faster, around the deeper layers that we keep around the precious vessel of our core. If our practice is like a chill breeze, we may relish the boost of freshness it gives us to face the challenges of the day, but it will not make us shed our cloak, never mind our coat.

To remove the veiling cloak, to pierce through the layers of our conditioning, then where are we to we turn?

Where else, but to the sun? When our practice is imbued with true ‘tapas’ – the steady fire of yogic (balanced, harmonising and sustainable) discipline that warms and illumines, then how can we resist shedding a layer? And then another? And revelling in the wonder of the warmth and the light, that allows our different elements to commingle and so know the incomparable,  ineffable and irresistible joy of being ‘yoked’, being in a state of ‘at-one-ment’, in a state where all our constituent parts and powers can all give to and be supported by each other.

How can we bring this into practice? Only with presence, aka love.

Love really is the key.

Love really is the source of true power.

When we meet the present moment, however it is, with love, it means we are present. Being present, really present, our receptivity and our capacity expand. The presence opens up the gift of centred, yet expansive awareness. In this way, the presence of love, loving presence, can bring light. Our expanded awareness brings what might previously have been hidden in the shadows into the realm of our attention, into the light of our awareness. And this in turn can bring transformation: out of the shadows, we can see things more as they really are and respond to them more skilfully. The dark recesses of our psyche, the heavy ‘gravities’ of our social conditioning which hide their roots in dark caverns and can be oh so hard to fathom, start to be shifted.

If we rail and torrent against them, they are likely only to shrink deeper behind their veiling cloaks, deeper into a recess of our so well-tailored coats. But, when the warm sun flows steadily onto the coat, its well-made lining starts to generate irresistible heat, and that kindling fire, then – well, what else can it do? All things in creation act according to their nature – it fosters change, and we change. Not through aggression, not by melding our will into a blowtorch that sears through our resistance; but by just allowing ourselves to feel the irresistible force of the power of integration, the power, one might say, of love.

Hence, it is no surprise that the first qualities Patañjali names as necessary for the aspiring yoga practitioner in his Yoga Sūtra, are śraddhā – faith, conviction, confidence; and vīrya – heroic courage: the qualities of the hero/ine, the qualities required to stand true and heed the calling of the heart, even if the rest of the world is flowing, or even flooding, in a contrary direction. For while it may be comfortable, and at some levels easy, to go with the flow of the mainstream and be swept along wherever fashion takes us; it is quite something else to stand ourselves in the flow of the SUN: of the light of consciousness, awareness, which can be pretty much guaranteed to guide us on a unique path.

However, when we do muster the heroic valour to heed the conviction of the heart, whenever we do something with wholehearted presence, it is always rewarding. We learn from it. And we learn what it feels like to be truer and truer to ourselves. As we learn to engage from a place of greater cohesion, we learn the ‘technique’ of karma yoga – the yoga of action – of making the action its own reward, giving ourselves wholeheartedly to what we do, so we can sleep in peace at the end of the day, ready to rise the next day, even in the dark of winter, to celebrate and worship the sun, the light of consciousness.