The Best of Yoga Life, 2014

by Ken Liberman
Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon
I have been receiving Yoga Life regularly since the late 1970s. This includes when I
discontinued all of my journal subscriptions after a fit of mid-life crisis in the late 1990s. Even
during the peak of my professional responsibilities as a university professor, when I had little
time for reading them, I kept them coming because I found them useful as a litmus test for how
much stress I was carrying: any month that I could not take the time to sit back with an issue
was a month I was living with too much stress. They always offer a refresher course in
Swamijis teachings, along with helpful practical advice for how to apply them, but most of all
they are a wake-up call from central reception reminding one to recollect what is most
important.
Since my retirement from a few years ago, I have received invitations to spend periods
lecturing as a Visiting Professor in Brazil, China, Italy, Denmark, France, Germany,
Argentina, and elsewhere so much that sometimes I do not collect my snail-mail for nearly a
year. I departed my home last November to visit my son and grandson in Jerusalem and then
carried on lecturing and doing research in many countries until my return in August. Upon my
arrival, I had nine months of Yoga Life magazines waiting for me, the issues from December
2013 through August 2014. They are not meant to be read that way! But I took them with me
to my home in Baja California Norte, Mexico, and spent the first post-travel month reading
them. I had the finest time, and I thought it would be worthwhile to pass along the best
instruction from each months issue.
The December issue (2013) was an auspicious beginning it includes an excerpt from
Meenakshi Devis fabulous forthcoming memoir, The Rishi and the Rakshashas. The chapter
offers excellent instruction to a visitor about how to leap into India by its drawing of an iconic
portrait of every Western persons initial engagement with India. (I was reminded of the
amazing first chapter of the Nobel Prize winning Mexican author Octavio Pazs In Light of
India, although Meenakshis chapter is less sentimental.) She describes the unorganized flow
of vehicles in Pondicherry and the mix of heat and chaos that is life there. Most Western
travelers arrive entirely unprepared for the lack of organization, but they constitute perhaps the
richest genre of teachings that India offers to Westerners, especially to Americans whose
congenital impatience and feelings of entitlement are continually challenged. In Meenakashis
words, The Western culture has produced individuals, bold and adventurous It has also
produced aggressive, violent, self-centered people, restless, difficult to satisfy. (Dec, p. 12)
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Meenakashi gives us a paradigmatic portrayal of urban Indian life along with a detailed
description of just how we become enlightened by it I can hardly wait until the book is
published.
The January issue features Swamis teaching on AUM, so central to our paramparai,
but my favorite discovery was the short essay contributed by Sophie LeRoux of South Africa,
one of the Yoga Course students in Pondicherry, who writes, Pratyahara to me means moving
inwards towards the quietude within. (Jan, p. 23). Exactly right! Even though pratyahara is the
central pivot to genuine yoga practice, most texts about Ashtanga Yoga makes this topic the
shortest chapter. It is as if writers in English cannot bear to think very long about withdrawing
the senses, except that is a horrible and negative way to translate such a positive outlook. Here
Sophie gets it right.
The next several months feature two serialized articles by Dr. Ananda from talks he
gave in Australia: February and March offer the Chakra Workshop, and March, April and
May feature a three part series on Breathing Disorders. The February issue includes what is
the seminal advice for our practice in this tradition: Instead of always trying to find somebody
else to blame your parents, your friends, your partner, your doctor we have to be
responsible for ourselves. That is the first step. (Feb, p. 14) In the March issue, Dr. Ananda
quotes Ammas definition of dharma, which is the best definition I ever heard: doing the
right thing at the right time in the right way at the right place for the right person. (Mar, p. 7)
Good luck!
The extraordinary series on Breathing Disorders supplements the many years I have
practiced the A-U-M sequence with vital new insight. Since I first learned the practice from
Swamiji in 1975 I have spent the majority of my days doing it faithfully, including the
hathenas, and I cannot count the number of friends, students, and surfers that I have taught it
to. Yet I still forget to breathe for weeks at a time (airports are a lousy place to practice). Dr.
Ananda reminds us that when we are ill we need the prna and oxygen to heal: Its only when
you relax that you can heal please understand that. It is only in relaxation that anabolism
starts to happen. (April, p. 7) Upon reading this, I thought to myself how ironic it is that yoga
is offering an anabolic therapy for a catabolic culture.
Another of Swamijis great teachings is how yoga is mostly about the immune system.
I can remember only one occasion when Swami became angry with me (I was somewhat
spared in that department). It was while we were on tour of the temples of southern Tamil
Nadu, in 1979. While we were exiting one of the temples, a young Indian visitor who was
fascinated by Swamis dynamic presence and his orange robes, rishi staff, and Santa Claus
beard, approached me and asked, What kind of yoga does your swami teach? I replied
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briefly since I did not want to fall behind, Hatha yoga. For the next 24 hours Swami did not
speak to me. On the second day that followed, Swami finally exploded and demanded how I
could be his student for years and think that. I never teach hatha yoga! Meenakshi and
Renuka are the ones who teach that. This was not entirely true, since Swamiji would
occasionally substitute and offer us in an hour class what would ordinarily take a month of
classes to get. But this scolding did force me to pay closer attention, and of course all the
teachings about stress, the immune system, nervous disorders, etc. are much more important
than using asana to gain flexibility.
