Yoga of the Heart

Yoga of the Heart

Introduction: A Journey to Your Powerful Inner World

Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Growth, Confidence, and Achievement

by Alice Christensen

Most people associate Yoga with the physical postures and movements that are taught in classes or learned from books. The physical aspect of Yoga, however, is only a small part of the great body of thought and technique that is the tradition of Yoga. In fact, the physical exercises and breathing techniques were originally designed simply to keep the body strong and healthy so that the practitioner could more easily reach for some of the deeper aspects of Yoga.

Most of us eventually find that health and well-being are not enough; like most of humanity, we feel a deep longing to find some meaning in life, some reason for being. Many practitioners begin to realize after some time that there is "something else" to be discovered in Yoga that speaks to our universal desire for meaning. While the daily exercises are tuning the physical body into shape, "mystical awareness" (see below) begins to emerge. This happens most often when the ethical practices of Yoga, which are our focus in this book, and which are detailed in later chapters, are combined with the physical routines. Often feelings of inner strength, selfconfidence, and inner peace begin to emerge as this other aspect of Yoga starts to reveal itself.

I use the term "mystical awareness" to describe the ability to communicate easily with the inner, deeper, hidden part of yourself, the part that we are less familiar with and that is so rarely observed. Mystical awareness is a powerful gift from the unknown, unseen part of you.

Each person has a slightly different conception of the meaning of words such as "mysticism" and "spirituality," and I have found that people use such words freely when they are trying to talk about their inner experiences. When I use these terms in class, I can never be sure that my students and I are talking about the same thing, because each of us experiences these concepts in our own way. Although it is easy to teach and supervise the routines of exercise and breathing, the inner experiences are always different, and difficult to describe.

THE TWO BODIES

For this reason I have invented a fantasy game in order to make it easier for me to talk about our subject in a specific way in this book. Instead of relying on words that have such different meanings, I have created a new way of looking at these inner experiences. In this fantasy game, you have not one body to work with, but two: your outer, physical body and a second body I am calling the spiritual body. This spiritual body is where the deeper aspects of Yoga reside; this is referred to as the "heart" of Yoga. The practices described in this book will, I hope, help to make this spiritual body as real to you as your physical body and pave the way for a magnificent union of the two.

The Symbolism of the Heart in Yoga
Terms denoting the Heart in Sanskrit texts were not meant to be anatomically accurate. Words for "heart" were also frequently used to mean "middle" or "center" and even for the "bowels" as well as for a variety of emotions, which were said to reside in the heart. References to the Heart appear in one of the earliest Indian mystical texts, the Rig Veda. Here are a few examples:
"The heart is the organ with which one is able to see what is denied to the physical eye."
"It is the heart which enables a human being to penetrate into deep secrets and mysteries."
"It is in or by the heart that visions are fashioned into words."
"By finding, with or in the heart, the light of higher insight and contact with the transcendent, one becomes an all-seeing rishi [seer]."
This is one example of the richness that waits when you begin to find yourself. I hope these lines from the poets of old will not only inspire you to think of your physical heart in your familiar body, but also form a bridge to the heart in your spiritual body that supports and gives power to all you do.

Union, in fact, is what the word "Yoga" means; it is usually understood as union with yourself. In this book, union refers to the joining of your physical and spiritual bodies. This joining of the two bodies is known in Yogic texts as the creation of the Universal Body. The dynamic state of consciousness that results is described as realization, God consciousness, or, in Sanskrit, samadhi. "Realization" means that you now know your whole self; nothing is hidden or unknown. This state brings great peace and strength. When this event takes place, say the Yogic texts, you experience great contentment, because there is nothing more to want or learn. The reason for being is answered in full, and you are complete.

Many people believe that this state of realization, or samadhi, can be known only by advanced practitioners of Yoga. This is not correct. I believe that anyone can experience glimpses of this state, because the process of getting to know your spiritual body and encouraging it to unite with the physical body is cumulative, and it does not happen all at once. If you use the tools of Yoga that I describe in this book, I have no doubt that, if you want to, you can experience this new type of consciousness yourself.

Let me explain further what I mean by the physical and spiritual bodies. Your physical body is considered to be not only the shell of your skin and what lies inside it, but also your senses, your feelings of "I" and "mine" (also called the feeling of ownership, or the ego), your thoughts, and your intellect. Intellect is the part of you that judges, analyzes, and makes decisions based on your individual perception of the world around you. The word "individual" is important here. The intellect can operate only on the information it receives from your own perception, so its viewpoint is necessarily limited to what you perceive or feel through your senses. The implication in Yoga would be that you cannot truly know what someone else perceives without becoming that other person.

