Three Stages

There are three stages of movement; establish, flow, dissolve. To establish we have the direction, the balance, and the timing. We intend to go in more than one direction, for instance out the hands and feet. We need to know where the balance point is and feel that, and we need to know when they occur. In the flow then we to know what kind of movement, such as a roll, or a forward bend, a twist, jump or a surrender. For the dissolve we release the excess tension, expand and arrive at the goal and focus on the breath.

In establish we are establishing at least two directions of movement. This also means to get to base of movement. The flow of movement can become refined by knowing where the transition point is, the place where you are balanced. When moving from Mountian to Swan, you tuck the chin and press with hands and the rooted foot (establish) you bring the shoulders almost over the wrists as felt by the weight coming evenly into the hands (establish the balance point) and then you step. This is the flow of movement as you roll through the spine. Then there is the release of any tension, in this case the hips relax down and forward.

Sometimes this can apply to a longer flow, for instance Pyramid Lift is the establishment to the flow towards Triangle 2. Names mark transition points as we don't necessarily pause in each position.

When you work with these ideas they help to find the Continuity of Movement, the elemental flavor, and you find areas where one or the other are missing. For instance many new students do not establish well in the beginning. When moving from Side Warrior, to Runner, they do not wait till the heel is lifted before releasing the hand, because they are not intending to establish the pose then they lose the flow of the spiraling motion and wobble. The surrender of the hips down and forward and the resulting stretch is lost. Once you have a feel for the three terms then you can also see it in others when teaching, and when analyzing you have something to focus on.

Name

Use of the noun and the confusion of ideas.

Nominalism holds that the name of something bears no relation to the thing itself, and it only connected by the convention of language. Sounds nice...

Most people when questioned will probably agree with that. However I would follow a more Platonic tract and divide language into three categories.

1) Name Form, in which the name of something bears an energetic relation to the thing. So as something comes into manifestation there is knowledge of it, the word which the becomes a subtle manifestation and then comes into manifestation. So if we take the word Kleem, a seed syllable it represents the action of attraction, Kleem attracts the things that surrounds it. If one were to use Kleem with Prem, love, then one would attract love. The original word, a distinguishable power the same as gravity is distinguishable, underlies all manifestation, hence the idea of a seed. Para Vak, is a word that has will to existence from the Absolute. Pashyanti Vak is the word that has knowledge and specifics of the manifestation, the subtle word, and the manifest word is the Vaikhari Vak. On can say Kleem Prem and reverse the process from the spoken word, one can move from the physical body to the subtle body and attract love, in terms of situations/actual events organized for experience (karma, kriya). Sanskrit is a name form language.

2) Sound Form, is the idea that the sound moves the energy. In the name form the vibration of energy that manifests is duplicated by the word. In sound form the word directs the flow of energy in the subtle body. So using the word guru directs the flow energy down to the root, which is the manifestation equivalent of the Para Vak. The consciousness becomes effected by the flow of subtle energy and manifests the effects. Gurumuki is an example of this and blends the name form and sound form languages. Many languages have elements of this especially in the emotional qualities of the words. For instance the English exclamation YEAH!!!

3) Idea Form, languages use words to represent ideas and these are established by convention. They do direct the consciousness in the worlds of the mentality. So for instance concentration on a word in English will produce knowledge of what that word represents. However for the most part it is limited to the inner connection of the person using it. If you say the word kleem it produces a subtle vibration, if you say the word attraction it does not. Attraction however will organize the mind according to the understanding of the user. One will not become a center of attraction as with the word kleem, but will become centered on the idea of attraction. English is an idea form language, though it is based on Latin which in many ways is a name form language.

In England there are different forms of English and though this is confused with social hierarchies there is also some truth as to the proper rhythm and effect of English. Good English will raise the mentality, for instance Latin forms used in science, and poor grades of English, think of rap, and not the words but the rhythm, will lower the mind into more violent emotional states. The social element and resistance to that often make this perception hard to attain and keep clear. It is definitely a power of clairaudiance to hear the vibration level of speech. The Latinate, do you construct or build, do you transmit or send? What about imitate and mock? Just stop and smell the coffee or just desist and partake of the aroma of the java. A strong smell or a delicate aroma?

