I'm finally back in the yoga studio after a long hiatus. The pandemic was a big disruptor to my asana practice, particularly in studios where the threat of contagion seemed writ large in sweat and exhalations as people moved through the physical exertion of shapes and movements. There is the familiar rubber smell of my mat, the earthy smell of the plywood floor and the comforting aroma of incense that reminds me of the yoga shalas of my earlier years. A yoga studio can be womb like it it's embrace, comforting, known, home. The rain thunders on the corrugated iron roof, and, after a few curls and extensions of my spine, I settle down to wait for the teacher, closing my eyes to breath.
And then, the music begins, and I become intensely irritated. It adds to the annoyance I feel at the guy who crosses the room by thudding his bare feet on my yoga mat, a personal space, or the young couple that chat incessantly despite the sign that asks for quiet respect of others in this church like meditative space.
It's reasonable music, don't get me wrong. There are no words, just quiet piano. Yet I find myself enraged, wondering why modern, western yoga insists on playing music during yoga instruction. It's not my taste, not music I would choose to listen to. It's an intrusion, like watching a waterfall and someone walking past with Metallica attempting a primal roar on their tinny phone. Besides, isn't yoga meant to be about removing the distractions that clutter our lives? I feel old. In the old days, I muse, they didn't play music in yoga studios. I grew up in the Iyengar tradition with a humourless teacher that would not allow talking or laughing in the studio, and made us fold the blankets after class just so, with military precision.
It doesn't take me long to realise the irony of my consternation. Patanjali, known as the father of yoga, wrote in one of his sutras that yoga stills the 'fluctuations of the mind stuff' - all this angst about whether or not music was 'right' or not in this setting was part of why I was here, whether I was aware of that or not. Practiced as I am, I could recognise the rising and passing of thoughts and their associated feelings, and try to concentrate on my breath. The music should not matter. It was merely a distraction I could observe, and detach from. If I was irritated, that was due to my reactions, not the yoga studio itself.
Still, I long for the quiet.
Yet mid way through the class, as we build toward a strenous standing series where we shift through the warrior poses and into balancing, the joyous and heart opening sound of Baba Hanuman resound through the space and I find myself weeping. It's a particular version of it that I adore, although there are many that have the same effect. Once, in Bali, I bawled my eyes out throughout the entire class, silently weeping, joyous, open, my heart hurting and exploding as I felt myself expanding in beauteous joy. I had to speak to the instructor about it afterwards and he just smiled, saying that it's a 'powerful heart opening mantra'. Hanuman, you might know, is the monkey god who ripped open his chest to reveal Ram, the avatar of the God Vishnu, and his consort, Sita. It's a story of boundless faith and devotion and pure connection to the divine.
The repetion of 'sita ram' in mantra is powerful. It is said to balance both sides of the brain and encourage self awareness. Don't take my word for it - scientists also confirm it creates a neurolinguistic effect that calms the mind and brings focussed awareness, and can alleviate depression and anxiety. I connected to Hanuman when my father was dying. I have a heart tattoed on my forearm to remind myself to connect to all that is bigger than me. Love. Connection. The universe. We can be floored by grief and still boundless and infinitely connected.
Listening and internally chanting 'sita ram' to Baba Hanuman I feel unbound, untethered, light. It's this experience that brings me back to yoga again and again.
The Bhaktis knew it. This is a yoga tradition largely invented kirtan or chanting as a way of achieving an exhaltant, ecstatic, devotionary state of consciosuness that enables you to slip pass the bounds of the limited self. It was a practice anyone could partake in and was not simple for those in the temples but anyone on the street. Music, therefore, has been a yogic practice in some form since at least the 15th century, and perhaps the west is only just catching on to it's value in assisting yogis achieve a heightened state of awareness.
Still, it takes an accomplised yoga teacher to cue songs that assist people to feel a sense of unity and connection, the goal of yoga. In my experience it can be done insensitively and poorly. A good yoga teacher has a playlist that begins quietly and slowly, and as the asana progresses into stronger, more fluid movement, the music builds too, and then falls as one winds down to savasana, the corpse pose. A good playlist in a yoga class works with the breath and asana, rather than jars against it. Music is not there for aesthetics, but for real purpose.
With kirtan, singing affects and encourages breath awareness so that everyone is in unison, and the pace and tempo of the music an impact the nervous system - slow breathing calms the body down. It's the same with yoga - you aren't just moving the body, but breathing as you move with the direct purpose of affecting the nervous system so that all the distractions, all the suffering, all the noise of life drops away and you, hopefully, feel a sense of harmony, unity and connection, of mind-body-breath, yes, but also to the entire universe. Lofty stuff. Kirtain and yoga practice turn off the stress response and result in something of what I was feeling half way through class - a kind of weighlessless, grace, relaxation - but also aware, and very, very present.
Sometimes too, it is a tool for turning off chatter. If the breath isn't working to do that (as it does for me, being well practiced at doing so), the music will. Awareness shifts from the self toward something else. In fact, it can help break down the self. It's the same kind of feeling that others might experience during ecstatic dance or at a rave, lost in electronica.
I am reminded that yoga is not just one thing. It's not soley throwing shapes, or meditating in stillness on a mountain top, or breathwork or singing. It's all of those things, or one of them, or a combination of any. This is how it has always been, since people first starting finding ways to connect to the divine and to realise that we are not separate - from each other, from the tiniest insect or the tallest tree. These practices impact our minds, brains and bodies - even neuroscience confirms this. I am continuously amazed how the yogis knew this before science could validate it.
In savanasana, with my breath filling my lungs and the rain chattering on the roof, under a heavy blanket infused with incense, my body melts to the floor in that familiar release. Ram Dass's voice set to music reminds us that mantra helps us get out of our minds: to repeat 'I am loving awareness' helps him get there. I can't help but smile - the irritated mind at the beginning of the class melts to the sound of his voice and the instruments as I become too, loving awareness.
Whilst I might be sometimes irritated by the choice of music in a studio and can bristle with feelings that it is an intrusion, I can also recognise it's benefits, for I have also felt them myself. Music can help me access purity, truth, boundless consciousness.
i am loving awareness
i am loving awareness
i am loving awareness
sita ram, ram, ram, sita ram.
With Love,
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