The spiritual body is something else entirely. Most people probably relate the word "spiritual" to their conception of God, or feelings they may have had about the meaning of life or about the universe, or perhaps something pertaining to altered states of consciousness. As you read this book, I want you to try to drop all your preconceptions and think about the word "spiritual" in a completely different way. As I use the term in this book, spiritual awareness means the ability to open yourself to infinite possibility, where there are no limits to creativity or capability, and no restrictions as to time, space, mortality, or any other boundary. These are considered to be artificial limits imposed by the physical body’s mind and intellect. According to Yoga, the spiritual body can do anything; it knows everything; and it does not die. It is eternal. The physical body works, and the spiritual body feels.

It may help to think of your spiritual body in the shape of an actual body — perhaps just like your physical body, as if you had a Siamese twin attached to you that you did not know about until now. Try to picture this body as the source for all your emotions. We experience our emotions both as beautiful and as somewhat frightening. They seem to be unreliable; we never know when they are going to appear, and sometimes they can be very intrusive in our daily lives.

The physical body reacts without full knowledge of the depth of these emotions. When you experience the protective support of your spiritual body, you can stop the physical reactions that cause discomfort and let the full beauty of emotions from the spiritual body express themselves. In this way, you can learn from your emotions instead of merely reacting to them. When you notice "I am feeling angry," for instance, you can remember that this feeling is coming from your spiritual body, and realize that it is trying to tell you something that can be used for your strength and protection.

The voice of the spiritual body is intuition. Most people have experienced the clear voice of intuition at some time in their lives, but hardly anyone listens for it consciously. This is because most people rely on their physical body for everything and believe that intuition comes from it. They think they are alone in themselves, with no one and nothing to rely upon except their own abilities and ideas, which are, as I said earlier, limited by their own perceptions because these are produced by the physical body. In this book, you will learn how to listen to intuition, the voice of your spiritual body, and encourage it to speak more often. Intuition is where truth lies; truth, then, according to Yoga, would lie in the spiritual body.

Imagining a spiritual body is a way of envisioning the tremendous reservoir of awareness that opens to you when you recognize that there is a great world beyond your own viewpoint. When your physical body tries to figure everything out by itself, it has only its own limited understanding to work with; it is ignorant of the enormous power that is available when the two bodies work together. When the physical and spiritual bodies unite in realization (in other words, when they know that each other exists), the experience is similar to a perfect partnership or marriage, in which each partner contributes their individual strengths to form a greater whole.

The photographs at the beginning of each chapter in this book illustrate the concept of the two bodies using various images of two hands. I chose this symbolism because I believe it is the best visual representation of the interplay between the physical and spiritual bodies. Hands are the most expressive part of your body; they can portray a myriad of emotions. Two hands connected harmoniously can express the joining of the two bodies in consciousness and strength. Just as one hand alone is never as strong as both together, the physical body is weak without the support of its partner, the spiritual body. True strength comes when the two hands, and two bodies, work together.

Of course, not everyone practices Yoga in order to reach the ultimate state of realization. Yoga is like a collection of very special tools that you can use to create a wide variety of beautiful things. For instance, practicing just a few Yoga exercises daily can bring you strength, health, limberness, improved circulation and respiration, and relief from stiffness, pain, and depression. Yoga breathing and meditation techniques can help relieve anxiety, insomnia, and stress. These are only a few of the many recognized benefits of Yoga practice.

You do not have to practice Yoga in order to enjoy and benefit from the ideas presented in this book. But if you would like to start, see the Resources for some books and tapes that can help you begin safely. You don’t need to commit a great deal of time in order to see these beneficial results; a daily routine of twenty to thirty minutes is quite sufficient at first. Be sure that your daily routine includes at least a few minutes each of exercise, breathing, and meditation. Yoga should be practiced once during every twenty-four-hour period for best results.

I mentioned the most important of the tools of Yoga briefly in the Foreword: the ethical principles of Yoga. These ten ethical tools can protect and guide you into a happy, productive life. Ethical behavior coaxes your spiritual body into form so you can experience its strength and power. If you practice these ten principles along with the exercises, breathing, and meditation, you can become more aware of your spiritual body and encourage it to function more openly. Practicing ethics shows you how to realize this inner power source and enjoy it as it gradually blooms in your life, bringing a deeply satisfying awareness of yourself and your world. No longer limited by false perceptions, you enter the limitless universe of self-realization, which is referred to in Yogic texts as "delight, wonder, and astonishment."

