“Concentrate and meditate on one spot on your standing knee in the front mirror to make sure your standing leg is absolutely locked out – no knee,” a phrase heard daily if you take Bikram Yoga — dialog for Standing Head to Knee Pose. It’s part of the instruction on how to do the posture correctly, and even more so, it’s a way to “keep the mind in the brain for at least 10 seconds,” as Bikram would say. Bikram Yoga is your 90 minute active or “moving” meditation. We use the body as a medium to control the fluctuations of the mind. Standing Head to Knee is THE posture that brings the mind and the body together.

Every yoga champion and every yoga competitor will tell you that Standing Head to Knee is by far the hardest pose to do. It doesn’t matter if they can put one leg over their head while standing up, or can bend over backwards while placing their head between their feet, Standing Head to Knee is the single most challenging posture in any series. Members, you and I do it every day. My bet is that you can agree that physically it is tough, and mentally it is a test. Bikram talks about the five elements of Raja yoga, one of the eight limbs of yoga. They are faith, self-control, willpower, concentration, patience. With standing head to knee we have a chance to exercise those skills and improve the imbalances that arise in any of these five. It’s mental therapy in 60 seconds and often a humbling observation to know that our efforts to stay “mind over the matter” are more like “matter over the mind.”

I’ve been doing this yoga for over 11 years now. I struggle in Standing Head to Knee every day. Yes, some days it comes easier than others but I don’t know what’s going to happen until I’m in that room. There I am. There I go. There I see. Mary Jarvis, 25 years plus into this yoga as instructor and coach, and to my fortune, my mentor, will say over and over again in these balancing postures, “falling out, learning how not to.” And another highly respected teacher who I’ve had the great pleasure to learn much from, Tony Sanchez, commented in a similar manner to a student who was getting frustrated with this posture. Tony politely, calmly and so slowly said, “Are you struggling? Isn’t life full of struggles?” and with a subtle smile on his face, left him alone to continue to fight with the pose.

I’ve done this posture thousands of times. I am physically capable. I am mentally capable. So are you, but allow me to take it a bit further.

Suppose, you are coming day after day, and you are trying to honestly keep the mind focused on those words “lock the knee.” So, if “you” are telling your mind to lock the knee and the body is following along and the leg is a lamp post, unbroken, no knee, then who is it that is telling the mind what to do? Might I suggest that it is “you?” For me, it was a satisfying piece of personal evidence that I am not my mind.
Michael Gerber, motivational speaker, renowned business advisor and author of E-Myth Mastery, (responsible for building successes to Whole Foods Market and Ritz-Carlton hotels), led a conference in Australia titled “Creating Your Primary Aim, Taking Charge of Your Business and Your Life.” At the very heart of the business conference, he had thousands in his audience participate in this meditation: “I have thoughts but I am not my thoughts; I will not be taken by my thoughts. I have feelings but I am not my feelings; I will not be taken by my feelings. I have a body but I am not my body; I will not be taken by my body. I have business but I am not my business; I will not be taken by my business. Then who am I?”

I recall Bikram making a statement about this very concept in my teacher training close to 10 years ago now. Bikram likened the mind to a delivery system. He called it “FedEx,” In his own beautiful Bikram way he was communicating to us in a fashion that we could understand: that the mind really is relative to who we really are. Perhaps this idea is tough to grasp at first but, yogis see if you can follow his analogy. The mind, like FedEx, is meant to give you information. That’s it. How we sort through and use the information is where the mess begins. That all comes from beliefs we’ve inherited through our upbringing, the environment we come from, traumas and joys we’ve experienced, emotions, and much more. But by quieting the mind enough through good practice, we can catch the information received (thank you mind) before it runs into our own personal filters. In that space, there is no mental disturbance, just peace, and we can decide where we want this information to go – you decide and the mind will put it there – whoa! You can choose to cry, you can choose to laugh, you can choose to ignore, you can choose to ponder, you can choose to sing and for us in class at about the half hour point into our 90 minutes, you can choose to lock the knee.

Ok – I’m not sure who has mastered this – Dali Lama perhaps but we are not unlike his holiness (he will even tell you that). Bikram will deliberately put someone down right in front of hundreds of people if he feels that he is being placed on a pedestal where he doesn’t belong – “you are the God, not me” you can hear him scream. In our western world where we are too busy to be busy, Bikram has brilliantly created a way for us to practice shutting off the mind. Each instructor is trained to give you the same dialog in the same way each time you take his 90 minute class. Your focus is breath and figuring how to do the pose and it’s a good disguise as it also keeps the clever mind under your control and quiet.

