Brahmacharya

Hey folks.

I realize I am a little bit late with my Brahmacharya post. I have been travelling and also perhaps avoiding writing on this topic. Or, rather, I have been a little unclear about what to write on with regards to this chapter. I still am a little bit. But I'm just going to write anyway, and see what comes out.

Ah, now you're itching to hear what the sutra is. Here ya go.

brahmacaryapratisthayam viryalabhah 

brahmacarya continence, chastity
pratisthayam well established
virya energy, vigour, potency, valour
labhah gained, obtained, acquired

When the sadhaka is firmly established in continence, knowledge, vigour, valour and energy flow to him. 

I would very much like to have "Let's Get It On" playing in the background of this blog post. It's actually oddly appropriate, now that I think of it.

Continence in this context refers to self-restraint of sexual activity, rather than controlling your bowels, just to clarify.

Ok, now that we've lightened the room up a bit, let's get serious and discuss Brahmacharya.

Traditionally, sexual energy and spiritual energy go hand-in-hand, and are arguably considered the same thing. As Iyengar states in his interpretation of Brahmacharya,

"The celibate transforms the energy of procreation into spiritual energy (ojas), creating lustre...Sexual energy is the most basic expression of the life force. It is immensely powerful, and it is essential to control and channel it. In no way should we despise it. On the contrary, we must respect and esteem it..." 

First I should mention, as Iyengar also does in his interpretation, that this idea of Brahmacharya as sexual control is often misunderstood. The idea is not that we abstain from sex at all in our life, but that we cherish and esteem it. For myself, I am interpreting it as using it wisely. Putting it in the right place, so to speak. Traditionally, in yoga, men lose spiritual energy when they ejaculate, so must be intentional with where they choose to express their sexual energy. Women gain sexual energy upon orgasm (hooray for us), but I think the idea of controlling and channeling definitely still applies.

Personally, I want to be intentional with where I put my energy, in all aspects, not just sexually. This relates a lot to my last post, actually. I have a tendency to become overly excited about a project, and give it all my energy before I sit with it and fully put my intention into it, before I know its what I really want to do. And then I realize I've taken too many things on, or I realize I may have wanted to do this initially, but upon reflection it's not actually the best use of my time and skills. When I realized this pattern in myself, I came up with a plan. Every time I have a potentially life-altering idea, or just a significant change of plans, I will not do anything about it for a week and meditate with it. I've realized that I need to ground myself in these situations, to make sure it's really what I want to do. Not to overthink it or discourage my spontaneity, but to feel my feet on the earth and move with intention. To save my energy, so I can best use it. In a lot of ways, this is brahmacharya.

Ok, time to get really personal. Cue Marvin Gaye.

This idea of keeping my feet on the ground and staying present applies to sexuality and dating as well. Enormously. I have frequently gotten myself into a nasty pattern of finding someone attractive, and then letting my fantasies about them get out of hand. What happens after that is either I get hurt, because I was projecting my fantasies onto the situation and it doesn't go anywhere, since the other person doesn't feel the same way, or I get with the person, and I realize they are not the person I fantasized they were (surprise, surprise) and I freak out. Either one is not fun. The third option, which I am playing with now, is completely letting go of the fantasy. Fantasizing is fun. It's the Disney, Hollywood-inspired love story we all want. But it's not real life. So lately, if there's someone I find attractive, I pursue them, but let them go. Attempt to stay present with what's actually happening, rather than engage in a fantasy.

I'll point out here that engaging in negative self-talk, such as "they probably don't like me in that way", or "I'm not good enough, who I am kidding?", blah blah blah, is also engaging in fantasy. Fantasy is anything that is not clear and obvious with what is actually going on. Not feeding any theory or grand scheme that is either a projection of what we want or a fear of what we won't get. So engage not with fantasies about all the amazing things or worries about the horrible things.

We've all been young and made stupid, drunken decisions at parties. I am no exception to that rule. I have been in lots of situations that are the complete opposite of brahmacharya. But you have to find out what doesn't work in order to know what does, right? I look back at some of the decisions I made about sexuality, and realized they weren't really decisions. I wasn't acting on intention. I was acting out of fear of being alone. Fear of "this being my only chance."  Or I was just drunk and not thinking. I was acting on impulse, but not in a good way. I didn't feel grounded in myself when I made those decisions. I somehow work myself up into a state of immense insecurity, almost paranoia, where I don't feel solid enough in myself to say no when that's probably what I want to say. I don't have the courage to be alone in that moment.

So instead of trying to achieve "getting with the person" on a date with someone, release my expectations and just be in the moment. Get to know the person. No acting out of fear or fantasy.