Yoga of the Heart describes how you can begin your own journey toward discovering the breathtaking inner power source within you. You will see that the path to this new knowledge is really a simple matter of using new tools. Your spiritual body is already there inside you. As your awareness grows by reading this book and trying to practice the ideas presented, you will become more conscious of its presence and the powerful result of realizing its supporting power for your physical nature.

In the following three chapters, you will learn how to take the first steps toward this magnificent experience. Chapter 1 further explains the nature of the physical and spiritual bodies according to Yoga and gives you some new ways of visualizing and trying out these new concepts. Chapter 2 describes some of the many ways the experience of realization is approached in Yoga. There are many ways for a person to practice Yoga; it is said that the path a student chooses depends on his or her deepest tendencies.

In Chapter 3 I will introduce the remainder of the book, discussing how to begin approaching study and practice of the ethical guidelines of Yoga.

Chapters 4 through 13 each present a simple outline of how to begin practicing the ten ethical guidelines of Yoga. These chapters are the most important part of this book, because it is impossible to reach the heart of the spiritual body without the practice of ethics. I have tried to talk about each one in a way that shows you the many different levels of approach. For instance, the first ethic, nonviolence (Chapter 4), seems, on the surface, to be very simple to follow: you simply do not cause harm to yourself or others. Yet there are more subtle ways in which violence shows itself, and our discussion will help you explore the many levels of this ethic in a more personal way. Consider these ten chapters as landscapes that gain more depth each time you visit them. I can assure you of one thing: you will never be bored.

Finally, in the last chapter of Yoga of the Heart, I have tried to give you a glimpse of what this union with yourself is really like. I have known two great masters of Yoga who achieved this in full: Rama and Lakshmanjoo. I have experienced it in part, myself, many times, and those experiences illuminate my life. It is somewhat similar to seeing the world in brilliant color after a lifetime of black and white, but much more intense.

I wish you all the best as you begin your journey. I have included in this book a few of the experiences my students have had with these techniques; I hope you will write and tell me what happens to you during your journey of Yoga.

From Yoga of the Heart: Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Confidence, Growth, and Achievement, by Alice Christensen (Daybreak/Rodale Books, 1998).

Yoga of the Heart

Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Growth, Confidence, and Achievement

by Alice Christensen

Introduction: A Journey to Your Powerful Inner World

Most people associate Yoga with the physical postures and movements that are taught in classes or learned from books. The physical aspect of Yoga, however, is only a small part of the great body of thought and technique that is the tradition of Yoga. In fact, the physical exercises and breathing techniques were originally designed simply to keep the body strong and healthy so that the practitioner could more easily reach for some of the deeper aspects of Yoga.

Most of us eventually find that health and well-being are not enough; like most of humanity, we feel a deep longing to find some meaning in life, some reason for being. Many practitioners begin to realize after some time that there is "something else" to be discovered in Yoga that speaks to our universal desire for meaning. While the daily exercises are tuning the physical body into shape, "mystical awareness" (see below) begins to emerge. This happens most often when the ethical practices of Yoga, which are our focus in this book, and which are detailed in later chapters, are combined with the physical routines. Often feelings of inner strength, selfconfidence, and inner peace begin to emerge as this other aspect of Yoga starts to reveal itself.

I use the term "mystical awareness" to describe the ability to communicate easily with the inner, deeper, hidden part of yourself, the part that we are less familiar with and that is so rarely observed. Mystical awareness is a powerful gift from the unknown, unseen part of you.

Each person has a slightly different conception of the meaning of words such as "mysticism" and "spirituality," and I have found that people use such words freely when they are trying to talk about their inner experiences. When I use these terms in class, I can never be sure that my students and I are talking about the same thing, because each of us experiences these concepts in our own way. Although it is easy to teach and supervise the routines of exercise and breathing, the inner experiences are always different, and difficult to describe.

THE TWO BODIES

For this reason I have invented a fantasy game in order to make it easier for me to talk about our subject in a specific way in this book. Instead of relying on words that have such different meanings, I have created a new way of looking at these inner experiences. In this fantasy game, you have not one body to work with, but two: your outer, physical body and a second body I am calling the spiritual body. This spiritual body is where the deeper aspects of Yoga reside; this is referred to as the "heart" of Yoga. The practices described in this book will, I hope, help to make this spiritual body as real to you as your physical body and pave the way for a magnificent union of the two.