On August 21st and 22nd, BYSJ will be hosting Brandy Lyn Winfield and Kasper van den Wijngaard, the 2010 Yoga Champions. They are making their way around the world and have one stop here in Northern California, BYSJ. It’s my honor to have them at our home and more so, it’s my honor to have you experience their teaching, their passion, their compassion, their insight, and mostly their example. Imagine loving golf so much and Tiger Woods made a visit to your favorite golf course. Just his presence will give you something and raise the level of your game. Same holds true with Brandy and Kasper. In my opinion, all champions possess that extra something, but in the end, they are just like you and me — they’ve just practiced a whole lot more. That’s good news because you can easily relate to Brandy and Kasper and you will appreciate what they had to master to make it to champion level.

This yoga has such a profound effect. Quelling the mind is just one element that can stir up a lifetime of conversation. But if we know that stilling the mind has huge benefits in our overall well-being and happiness, why wouldn’t we want to take steps in getting there? 60-Day Challengers, you are demonstrating how patience and perseverancecan create long term successes although not without obstacles. Congratulations on your choice to come every day for your own personal reasons. At this point, you might be wavering on your commitment to the finish line. It’s normal and take some time to question if it’s just a function of the mind having a heavy grip on those conversations that continually rob you of making your moves towards mental peace. When that grasp no longer has a hold on you, you’ll live in a higher state of being, and as Bikram would say, “making your mind your best friend.” So, lock your knee.

I look forward to driving out of my parking garage each day heading from the dark to the bright sunshine with eyes focused on this gorgeous tree that seems to greet my morning. I just love the way the branches and leaves move in the breeze. I get a great feeling from it. Just recently, however, I drove up out of the garage and noticed the tree was gone. I’m not sure what happened, but assume it was in the way of a construction project next door. I’m by no means an environmentalist, but the loss of the tree made me angry and sad, and started me thinking about the choices we make that come from the society we live in.

I own an iPad (and I love it), I have a Blackberry (and I love that too) and I have Wifi at home and watch all my videos with my Blue Ray player (super cool). But even in this world of gadgets, what I have is nothing compared to what is out there in this age of technology. My brother recently showed me a YouTube video called “Project Natal.” Check it out as it will blow your mind about what is coming this Christmas. With no controller, this latest version of Xbox is able to acknowledge movements of your whole body, your actions, and even emotional reactions and then use this as information to respond to your commands and directions and even shifts of emotion in your voice. In other words, it recognizes YOU, including nuances that only you possess. Think how cool it would be to have an imaginary friend that helps you shop, that knows your likes and dislikes, has your body measurements stored in 3D mode — there you are with the dress on deciding if it’s the right look for you, and you can even spin around and check out what it looks like from behind. Simply tell your imaginary friend that you think it’s perfect and it’s at your door tomorrow. Technology is amazing.

I recently went to see the movie Grown Ups with Adam Sandler and his comic buddies. If you haven’t seen it yet, go. It is so hilarious, and gives you the kind of belly laughs that linger well after the movie is over. What’s brilliant too are the story lines weaved throughout the movie. One in particular has to do with Adam (or Lenny in the movie) and his family. They are wildly successful living in Beverly Hills and have two beautiful boys who are completely spoiled. There is a scene where one of the boys sends a text to the Nanny who is just down the hall,ordering her to get him something to drink. Oh dear, talk about using technology for instant gratification. In the yoga room I often get asked “why have I not seen results yet?”, or “how long before my postures improve?” or “can I get a private lesson as I think that I might be doing some of the postures wrong.” All of these questions are normal and in the times we live in, it is only natural to think that we can achieve those results instantly. We’ve learned to fire up Google on just about any subject we are inquisitive about, and within a second or two, have a list of answers to sift through. No need to contemplate, research or figure it out on your own. I’m not bashing the availability of information we have at our fingertips, Google is a valuable tool, builds my knowledge. I’ll keep my gadgets, especially when they allow me to be more productive and efficient. But as we practice on our mats, we get a chance to move away from the rapture of a quick, instant-results culture and return to our inner knowledge of who we are. And that is a process. I can give you all the corrections in the world about your pose, but you are going to have to make that interpretation yourself. You are going to have to work on making that mind body connection and it is not instantaneous. Luckily, it will happen over time. We usually need to peel away layers of other stuff and make other discoveries before the answer we’re looking for clicks.

There is a paradigm going on. We often say in class, what you do on your mat, your discipline, concentration etc… will translate into activities outside the yoga room. But it also applies in the reverse, what occurs in your world on a daily basis, will show up on your mat. Our modern world spoon feeds us standards of how we should be and how we should live. Those subconscious messages reveal themselves in the yoga room as our lack of patience in learning to do the pose correctly, or our frustration because we are not where we want to be, or judgment about our bodies and about others in the room. We lack discipline and focus because we are so good at multi-tasking all day long. Our inability to stick to something that is hard or uncomfortable and our lack of awareness in how we feel in our bodies- all this comes from the loud noise of pressure to be in a world highly influenced on ways to be and act. It has its place but comes with a consequence if we are not careful. We can be easily drawn away from acquiring our own personal ways of being and find ourselves struggling to feel any real sense of satisfaction.

