Wheel Yoga Quotes

Have a namasté day today. Look into the eyes of everyone you meet and silently honor his or her soul. Say silently, 'I honor the light within you, which is the same as the light within me. And I know, we are one.

7:50 a.m. Core Power Yoga Lot, Berkeley. I’m in my Prius finishing up a phone call before class. Suddenly a large black SUV whisks into the space next to me, so achingly close I can no longer open my door. I roll down my window, giggling. “You’re kidding, right?” I say to the girl, pointing at the almost empty lot. “I mean, really? Why here? Why me? Did ya just want to get to know me better?” She looks at me blankly, shrugs her shoulders, gets out of the car, and strolls upstairs. 7:52 a.m. Wow. Wedged behind wheel, momentarily fuming. 7:53 a.m. Wondering: Do I want to be mad and waste the morning with this? Does my body need the assault of even momentary resentment while on the way to yoga of all places? Or . . . do I want to feel compassion, plus a dose of good-humored astonishment, by just rolling with it all? 7:54 a.m. I spend a full minute contemplating how to twist myself like a true yogini over the gear shift to slither out the other door. But then, I have the Life-Changing Realization: I can MOVE THE CAR. 7:55 a.m. I move.

The purpose of the fourth chakra in the system as a whole is to get us to expand beyond our limited egos into a wider sense of connection with all life. This is the movement of the liberating current. While it is important not to deny or neglect the smaller self, it is indeed a liberating experience to rise beyond the confines of our own needs and find joy in service and altruism.

It is the worker who is attached to results that grumbles about the nature of the duty which has fallen to his lot; to the unattached worker all duties are equally good, and form efficient instruments with which selfishness and sensuality may be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured. We are all apt to think too highly of ourselves. Our duties are determined by our deserts to a much larger extent than we are willing to grant. Competition rouses envy, and it kills the kindliness of the heart. To the grumbler all duties are distasteful; nothing will ever satisfy him, and his whole life is doomed to prove a failure. Let us work on, doing as we go whatever happens to be our duty, and being ever ready to put our shoulders to the wheel. Then surely shall we see the Light!

Life is unlikely to end with humans, even if we burn in a nuclear holocaust. The relentless wheel of evolution will pick up from where we leave off and roll to it's predestined goal. If the human mind continues to evolve, enlarge, and expand, so that we are able to recognize our kinship with the creations around us, so that we are able to grasp our oneness with the cosmos, and so that we merge in yoga with the Divine, the long cosmic cycle will disclose its cryptic secret, and the long saga of billions of years of evolution will display its profound significance.

Real yoga practice is to control the senses and, after such control is established, to concentrate the mind on the Nārāyaṇa form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead, and all the other Viṣṇu forms – with four hands decorated with conch, lotus, club and wheel – are plenary expansions of Kṛṣṇa. In Bhagavad-gītā it is recommended that one meditate upon the form of the Lord. To practice concentration of the mind, one has to sit with the head and the back in a straight line, and one must practice in a secluded place, sanctified by a sacred atmosphere. The yogī should observe the rules and regulations of brahmacarya – to strictly live a life of self-restraint and celibacy. One cannot practice yoga in a congested city, living a life of extravagancy, including unrestricted sex indulgence and adultery of the tongue. Yoga practice necessitates controlling the senses, and the beginning of sense control is to control the tongue. One who can control the tongue can also have control over the other senses. One cannot allow the tongue to take all kinds of forbidden food and drink and at the same time advance in the practice of yoga. It is a very regrettable fact that many unauthorized so-called yogīs come to the Western countries and exploit people’s inclination towards yoga practice. Such unauthorized yogīs even dare to say publicly that one can indulge in the habit of drinking and at the same time practice meditation.

