Can you have a discipline in the game of total delight?

John Friend says he knows a place where magic happens, and he wants to show us the way.*

I had been practicing yoga for five years when I first went to an Anusara class, and I didn't know quite what to make of it. I had grown to love the solitude of yoga, a respite from my chaotic life where the edges of my mat were protective walls through which no one and nothing would threaten my calm state. But in the Anusara class, people laughed and made jokes, and the teacher stopped to have us gather around, learn about the shoulder and admire someone else's pose. Yoga was taught as both an inward and an outward experience, and I wasn't too psyched about the whole outward connection thing.

The final straw was the "3 A's" - what seemed to me to be a huge over-simplification. I rolled my "inner" eyes. How could this infinite expansion of consciousness I had sometimes experienced - admittedly, at random times - be pared down to just three simple ideas? I was curious enough to stay, but I remained firm in my belief that there are no easy answers.

Every day it's an unfoldment - a growing revelation.

And I was right. What seemed easy would take me on a five-year journey, an adventure of discovery that even now feels as if it has only just begun: a deepening of my practice, not just in the poses I would learn to do, but in my understanding of happiness, and where to find it.

Like a guide through rocky terrain, Anusara teachers took me through the sometimes rough, scary, and uncomfortable territory of my inner world and putting it outside in the highest form I could. For me, Anusara Yoga was a completely different, richly challenging and rewarding path to both experience and offer out my own truth, instead of disconnecting from the world around me.

The first principle of Anusara is just being sensitive to what we're lining up with.

The key to Anusara is our relationship to the Shakti, the universal energy. Shakti is the ancient Sanskrit name for Supreme Consciousness that is the energy of all things, including our bodies, our thoughts, and our breath. Even Quantum Physics now agrees that everything - even the floor below you - is energy.

Shakti is the word for the energy that connects us all, and lots of times we don't really recognize it. In our quest for individual expression - especially in LA - sometimes we forget that we have a very real effect on the person next to us, on the whole room, even a whole city. When we remember that our energy can inspire people, uplift them, and remind them of the flow of their own Shakti, we are more motivated to be our best.

The word "Anusara" means to step into the current; literally, an individual (anu: a piece, the self) in the flow (sara: the flow that follows). Like being in the wake of a boat, every movement follows the breath, and all of it is vinyasa, or flow: everything we do is in the flow of something bigger. Just like catching a wave, we have to wait for that breath, for that energy, to move us. It is a moment to moment reminder that we are each part of an interwoven world (one translation of tantra is web).

The whole of Anusara stems from this first principle. Learning how to align with this energy is not, as John points out, a roll of the dice. We can learn techniques to make space in our body for the energy to move easily, contain the energy, stabilize the channels and support the directions it wants to move in, and finally, allow this divine energy to express herself uniquely in our pose.

I learned that starting from a remembrance of our highest self is Attitude; to learn how to step into its current is Alignment; and to put it into the world is Action: the 3 A's of Anusara. But even though these principles allowed me to feel more empowered in my practice, the skeptic in me wondered: was he making this stuff up?

The Origins
In my studies of the history of yoga philsophy, I discovered that the principles of Anusara are rooted in ancient yogic and Tantric texts. Of the six classical Darshanas (philosophies), one called Samkhya ("to enumerate") led to all the yoga schools we have today. It listed 25 tattvas (principles of nature). Later, about 800 CE, the Tantrics added 11 of their own.

The 36 tattvas can be found in the Pratyabijna Hridiam, one of the most important of the Tantric scriptures, beautifully interpreted by Swami Shantananda in his very readable book, The Splendor of Recognition. The first two tattvas are at the core of the Anusara philosophy, and the next three make up the 3 A's.

The top five Tattvas, or principles of nature, as outlined by the Tantrics are:

1. Shiva - the one energy, Consciousness, stable and unchanging, the vibration of potential:

Shiva is the masculine principle of stability, stillness, and that which never changes. Out of his own freedom, Shiva, often pictured dancing, chooses to take the forms of the universe just for the fun of it - to experience and revel in the goodness of existence.

In Anusara yoga we choose to see even our limitations as opportunities to experience our own divine nature. All parts of our being, including our physical body, our thoughts, our emotions, and even the aspects of ourselves that limit us, are actually this vital, divine energy revealing itself in ever-changing form, or

2. Shakti - the infinite expressions of the oneness, in all the infinite, ever-changing forms of the universe:

Shakti is the expression of that one spirit in the multiplicitous forms of the world, the feminine principle of freedom and all that changes and is in constant motion. Shiva can only be seen in some form, the forms we see all around us in the trees and the wind: always in movement.

