Through The Looking-Glass: Alice In Yoga-Land

Theres a specific training, within Buddhist Yoga, which asks us to look upon the things of our world as being very similar to the reflections of objects as seen in a mirror: arising as the result of specific causes and conditions, yet possessing ~ in and of themselves ~ no inherent existence. So the next time youre looking at yourself in a mirror, you can notice that the reflection of your face, there in the mirror, is there only because of the confluence of: the existence of the mirror, your having placed your body in front of it, and the capacity of your eyes to see clearly what is in the mirror to name just the most obvious of the causes & conditions. And then you can think: all of the objects Im going to experience, as I walk through my day, are no more (or less) real than this reflection of my face that Im seeing now in the mirror. And notice the result, as you do go through your day, of thinking this way

If youve already got a sitting meditation practice, a variation on the above practice that you might like to try is this: sit facing AWAY from a large mirror (a full-length mirror is best, otherwise youll probably have to sit on a chair for this to work); then set up a second, smaller mirror in front of you, into which you can look, to see the room in front of you as reflected in the mirror thats behind you. (And if you can even figure out these instructions, youre probably already enlightened!) Then drop into an open, relaxed, shamata (calm abiding) sort of space, with your eyes open, gazing gently at the room-in-the-mirror-in-the-mirror. And then ~ a shift here to a more vipassana (clear seeing) practice ~ understand: the world around you, as experienced by your conditioned perception, is always much like what youre seeing in the mirror.

And you now might wonder: what would it mean, what would be required, and what would it be like to go ~ along with our heroine Alice ~ through the looking-glass, into Yoga-land? If you actually are Alice, you will of course end up in Wonderland, and we all know what thats like. If youre a Buddhist, one possible destination would be whats known as a Pure Land. (But this is a Yoga blog, so lets just stick with Yoga-land.) At any rate, these might be interesting questions to research And in the meantime, check out the hall of mirrors scene near the end of Bruce Lees film Enter The Dragon (a film which ~ despite its brilliant fight scenes ~ is a bit hard to swallow in certain places, if youve got even a budding feminist sensibility but this is an aside!)

And Ill end, for today, with the following poem, taken from Frithjof Schuons collection, Songs For A Spiritual Traveler Enjoy!

The Mirror

Is not the world a mirror in which God
Sees his beauty in a thousand images?
A spectacle that vanishes, repeats itself
Lights up from naught, then fades away.

The fruits of existence teach us two things:
God-resemblance and God-remoteness;
Remoteness brings to nothing the fabric of existence
Resemblance is timeless like the stars.

Elizabeth Reninger holds a Masters degree in Chinese Medicine, is a published poet, and has been exploring Yoga - in its Taoist, Buddhist & Hindu varieties ~ for more than twenty years. Her teachers include Richard Freeman and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. To read more of her yoga-related essays, please visit her website: http://www.writingup.com/blog/elizabeth_reninger

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Chakrabhedan(circle-interception) - a New Kind of Yogic Exercise

There are many types of Yogasanas or yogic exercises taught by several Masters on Yoga. Yogic exercises should be simple so that practitioners of all ages can practise them. The aim of yogic exercises is to supply sufficient warmness or heat to the body so that germs causing disease are killed; deposits in veins and arteries are removed and mind gets concentrated. As gold is purified by burning, so heat generated from Yoga removes or kills germs or foreign matter from the body. Further in yogic exercise mind remains within the body and thereby gets concentrated.

My Yoga Master Late Munishvar Shiv kumar Shastri has developed an unique yogic exercise called Chakrabhedan(circle-interception). This is very simple but most effective for making the body disease-free and concentrating mind to a great extent. The body has six major Chakras or circles. These are - Muladhar Chakra at anus, Swadhisthan Chakra at genital, Manipur Chakra at naval, Anahat Chakra at mid-chest, Vishudha Chakra at throat and Ajna Chakra in between eyebrows. These are vital Chakras for the body in order to survive.

Besides these six Chakras, there are minor Chakras both in the legs and hands. There Chakras are simply joints in the legs and hands. So in all there are eighteen Chakras in the body. In Chakrabhedan body parts or limbs are moved along fixed directions on the plane of each Chakra. While moving limbs mind is fixed on a particular Chakra. So not only there is an exercise of the body but there is exercise of mind also. This Chakrabhedan exercise cannot be described in words. Learners may learn it directly from a Master. Once learners learn it they shall find it most effective.

Author Premansu Chand preaches and practices Yoga. He resides at Bhubaneswar, India. To know more about spiritualism and Yoga readers may go through his book 'Quest for truth: the spiritual and yogic way' which may be collected from bn.com or amazon.com. premansu_chand@rediffmail.com

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