This paying attention to names is also useful when learning of the different levels of consciousness. Many times we use words without access to experience or realization. For instance we can talk about ananda, but do we feel it? When reading any kind of spiritual writing we have to this awareness that the author may be capable of perceiving or have experiences of which we do not have access. For instance I have heard a Tibetan Lama say that even while being tortured by the Chinese captors he felt nothing, but compassion for his torturer. This is meant literally.

"We may think otherwise, but we are deceiving ourselves; we are making our idea of the Divine, our sense of duty, our feeling for our fellow-creatures, our idea of what is good for the world or others, even our obedience to the Master a mask for our egoistic satisfactions and preferences and a specious shield against the demand made on us to root all desire out of our nature."

Aurobindo, Synthesis Of Yoga, Yoga of Divine Works, p. 222

How much of this quotation is a reference to the experience? Not just reasoning, but the felt expression of egoistic satisfactions, of discovering and witnessing the specious shield? There are times we confuse the abstract understanding of the idea with the actual experience.

This has different aspects, for instance when we start to examine our knowledge of world events, then obviously this is not something in our immediate experience. It would be easy to philosophify our way out or into this problem. But to cut through this problem we need to have a feel for the sense of truth in our perception, the flow of our understanding, and the in the effect and purpose of the knowledge. Assume all arguments are true and that no event doesn't have a purpose and you will find that you will begin to feel all sorts of emotional coloration coming through one's perceptions. Like much criticism is not about the work, but is more telling of the critic.

Many statements are designed to win arguments or to act on the world, effecting people, etc. If we have internalized those ideas and their operations we miss the intent of being open to the truth and the spiritual unfolding. We may be able to gain large descriptive and explanatory power by categorizing and defining, but their still has to be a deeper perceptive faculty of insight with which to support those categories.

"The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of creedal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. Intellectual truth is only one of the doors to the outer precincts of the temple.

Satyam mantraha, they who the true thought expressed in the inspired word.
Satya mantra, the true thought expressed in the rhythm of the truth."

Aurobindo

Congruent

Congruence has two dimensions. The first is the idea that the inner being is reflected in manifestation. What occurs to you is the consequence of your actions, your nature, and also what is required for the spiritual growth. I have been dealing with the mental and physical interaction. How my body is influenced by my thought. As a result people have been brining in things which trigger my thought about the body and the emotional support. On the other hand I had an occasion of meeting someone with an opening into the psychic being, very sincere and humble were the native emotions. This ties in with the obstacles of the physical aspect of the sadhana which triggered my thoughts about the body. The first is the result of concentration the second was a gift of spiritual quality.

The second dimension of congruence is the result of this understanding as applied to practical affairs. This is the idea that you should base your interaction on what you are doing and interact with people on that basis. You interact with someone looking for a shared direction, congruence.

When you grow you will find some of the people around you resistant, some helpful according to where that person is in relation to their own growth. You will tend to create groups around you that support your activities. If you are highly egostical and controlling you will tend find people who like to be controlled. So when I taught classes at the Hospital people would come in and want to use Tai Chi practices for their own direction. For instance I had one student who was overweight and had never been physically active, never done sports and never done exercise activities. She was overweight, and a nice person. However her goal was to have an exercise program she could do. I say HAVE. Not do the exercise program, but have something that she could say to her self I am exercising. Hence when we would do chair based awareness exercises, take the legs out of the equation and it is easy to fell the spine. She wanted to stay in the chair. Unfortunately it is not about being in the chair, the chair is a prop.

Now I could react to this by explaining to her about why we use the chair, or find some way to motivate her, or I could even try to get her to realize why she wanted to sit. However this is not my goal. My goal is to teach people Tai Chi and to gain the many benefits of doing the practice. If I try to get her to change then I am using the understanding model which tries to figure out where the other person is coming from and then speak in terms they can understand. (In other words we need to bond! or shop at the same store.) This produces a level of inauthenticity. I am not longer doing Tai Chi because the other person doesn't want to, they want to do something else. I don't want to make her do it, I want her to do it because she wants to and she doesn't. So I would have to sell her the idea because my goal is not to share, but to keep bodies in classes or make a profit.