The Symbolism of the Heart in Yoga
Terms denoting the Heart in Sanskrit texts were not meant to be anatomically accurate. Words for "heart" were also frequently used to mean "middle" or "center" and even for the "bowels" as well as for a variety of emotions, which were said to reside in the heart. References to the Heart appear in one of the earliest Indian mystical texts, the Rig Veda. Here are a few examples:
"The heart is the organ with which one is able to see what is denied to the physical eye."
"It is the heart which enables a human being to penetrate into deep secrets and mysteries."
"It is in or by the heart that visions are fashioned into words."
"By finding, with or in the heart, the light of higher insight and contact with the transcendent, one becomes an all-seeing rishi [seer]."
This is one example of the richness that waits when you begin to find yourself. I hope these lines from the poets of old will not only inspire you to think of your physical heart in your familiar body, but also form a bridge to the heart in your spiritual body that supports and gives power to all you do.

Union, in fact, is what the word "Yoga" means; it is usually understood as union with yourself. In this book, union refers to the joining of your physical and spiritual bodies. This joining of the two bodies is known in Yogic texts as the creation of the Universal Body. The dynamic state of consciousness that results is described as realization, God consciousness, or, in Sanskrit, samadhi. "Realization" means that you now know your whole self; nothing is hidden or unknown. This state brings great peace and strength. When this event takes place, say the Yogic texts, you experience great contentment, because there is nothing more to want or learn. The reason for being is answered in full, and you are complete.

Many people believe that this state of realization, or samadhi, can be known only by advanced practitioners of Yoga. This is not correct. I believe that anyone can experience glimpses of this state, because the process of getting to know your spiritual body and encouraging it to unite with the physical body is cumulative, and it does not happen all at once. If you use the tools of Yoga that I describe in this book, I have no doubt that, if you want to, you can experience this new type of consciousness yourself.

Let me explain further what I mean by the physical and spiritual bodies. Your physical body is considered to be not only the shell of your skin and what lies inside it, but also your senses, your feelings of "I" and "mine" (also called the feeling of ownership, or the ego), your thoughts, and your intellect. Intellect is the part of you that judges, analyzes, and makes decisions based on your individual perception of the world around you. The word "individual" is important here. The intellect can operate only on the information it receives from your own perception, so its viewpoint is necessarily limited to what you perceive or feel through your senses. The implication in Yoga would be that you cannot truly know what someone else perceives without becoming that other person.

The spiritual body is something else entirely. Most people probably relate the word "spiritual" to their conception of God, or feelings they may have had about the meaning of life or about the universe, or perhaps something pertaining to altered states of consciousness. As you read this book, I want you to try to drop all your preconceptions and think about the word "spiritual" in a completely different way. As I use the term in this book, spiritual awareness means the ability to open yourself to infinite possibility, where there are no limits to creativity or capability, and no restrictions as to time, space, mortality, or any other boundary. These are considered to be artificial limits imposed by the physical body’s mind and intellect. According to Yoga, the spiritual body can do anything; it knows everything; and it does not die. It is eternal. The physical body works, and the spiritual body feels.

It may help to think of your spiritual body in the shape of an actual body — perhaps just like your physical body, as if you had a Siamese twin attached to you that you did not know about until now. Try to picture this body as the source for all your emotions. We experience our emotions both as beautiful and as somewhat frightening. They seem to be unreliable; we never know when they are going to appear, and sometimes they can be very intrusive in our daily lives.

The physical body reacts without full knowledge of the depth of these emotions. When you experience the protective support of your spiritual body, you can stop the physical reactions that cause discomfort and let the full beauty of emotions from the spiritual body express themselves. In this way, you can learn from your emotions instead of merely reacting to them. When you notice "I am feeling angry," for instance, you can remember that this feeling is coming from your spiritual body, and realize that it is trying to tell you something that can be used for your strength and protection.

The voice of the spiritual body is intuition. Most people have experienced the clear voice of intuition at some time in their lives, but hardly anyone listens for it consciously. This is because most people rely on their physical body for everything and believe that intuition comes from it. They think they are alone in themselves, with no one and nothing to rely upon except their own abilities and ideas, which are, as I said earlier, limited by their own perceptions because these are produced by the physical body. In this book, you will learn how to listen to intuition, the voice of your spiritual body, and encourage it to speak more often. Intuition is where truth lies; truth, then, according to Yoga, would lie in the spiritual body.

Imagining a spiritual body is a way of envisioning the tremendous reservoir of awareness that opens to you when you recognize that there is a great world beyond your own viewpoint. When your physical body tries to figure everything out by itself, it has only its own limited understanding to work with; it is ignorant of the enormous power that is available when the two bodies work together. When the physical and spiritual bodies unite in realization (in other words, when they know that each other exists), the experience is similar to a perfect partnership or marriage, in which each partner contributes their individual strengths to form a greater whole.

