Christian Yoga

Part Nine

by Tony Crisp

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The discipline of self-awareness

There was a discipline involved here, that of recognising what held the dreamer prisoner – anger, fear, resentment. The joy was there all the time. It didn’t need to be developed, just released. This is a subtle point, the difference between trying to develop ones spiritual joy, and allowing it to emerge. It is a point that needs re-evaluating again and again.

Here is another dream illustrating the sort of situations we might need strength to move out of:

In my dream I was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his faeces and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean it and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself. As I watched though, he came to the point of accepting responsibility for his own condition. He came out, and we then happily asked if we could put his clothes in the washing machine. He started a new life.

The dreamer says of his dream:

As I explored my dream I saw that it is a frequent factor in myself and others to need a problem to stimulate us to activity. But I saw/felt an attitude I had in which I loved to have problems or shit. I saw that again and again, when talking to people I would describe this shaky condition I was in, the problems I faced, the difficulties I had. For instance, I might say, “It’s OK for someone like you, you’re not so anxious. You didn’t have such a bad start. You have more money. You have more luck on your side, etc, etc.” I just revelled in the shit.

Looking at my dream helped me see that I use this defense because I am anxious life or people will ask something of me. If I have a nice problem, I can run back and hide in it. It helps me escape the necessity of saying, “What you are asking makes me feel anxious. I’m afraid I might fail. Don’t ask me for love or help, it frightens me.”

The task that Hercules faced, of cleansing the stables illustrates the same human difficulty – moving out from the muck that traps or holds us. Hercules diverted the river, and the power of that cleansed the stables. Likewise, the flow of life, or spiritual energy flowing through you by opening to it, has a natural cleansing effect. But you might need to do some work on unwieldy parts of yourself to get that action flowing.

Have you got it – or has it got you?

Firstly, we cannot let go of something and offer it to the spiritual action if it has hold of us. If you have a tiger running around your house you would avoid it at all costs unless you had a way of immediately being in control of it. So it is with your own fears and pains. Unless you can stop their attack, you avoid them, run from them, and in fact let them unconsciously control your decisions and actions. Of course, you need help and a greater power than your own conscious resources to totally grow beyond such fears and pains. But often you cannot even open yourself to that greater influence while they have a strong hold on you. Without knowing it you resist the action of the divine in your life.

One of the simplest ways to begin loosening the hold such things have on you is daily meditation. There are so many methods, and in one way it doesn’t matter which one you use as long as you understand what the point of it is.

If this is explained you will grasp what is meant. So, for the sake of the explanation, let us say that each day you spend half an hour sitting and quietly looking at a blank sheet of paper or a white wall. You are not trying to get anywhere, reach any higher state of consciousness, or achieve a goal – just looking. Quite soon you might get restless, and your mind will wander. Perhaps on that first day, or on subsequent days the question will arise as to what the point of this is. Maybe you still remain sitting, or you give up and go back to watching the TV or reading a book, or visit a friend.

Well, what has happened is that as you sat and looked at the paper without goal, all the things that usually have a hold on your decisions start to come to the fore. They will attack your awareness. They will do this again and again, getting stronger and stronger. All you fear, think and do habitually will come to attempt to remain dominant in you. But if you quietly continue you are taking hold of them and holding them still. They will gradually then lose their hold on you, because now you have a hold on them.

Stop feeding the pigeons

Ramakrishna illustrated this with a story. He said that if you feed the pigeons every day, they will come in greater numbers. But if you stop feeding them they will gradually give up flying around you and all will be quiet. He described the pigeons as the thoughts and worries, fears and pains that we constantly feed by giving them attention or being directed by them.

In a similar way, the apparently meaningless meditation stops feeding the pigeons of worries, fears and the other urges and irritations that usually control us.

Another approach to this method of gaining control over anxiety, irrational urges and moods is something that was originally connected with the chanting of hymns and prayers. It was thought that this slow measured chanting brought peace and transformation. Recent analysis of breathing rhythms as they connect with anxiety states, suggests that slow breathing or breath holding decreases the influence of anxious states. So the underlying influence may arise from breath holding or regulation, rather than the sounds. Certainly the discipline of slowing the breath brings about the same results as the meditation, but is possible a more potent method.

But remember that these methods are only a finger pointing at the moon - they are not the moon. In other words they do not lead to the transcendence possible through allowing the divine to be born in us. They are simply techniques to help us open to that Mystery, and remain fertile to it. They are means of developing the strength to make the journey, not the journey itself.

An easy way of approaching the slow breathing is as follows. This is much slower and more purposeful than normal breathing. One imagines a feather near one's nose, hardly moved by the passage of air. Yet not so slow it becomes uncomfortable and one has to gasp for breath. Breath in as fully as you can without allowing the chest to rise. You then let the chest expand and fill, but without going to the point where you feel tense or struggling. Do not hold the breath, but let the air out as slowly and as smoothly as possible. If you can, feel the quietness of the breath and allow this to pervade your whole being. If at any point you find you are struggling with your breath, slightly increase the speed.

Starting with five minutes practice, slowly work up to ten, then fifteen minutes, and reap the reward of peace and stillness this method brings to the whole system. You will find that your breathing gradually adapts to the slowness, and your system slows down. Some people count their in and out breath, but this is not necessary. Awareness at the point where the air enters your nose is sufficient, along with the feeling of gentleness of the breath.

The goodness and badness of things

One of the great statements in the New Testament is – “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” (Mathew 7-1).

Strangely the enormity of this is often overlooked. If used it can have an incredibly transformative influence in your life. So let me point out just one way it can be introduced as a way of dealing with pain and tension, and removing the blocks to surrendering oneself to the divine action.

Most Christians are taught to be forever wary of the evil, the bad, and the sinful. Unfortunately this turns into awful self–judgements. Such judgements about your own actions and the world continually create misery in you, and should stop. That is not to say you should avoid being aware of the results of your actions and of the actions of others toward you. In this way you can decide if that is what you wanted to create with your words and deeds. That is quite different to judging things as good or bad. Evaluation is a process of learning. But judging everything suggests that you are all knowing and all seeing. Give it up.

The process of judgement also flows into virtually everything you think about. We arrive at judgements about the value or otherwise of people, ideas, religions, and objects. This may be interesting and maybe, to deal with everyday affairs, may at times be useful. But to take such judgements seriously is like putting yourself forward again as all seeing and all knowing.

Take a few moments to consider this in your everyday life. Supposing you hold a cup in your hand – what do you suppose it is? How would you describe it? What is it made of?

Whatever your description, you may have left out details of who made it, how it was made, and just what skill with hands or machine shaped it. But also, what about its colour or how its shape connects historically and culturally? What about the chemical composition of its components, how they work together or conflict? What about the molecules and atoms that are part of that chemical constitution? Where did its atoms have their birth? Was it on some distant star and system, as many of the atoms of our body? Also, its sub-atomic particles - do they, as modern physics suggests, actually have a link beyond space and time, with all other particles throughout the universe? In fact does this simple cup transcend within itself all the ideas about time and space, death and loss that you take so seriously? Is this ordinary object an expression of the divine, leaping beyond all the boundaries you feel so trapped by?

Do you really know how to judge anything or anyone?

Christian Yoga Part Ten