This reminds me of the idea of true consent. Hmm, just to be safe, I should say this part may possibly be triggering. Yes, there is something to be said for being spontaneous and having a fun night. In my early twenties that would have been okay, or I would have been okay with not being okay for a couple days. Now, I don't think I would let myself do that, unless it was very unusual circumstances. It's not that I wouldn't let myself sleep with someone I just met, but I wouldn't let myself go ahead with it unless it was something I felt 110% good about. That's something I used to do in my early 20s that I simply won't do anymore. So what does it mean to truly consent to having sex with someone? It's one thing to just say the word yes and another to really mean it, to mean it with your whole body, mind, and soul. Consent is a topic that needs to be discussed more in our culture, from an early age. To me, brahmacharya and consent are more or less interchangeable. We need to be teaching our kids (and each other) what it means to say yes, to anything, sex or not. Are we doing it because we really want to, or because we think we should, or because it's better than being alone? What are our motivations? We need to really listen to these answers in ourselves before we make these decisions. Because there is nothing worse than the moments after making a decision that was based on fear, and realizing I didn't have the courage to say no.

So how will I control and channel my sexual energy? Or creative energy? Or just, simply, energy?

Keeping myself grounded, first of all. Keeping my feet on the earth. Checking in with my motivations. Disengaging with fantasy. Acting out of desire, not out of fear. Get to know the person first. Take things slowly. Save it. Notice my excitement, but don't act out of a projected fantasy. Release expectations and attachment. Be in the moment. Only give my energy to people and situations that give back to me.

Feel my energy, enjoy it, but check in with myself before I act on it or not.

To conclude, I want to leave you with my amazing and talented friends, West My Friend. They have a wonderful song which I think screams brahmacharya. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-20BmZxt7HI

Namaste.

-Elysia

Asteya, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Moment.

It is seeming more and more that something is aligned with the universe with my focus on the yamas. Each week so far, something big has occurred that has brought the lesson of the yama I'm focussing on more deeply into my awareness on a personal level.

The third Yama, which I focussed on this past week, is Asteya. Asteya is the concept of non-stealing, but, as always, its meaning extends far further than that. I'll give you the sutra:

asteya  non-stealing, non-appropriation, desirelessness, non-covetousness
pratissthayam  well-established
sarva  all
ratna  gems, precious things
upasthanam  approaching, coming up

"When abstention from stealing is firmly established, precious jewels come."

Iyengar's interpretation of the sutra is as follows: "Upon the man who does not take what does not belong to him, all riches are showered. Being without desire, he effortlessly attracts what is precious, materially and figuratively, including the gem of all jewels, virtue."

What does it mean to abstain from stealing? Of course, as with all the yamas, one could read the literal interpretation: don't steal things. But stealing is so much more than just sneaking a grape in the produce aisle at the grocery store. A few words jumped out at me when I read this sutra. First, the word mis-appropriation. To me, this conjures up images of faux-moccasins, "Indian costumes", Lululemon...the list goes on: the famous cultural appropriation. I bring up the Lululemon thing because it seems appropriate given that I'm writing on Yoga. I have often wondered, as someone involving myself in yoga, how to best honour and respect the ancient practice and wisdom, as see it as something that is infinite in its scope and also something that I will never possess or own. I have often wondered, as someone who practices yoga and who now will embark on teaching it as well, how I am benefiting from the colonization of India. In the end, I believe the issue comes down to respect: I will not mis-appropriate the sacred teachings of yoga. I will honour the ancient practice and attempt as best I can to incorporate it into my life. I won't get into Lululemon here. You get the gist.

The word that jumped out at me the most while reading this sutra, however, was the word desirelessness. At first, it confused me. What does desirelessness have to do with abstention from stealing? And as soon as I asked the question I knew the answer. If we go so far as to steal something, whether it's an object or energy or attention, we desire to have it, to own it, to possess it.

What does it mean to own something, to possess something? Can we actually do that? It seems as though the desire to possess something is rooted in attachment, in ego. We want something more than what we have right now. I don't think it's bad to desire things. It's good to know what you want and feel hopeful. But it's an entirely different matter to be attached to the things you desire. How can we own anything? That idea of possession was obviously created by the mind and ego. It's an illusion. We are made of earth and stardust, and so are the things we want to possess, so how can we possess them? I don't own my bed, I purchased it with something called money, contributing to a made up system which somehow makes people richer and also causes much suffering around the world. The concept that I own it is illusory. It's not mine. We don't own anything. Not even our own bodies.

This concept of desirelessness stayed with me throughout the week, and eventually hit me like a concrete block. Well, at first the timing was fascinating as I read about the Black Friday deaths that happened in 2008. Apparently, if you agree to work at Walmart, not only do you get paid minimum wage, but if you're lucky you'll receive the ultimate perk of death by a stampede of crazed consumers. Unbelievable. Are our souls so deeply hungry that we will actually push a crowd into a store so hard that someone will actually die? To me this is so deeply sad it is almost funny. After reading about this, I wondered, what are our souls so deeply craving? Are we this far removed from our own humanity? We are like hungry wild dogs, smelling a fresh flank. Our souls are malnourished so we need to fill the void with every new shiny, plastic wrapped toy that comes our way. We're all little caffeinated drones, with spiked blood sugar, finding the next flashy thing to "need to have", to keep us entertained so we don't fall apart.

