Altar For My Heart: yoga with Deanna at Dhyana Yoga Arts in Chester, NJ: June 18, 2016

Deanna is one of my favorite road yoga teachers and I was lucky enough to catch her specialty class on back care in her very own studio which she opened earlier this year.

I've only taken her flow classes, and the back care class is very different and equally a delight. She's a true gem for scoliosis and back pain yogis.

I'm not either one of those but I do carry pain so I paid close attention to what she had to say. My favorite takeaway today was

"The primary relief of (back) pain is to feel supported"

Ain't that the God's Truth?

We did a number of exercises to feel the connection of femur bones to the hips, and what opened up for me was the upper back and shoulders. In this area attention to drawing the tips of the shoulder blades together and the upper blades apart was super helpful and uber hard for me. 

This class was about strength, not so much flexibility, which my home studio teachers have pointed out is a practice that needs attention.

Deanna's instructions feel like I'm building an altar to support my own heart which begs the question, what am I placing on the altar of my heart?

I have to admit this past year my ambition has revved up a bit. I struggle all the time with the play of the spiritual in daily living and was reminded of the advice of the sages which I've grown rusty on but called up today. Known as the four aims in life or Purusharthas: Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha.

Here's what SwamiJ says about it:

There are four aspects or facets of human life: dharma, artha, kama and moksha. They have to do with living one's purpose, having a stable foundation in the world, wisely fulfilling desires, and freedom from the constraints of one's false identities. Each of these is a part of life. While it may be true that ultimately the goal of life has only to do with final liberation (moksha), the others are virtually essential steps along the way. Recognizing this is one way of holding the suggestion to live "in" the world, while not being "of" the world.

1) Artha has to do with providing for the hunger, thirst, safety needs that are inherent in living in a physical body. In our modern world, this generally means having money to provide the essentials. Even the wandering monk who receives food and clothes from the charity of others is a part of this, as the food and clothes were undoubtedly a part of the economic process in one way or another. Artha recognizes this level of physical or material need, which is not contrary to spiritual life.

2) Kama has to do with the fulfillment of desires in the world. Without deep, latent desires (samskaras) there would be no incarnation. "Kama" is different from "karma." The meaning of "karma" is "action" and refers to the playing out of our deep impressions of attraction and aversion. Kama is the enlivened desire that springs forth from those latent conditionings. To say that these are not there, and that they all must be renounced is virtually not practical. Desires must be acknowledged and reasonably fulfilled with mindfulness so as to move towards freedom from them, not adding to a continuous cycle of fulfilling and intensifying.

3) Dharma has to do with fulfilling our own desires in ways consistent with the whole of the flow of the universe. It is a process of alignment, whereby one moves steadily, wisely, and with clear mind in the natural flow of Truth, God, Divine, or whatever one chooses that naturally intuited reality. Dharma has been called natural law, harmony, truth, duty, wisdom, and the inherent nature of things.  The word "Dharma" is from dhri, meaning to hold together, to sustain. To live in dharma is to live with our individual nature to be in accord with the whole of the flow of things.

4) Moksha is the final liberation from all of the deep driving impressions that continually play out in the mind and the world, that keep causing us to come and go from bodily form. It means that the deep conditionings no longer bind. It is freedom from the bondage of our ropes of karma that seem to bind us. Moksa is the direct experience of the Absolute Truth or Reality, along with the total setting aside of all false identities of who we think we are. Self-realization, the direct experience of our true nature as pure consciousness, Purusha, or Atman is one stage. That experience, plus the total, permanent transcendence of the conditionings is moksha.

The four are not easy to do, to live in daily life. They are points of awareness, aspects of both our being and the sadhana (spiritual practices) that we each live on our way to the highest goal of human life. By remembering and reflecting on these four principles, facets, or aspects of life, the process is seen in more simple terms. It is not easy, but the simplicity can be seen and lived.

  

I'm bowing to Saraswati today and placing the four aims in life on my altar today for a closer look. 

Namaste