I also learned in the March issue that there is a lingular lobe on the left side of the
lungs, which was new information I do not recall Swami Gitananda ever mentioning; perhaps
it is another of the new gems we are now getting from Dr. Anandas own extensive medical
research. In the installment that appeared in the April issue, Anandaji informs us, The faster
you breathe, the more the acid base balance is thrown off. (April, p. 7) This is very pertinent
information since an acidic balance will breed disease. Moreover, in the May installment we
learn about nitric oxide, which is produced by the A-U-M pranayama practices of the
Bhramari humming: This humming clears the sinuses, improves the nitric oxide in your nasal
passages and sinus cavities, preventing the bacteria from settling down there. And the
humming clears up the whole neural connections. (May, p. 4) I concluded that I need to be
doing more humming (back to my Yoga Correspondence Course). There is also helpful advice
on how to use a neti pot properly; however, Im among the few who do not need to use a neti
pot since I surf most every morning for 90 minutes, even at age 66, and the thrashing in waves
does a thorough job. Some days I go out surfing even when the waves are poor, just to clean
my sinuses; it seems to prevent me from catching common colds. But the article contains good
advice about how to get the neti water out of your sinuses. Dr. Ananda writes, Its like a
conch inside, all twisted and turned, and water will still be there. So you have to turn and
twist (May, p. 5).
What I did not realize until reading these lectures is that the MMMM humming of the
A-U-M practice is not a low growl; it is up here (in the head). (March, p. 16) I do recall
Swamiji practicing it that way, but for many decades I have been doing the low growl. I think
it has its benefits since I am kaphic enough to be prone to gathering phlegm in my upper chest;
a low growl helps to shake the phlegm away from the walls of the lungs so that it can be easily
expelled. I think they are two separate practices, and I now plan to do them both. I look
forward to more scientific research about how nitric oxide can be a potent vasodilator. (May,
p. 4).

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For me the best part of the June issue of Yoga Life was the photo of Eric Doornekamp
and his family. I knew Eric when we were both young (it was he who invited Swamiji to New
Zealand, where I met him), and to see his wise old face along with the bright, cheerful face of
his son, somehow makes me feel that it is possible to live with a successful practice of yoga.
The July issue featured a long, multi-dimensional talk by Dr. Ananda that he gave in
Berlin, and covered the gamut of yoga as taught in the Gitananda rishi tradition. It includes the
sound observation that depression is usually self-engineered, and it presents the role of
digestive system in disease. The talk commences with this contemplative counsel: Let the
mind settle wherever we are. A sense of stability occurs within, allowing the body-mindemotion-spirit complex to be aligned. (July, p. 3) For me the articles climax was reached at
the point of offering Patanjalis definition of asana: Sthira sukham sanam. Although sukham
means ease, it does not mean the easy way; rather, it takes much practice of asana to achieve
this, and it is easy to lose (and so must be continually reestablished). But asana is not yoga
unless it is established! If you wont believe Patanjali, then at least believe Dr.Ananda, who
puts it best when he urges us, You go from doing to being. (July, p. 13) This is advice for
living the fullest life possible. And yet it fits a practice of asana perfectly.
Amma offers an apology on the first page of the July issue, Normally we would
serialize such a long article. I intended to do this but as I read on I decided to print the
whole talk at one time. Yes, the power that such an extensive and extemporaneous set of
reflections very much merited its being printed as a single piece and by the end of it I
discovered that Dr. Ananda has become my teacher.
The article Sharing the Sadhana by Meenakshi Devi in the August issue affected me
emotionally, as it led me to recall how many of my generation headed out to discover the world
in the 1960s by traveling. After we visited Western Europe (principally France, Holland,
Germany, and Italy), we had to make a choice when we hit the Mediterranean Sea: west to
Spain and Morocco (which is what I did, since I spoke Spanish) or east to Greece, Turkey,
Iran, and India. I spent much of one summer on the island of Formentera before there were any
hotels there, and I longed to continue traveling to India after hearing the stories of other
campers; but instead I decided that I needed to give priority to training my mind while it was
fresh and pliable and that I should finish the university and go to graduate school, and save the
traveling for when I was older, which is in fact what I have done. But I ended up in India many
times anyway (five years, added together), largely due to my meeting Swami Gitananda during
a trip to New Zealand, in 1975.
Now my review of the Best of Yoga Life for the year is finished, so it is prudent for
me to quit before my article also will have to be serialized!
The Best of Yoga Life, 2014 by Ken Liberman