“It’s so difficult.” Joan exclaims with more than a tinge of exasperation in her voice.

“I know it is.” I nod, “It’s supposed to be.”

“But I don’t understand,” she continues, “I mean, I’ve been practicing yoga for 13 years and it’s never been this hard before.”

Joan and I are sitting under a majestic old Jacaranda tree on a warm starry-skied evening in the desert of Southern Arizona. We’re three days into a seven-day yoga and meditation retreat that I’ve specifically designed to get people’s backs up against the wall. It’s working.

“Let me ask you this: why do you think it’s harder than before? What specifically is giving you difficulty?”

“You know, I can’t really put my finger on it.” She muses, “But I can tell you this: every fiber in my being is screaming for me to get in my car and leave. And I’d be more than tempted to do it too, that is if I hadn’t ridden down with Tom.”

“That’s why we urge you to carpool.” I wink.

“Ahhhhh, very clever Mr. E.”

“Thanks.” I lean back in my chair gazing up into the ink-black sky above. “You know, that’s the funny thing about yoga. You can practice for 30 years all the while avoiding the tight places that the practice is intended to free you from.”

“I guess,” Joan says, “but the thing that’s most perplexing to me is that I’ve been on other yoga retreats and have never had this experience. I went to Mexico for a five-day retreat last year and before that I attended a two-week long yoga and wine retreat in the South of France.”

I smile.

“What?” she asks.

Joan has stumbled upon one of my top five soapbox topics: the debasement of the practice of yoga in 21st century America.

“So in this ‘retreat’ in Mexico,” I draw quotations in the air around the word retreat, “what did the daily schedule look like?”

“You know, the usual: morning yoga practice, breakfast, free time, some swimming, hiking and relaxing. Another yoga class in the afternoon before dinner and then some kind of fun community activity in the evening.”

“And in France?”

“Similar, though we got to do a lot of wine tastings and tour some fantastic wineries.”

“I’ve got bad news for you, Joan.”

“What.”

“Those aren’t yoga retreats.”

“What? Of course they are.”

“No,” I shake my head, “What you’re describing are yoga vacations.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“Well, you may say ‘whatever’, but the truth is they are two completely different animals.”

Flip through any yoga magazine these days and it’s clear that yoga has become a way to placate the ego, rather than a method for its transcendence. Enlightenment, the original goal of the practice, has languished in favor of a new agenda: feeling good. As a result, yoga has typically become one part exercise regimen and one part stress-relief program—with a few spiritual sprinkles dusted on top to preserve the air of legitimacy.

Spruce up the false self enough, the logic goes, and you won’t have to deal with the messy business of self-transcendence. Good theory and it would be even better if it worked—but it doesn’t. In fact, this was the key realization upon which yoga was founded: attempting to coax the ego into submission once and for all by cow-towing to its every demand is an unwinnable strategy. No one in the history of the planet has ever succeeded in finding everlasting happiness by exhausting the desires of the ego—yet just about everyone thinks they’ll be the first to make it. Hilarious really.

Joan continues, “In what way is a yoga retreat a different animal from a yoga vacation?”

“In every way.” I say, “Haven’t you noticed that we’re not drinking wine, eating chocolate-covered strawberries, or getting foot rubs around here?”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” Joan chides.

“Seriously though, a yoga vacation differs from a yoga retreat in its intention. A yoga vacation is designed to soothe the ego; a yoga retreat is designed to confront it. The authentic practice of yoga isn’t designed to make you feel good.”

“So if I came here expecting to feel good, I might be in the wrong place?”

“No, I’d say you might have the wrong expectation.” I suggest.

“Touché.” She smiles, “But I do want to feel good. What’s wrong with that?”

“In and of itself, nothing is wrong with it,” I say, “but let me ask you this: who is it that wants to feel good?”

“I do!”

“Wait. Don’t just answer. Take your time and really let the question percolate. Who wants to feel good?”

Joan closes her eyes and lets out a sigh. A few moments pass and her eyes slowly open, a wry smile is on her face. “My mind wants to feel good; my body wants to feel good.” She nods, “It’s the ego.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Yup, and as dense as I may sometimes be about this stuff, I know that yoga wasn’t intended to cater to the ego.”

