Hello Folks,

 

Jocelyne and I hope this email finds you well. This past week I've been thinking about restraint, sacrifice, and where the world is right now from a yogic perspective, and I thought I'd share some of those thoughts. If you just want to see our schedule for next week, skip to the bottom! 

 

The word tapas in Sanskrit describes what happens when we go against the grain of our habitual or unconscious behaviors. The act of doing so creates heat, which we sometimes feel as an unsettling feeling or restlessness in the body and mind. It comes from the act of restricting or restraining ourselves. 

 

Restraining ourselves is not fun, and it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be a challenge, unless and until we remember the reason for the restraint. However, the restraint usually has a pay-off. Restraining from foods that aren’t good for you make you healthier, restraining from staying up late allows you to go to bed earlier and wake up fresher, restraining from judgement makes you happier, restraining from going outside during this COVID-19 pandemic keeps you and other people safer and healthier. 

 

In all of the wisdom traditions there is a practice of restraint (also called sacrifice, offering, or devotion). It is one of the foundational principles of any tradition that holds that as human beings we have the potential for elevating our consciousness, individual and collective. We sacrifice in the present for a better future. We sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Sacrifice or restraint is practiced because when we indulge in all of our wants and desires we tend to think mainly of ourselves, and so we lose the memory of the collective. We lose the memory, as Deepak Chopra has said, of wholeness. 

 

Restraint is also the discovery of time. When we can do whatever we want whenever we want, the struggle with time is only until we get the thing we desire. But when we give something up, even for a short time, we then have to face the new time that we’ve created, which can seemingly stretch out endlessly. One of the best ways to face that challenging time is to be present, to do one thing at a time, and not be overwhelmed. 

 

Right now, the world is being challenged to be present, to be thoughtful, and to be compassionate. 

 

When it comes to compassion, it goes two ways. We need to be compassionate to ourselves, and to those around us—those we know and don’t know. 

 

Today at the end of one of the Zoom classes after a particularly challenging pose, an old student and friend commented in the chat box, “This is where I begin to feel bad about myself.” I felt so sad to hear that. Yoga should never make us feel bad about ourselves. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna says that no amount of effort in practice is wasted. We don’t necessarily know or need to know what that outcome is, or when it will come, but something will change from our effort of practice. And what is practice, exactly? Practice in it’s entirety is the effort of remaining present. 

 

When we perceive threat around us, the body releases adrenaline and cortisol to protect life. We fight, we flee, or we immobilize. If we do that again and again over time, it creates a condition of inflammation in the body that leads to anxiety, high blood pressure, digestive disorders, and other serious diseases. However, if we are critical and judgmental of ourselves it provokes the same response as perceiving threat and it triggers the exact same stress response in our body: we fight, flee or immobilize towards ourselves. Our body doesn’t discriminate it's response between outer objects and the object of us.

 

So, what is the remedy? Warm, kind, attention to our body, breath, mind, and emotions is one remedy to self-criticism. A gentle pat on the back, but not too overdone. We still apply effort, but what is that effort? It is the effort of holding our best intentions in mind, and trying to act on them. It doesn’t work all the time, but when it does, we can soak it in, and hold on to it. 

 

The story of yoga is a story of self-regulation. When we practice just a little bit of self-regulation each day, it can go a long way towards helping us to become kinder to ourselves and those around us. It takes work. 

 

So, restraint or sacrifice doesn’t mean that we simply give something up for a better future. It means we give something up because the opposite is actually better. We give up inattention because attention is actually better. We give up coldness because warmth is better. We give up giving into anxiousness because learning to be calm is better. This is to act with great certitude about our own abilities to self-regulate. 

 

In uncertain times, a little practice of inner certainty goes a long way. 

 

So, that's all. I hope some of those thoughts are helpful or useful for you. We have one more email going out this week about work Dr. Stephen Porges is doing on COVID-19. Stay tuned!

 

With love,

Eddie and Jocelyne

 

Please click here and see below for our schedule for the week of April 6th: 

 

Monday, April 6th
Ganesh Japa 6am IGLive
Pranayama 6:30am IG Live
Primary Led 7am-8:30am Zoom 
Slow Yoga 12:30pm-1:30pm Zoom 
Intro to Ashtanga 6pm IGLive 

Tuesday, April 7th
Full Moon 
Speaking Of with Jules Fabre 11am-12noon

Wednesday, April 8th
Ganesh Japa 6am IGLive
Pranayama 6:30am IG Live
Primary and Half Intermediate Led 7am-8:45am Zoom 
Evening Primary 6pm-7:30pm Zoom 

Thursday, April 9th
Ganesh Japa 6am IGLive
Pranayama 6:30am IG Live
Primary Led 7am-8:30am Zoom 
Slow Yoga 6pm-7pm Zoom 

Friday, April 10th
Ganesh Japa 6am IGLive
Pranayama 6:30am IG Live
Primary and Half Intermediate Led 7am-8:45am Zoom 
Yoga Sutra Study Group 12noon-1pm Zoom 

Saturday, April 11th
Buenos Aires Online Workshop 8am-10:45am Zoom 
Meditation with Jocelyne 11am-11:45am Zoom 

Sunday, April 12th
Primary Led 8am Zoom 
Intermediate Led 10am Zoom

 

The Inner Peace Conference NYC online website is now live
Please click here to sign up for an amazing two days of lectures, meditations and Q&A with Sri Radhanath Swami, Sharon Salzberg, Dr. Rick Hanson, AnnaLynne McCord, Pastor Naron Tillman, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, and more!