Brahmacharya
This morning I was excited to teach the practice at Black Dog Yoga, for the Teacher Training. We have been exploring the yamas and this weekend it was brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is the yama (ethical observance) related to celibacy; or for us householders it has been interpreted as having moderation.
Brahmacharya has been described as being moderate in our conduct. I personally love how the word breaks down into two words: Brahman and charya which translates as "moving in Brahman, or walking like God, like the highest." I love the idea of moving, speaking, thinking, behaving from the highest place in us. When we practice yoga we don't place our hands and our feet in a haphazard way- we are thoughtful, we are deliberate. When we do yoga, we don't stand in our normal, habitual way. We stand with nature. We honor the natural curvature of the spine and lengthen it. That to me is an aspect of brahmacharya.
I also spoke how "moving like the highest" involves tapping into some of the qualities of Supreme Consciousness, which includes connecting to spanda, to the eternal pulsation which exists in nature. Everything in Nature pulsates. We inhale and exhale. There's day and there's night, summer and winter, spring and fall, moon revolves around the Earth, Earth revolves around the sun... Nature moves in circles and spirals and it throbs with consciousness. So as I was teaching, the focus was on giving them alignment points that carried pulsation:
"Inhale into the core of your pelvis and from there exhale and make your bones longer (in all standing poses)."
"Draw your shins in towards the midline and at the same time extend your thighbones out."
"Move the tops of your thighbones back and scoop your tailbone."
"Draw the shoulder blades down your back AND lift your heart up!"
I made a point of reminding them that every pose carries within it the potential for us to experience the paradox of a pulsation. Like Patanjali wrote in one of his most famous sutras, "shtira sukham asana" (the posture should be steady and full of ease.)
Class was amazing, one of the best practices I've ever taught. At the beginning of the practice the energy was really low, several said they were tired, one was exhausted, two asked for restorative and one complained about having such an intense shoulder pain that she wanted to get an MRI.
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The old Maria would say, "okay you guys let's rest." But I knew that what they needed was to move with care and intelligence, always giving options and guiding them so specifically, that they would be able to tap into their energy and feel better.
So I said, "look- do your best, rest if you need to. We'll move today deliberately and I'll be giving you excellent alignment points that will help you connect to your highest."
Slowly everyone's energy seemed to rise. The ones who were exhausted were smiling. The ones who've never kicked to handstand by themselves were kicking up for the first time. Someone was able to hold bakasana for the first time! Yay! And the student who had complained of shoulder pain was kicking up and smiling and thanked me afterwards.
My lesson from watching these delicious students? We don't know what's going to happen in our practice. All we can do is show up and align with the highest. The rest will take care of itself.
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