“You’re right again, grasshopper.” I say, “The practice isn’t intended to make you feel good; it’s intended to free you from the one who needs to feel good.”

“That’s a really helpful way to think of it.” Joan nods.

The pursuit of feeling good is an epidemic in this day and age, and it’s often seen as the answer to all of our woes. Seek pleasure; avoid pain. It’s a simple and seemingly logical approach to a happy life. Unfortunately, the pursuit of feeling good alone is an incomplete strategy at best, a disastrous quagmire at worst. The trouble is that you can’t always feel good. Sickness, poverty, disappointment, death are all part of life. They can’t be escaped. And for anyone who remains unconvinced that the pursuit of feeling good is a flawed solution, just glance westward toward Hollywood. Young, smart, beautiful, talented stars, with money, power, fame, and the adoration of millions: miserable, desperate, insecure, anxious, drug addicted, suicidal.

Yoga takes a different tack. Rather than having us engage in a desperate struggle to wrangle everybody and everything into cooperating with our agendas (and again, good luck with that one), yoga seeks to transform our relationship with our lives so that we can embrace and relax with all that comes our way, on the so-called good days and the so-called bad.

Joan continues, “But I guess I’m still having trouble with one thing; I’m tripping over the word confront?”

“What you have to understand is that to a large degree, confrontation is the name of the game at a retreat. And by the way, that’s precisely why you’re finding this experience so…”

“Confrontational?” she smiles.

“Confrontational and challenging.” I add, “Authentic practice brings us face-to-face with our tight places: our expectations, our beliefs, our fears, our self-judgment. It’s difficult work.”

Joan is silent for a moment. I can see that something’s not adding up for her. “That’s funny, because I was always taught that yoga was about stilling the fluctuations of the mind, not about confrontation. Isn’t that what the sutras say?” She peers over the top of her glasses at me with a brazen look in her eyes.

OH NO YOU DI’INT! I think. It appears that Joan just threw down the gauntlet of a challenge by quoting scripture at me. Will some people never learn?

I play along, “Well yes, it does say that in the Yoga Sutras doesn’t it?” The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is one of the core scriptures that outlines the science of yoga. It’s inarguably an authoritative source.

“I thought it did.” She agrees with spirits now buoyed. Joan mistakenly thinks she’s gained a bit of traction for her argument.

“And it doesn’t really seem like this retreat is all that stilling for you, does it?” I bait her along.

“No it isn’t. In fact, it seems a bit…

“Confrontational?” I finish.

“Yes, not stilling at all I’d say.” she says with a new sense of confidence in her voice, “But you know, I found quite a bit of stillness in France though.” she adds trying to finish me off.

It takes every bit of effort I can muster to prevent my eyes from rolling in a spectacularly grand arc of mimed sarcasm, though I somehow manage. Who wouldn’t find stillness hepped up on fine French wines, cheeses, and chocolates I think to myself, but I’m not going there with her. Yet.

“So tell me, in all of this ‘stillness’ that you found in France,” I again make the quotation marks in the air with my fingers; I love doing that, “did you happen to meet your True Self lounging around there at any of those fancy French wineries?”

“Huh?”

“Did you meet your True Self in France?” I ask again, a bit more pointedly.

She looks at me like I had just asked if that was Abraham Lincoln I saw her chatting with over dinner last night. After a pregnant pause she manages to sputter, “Well, no. I was, well, um, busy having fun.”

“So was it fun or was it stilling?”

“Both.” she says emphatically, though obviously sensing the thin ice that she’s trotted out upon is rapidly melting.

Joan has managed to paint herself into a corner of misunderstanding, a corner all too familiar to me having watched countless seasoned practitioners and yoga teachers do the very same thing. And this is at the heart of the problem with the way yoga is being taught today.

There’s a reason that the great ashrams, monasteries, and meditation halls of the world aren’t lined with monks meditating in La-Z-Boy recliners. There’s a value to be found in discomfort, in disappointment, in not getting what you want. It gives rise to a transformational opportunity that is not available within the cushy confines of what the ego desires. And it’s an opportunity that is not commonly understood.

