By Gesne Michael Roach
My favorite quotes of the book:
“And then we did our giving and taking, and our poses,
regular as clockwork.”
“All things are themselves by themselves”,
And then interject you and “Nothing is itself by itself”.
A soul mate of mine recommended this book to me. While I was just breaking the ice in yoga as
part of a P90X program, she deeply steeped in yoga, made a recommendation that changed me. At that time I saw yoga as a physical
conditioning routine of poses with a slight blend of active meditation. Tatty sees Yoga as a way of life. As I was discovering this in her, I was not
aware as to yoga’s implications. I sincerely
wish to thank first Tatyana who among other things provided me with the gateway
to my change in life style. I also must
congratulate the author Genshe Michael Roach for preparing an allegory story of
a young Tibetan girl who stumbles upon a trap that finds herself incarcerated
in a remote Indian jail. In that setting
an Indian village is transformed.
Reading the story transforms the reader’s view on life itself.
The young girl and main character of the book whose name,
Friday, does not become apparent to the reader until well in to the book. She becomes the yoga teacher who must first
teach the captain of the police station yoga, and then transform the whole town
with the way of yoga life. The immediate goal for the captain was to learn yoga
poses and establish a routine so that the pain in his back would go away. To
this the novice student of yoga and probably victims of the once a week
production yoga studios across America,
would be happy to settle on. I do not
necessarily blame the victimhood on the Yoga instructors of the studios, as
it’s more likely their customers that live a self centered fast paced American
life that invite the wrong results of yoga.
What the author does is incorporate weekly sessions with the Captain
teaching the philosophy and way of yoga life.
In the lessons you learn meditation and the richness of
focus and breathing. You learn how to
clear your internal channels, first physical and then mental, that makes clear
the rewards of a ‘give and take’ with the universe. And it does not end there. It does not take long before Friday
introduces the way of life of Yoga. She
weaves the internal benefits the student receives with an obligation to give it
to others in a yoga way of life. In the
book this is done by the introduction of many characters who each become first
a student and then a teacher. All along
the common Western phrases, like ‘practice what you preach and what goes around
comes around, take on an Eastern Yoga meaning or perhaps it is the other way
around, depending on how you see things.
From that meaning the student/teachers become centered. Being centered implies balanced; with an
equal proportion of work/play, give/take, yin/yang; harmoniously at one with
the universe and therefore at peace with it and yourself as a small part of it.
While there is a regiment of both physical and mental
practices that come to work in yoga, the essential result of yoga is a shift in
the way you see things. When you see
things as themselves all by themselves, you come to appreciate your role in
creating reality. When you see things as
them selves by themselves you can then appreciate how to become one with that
thing by letting things to simply be.
Breathe in the thought of that thing.
Bless it and release it, a radiant light of love, allowing it to be
itself by itself. Discover how easy it
is to let it be. Imagine all the people…if
only we could be as One. If you can do
that you can transcend time. And time,
you see – time itself becomes eternity.
From the book: “I locked my eyes to his, almost to give to him through
our eyes. “The past is not the past from its own side. The future is not the future from its own
side. We look at time itself: we look at events as they happen to us, and
then our mind – and it is only our mind – that splits this up into the
ever-moving present moment, and the past and the future to come.” Let It Be.
I have this practice where I often times put a bibliography
at the end of my reviews, to demonstrate how the book shaped my thoughts. In this book that process was rewarding in
many was. For my readers, I left this
gem, the quote right above, found on page 360. If you are sure you totally
appreciate its meaning, if you are good at Paul McCartney’s words Let it Be
then you are there. If there is doubt
read this book as it will apply layer upon layer until the light comes
on…enlightenment.
You are invited to comment on any of the landmark notes below. Take a moment to become a follower, it makes commenting easier.
Bibliography:
Page 14: I could see
the layers of him: body sagging and locking up; joints inside stiffening; the
inner winds chocked at the joint inside stiffing; his thoughts strangling the inner winds; the
troubles of his life disturbing his thoughts; and the very source of all events
of his life at the very middle of it all – each one caused by the other, and
nothing could stop by himself, because he didn’t know it was happening.
Page 29: You see, the
point is not what the pose looks like in the end, to someone watching you – the
Captain touching his head to his knees.
It’s the process of the pose as it goes on, it’s what it does inside of
you: how it works to begin to straighten and open your channels.”
Page 34: The poses I
give you have a special order, and a special purpose to the order. Each pose balances every other pose.
