Meditations on Pain Update

Dear Friends

Many thanks to those of you who have been supporting my writing projects. Although I have been working on the Yoga Sadhana book for several years, the material that has recently motivated me to write is the subject of the Meditations on Pain book.

This feels more relevant because it is part of my current research and recent experience, and because I feel it is a way forward for all of us who are interested in spiritual practice and meditation.

Yoga and meditation practices were developed in a different era - before the advent of cell phones, mass society, pollution and the stresses of city living. They were developed for people who were in a much more healthy relationship with the environment and who were not exposed to junk food, computer games etc.. and whose bodies and minds were in a much more wholesome condition.

These earlier practices do suggest preparatory cleansing regimes - kriyas etc. - but again, I would suggest that these do not take our modern condition into account. For this reason, I do not think that the ancient practices are sufficient. They could not take all the modern stressors into account.

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In my own case, and I assume that I am fairly typical, I found that although I had practiced yoga for decades, assumed a sattvic vegetarian diet etc., I still felt discomfort in my body when I came to develop a meditation practice.

Breathing and mindfulness practices can go some way to making us feel better - more relaxed, more at peace, more concentrated etc., but they do not address the underlying causes of our distress. Meditation is supposed to be the culmination of the way, not just a way to feel a bit more relaxed. I personally was looking for the complete solution, not just a band aid that would give temporary relief.

I had believed, and taught, that the yoga practices were sufficient - but I have been disappointed in my own progress over the years and felt quite stuck in my spiritual progress even though I was doing what I was supposed to do.

At a recent workshop someone asked - why does yoga have so little to say about emotion? Why do yoga teachers speak about yama and niyama and about transformation through yoga and then go home and express their anger and other imperfections? I had been wondering the same thing.

Much of our tension/pain/distress is rooted in our history. For various reasons the causes have become obscure, suppressed, forgotten, distorted… these are called samskaras in Sanskrit and they are the causes for our reactions, our conditioning… and I discovered that these continue to cause physical stresses on the body. For years I believed that stretching and breathing would be sufficient to release these pains, but if physical pains and tensions have a psychological origin, how could they be relieved without consciously addressing them?

Psychotherapy acknowledges and addresses the need for conscious release of suppressed or forgotten stressors, but since much of what we experienced as the result of stress was physical sensation, how can we resolve that through intellectual analysis alone? There is a necessity to approach pain simultaneously from both the physical and the psychological perspective in order to find release.

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I will be offering a first reading via zoom of my research and work and some practical exercises on Saturday July 16 at 2PM UK time or 9AM EST for those who are interested in hearing about and supporting this project. A recording will be available in case the timing does not work for you.

To get a zoom link, and to support this ongoing research, please make a donation here: https://gofund.me/1c781de2

or here: https://www.integralashtanga.com/pay.../support-my-writing