Why does Shiva become Shakti? Why would such vast spirit take form in such limitated ways such as a tree or our breath? Because...

it wants to experience itself
it is free
it is playful

The challenge of Tantric yoga is in seeing Shiva within Shakti, and Shakti in Shiva: seeing oneness in diversity, and diversity in oneness; experiencing freedom within limitation, and limitation within freedom; playing in a serious way, and finding playfulness even in serious times.

 

And the next three, from which come the 3 A's, are:

3. SadaShiva - "I am this," or Iccha Shakti: Desire (Attitude):

The One takes on the limitations of form out of a deep longing to experience its own goodness. Our deepest intentions arise from this same desire to experience our own true nature- what is often referred to as our heart. When we start a day, a practice or a project from this deep intention, we have access to immense power.

If our fullness is hidden from us, it becomes desire for fullness (raga), bringing feelings of unworthiness (anava mala). When we open to the deepest desire that beats our heart and breathes our breath, this is Attitude.

4. Isvara - "This I am," or Jnana Shakti: Knowledge (Alignment):

We can learn how to open to and support this current of energy within us, and give it expression in our bodies and our lives. When we believe we can't know this, we get ignorance (avidya), where we make judgments based on difference, i.e. , "that object is separate from me" (mayiya mala). Even taking steps toward opening to the flow of universal energy within is Alignment.

5. Suddha-vidya - "I am this, this I am," or Kriya Shakti: Action (Action):

As the great epic the Baghavada Gita advises, "Perform your obligatory duty, because action is indeed better than inaction." Yoga is about taking action. When the power to act is hidden from us, we feel impotent (kala) and anxious (karma mala).

When rediscovered, we remember the immense possibility of even our subtlest action to affect the world in a positive way, and delight in even the smallest action as an expression of the highest good within ourselves.

Thus, from the tattvas come the 3 A's: Attitude, Alignment, and Action. In Anusara yoga, we:

1. Remember our connectedness,

2. Align with the bigger energy that flows within us, and

3. Express our inherent goodness.

When I began to follow these steps, my poses transformed like magic. Soon, I realized life is simply a series of poses, and I began to notice this magic everywhere.

No effort is wasted. Every effort - even if you fall - shifts the energy and opens the channels.

Whether we're working on a challenging pose like Urdhva Vrksasana, or an easier pose such as Samastitihi, we always have the opportunity to follow the 3 A's and make it a magical experience. Here is how we might begin:

Attitude
The foundation of a pose reflects your intention - even the way you place your feet, lining the second toes up in a way that celebrates the whole, the energy that connects us all. Place your hands into prayer position (anjali mudra) and connect to it vibrates uniquely in your heart: your unique truth in this moment. As you cultivate ujayyi breath, become so sensitive that your skin feels the breath expanding you from inside. Allow your inner body to feel spacious as if filled with light, expanding your kidney area and chest with breath, while softening your skin around this light.

Alignment
The effort comes after remembrance, once you've made space in your inner body for consciousness. Now, as much as you are pressing your hands together, draw them energetically apart and feel a deeper connection to the muscles that float your shoulders back, drawing in to your center. Engage the legs by hugging the muscles to the bone - an easy way to feel that is to lift and spread your toes, keeping all four corners of the feet rooted - and draw energy into the core of the pelvis. With each inhalation, allow that energy to move into the pelvis, and with each exhale, allow it to expand in all directions, rooting back down through your legs into the earth, and rising up through your heart.

Action
Follow the wave of the breath through your heart and follow it with your arms, reaching up to the sky. Stay rooted to the earth but let that truth inside shine out through the crown of your head and your fingertips - stretch up so much it's like you're pulling yourself up a mountain - and offer out that light through every pore. Open your heart to the big energy and offer your delight to the world. Follow your exhale and touch the floor, inhale deeply and fill yourself up again...

The practice of Anusara is not one that we master and then are done with. Every new breath can be a revelation. Like the universe, infinite and yet expanding, our capacity to find the magic - to remember the energy that connects us all, to follow its flow and joyfully give it expression - is ever-deepening.

As yogis, we can experience this delight any time, on or off the mat, and the magic often starts infusing our lives. And as teachers, as we all are in our own way, we often feel so blessed that we will want to share it. When someone asks about yoga, we find ourselves offering- as my teacher, John Friend, so graciously offers to us -

I remember being in the flow where magic happened. I've been somewhere incredible. Let me tell you how to get there.

*All bold italic headings are quotes from my teacher John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga. This article was originally written for LA Yoga Magazine.

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