Page 35: As you get
further and further along with your yoga, especially as the channels begin to
open, and inner winds can flow better…as you get further and deep inside you energy
begins to flow better, then things begin to tend towards unity and not towards
differences.
Page 40: When
important things are about to happen, bigger problems come to try and stop
them. This is the law of yoga, and the
law of the powers that run our lives
Page 49: Then I ran the tip of my finger slowly doen
te length of his back, just off to the right side of the middle, between the
same two points on his head, and his spine. …Under her is a channel nicknames
the sun….Its not a muscle or a nerv; but it is really much finer that that –
very subtle, as if it were made o light itself; not something yoou’d ever be
able to see if you cut open someone. And
you have lots of channels running through your body.
Page 50: The network
[of channels] begins from this point along the back right behind your belly
button. That’s why the Master says:
Turn the same effort
Upon the center at the navel,
And you will understand
The structure of the body
It’s am image of a wheel with spokes. In t Ancient Mother tongue, in Sanskrit they
call it chakra. As this network of
subtle channels begins to grow, they branch off like spokes of a wheel, off to
the sides, from this point at your back.
Page 51: Lets just
say that one of the things running back and forth in these channels is thought
itself: your own thoughts are flowing along this network of tubes made of stuff
as fine as sunlight….And there is thinking itself – your own mind. We can hear ourselves think, we can be aware
of our thoughts. And so everything we
ever think about is either objects like the wall, or the mind itself.
Page 57: Now if the
things in the world around us are like the earth, then our thoughts – and all
the different parts of our minds – are like stars; tiny points of light, tiny
sparks of awareness scattered throughout our bodies. And the most
ones relate to the centers we
spoke about: crucial junctures of branch channels along the length of the back
– along the most important channel of all.
The Channel the Master describes in these lines:
Turn of effort
Upon a polestar,
And you will understand
their movement
Page 65: So what
you’re saying her is that –when I get upset at the corporal, say – the thoughts
are running so strong and hard in my side channels, that they close in at
certain places on the middle channel, which makes it even more difficult for me
to get un-upset.
Page 73: When you let
a challenging pose get the better of you, then your forehead starts to scrunch
together here, between your eyebrows.
This is right at the delicate place where channels are coming out, and
that little frown causes blocks in the flow; that’s in fact why we frown here,
and not somewhere else in our bodies.
Page 77: You just
picture the energy of the breath flowing down and freeing up the middle
channel, where the two side channels are choking it. You see the knot where they crisscross
loosening up, and the inner winds in the center beginning to flow again. You can do this in fact any time you stretch
any part of your body, but especially where you have some kind of problem. …
Then it is really true that picturing your back loosening up, getting
better again, can actually help it happen as you do your poses. Thisis one big secret to how yoga really
works.
Page 78: For most
poses, it’s enough to hold them for five or six breaths. … the only way to
stretch the body – is by slow, steady, brief efforts at points all over the
body, day after day; because they’re all connected. And of course there are certain poses – like
when you put your feet straight up in the air over your shoulders – that only
really help the channels if you hold them for a longer count.
Page 90: [Sitting]
You want to be bright – alert-focused-happy-engaged; as if you were watching a
performance by some actors, and the story is so captivating that you can’t even
hear it when the person next to you says something to you. Do you see the difference? That’s not thinking about nothing, it’s
thinking about something, so deeply and joyfully that perhaps it feels as
though you were hardly thinking about anything, and certainly your mind is not
wondering off to any unrelated thoughts either.
Page 103: I will make the inside of the jail the
outside jail.
My Comment: This is
essential when you consider this to be a metaphor whereas the jail is your body
temple. It is the physical confines of
your being. And if what is inside is
good then what is outside will be good as well.
Will you serve wine to your friends or vinegar?
105: Meaning – that
in the case a jail, - that the jail is itself, and not something else; it is a
place where you are put when you’ve done something wrong, and once you’re
inside the jail you no longer have any freedom: no freedom to go outside the
jail.
And so for example, I returned “the person inside the jail
could never be experiencing perfect freedom there and the people outside the
jail could never be experiencing the torment of absolute bondage there. The
inside could never become the outside; the outside could never become the
inside
Page 114: It’s the
way of thinking that turns things around; and the Master is saying that the
very purpose and meaning of yoga is to stop this way of thinking.
It makes sense that te goal of yoga would stop a way of
thinking that ties up your channels, and causes problems like a bad back. That would make the poses – the exercises
which we usually think of as yoga – sort of a partner working for the same
goal; knocking on the pipes from the outside, while we fix the winds-thoughts
on the inside.
