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Jill Ettinger
Posted on | February 13, 2010 | No Comments
“A Karma-yogi performs action by body, mind, intellect, and senses, without attachment (or ego), only for self-purification.”–Bhagavad Gita
Over the past ten years, I’ve spent a lot of time on yoga mats contemplating the world around—and within me. What comes up while breathing fully and focusing inward ranges from the deeply personal icky soul-searching stuff to the superficial “what’s for dinner” manner of diversion. But in the context of yoga’s main goal of quieting the mind, the superficial is as daunting as the deepest of any distraction.
If there is a point to yoga, perhaps it’s a controlled awareness of the body and mind; a connection that forces us to override these tendencies to jump from thought to thought so that we allow other connections to ourselves, to each other and to things beyond all of that. Like any discipline, the path exists for the journey’s sake and all that we discover during it is indispensable.
Like most “modern” yogis, I do not wander the countryside with only a begging bowl as my possession. I drive to class, usually downing a protein snack on the way, water bottle and sticky mat by my side. Though I’ve been a certified yoga instructor for over a decade, I still pay someone to “teach” me, as my own self-discipline is a constant obstacle (that was five breaths, wasn’t it?). I do not pay worship to Shiva or Hanuman or Krishna, nor do I swim in the Ganges to purify myself. I have never even been to India. And yet, as watered down as my yoga practice would appear to be, I can’t help but feel as though it’s changed me over the years. It’s deepened my connections, my awareness. I can stand on my head. Priorities have shifted. While I cannot really imagine life somewhere along the Himalayas in a monastery, it often feels like a more viable option than the garish alternatives in this country. Our efforts toward being more responsible are reduced down to pure circus show, like in the Audi “Green Police” Super Bowl commercial. During the Olympics last night, I saw a SunChips snack commercial boasting about their new biodegradable chip bag as if they had just beat some world record ski jump. Sure it’s all progress, but it’s not a feat of great human strength or endurance. It’s a bag of chips. Maybe I’m watching too much television these days, but these promotions leave me feeling a little weird, like trying not to notice that student in yoga class who thinks it’s a competition rather than a contemplation.
In yoga, we cultivate postures. At first, we may not be able to reach our toes. But with effort and sustainability, over time, the posture becomes natural, synergistic. So here I am blogging about all this on a for-profit company Web site, complaining about the self-promotion of brands that are actually doing something good. I am fully aware of the irony. Doing good—whether as a business or as an individual—is something we could all do more of, without reward, without promotion. Cars should be fuel-efficient because they can, because people are dying for oil and from oil, and it’s just too much a burden for us to continue on in that direction. A chip bag should biodegrade because we can’t afford for them not to anymore. Lessening our load on landfills fills our land, as it should be, with more trees and less disease. Self-promoting all this is a bit like expecting a reward for getting into shoulder stand without the teacher’s assistance. We practice yoga so that we can get into these postures for no one but ourselves. This changes us, no commercial, no promotion required. When we change, the world changes too. How can it not?
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