Dr. Daniel Siegel has said that the mental processes of awareness, which the yogis identified as the subtle body, can be used to meditate on our entire sphere of experience, and then to be able to distinguish the experiencer from the experience that is being had. He calls this the Wheel of Awareness, a straightforward and profound practice that guides you through meditating on your five senses; the interior sense of your body (interoception), which he calls the sixth sense; your mental activities, the seventh sense; and your sense of interconnectedness, the eighth sense. These senses exist as the rim of the wheel, where our senses meet experience. The hub of the wheel, however, is our clear, calm, receptive, open, and aware sense of being. It is our center, a center that is connected to all other centers, and perhaps where we can sense divinity within us.5

Lao Tze's vision is compatible with the Positive Paradigm of Change. In fact, placing the language of his passages into the levels of the Wheel serves to clarify his vision. The model is therefore shown here, along with its application to the subtitle: Common Sense. The right-brain compliment to the left-brain words of Passage One is also supplied below as a hint of what's possible. Einstein's warning, the basis of Rethinking Survival, could well have been spoken by a Chinese sage: 'Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison [of separatist thinking] by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." Prominent themes which link Einstein with the Chinese yoga tradition include not only Compassion but also Unity and Survival. In addition, anticipating the Positive Paradigm, Lao Tze repeated alludes to a timeless center at life's hub encompassed by the surface rim of fluctuating events. 1. The Eternal is beyond words, undefinable and illusive, all-pervading yet mysterious. The timeless, though ungraspable, is the unfailing source of all experience. To transcend mortality, and attain sublime peace, turn inward, releasing desire and ambition. To manifest inner vision, accomplishing every goal in time, extend outward with passionate conviction. Unmanifest and manifest are two sides of a coin, seamlessly joined, though apparently opposite. Entering this paradox is the beginning of magic.

The windmill doesn’t try to control the wind or demand that it blow in another direction. It simply surrenders to the wind, and in so doing becomes a source of immense power. The water wheel doesn’t attempt to change the course of the river; it simply surrenders to the flow and allows the power of the river to be expressed through it. Most see surrender as a form of weakness, when in reality, surrender is the source of all true power.

The Shiva and Shakti—the masculine and feminine—join within Sahasrara to create brahma-ranhdra, the transcendence of both. Within this chakra, the individual personality dissolves into the essence of the all. This is the chakra of one thousand petals. These petals represent the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet along with their twenty permutations. The magnitude of these vibrations enhances the seventh chakra’s role in governing and coordinating the other chakras. This chakra is unique in many ways. All other chakras feature upward-pointing lotuses. In the Sahasrara, the lotuses point downward, symbolizing freedom from the mundane, and divine rain from its petals. Some yogis actually report that having achieved this chakra, the fontanel (soft spot) atop the head dampens with the “dew of divinity.” FIGURE 5.12 SEVENTH CHAKRA: SAHASRARA The Sahasrara chakra was not considered an in-body chakra in the classical Hindu system. Traditionally, it is pictured as lying atop the head. More contemporary systems establish it in the top of the head. No matter which location you prefer, the idea is the same: it represents a space unto itself. Sahasrara creates the fifth kosha, the anandamaya sheath that doubles as the causal body. After ascending to the Sahasrara, we shift this sheath and become free from the constraints of the physical realm as well as the “wheel of life,” the vehicle that initiates reincarnation. Once released from the causal body, we enter one of the three higher planes, or koshas, beyond the body, the Satyaloka, or “abode of truth.” We also achieve samadhi, or the state of bliss and beingness associated with transcendence. This state is associated with the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita and the eighth branch of Patanjali’s classification of yoga. (See “Patanjali’s Eight-Step Method of Yoga”.) There are many layers of samadhi, the highest involving an identification with the highest states of consciousness, and finally, the individual is absorbed into the all. The Sahasrara is considered beyond most symbolic representations, although the chakra is usually perceived as white. The Sahasrara is considered beyond senses, sense organs, and vital breath. As such, it is often described without a seed syllable, as shown in figure 5.12, although some sources depict it with an OM.