The photographs at the beginning of each chapter in this book illustrate the concept of the two bodies using various images of two hands. I chose this symbolism because I believe it is the best visual representation of the interplay between the physical and spiritual bodies. Hands are the most expressive part of your body; they can portray a myriad of emotions. Two hands connected harmoniously can express the joining of the two bodies in consciousness and strength. Just as one hand alone is never as strong as both together, the physical body is weak without the support of its partner, the spiritual body. True strength comes when the two hands, and two bodies, work together.

The subtle Self within the living and breathing body is realized in that pure consciousness wherein is no duality — that consciousness by which the heart beats and the senses perform their office. (Mundaka Upanishad)

THE TOOLS OF YOGA

Of course, not everyone practices Yoga in order to reach the ultimate state of realization. Yoga is like a collection of very special tools that you can use to create a wide variety of beautiful things. For instance, practicing just a few Yoga exercises daily can bring you strength, health, limberness, improved circulation and respiration, and relief from stiffness, pain, and depression. Yoga breathing and meditation techniques can help relieve anxiety, insomnia, and stress. These are only a few of the many recognized benefits of Yoga practice.

You do not have to practice Yoga in order to enjoy and benefit from the ideas presented in this book. But if you would like to start, see the Resources for some books and tapes that can help you begin safely. You don’t need to commit a great deal of time in order to see these beneficial results; a daily routine of twenty to thirty minutes is quite sufficient at first. Be sure that your daily routine includes at least a few minutes each of exercise, breathing, and meditation. Yoga should be practiced once during every twenty-four-hour period for best results.

I mentioned the most important of the tools of Yoga briefly in the Foreword: the ethical principles of Yoga. These ten ethical tools can protect and guide you into a happy, productive life. Ethical behavior coaxes your spiritual body into form so you can experience its strength and power. If you practice these ten principles along with the exercises, breathing, and meditation, you can become more aware of your spiritual body and encourage it to function more openly. Practicing ethics shows you how to realize this inner power source and enjoy it as it gradually blooms in your life, bringing a deeply satisfying awareness of yourself and your world. No longer limited by false perceptions, you enter the limitless universe of self-realization, which is referred to in Yogic texts as "delight, wonder, and astonishment."

Yoga of the Heart describes how you can begin your own journey toward discovering the breathtaking inner power source within you. You will see that the path to this new knowledge is really a simple matter of using new tools. Your spiritual body is already there inside you. As your awareness grows by reading this book and trying to practice the ideas presented, you will become more conscious of its presence and the powerful result of realizing its supporting power for your physical nature.

The power that resides in the heart of consciousness is freedom itself. (Abhinavagupta)

HOW TO BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY

In the following three chapters, you will learn how to take the first steps toward this magnificent experience. Chapter 1 further explains the nature of the physical and spiritual bodies according to Yoga and gives you some new ways of visualizing and trying out these new concepts. Chapter 2 describes some of the many ways the experience of realization is approached in Yoga. There are many ways for a person to practice Yoga; it is said that the path a student chooses depends on his or her deepest tendencies.

In Chapter 3 I will introduce the remainder of the book, discussing how to begin approaching study and practice of the ethical guidelines of Yoga.

Chapters 4 through 13 each present a simple outline of how to begin practicing the ten ethical guidelines of Yoga. These chapters are the most important part of this book, because it is impossible to reach the heart of the spiritual body without the practice of ethics. I have tried to talk about each one in a way that shows you the many different levels of approach. For instance, the first ethic, nonviolence (Chapter 4), seems, on the surface, to be very simple to follow: you simply do not cause harm to yourself or others. Yet there are more subtle ways in which violence shows itself, and our discussion will help you explore the many levels of this ethic in a more personal way. Consider these ten chapters as landscapes that gain more depth each time you visit them. I can assure you of one thing: you will never be bored.

Finally, in the last chapter of Yoga of the Heart, I have tried to give you a glimpse of what this union with yourself is really like. I have known two great masters of Yoga who achieved this in full: Rama and Lakshmanjoo. I have experienced it in part, myself, many times, and those experiences illuminate my life. It is somewhat similar to seeing the world in brilliant color after a lifetime of black and white, but much more intense.

I wish you all the best as you begin your journey. I have included in this book a few of the experiences my students have had with these techniques; I hope you will write and tell me what happens to you during your journey of Yoga.

From Yoga of the Heart: Ten Ethical Guidelines for Gaining Limitless Confidence, Growth, and Achievement, by Alice Christensen (Daybreak/Rodale Books, 1998).

Copyright 2002 by The American Yoga Association. All Rights Reserved.

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