Page 120 [of the two major channels down your spine] “Right; …when you look at some thing around
you and feel like it has to be itself by itself – that it can’t be your own
mind making it look the way it looks to you – then the thought-winds in the sun
channel are stirred up, and start to choke your health and happiness. And when
you look at people, or at their thoughts themselves, you see- and even by
yourself and your own thoughts – and feel like they are the way they are by
themselves, and not because your own mind is seeing them that way; well then it
stirs up winds in your moon channel, and it starts to choke you.
Page 123: And then we
did our giving and taking, and our poses, regular as clockwork.
Page 125: [on
pleasure and pain] “No, it is not the
emotions of liking and disliking that are wrong themselves; rather it is a
certain kind of liking and a certain kind of disliking. It is liking something the wrong way; it is
disliking something the wrong way. It is
mis understanding pleasure or pain’ it’s a feeling that pleasure or pain happen
by themselves, from their own side; it is grasping to them desperately this
way, forgetting that they appear to you as they do only because your mind makes
you see them as pleasure or pain.
Page 136: “And if
books are precious, and they are – precious beyond all measure, the combined
knowledge of generation after generation of effort and pain, mistake and
discovery – then our teachers, are so much more. …Ultimately every teacher
contains the knowledge of all teachers before them.
Page 143: “again,
you should understand the principle.
Remember that the place where body and mind meet is deep within the
channels, where your thoughts are riding like horseman on the inner winds.
My comment: The meet at the
center of the wheel, your belly button, where you were handed down, your
destiny from your parents.
Page 145: Because
people who can really focus are just better at whatever they do: the succeed more, and they have more fun
doing it.
Page 155: Focus is
like food for the mind: the mind thrives
on it, and so do the good inner winds [thought].
Page 169: “And I was
young then, too young, and I bore the curse of youth – I had health, I had
strength, I had not seen death and trudged, I was sure I was immune to them in
any event – and I simply didn’t hear what he
[The Master] was saying. Bit the
see, you see ‘’the seed was planted, then’ a vision of what could really be, a
vision of what the word yoga really means- a union with things divine.
When the Angels came [people of all time with one mind] we
began to reach them, as we begin to become them, them… hope, to hope for
things..all the ones we love, too..they all come together and that is the real
yoga; this was the real reason for every part of yoga, whether it is the yoga
poses, or the breathing, or the focus, or the sitting.
Page 175: [of the students sore but now mended
back] My back? He asked reaching around instinctively to
where he had held it all thiose years. “Why it was yoga, of course, the
exercises, and I’m sure the silent sitting and good wishes for the men helped –
I mean, you know loosening the choke point and all that; knocking on the pipes
from the outside; cleaning it out from the inside inner winds, and all that you
see. I know why my back got better.
Page 178: The Master
says, I began that we must
Stay in that one pure thought,
And never forget it; That single most important thing;
Things are empty
Of being what they are
By themselves
Page 188: See
ourselves, see our very own bodies, flrsh and blood, turn into light, sort of
the ultimate yoga pose; if you think about it.
And then as well we could turn this process further, on things around
us…we could come to a place of perfect light with everything around us.
Page 190: I
mean...the seeds in my mind, they ripen, and that imprint – that old image of
pain, in the area of my back, that was planted when I saw myself cause someone
else that pain – it comes back to me, to me myself, making me feel…the very
same pain.
Page 191: it would be
a perfect kind of justice, in the entire universe, really – if what you did to
others always came back to you; and if, looking at it the other way around,
everything that ever happens to us only happens to us because we have done the
same thing to someone else.
As it is something of our own minds….It’s an inescapable
justice on a grand scale
Page 199: “And then,
say, some other seeds that have been sleeping there in my mind, they wake up,
and take over creating the images..” things – the very things that I see: in
this case the new seeds, they make me see..make me see the back as cured, as
fixed. See and be fixed.
Page 211:
Ideas…seeds, Whose Idea? “started
out as an idea in someone’s mind then.” His eyes narrowed.
“and how many stations are like this one - ….And thousands
of people working to govern – how many…thousands Do not ideas begin and grow and then spread,
fantastically just like any other seeds?
Are not the hopes that drive people to work at an occupation for their
entire lifetimes…born of a single idea as they begin…
Page 220: We spoke
about two main bad channels, that twist around the middle channel, and choke it
at certain points..the channels called ‘sun and ‘moon, running down close on
either side of the spine…within them run the
two most basic, negative thoughts … Mistaken thoughts about things
running on the right side in the sun channel - mistaken thoughts about our own
thoughts, and our own mind – about what we use to see things – running on the
left, in the moon channel.