But Hindu chronology does not stop there. The four world ages are collectively known as a mahā-yuga or “great age,” and it is thought that two thousand of these supercycles form but a single dawn and night (called kalpa) in the life of the Creator (God Brahma). His life-span extends over a “century,” that is, a period of 311,040,000,000,000 human years. At the demise of the Creator, the whole manifest universe becomes dissolved. After an immeasurable period, the process is reversed and the whole cycle of space-time existence starts all over again. A truly awesome vision! It leaves no doubt about the utter insignificance of the human race, never mind the individual. Only liberated beings (jīvan-mukta) have cause for humor, for they alone stand well clear of this cosmic perpetuum mobile. Their dissolution is not merely a temporary respite from the whirling wheel of existence, but it amounts to a permanent establishment in the transcendental condition of Being-Consciousness-Bliss. This unsurpassable attainment is called “absolute dissolution” (atyantika-pralaya) and is distinct from both pralaya and mahā-pralaya. Where do we of today stand in this immense time game? As I have mentioned already, we find ourselves in the opening phase of the last of the four world ages.

twelve basic slave positions used by Masters Clubs the world over. She did well with them all, even the wheel, which required her to assume a backbend, feet slightly apart, hands firm on the ground. The wheel, not unlike the upward bow in yoga, was the most difficult position to assume and maintain—a true test of strength and endurance.

yoga wheel

I don’t use these tools to “work out” per se; I use them for movement snacks—short, unplanned movement sessions, often only lasting a minute or two. I squeeze and bend the Flexbar as I’m reading emails or thinking through a problem. I hang from the TRX strap when my shoulders feel tight. I stretch my back against the yoga wheel after sitting for long periods. And I use the exercise bands and kettlebells randomly throughout the day to get some blood flowing. It not only gives me varied movement that I know my body needs, it keeps my mind fresh and my energy levels elevated.

the Mahāyāna Buddhist master Nāgārjuna pointed out so vigorously, nirvāna is samsāra and samsāra is nirvāna. This grand spiritual realization entails the recognition that even while we are afraid of change and death and are troubled by the vicissitudes of samsāra, we are immersed in the freedom of the Spirit, or transcendental Reality. For the Spirit, which is devoid of any trace of suffering, is our inalienable nature. We are simply ignorant of this deep truth and consequently deem ourselves to be finite beings who are destined to suffer and die. In other words, it is our ignorance (avidyā) of our true nature that is responsible for our misidentification with a particular body-mind. In actuality, according to Yoga, our true identity is the Spirit, which is the same superconscious Reality in every being and thing. As soon as we take our first breath in a human body, this illusion is created and becomes more overpowering as the brain/mind is educated to function ever more in human ways. In the end, we might even come to the conclusion that there is no reality beyond the body-mind, and that consciousness is a function of the brain. The testimony of all great spiritual masters, however, is otherwise: What we conventionally call consciousness (citta) is merely the borrowed light of a sublime radiance that exceeds the physical and mental levels of existence. It is indeed largely dependent on brain functions, which, in turn, are dependent on the body’s biochemistry. But Awareness—or Supraconsciousness (cit)—requires for its existence no neurons, chemicals, or atomic and subatomic particles. It is, in fact, that in which all matter and thought arises and vanishes in every moment. That verity is glimpsed in higher states of ecstasy (samādhi) and fully realized upon enlightenment (bodhi), which is a permanent identity shift: Instead of experiencing ourselves as a specific individuated being, we realize our true nature as the superconscious substratum of all individuated beings and their perceived environments. Upon enlightenment, we cease to run around in circles. On the contrary, we stand at the still point, the axle hole (kha) of the great samsaric wheel, which continues to whirl round and round at dizzying speed for all those who are as yet unenlightened. Our own bodies, which are crystallized karmic residue, continue to live out their destiny (which is inevitable death), but “we”—as Spirit—are completely unaffected by the bodily processes and experiences. According to some schools of Yoga, the enlightened being’s supraconscious radiance gradually transforms and transubstantiates the physical body itself and creates a “body of light” or superconductive body (ativāhika-deha). This nonphysical vehicle defies the laws of Nature and is endowed with all kinds of extraordinary capacities. It is really an extension of the enlightened being’s unfettered mind, which has pierced the veil of illusion (māyā) and is perfectly attuned to the ultimate Reality. This superconductive body allows the liberated one to remain in the conditional realms and serve the awakening of others, without becoming subject to decay and death, which is the inexorable fate of ordinary bodies.

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