This by the way, is not intended as an indictment of today’s yoga teachers, for in my experience they are a most genuine and eager lot who are clear in their intentions to help others. However they have for the most part become victim of a confluence of two potent and destructive forces: phenomenally inadequate and misleading training on the one hand; and the indomitable current of popular culture on the other. Add to this a desire be liked and you end up with a deadly cocktail that yields a practice that packs all the transformational punch of a couple of Advil and a stale beer.

“So can you remind me why we are attempting to still the fluctuations of mind in yoga?” I ask in an attempt to lead Joan out of the mire.

She’s momentarily silent. “Um, isn’t it something about one’s true nature?” She asks tentatively.

“It is.”

“Is that why you’re asking me if I met my True Self in France?”

“Uh huh.” I nod.

A little knowledge can be dangerous. It’s true that the Yoga Sutras does say that yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of mind, but it’s also true that this stilling is for an expressed purpose, not simply for stilling’s sake or even, as we’ve seen, to feel better. In fact, if we were to run with the idea that yoga is nothing more than stilling the mind, and were able to still the mind completely, in that state you wouldn’t even be able to find your car keys, never mind lead a productive life. So something else is definitely intended here.

The fact is that you still the mind to create an opportunity: an opportunity for transcendence, for perceiving the Truth of who you really are. This is the same Truth towards which all great religions and spiritual traditions aspire. The key is in recognizing that the stilling of the mind is just the first step, it’s a preparation, the opening of a door.

In the same way that tilling the soil in your garden is not an end in itself, stilling the mind is likewise a set up for the next thing. Spend the rest of your life tilling the soil in your garden and see what you end up with. And of course the answer is: dirt. Nothing will ever grow unless and until you move on to the next step. The same is true of stilling the mind; nothing will be revealed so long as you remain obsessed only with the process of stilling the mind. So the question is what are you going to do with that tilled soil? What are you going to do with that stilled mind?

“You see Joan, the second Yoga Sutra, the one you quoted: ‘Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of mind,’ isn’t really the most important—and it alone won’t unlock the secret of the practice for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The second sutra tells us what yoga is, but says nothing about the purpose for which the stilling is being done.”

“Isn’t it because there’s more peace and joy in our lives with a still mind?”

I shake my head, “Actually, no. While it’s true that stillness leads to a more peaceful life, that’s not the whole story.”

“Alright,” Joan sits up a little straighter, “I’m all ears…”

“It’s the next sutra that explains that when the mind is stilled, the seer abides in her own true nature.”

“In other words, I’m stilling my mind so I can see who I really am.” she says.

“Exactly. And when you recognize, when you tangibly experience yourself as something greater than body and mind, there is a profound release, an easiness with all that is.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but I’m still confounded about this retreat versus vacation thing.” she says, “I continue to maintain that my mind was more still in France than here.”

“Yes…”

“And to be honest, for me, confrontation doesn’t seem particularly stilling.” she continues.

“Fair enough.” I concede, “But first off, let me suggest that the stillness of sitting around sipping wine and visiting with new-found friends isn’t really stillness. Stillness is just that: zero, blank, nada, nothing. What you are describing is the experience of being occupied with pleasantness.”

“Isn’t pleasantness more still than irritation?”

“Yes, and from a yogic point of view, it’s also potentially more dangerous.”

“Dangerous? how so?”

“How many times while you were sitting with friends on a sunny courtyard drinking wine did you feel prompted to transcend your predicament?”

“My predicament felt fantastic. I was quite happy with it actually; why would I have felt prompted to go any where?”

“That’s precisely the issue. Nisargadatta Maharaj pointed toward this when he said ‘Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up. If you don’t want to suffer, don’t go to sleep.’”

“So when you say the retreat is designed to confront the ego, do you mean it’s just supposed to be uncomfortable?” Joan asks.

“Not exactly, remember when I said that authentic practice brings us face-to-face with our tight places: our expectations, our beliefs, our fears, our self-judgment?”

“Yes.”

“The fact is that it’s these ‘tight places’ not our experiences that cause the bulk of our dis-ease—and thus the bulk of that which distracts us from recognizing who we truly are.” I say, “Most of us are not really tuned into this, but if you look closely you’ll see that your suffering is caused primarily by a dysfunctional relationship to your experience.”

“And by ‘dysfunctional relationship’ you mean?”