Well the thoughts that ride upon their winds – are at the
root of all our trouble; I mean that most basic tendency born inside us as we
ourselves are born, to misunderstand ourselves and everything around us.
Page 222: And there
is of course one last very practical, doable way of heading inner winds towards
the inner channel. It’s going at it the
other way around: instead of working on your thoughts, which are like horsemen
atop horses, you go and work directly on the inner winds. It’s like coming down and taking the reins or
a horse and walking him down a different road – and then the riding person on
his back comes along automatically.
Page 229: you are
doing a sort of cosmic public service whenever you risk yourself to stand up
against violence. First of all, people
see your example; they take hope, and they follow it. Secondly – and here’s perhaps the kindest
thing you are doing – you are consciously planting extraordinary new seeds in
your own mind when you take a stand against violence being done toward another. If you truly master this ultimate form of
gardening – if you succeed in working with your own seeds so well that the
inner channels undergo a profound change, and you become a being of pure light
within a world of the same light – well then you really have a gift to offer to
all living kind, and you will.
Page 233: What I am
talking about is maintaining a constant, modest, joyful state of mind which is
always looking for ways to protect others from harm.
Page 234: And so
living with small things, thinking constantly, all day about even very small
things we can do to protect the lives and happiness of others – simple,
powerful, consideration of those around us, really – is the key to the treasure
house of the seeds within our minds.
Page 245: I nodded,
and took it straight from the ancient sources.
When the sperm of a father meets the egg of the mother – in that first
instant – then something we call bindu enters at that same moment: a spark of
consciousness, a pin-point of awareness – one of those ‘stars’ that the Master
spoke of. And this pin-point of
awareness begins to move, and the first channels begin to sprout, and as they
do the first cells split for the first time.
And so there is consciousness, a very basic form of awareness.
Page 252: And at some
point this worldview graduates to an even higher evolution: he sees not only that he can fulfill his own
needs with this way of viewing his world; he sees that everyone else could
fulfill their seeds this way too, if he simply passes on to them what he has
learned. Sharing his discovery of how
kindness changes things, as he first shared his food.
And so I guess you could call that moment the birth of yoga,
or whatever name you could call this divine understanding of kindness and
sharing of kindness, on your own language and culture.
Page 257: And so here
is where th Master grants us the great gift of the highest form of self-control
of all. It is not the act of avoiding
harm to out body of bodies of others. It
is not anything that we say, kind or cruel.
It is how we see things, for this view of the world – this worldview- is
what will determine what all of us do in our world and actions, and what we
pass on to our children for them to follow.
Page 263: he
concluded, “is that no one can be happy until one is….and that everyone cannot
be happy until one is…we cannot leave ourselves out when we undertake to make
the whole world happy.
Page 264: Truth for
us now has to reach a deeper level; and ancient books say that this means
striving, as we speak, never to create even the smallest misimpression in the
mind of the person listening to us.
Page 279: The first
thing you do is just decide you want this good seed planted as a higher good
seed; you focus on this idea. This is
the same practice of focus that we are talking about before, and it’s the first
of the three that the Mater just mentioned.
Page 287: Over and
over, taking the best seeds from this years crop, planting them for next year’s
larger crop, onward into infinity, until you become this being of light who can
act for others, infinitely, appearing at the side of anyone who needs you, in
whatever form would best help them move towards this ultimate goal themselves.
Page 290: The first
is to avoid ever speaking in a way that might split other people up – that
might make them upset at each other.
Page 291: I mean,
explore the beauty of silence, and get your friends to appreciate it too, and
make it a goal with each other to try to be able to be together and enjoy each
other’s warmth and company even without ever having to talk.
Page 309: it takes
removing a tremendous amount of bad
seeds – if you want to have any hope of actually seeing you and your world
change into the most beautiful living light of all.
What you might not guess is that the most serious mistake of
all is simply to hold or to spread a view of te world which is mistaken..
Page 311: justice is
always done impartially: the rules which
govern seeds are as old and unforgiving as something the law of gravity – if
you step off the roof of a building, you’re going to fall.
Page 319: But the
most powerful ‘make-up’ of all is simply to set aside some time to sit quietly
and go over in your mind how seeds draw pictures in our mind, and turn objects
in to the very world around us.
