Curious to know if the prolotherapy is helping.

Look at the blog entry for sublimation of impressions (October 2006). To that I would add this: when we encounter new internal or external fields they often register as complex and chaotic. Eventually, with the application of deliberate attention, the chaos resolves into a simplicity, as we see the harmony beneath it all, a harmony that we could not “hear” before, but which emerged as we learned. The elements in the field are still arranged as before but now we’ve cracked the code, and so they present a beauty where before was dissonance. That beauty is good for the health of the body.
An injury can be seen as a result of foces which we cannot contain right now. To establish such containment strength, we need to drop into a deeper layer of psycho-somatic being, the injury often is the intitiator for such a move toward greater depth. Depth sounds nice but the reality is a bit different than “nice”: there’s chaos down there: worms, bugs, grim dark dangerous warriors on strange murky quests; the little blessings that we’ve relied upon may get snuffed out, our good luck may turn bad, our antanae get confused and receive strange unwanted songs, etc. Why go deep at all?
Because we have to. Anyway: resolution of chaos allows the mind a degree of quietude. My claim is this: the great sages didn’t know everything, ie: they can’t sit down and speak Icelandic, but, they had resolved their internal history into a state of beautitude, saw the beauty behind the chaos, could hold that energy with a quiet mind, which is closer to the anabolic state. The sages dropped deep into the heavies and resolved it for themselves, and for humanity. They weren’t air-heads: they had mastered complexity so that it could be seen easily.
Practical advise: hear the atonality of internal material as it arises (there is usually plenty of it already active) and bear naked attention into it over time: it will resolve, guaranteed, hopefully in this lifetime. The beauty of the injury is that it presents its material in such a clear way, very easy to consider it, and just do that, feel it deeply, hour after hour if need be, study it like a beautiful holographic artwork, constantly noticing new details. Notice static and transform it into beautiful lotuses.

Something like that?
Steve

I happened to stumble on the blog and thought some of the commentary on
injury to be quite original and deeply sensible. I practice with Jesse
Schein here at Yoga Works in Santa Monica but have a chronic injury relating
to spasm in the iliopsoas and it has been a real challenge these last
months. I began prolotherapy 3 months ago and have experimented with many of
the other healing modalities but am coming around gradually to believing
that until I face the deeper causal and psychic origins of this I may never
heal in the midst of training.

Any details if at all on how to stimulate or welcome the anabolic plane of
growth and healing would be appreciated. hope this finds you and your sons
very well,

best, a

I just discovered your blog and really enjoy reading and learning from it.
I studied with you in New York last year and won’t forget those great backbend adjustments you gave us and probably gave you some pain to work on.

I guess the practice you mentioned on the piece on pain could be directly related to Savasana, or at least to how i view Savasana, as a space to feel the body and quiet any tension that could be going on.

best
Alex

Thanks for doing these posts, Steve, they’re invaluable motivation for a stay-at-home practitioner such as myself.

Thanks for your reply. It’s an important question, that of yes or no to asana for those pursuing the higher realms.

I won’t say that Ashtanga will get one to the higher spheres any faster, necessarily, than gentler yoga. Ramana Maharshi got as high as possible and advocated NOT doing asanas. But psycho-somatic purification is one kind of assistance that we can receive on the path, and some degree of strenuous exercise is needed for that. I do not believe that you can visualize or meditate your spinal column to be as strong as that of a long-time Ashtanga practitioner. Those who just meditate and don’t do asana may say that the gist of the matter is within the spine and the skull etc., and that these can be exercised and purified with outwardly sedentary practices. I’ll respond by saying that the POTENTIAL for purification, and the likelihood of it happening, is far greater if the gross physiology of those areas are made “fit” in addition to fitness of the subtle. A strong spine is like a pedestal that can keep you up/in there.

I would say that your grandmother most likely has a fit subtle psycho-somatic body- not something that everybody has. Applying oneself to prayer and love can be seen as a workout of the subtle physiology.(Check the “sublimation of impressions” post). Many stiff grandmothers with diabetes don’t even attempt the higher spheres. For some reason yours does. We could call Maharshi an utterly elite athelete at this level. He held that asana workouts would make his realization more dense, more worldly. But I agree to disagree on that one. I advocate bringing the body UP, bringing the world UP, the deeper we penetrate into the body, the higher the soul can fly. There are many yogas, and all of the legit ones will get us there/here if we persevere. Ashtangis simply like the feeling of being physically fit and clean, and use that to get it up. But if your grandmother is in the higher spheres, that means she’s a good percentage warrior, no way around that.

Steve

I love the blog (which I discovered through Yoga Peeps) and the insightful discussions that you have about Yoga and if I lived anywhere nearby, I would surely want to study with you. I do want to question an implication from your post. You say in comparison to softer yoga practices that,

“In … Ashtanga … the potential for bodily transformation and psycho-somatic purification is far greater…[for]…surfing around in the higher spheres, occasional mystic glimpses into the bigger picture (or permanent ecstatic residence up there).”

As to the physical/well-being component, I won’t question. However, do you mean to further privilege the Ashtanga practice (above others) as to give the practitioner a ‘far greater’ access to the ‘higher spheres.’ I think immediately of my grandmother to name one who, through prayer and love, has intimate access to this place while being diabetic and unable touch her toes.

Maybe you could elaborate upon this issue. I’m curious as to your response.

Peace,
KB