"Oh, the decisions we make..."

An article by Ashtanga teacher Matt Borer

About five years ago my brother visited me in Washington, DC. He lives in Japan and we only get to see each other once or twice a year. When we do, we have a few days to catch up on almost a year's worth of information. On this occasion we had a conversation that I remember quite clearly, and that I have thought about many times since. It was a concept that I have heard echoed in the experiences of my students, and in the ancient Vedic texts! It was a conversation about choices.

We were catching up over a family dinner at a favorite Tex-Mex restaurant in DC. As we gave our order, my brother was somewhat astonished to hear me request an entirely vegetarian meal from the menu. (I grew up eating steak, potatoes, chips and salsa, and little else. I hated veggies and have always loved a big, juicy steak.) My being almost entirely vegetarian was a huge shock for him, and it was something that just hadn't come up before. I remember him asking, "You don't eat steak anymore? How can you not eat steak? It was your favorite! It's my favorite!". I said that I was practicing Ashtanga every morning six days a week, and if I ate steak, it felt like I was practicing with a brick in my stomach in the morning. We all know the practice is hard enough without a meat brick in the stomach!

His next comment has stayed with me, and was the inspiration for this piece. Perplexed, he looked at me and said, "Well why the heck would you do a practice that makes you so sensitive that you give up something you love?"

Wow. I have to admit, the logic of his question stopped me for a moment. I hadn't thought about it like that before, but he was right! I was beginning to make conscious and unconscious choices that revolved around my practice. Even shedding things I loved!

I came back to this conversation recently when I reread the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. There is a Sanskrit term in these texts that I think is brilliant, Prajnaparadha. The term is commonly translated as "a mistake" or "improper use of the intellect (buddhi)." It means having just enough knowledge to make a conscious or unconscious poor decision! For example, knowing the effects of smoking but still deciding to smoke, driving without a seatbelt because accidents happen to other people, eating all those yummy hot peppers that you know will give you indigestion, drinking that first, second, and maybe third martini! In the holistic health system of Ayurveda, Prajnaparadha is seen as a cause of disease in the mental, physical, and spiritual bodies.

The good news is that this imbalance is correctable with self-observation and conscious decision making. The notion that we, as yogis, can make the choice to give up even the things we enjoy is stunning to me. My yoga practice showed me the things in my life that I could change to make myself feel better. It is a concept that is very much at odds with the practice of indulgence, and a world that values quantity over quality, appearance over substance. As our yoga practice becomes more and more dear to us, we begin to make decisions that support it.

Only with the fire of knowledge (jnana agni) can we begin to burn off the things in our lives we no longer need. In the Gita wisdom is called the "greatest purifier on earth." When I ask my students who have been practicing for a few years about their choices, I learn that they have all changed parts of their behavior due to their practice and are happier and healthier for it! We develop this wisdom through practice and observation. With the heat and movement of the Ashtanga system, we multiply the purification process, building tapas (physical and/or spiritual heat) and burning off what we don't need.

Matt and his wife, Hannah, having fun with Scorpion in Mexico.

Ask yourselves, what in your life resembles Prajnaparadha? What in your life have you already changed? Enjoy the work of the practice and take joy in observing the changes you've made over time!

Matt's Disclaimer:
By no means do I mean to tell anyone to go veg or not drink. These are only meant as examples from my own personal experience! Seatbelts, though...

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Comments

[Alicia]

Matt, thanks for the insightful account. I'd like to comment on your article, but first a side. Similar to dinner conversation with your brother, I was talking to my brother on the phone a couple weeks ago. I described the benefits of meditation, and he countered: "I thought that's what watching TV is for..." Unfortunately, I didn't have a quick savvy comeback.

But anyhow, back to a vegetarian diet... When people ask me if I am vegetarian for health, religious, or animal rights reasons, I reply that those are all good reasons. Intuitively I understood that there was a deeper reason for being vegetarian, but I couldn’t quite articulate it. At a recent workshop with my friend, Mark Cain, the issue came up, and Mark gave an answer that I recognized immediately as THE REASON I am a vegetarian. Mark used the term vibrational resonance to describe our innate and subtle communications with other beings, including animals. By promoting and committing violence against the animals we consume, we shut off this connection. By shutting off this subtle mode of communications with the world around us we lose sensitivity. Losing sensitivity dulls our awareness. I believe that the balance and awareness we try to cultivate through our yoga practice is what gives us clarity. By habitually violating the yamas and niyamas we sabotage the our ability to develop clarity, and thus miss out on the sweetest fruit of yoga.

To me, being a vegetarian is an integral part of practicing yoga. But it needn’t be a pre-requisite. As my teacher Mehtab says, you don’t have to QUIT the bad habits. Just practice yoga, and you will find that with time you shed the bad habits just like a snake sheds its skin. There are active feedback loops between the yamas & niyamas and the asana practice – each re-enforces the other.

Thank you, Alicia