Yoga is all encompassing. It will give you everything you want and much, much more. It’s often that I hear a member say that they have come for one reason but wind up staying because of so many other reasons. The surge of interest in yoga has a lot to do with our fast lifestyle cultivated today. I believe the more modern we get, the more yoga we crave. While it’s fun to live in these times, just don’t get lost in them. What is occurring in the world, more sophisticated growth globally from industry to medicine is remarkable, but cannot be at the expense of losing our “humanness.” We practice yoga and almost selfishly get the host of benefits we specifically need, but we also sharpen our skills of connectedness to ourselves and each other.

Meryl Streep gave a commencement speech to Columbia University female graduates this last month. It’s on YouTube, which is how I got to see it on my Ipad (thank you technology). She is strikingly smart, witty, super talented, and very inspiring on her remarks about “empathy.” It’s a strong word, a concept that differentiates us from other animals. Empathy is our ability to identify with and understand the feelings and motives of others; or in other cases the power and desire to enter into another person’s feelings. It’s what helps us truly relate to one another. We can feel it when we are getting it from others as well as when we’re giving it to ourselves. It is the very connection that strings our spirits together and the very component that gives us personal happiness. Meryl closed her commencement speech by saying that being a celebrity was a place she could hide and that her personal happiness comes from being alert and alive to the lives around her and in the wider world. She spoke of her other speeches she had given in prior years, but wanted to thank this group especially, as at age 60, this was really a gift to her to share what she felt was most useful.

Practice on your mat with all the intentions you’ve set for yourself and know you are also addressing those higher level attributes, like empathy, that keep you truly satisfied. Enjoy the fast paced life when it benefits you, but also let the important things be learned at their own pace as well. You’ll find yourself waking up to feelings of joy at the smallest of pleasures that have always been right in front of you – like watching leaves move with the breeze.

I recently bumped into a student who I haven’t seen in years, and she kindly said to me “thanks for still being here.” I could see in her face that the three years that had passed were rough ones. In fact, Chris, BYSJ Manager, and I have noticed lately how many past students were suddenly coming back — not just from a few months ago, but as many as three to five years ago. One student I hadn’t seen in five years reminded me of my life back then: before my braces; before I ever started dancing; before I considered competing. I thought of where I used to stand in the yoga room; how many classes we had at that time; what teachers were here; and remembered too that we didn’t even have Chris!

As we become older at BYSJ, we start to notice that our tight knit community experiences some of the bigger life passages together: we had more children; we got married or divorced; we changed careers; we moved and came back; our kids have graduated from high school or college. Some of us went through difficult operations or experienced life-threatening circumstances. And just in the last year, we’ve had two of our own Bikram Yoga instructors, Ren and Jason, pass away, both of whom came to BYSJ and had such a large impact on our community. Even outside our yoga community, we’ve watched as our country shifted economically and made history as we elected the first African American president.

Our community is really one big family. These are simply life experiences that any normal family goes through. Our community provides a space of strength and trust much like that of a related family, helping us to get through times of difficulty as well as sharing in times of joy. However, I’d like to suggest another piece the yoga offers.

The yoga room in its purity, with only carpet and mirrors asks, “who are you against the changes that have occurred?”

BYSJ is a constant, being here almost eight years with the same surroundings, the same space, same people and the same yoga. Our bedrock of no change allows for some clear and perhaps, confrontational reflection. In the same way, healthy families can also provide a similar unconditional space to support growth. However, a mirror and just you looking into it, can ask a lot of you.

Whether you’ve come back from being away for years, or are a regular practitioner who has stayed with us, we all can agree that taking care of our bodies by keeping up a good practice will help us through all of life’s fortunes and misfortunes. Beyond the changes in our body that occur, there are other potent forces that awaken on our path of self-realization. Sometimes it takes being away for a long period of time, or an occurrence of a profound situation in our lives for us to have the courage to dive in and inquire about the lesson we needed to learn. Did we hear the inner voices of our soul and act on them? Did we look at the situation with eyes of understanding and not judge ourselves or others too harshly? Did we monitor our reaction patterns and consider new ways to resolve or approach the situation? Did we listen to our heart’s longings and start to illuminate more of who we really are? Did we fully accept the circumstance and move away from frustrations and expectations? Yoga is so truth-telling and lovingly so.

Personally, I love to see all of us in the yoga room – new, current and past students. We are ready to deal with another layer of resistance to our fullest expression of who we know we can be. We don’t need to be blood connected. In fact, it’s better that we are not. (In some way, that might bring in a false sense of being bonded.) We are totally separate but are pooled together in a common cause to work through our own inner mysteries to know, accept and improve ourselves. Let yoga ask the tough questions that family may not. It’s confidential and for your use only — between you and that divine reflection in the front mirror.