Special Father’s Day

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For father’s day I was asked to write some of my thoughts about yoga for my son. Torr is only 6 months old right now but I thought it was an interesting challenge. Guided mostly by what I wish I’d known a little earlier in life, I write this for his encouragement. His mother had almost daily treatments from me while she was pregnant with him and his first little massage was at about three days old so I think his prana has gotten off to a good start.

Signposts
Surviving the birth process, crawling, walking, enduring the school system and on to noticing grey hairs and death are some of the many signposts of life. They orient our life in time and the aging body. Milestones will vary depending on the circumstances of birth and culture. Reaching any post demands time and energy. Risk, reward and punishment are always present.

The spiritual life seems to be the invisible parallel to the material. Mostly hidden from the senses, even if we bend our body in prayer or grit our teeth and undertake meditation what is really happening? Why make our life harder? To weigh out the risks and rewards it’s useful to understand bliss and pleasure. These two might overlap but they are very different in essence. Pleasure is the upswing of pain and it inevitably swings back. Chasing pleasure generates its opposite. Bliss is steady. Bliss is a fundamental quality of the universe and is abundant clarity and energy. Material accomplishments provide mostly pleasure, spiritual ones bliss .

Although some people move through life like marathon runners with apparently inexhaustible gusto the general outcome of the material track is progressive exhaustion. The spiritual track seeks the ever present freshness of our original nature and who knows where the end is? The expression of Rinzai, “just see how far you get before you die” points to this open road.

These two ultimately complete each other and are never truly distinct. Nevertheless, their integration initiates a deep struggle as they often threaten to rip us in two or seem ready to spoil and destroy each other.

This is difficult to describe but you’ll see for yourself.

Root
Yoga inevitably cuts against the grain of society. It involves walking upstream against the current. People will always find ways to agree among themselves on how important it is to chase their mutual hallucinations.

The world is now on hyper speed and its people seem to produce many flowers but the wind moves even faster. Rootless things do not last long and the full expression never happens. The deepening of the mind, fortifying our vitality and gaining a sense of firmness are what I call cultivating the root.

When we have a feeling for the root we can trust in the long road and understand that things can be brought to full maturity. We also learn that our essence and reserves need to be used judiciously.

Cultivating the root also means that you succeed in connecting yourself to some of the currents of wisdom in this world, ideally through living traditions. Without history, you can’t fully know yourself. When you have a chance to see a great teacher or practitioner you will start to know for yourself why cultivating the root was respected for so long.

Maps
Following the material signposts are necessary but they lead only through the labyrinth of the material dimension to a definite end. All too often, people realize that what they achieved is not what they were actually looking for but usually only after a long struggle to get their hands on it. Look within.

There are maps in yoga and they guide us through the world of the body, the realms of the mind and the greater cosmic background we are immersed in. Among so many other skills, knowing your mind and body through experience is worth the effort. Let trivial things fall by the wayside.

Yoga
Yoga brings happiness into our life. Sometimes we get stuck on our body’s attractiveness but we learn to influence the processes of physiology and manage our state of vitality. We learn to take advantage of times of day, most especially early morning and late night. We become familiar with the cascade of pranas that communicate between body and mind.

Cultivate padmasana when you are young, the ability to sit comfortably in tranquil meditation is a blessing in this world.

If all else fails, love and devotion are a sure bet.

Life Goes On
Graffiti on perfectly good paper. These are my incomplete thoughts. I have innumerable shortcomings and the common hope that you will somehow stand on my back and make it further than I did. 

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