But it's not just about consumerism. Even for those of us who don't care about the latest iPhone or what have you, we are still subject to this messy cycle of looking into the future and desiring everything but what is in the present moment. I know I am. Even if what I'm desiring is a coffee, sex, a relationship, alcohol, chocolate, I am still taking my focus away from what is present and alive in this moment, which is, in itself, full. Not that I shouldn't want those things. But it's the needing to have them, the attachment, which consistently fails me. It's that feeling that I'm filling a void.

And this is where the concrete block comes in. Without getting into too many details, this week I realized that I have been entrenched in a pattern of creating grandiose plans that I cannot actually follow through on. I allow myself to enable my joyous enthusiasm for ideas and grand projects, and promise a whole bunch of things I can't keep. Anyway, long story short, I realized that these grandiose plans of mine are my version of the iPhone 5s. They are my new shiny toys that I see, want, then realize I can't do, and then throw away. This high, this excitement I feel from creating these plans, is what keeps me from what  I perceive to be the emptiness of the present moment. It keeps me from depression, from the dark thoughts that catch up with me if I am still for too long.

Anyhow, all this came crashing down on me the other night when I had two pretty massive panic attacks. The next day, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was stiff, sore, exhausted and emotionally worn out from such a blow to my nervous system. Like people who survive a car crash or terminal illness, I felt as though I was picked up by a great windstorm, shaken up, and thrown mercilessly back down to earth. I was understanding the world the next day the way a baby would, taking in experiences moment to moment, because I was too tired to do anything else. When I observed the effect this experience was having on my body, I knew that if I did not break this pattern I would make myself possibly very seriously ill.

The answer?

Well, number one is always, forgive myself.

Secondly, no more grandiose plans. For the past few days, the moment I begin to daydream, to create plans that aren't rooted in what's actually happening, I close my eyes, feel my feet on the ground and breathe. It's good to have dreams, but if I'm not manifesting them into reality, then they just remain fantasies. Little castles in the clouds. Come back to earth, to what I can actually accomplish. Baby steps.

Next, I release drinking coffee. Sad, yes, I know. I love it so. But I realized that drinking coffee brings me out of my body and into my head, and gives me this false energy to dream up all these grandiose plans that I can't fulfil. It's also something that I am attached to in a way that I feel, at first, slightly sad when I don't have it. It makes me feel like superwoman, like I can do absolutely anything, without actually supplying me with any energy to do these things.

Finally, I will work on releasing expectation from my life. This is a big one. It's great to recognize what I want, but if I have an expectation for what that will be, then I will be blind to the amazing things that will actually come of it, even if it's nothing. If I go into a situation with no expectation or attachment, in a way I have nothing to lose. Of course, for me this keeps coming back to my relationships with people. Have you ever created a fantasy about someone, and in doing so created such a grand expectation of your relationship to them, that you cannot actually function in real life around them? I have been refusing to do this for a number of years now, but every now and then I find myself heading in that direction. When that happens now, I will consciously divert my mind back to the present moment. If I engage in a fantasy about someone, then I've created a trap for myself where nothing but the exact re-enactment of the fantasy will satisfy me. And perhaps the fantasy is not actually what I want, it's what I think I want. Perhaps releasing the fantasy and experiencing the actual person is a better option, because I will allow myself to be surprised by what actually happens, in real life.

And while I'm on that, doesn't releasing your expectations of something make the thing more interesting and enjoyable? I have a neighbour who I think is pretty cute (I think I've already mentioned this), and even though I know they have a partner, I am still enjoying my interactions with them. In some ways, I think because I do not expect an actual outcome of this situation, the desire for it is ruled out, and I can actually just be in the moment and enjoy it anyway. How freeing.

And hey, is it just me, or does releasing expectation, attachment and desire make you more bold and daring? I am more likely to say what I want to say when I have no attachment to what comes from it. Because the act of speaking my truth is enough of a gift. Each moment, in and of itself, is full.

If I have no desire or attachment, I allow myself to receive all of the precious jewels that Patanjali is talking about.

A fascinating example of what I am about to write about just happened. I finished writing my post a few minutes ago, feeling quite proud of it, then I pressed Publish and closed this window. I checked my blog to see if it had been published, and it had not. So I went back to the writing page and discovered that two-thirds of what I had written was gone, that the page had stopped saving it after a time. At first I was frustrated and angry. And then I realized, what a beautiful example of Asteya. It was amazing, at first I was pulling my hair out trying to remember what I had written, and then I realized, here is a perfect opportunity to just breathe with what is. So, began to write some of what I remembered,  as well as some other thoughts, but I released my attachment that it had to be exactly the same as what I had written previously.

I'm interested to see what happens next week.

Namaste.