PUSHTI: January 2025, Shift Happens
pracchardana-vidhāraṇābhyāṁ vā prāṇasya PYS 1.34
Another method to maintain mental calmness is by controlled exhalation or retention of breath.
Uddiyana Bandha
“Transforming letting go from abstract to concrete”
“Let Go” are said to be two English words that precisely represent the sum total comprehension of spiritual life. Who am I? or Who would I be, if I let go of everything? are transcendental questions that, if we allow ourselves to ask, become a catalyst for a profound journey into the mystery of discovery of the Self. Asking these questions, and contemplating the answers, is the primary practice of Jñana Yoga, or the Yoga of Knowledge. Perhaps some of us have yet to even find the questions interesting enough to ask – but eventually, with trauma and the inevitability of our demise – we will and do ask. Who am I? is the most important question.
In our age, we don’t generally treat yoga practice as a let go. We see it more as a gain – something to possess. We look at it as a means for results: muscle, flexibility, clarity, mental health, etc. We don’t see asanas as something we allow, but more as something we perform. It’s reflected in our language, erroneously proclaiming I do yoga, as opposed to I practice yoga. We have projected the ego tendencies of gain, results, fame, preference, comparing, and attachment as if contentment was a product and if we could just consume the best, newest, most popular version of it, like a pill, everything would be great, and no problems or nasty side effects.
Admittedly, there is no way around action. We are alive; we act – in thought, word, and deed. Yoga practice is a doing of sorts, but our efforts shift more increasingly towards allowing. And, of course, our intention and motivation shift. Not only just to let go, but to let go with love. The reality is letting go is not really an action (or is it?). I love what Eckhart Tolle says, that letting go is a result – an auto-response for coming into the present moment, implying that our attachments and their subsequent harassing nature reside in our thoughts of past and future, both of which do not exist. In other words, one cannot force letting go.
So at best, letting go is an abstraction, another mental concept, punningly enough, that we have to let go of (The Beatles got it, let it be). But practice comes to our aid. As breath awareness is foundational to practice, it is not an understatement to say we find immense value in that aspect of our breath that is most representative of letting go – and that is the exhale, exhale retention, and, specifically, Uddiyana Bandha. This focus is the miracle of a perceptual shift.
At the beginning of this year, we will begin a months-long arc of focus to the core of our physical beings and tap into the most potent aspects of prana. Transforming letting go from abstract to concrete, esoteric to deep understanding, and experience to wisdom. We can only do it together, in the moment. That is the potency of a community of truth seekers, in a word, Satsang.
Personally, I am thrilled about what’s to come. It feels very next-level. But mostly what thrills me is what has always thrilled me – to see your face light up and eyes twinkle from the discovery and joy of this beautiful, simple, and elegant practice. The greatest treasure known.
In Yoga we dwell,
Jeffrey
January 2025