“Let’s remember that yoga is not really about yoga; it’s not about mastering a posture, or being able to sit still for hours on end, or even performing intricate breathing practices. Yoga at its heart is about our relationship to what is. Pure and simple, it’s about transforming our relationship to our lives.”

“I’m with you.”

“And as far as the dysfunction, I mean unhealthy.” I continue, “You have to remember that there is a simple fact of life that most of us are in denial of: this moment as it’s happening now, can’t be any different from how it is—at least not now.”

“I get that.” Joan says.

“That means, if we are to have any hope of finding a lasting ease, peace, or stillness, then we need to find a way to peacefully coexist with precisely what’s happening now. Yet most of us would rather invest our energy in wrestling our circumstances into a headlock and trying to get them to give in to our desires. We’re always squirming to get out from underneath the pressure of the moment as it is—and it can’t be done.”

“It makes sense really,” Joan adds, “I mean this idea of peaceful coexistence, but it seems like nobody is interested in that idea. I know people who have been chasing an ideal all of their lives and as a result live in a mild state of dissatisfaction all along the way.”

“Or sometimes a not-so-mild state of dissatisfaction.” I say.

“You can say that again.” Joan chuckles.

“In most cases, we’re happy to sell this moment down the river for some promise of happiness in the future—and yet we never arrive. We continue to ignore the possibility of happiness that’s always right here under our noses.”

As if on cue, a great horned owl swoops down out of the darkness and alights on a fence post fifty feet or so to our left. We both pause wide-eyed to take it in. Its head, as if on a pivot, swivels right then left, and just as quickly as it had arrived, it again vanishes into the darkness.

“But do you think that happiness is available in every moment?” Joan asks.

“Not necessarily happiness in the way you’re thinking of it,” I continue, “But consider this: let’s say that someone backs into your car. In the moment that your car is dented, your car is dented. Period. It’s dented and there’s no two ways about it. And in that moment you have a choice: you can either have 1) a dented car, or 2) a dented car plus a mountain of frustration, blame, angst, and worry. Either way…”

“You have a dented car.” We say in unison.

“Right.” I say, “Once this moment is happening, it’s as they say in Hollywood: ‘in the can’.”

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have influence over the next moment.”

“No, not at all. But again let’s stay focused on what is; the invitation is to be happy NOW.” I say, “The problem is that most of us have very little capacity to relax with things if they happen in a way that is at odds with our expectations.”

“Funny you should mention that,” she laughs, “Just the other day I ruined my entire day because when I got on the scale in the morning it read seven pounds more than I thought it should.”

“Did you feel seven pounds heavier?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean did you walk around all day feeling like you were laboring under this additional load of seven pounds?”

“Of course not, if I hadn’t stepped on that blasted scale, I wouldn’t have even noticed.”

“So this is a perfect example then. It wasn’t your experience that in any way ruined your day, it was purely your mind’s expectations that sent you into a tailspin.” I say, “You had a number in mind, the scale said another, and despite your experience of feeling no heavier, you nevertheless made yourself sick.”

“Exactly.”

“This is precisely what I mean by dysfunctional. We all strive for freedom from problems, but there is really only one problem and that is the need for things to be different from how they are now.” I say, “And again, now is as now is. Period.”

“I guess I never really thought of it that way.”

“Few of us do, although this is the invitation that yoga makes to us. Rather than seeking to change the superficial details of your life: your weight, your finances, your flexibility, yoga strikes directly at the root of all your problems. The practice, when maturely done, frees us from needing things to be any different from how they are now. It’s about increasing our capacity to relax with things, even as they conflict with our mind’s agendas. Get that, and all of your so-called problems evaporate.”

“And that’s where confrontation comes in?”

“That’s where confrontation comes in.” I lean in close, “I’ll let you in on a little-known secret: the real transformational power of your yoga practice comes from what you can’t do, not from what you can. And this is true whether you’re doing a posture, meditating, or chanting.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Joan’s brow scrunches.

“Think about it. When you encounter your limitations, you are challenged to grow. When you confront your inability to relax with what is, you are given the opportunity to cultivate a way of being that is in harmony with what is happening now. The practice is to relax with what’s happening instead of unleashing a maelstrom of protest and resistance against that which can in no way be different from how it is.”