I could make a value judgment and react emotionally to it. I can evaluate it with discrimination and use my vivek to see clearly what it is she does want, but none of that will really being doing Tai Chi and the people who do want to will suffer because I am distracted. So on the one hand one might look at it as part of my job is how to figure out how to motivate people, on the other hand, this leads to molding or making people into something. I am not much of a motivator. However I have noticed that when I am doing my thing it flows out of me and then influences other people.

Person walks in and wants to learn Tai Chi weapons. I am not a weapons aficionado. Now I might react by trying to find out whether they really want weapons, or why, and then talk them into what we do. Sell Sell Sell. Or I could send them to the CR Fencing Academy. Or stir them towards Kali/escrima. One the one hand I might get a temporary customer, on the other hand I might help someone to realize their goal. Which is better for me? So on a deeper level, the spiritual side of things, not the mentalization of concruency. The spiritual pursuit is the ultimate goal, and from that we get the truer and higher actions.

So you want to act from the most high in any interaction. You want people to be happy. All of these types of ideals find a place in congruency.

So when you are interacting with someone in business, you really are trying to help them. You really want what is best for everyone. You have to honor their views. You have to act on your discriminating power and clarity of vision. On the one hand the fitness trainer role is a good one. My goal is to help you achieve your goal. I get the satisfaction of having helped someone and get to see and refine my skills by helping you to refine your own. Teaching deepens the practice. When people go to a fitness trainer they often go through a process of being assessed as to what their condition is. How strong, flexible, stamina, even spotting weak areas and measuring body fat and spotting diet habits. Then the person is asked what their goals are in general and the trainer can help set realistic fitness goals and design an individual program to achieve that. That makes congruent sense.

However there is a question as to how much energy the trainer spends on motivating versus letting the person apply themselves. That is a real concern. I have had students come to me for yoga from physical trainers. One common theme is the set establishment of goals and the emotions of having to struggle and endure in order to achieve them. This is not yoga. Having tapas, and a firm will to achieve is an awesome thing. It takes discipline. It is part of our yoga, but in our yoga, this is not foregrounded. We are Devi path so we also require surrender. You have to find the meditation and contact with the inner quietude and delve in the rich bliss of the vast... and that is not a matter of needing to feel the intensity of challenge and being able to get to the goal of a certain pose. There is some of that, but that is not really the path. So these students, who were also injured, wouldn't stick around. Not because it was too easy, but because their goal was emotional indulgence in the survival emotions that interact with the body. They needed a strong person behind them challenging them, rather than a person creating a space in order to be transformed. We were not congruent.

In fact they like to talk a lot about sacrifice. If you run you are going to sacrifice your hamstring. If you lift weights you will pay a price. There inner being was not focused on yoga, and I am not sure at why they came, but they don't stay. Sometimes I can point out to people that this or that is an image, and the emotions with the image are what they want, and sometimes not. Not by trying to reason with them, but because they need to hear what I have to say and recognize the message. My explaining or trying to change what I do would be ineffectual. Better to use/keep the yoga teaching as the outflowing of the practice.

Hence I always try to teach interns in Triyoga to "trust the flow." Don't worry about doing basics with beginners. Let the movements and the breath do their work. They will begin to enter into the flow and if they are ready for it then everything will come out from that. They are either seeking the flow or not. For beginning teachers you often emotionally react to people who drop out. You can take it as a matter of insecurity, did I not do this well? But it isn't what you did, it was a failure of congruency. The yoga wasn't what they were looking for.

Doesn't matter what they think, its not rational, it's more intuitive and emotional. A state of being is not about thinking about it, it is being. You can be a stupid as a toad, but incredibly advanced spiritually. You can have profound experiences and not have the words for it. Or as is more the case, it just feels good and they keep doing it for that reason and don't know or care, or are even screening out the spiritual dimension of it until one day they are sufficiently prepared and the dawn of awakening comes. The ultimate congruency is to act according to the divine will and be completely surrendered to action of the divine self.