Page 323: A strong
thought, and therefore the wind upon which it rides, travel freely within the
middle channel only on very rare occasions.
One such process happens to occur during the process of dying itself, as
channels dissolve releasing their hold. But there are other moments too:
moments of extreme compassion…a fierce emotion of love happens to trigger this
momentary breakthrough of a know located right behind the heart…and every
person alive has a deep craving for that incredible feeling of the inner winds
of life cracking through a knot…Deep in side too every living person senses
that – if this breath were allowed to go on, freely – then their entire being
could change. For this is exactly how it
happens that we make our transformation into a being of pure light.
Page 336: World view
is simply comprehending that every good thing that ever comes to us is
literally created by taking care of others.
And it is simply beyond
imagination to think of what our world cold be like – will be like – when
people simply figure out that this is the way it all really works.
Page 338: You just
sit down – no need to tell anybody, no need to look like you’re doing it – and
simply review carefully, in your mind, all the nice things that someone else is
doing, and everything nice about them.
Simply sit down and take a few moments to be happy about the
good things that someone else is doing – to be happy about the seeds they are
planting in their own minds. But also be
aware of the opposite. There is a kind
of thought that can pass through the garden of all the good seeds you have
planted in your mind over months and months.
And that thought is simple anger and destroy it all in a few minutes.
Page 344: Then we
spoke about making good seeds that will never wear out – higher good seeds, and
then also by dedicating what you do, with joy to the day you will become a
being of light that can help every living creature.
Page 345: The combined effort, he started slowly …First,
focus: selecting an object and locking your mind on it. Second, fixation: staying on the object over
a stretch of time. And then third you
mention ‘perfect meditation’ which is just really thinking very hard about
what’s really going on, when you help someone for example….you need to know
that when you are gardening with your mind the you will want to practice these
three more during your silent sitting time.
Remember too that keeping some sort of diary jotting down
both your best and your worst actions is a completely necessary and practical
step if you ever hope to collect enough seeds to see things change.
Page 347: And I can
see how the Master could go on to describe that as a ‘total voidness’: it’s
really just a feeling of finding out that as a something you really thought was
there isn’t there at all.
Page 349:What we call Seeing here, it always happens during
your silent sitting, just after that milestone…and you go deep within your
mind, and you see something very deep about yourself. And all your other thoughts stop: you can see
or hear anything else outside, and inside you are no longer thinking , I’M
seeing something special now,’. You just
see.
Page 350: But on the
day that you See, you see – in that brief period of seeing, which lasts for
less than a half hour; at that most blessed milestone of all – then for those
few precious minutes all misunderstanding is stopped. All the power of the winds in the side
channels is stopped. And then the seer, you see – the person who is seeing the
clear lights raw, as it is – he or she can stop and dwell there, in what is
their own real nature. They are not just
understanding that the pen [what is] is not a pen [what is]from its own side:
they are dwelling in the ultimate nature of the pen. … And you dwell in this
higher reality for those few moments, and the only wind and thought within you
with any strength at that time is the seeing, and it lies only in the middle
channel for the first time of all.
Page 359: And you
see, just before this last thing happens – in the single split second before
this happens – your mind suddenly reaches the power to know all the things
there are, and all that ever were, or will be, anywhere: an you know these
things in an instant, and for all time to come.
Page 360: And time,
you see – time itself is the same. I
locked my eyes to his, almost to give it to him through our eyes. “The past is not the past from its own side. The future is not the future from its own
side. We look at time itself: we look at events as they happen to us, and
then our mind – and it is only our mind – splits this up into the ever-moving
present moment, and the past and the future to come.
Page 362: And so you
see, this one decision – this one simply arbitrary decision to split ourselves
from others, by splitting our happiness away from their happiness – it causes
the very division of time as we know it, into past present and future. And it creates the reality of distance
between the things around us. And by
doing so it locks us into a tiny terrible jail of a body…
Page 363: and that all begins with never hurting others to
get what we want. It begins with those
precious forms of self-control, and expands to doing the opposite – to helping
others, to serving others – until the day we become what we have really always
been striving to become: a being whose eyes are no longer limited by time, nor
even by space, in the service of others.
Page 401: Even if all
you get is a glimpse – even if only for a single minute a
single person says or does something to you which could even suggest that they
are already the being of light which you seek to be – then accept it as so
Wholly [Holy, my word]. Have faith, do
not doubt, and that faith will quickly bring you amongst them. For there are truly countless holy ones who
have travelled the path you have learned here…