One of the most common misunderstandings about the practice of yoga involves the role that the postures play in this very process. While the poses undeniably have a physical effect, improving strength, flexibility, health, and releasing stress, much of their transformational horsepower is generated by their ability to confront our expectations and stretch our ability to relax with the moment as it is. And of course, this is only one part of a complex web of interrelated effects that can be leveraged by working with an accomplished teacher.

As a matter of fact, a good litmus test of a skilled yoga teacher is to ask: how does standing around in contorted postures lead to liberation? If they can explain it step-by-step, without relying upon blind faith or spiritual mumbo-jumbo, you’ve found a jewel.

I remind Joan of this, “Remember, despite appearances, physical yoga postures are not really about the physical body.”

“I’ve heard that before, but just last week, one of my teachers said that asana (posture) practice is nothing more than stretching—it’s just a way to stay healthy and to prepare for sitting meditation, he said.”

I smile, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one too and unfortunately it’s a staggeringly immature view. Granted, you can use asana practice to simply stretch your muscles, but the notion that stretching is the primary benefit of asana practice represents a radical lack of understanding. It’s a bit like using a 747 jumbo jet to drive to the corner store to get milk: you can do it, but it’s a gross underutilization of the tool.”

“So you’re saying there’s more to asana than stretching?”

“Is there more to global warming than a year-round tan and the potential for wearing white after Labor Day?” I ask.

“That’s a yes, then?” Joan smiles.

“That’s a yes.” I affirm, “I mean, we could say that asana is about stretching, but it’s about a different kind of stretching. It’s about stretching your mental and emotional self, much more than it is about stretching your physical self.”

“How do you stretch your mental and emotional self? What does that even mean?”

“We’re right back to the confrontation that’s inherent in an effective retreat.” I say, “Let’s look at it this way: how do you build strength in the gym?”

“By working out.”

“Yes, but more specifically. I mean, if I go to the gym and spend all of my time lifting five pounds, am I going to get stronger?”

“Probably not.”

“And why not?”

“Well, it’s obvious, you’re not challenging yourself.”

“Precisely.” I agree, “And we could also say it another way: I’m not confronting my weakness.”

The light goes on. “Ahhhh, I see.” Joan nods.

“At the gym I need to lift more than I can comfortably lift to build physical capacity. In a yoga retreat, I need to likewise experience more than I’m comfortable with to build mental and emotional capacity.”

“And this mental capacity you’re talking about is the capacity to relax with things the way they are.”

“Yup.” I nod, “So now do you understand the difference between a yoga vacation and a yoga retreat?”

“Yeah, and not only that, but I can see why this feels so much harder that my previous retreats.”

I clear my throat with a theatrical flair.

“Oh sorry, I mean yoga vacations.” She smiles and then goes silent, “But you know what, E?”

“What?”

“It sounds crazy, but I’m kind of relishing the opportunity to practice with the discomfort. I mean I can really see how this has the potential to create some seismic shifts in my life now.” Joan shakes her head. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this 13 years ago when I started this practice?”

“The teacher appears when the student is ready?” I shrug.

“Makes sense.”

The moon begins to crest over the mountains to the East casting long shadows from the cactus, shrubs, and casitas. We relax in the grandeur of the scene serenaded by the sing-song of ten-thousand crickets.

“You know Joan,” I say, reflecting on my own journey, “I had to thrash around for years and years myself before things began to click. It’s really a combination of three things that will kick everything into high gear: your readiness, your commitment, and the right teachers.”

“I’m just grateful that it’s finally coming together.”

“It’s an amazingly powerful practice when it begins to take root.” I say.

“Indeed.” She nods silently gazing toward the stars, “Maybe now those hour-long meditation sessions with the aching knees won’t leave me bent out of shape.”

“That’s good, because it was beginning to feel a bit like one of those “whine” and yoga retreats around here.” I smile.

“Very clever.” Joan sneers.

“I have my moments.”

Blessings to all,

E

Yogi E, a.k.a. Eric Walrabenstein is the founder and director of Yoga Pura in Phoenix, AZ. He is the architect of Yoga Pura’s year-long Advanced Studies Program and trains yoga teachers nationally. E regularly travels the country holding workshops on the process of enlightenment and translating ancient yogic truths for daily living. He is currently at work on a book on unreasonable happiness.

Copyright 2007, Eric Walrabenstein, all rights reserved.