Yoga with Sprinkles

Philosophy

Intro

This text is a short overview of my yoga philosophy to give you an idea what you are getting yourself into if you decide to come to my classes! 😀 

Personally, the philosophy behind yoga is quite important to me and that’s also why I wanted to write it down. There is of course no need to read this to come and try a class but it will help you understand the practises better and take more out of them. I am of course also more than happy to discuss any questions, opinions or unclarity about the philosophy or specific concepts with you after class.

What is yoga?

Yoga comes from the Indian word “yuj” which means to join, to unite. A common interpretation is therefore that yoga is the union with your true self. 

This sounds of course kind of abstract at first, so I will give you my own interpretation of what yoga is to make this point a bit clearer. To me, yoga is an approach to life that encompasses all areas of life, be it relationship with yourself, with your emotions, with your rational mind, with your body, with other humans and with nature. It also touches ethical questions and questions of purpose of life. It is a contemplative mindfulness practice very similar in many aspects to other Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism or Hinduism. The good thing about it is that there is no need to believe in any dogmas or metaphysical beliefs in order to feel its positive effects but you can just practise and see for yourself to what places it brings you. This is also how I initially found my way into yoga. I was always very sceptical about spirituality but I had a specific yoga teacher in Mexico whose practice made me feel very focused, present and clear in my head. I was feeling great for days after the practice and decided to dig deeper to understand why I would feel so good after this, while other yoga practices seemed to do rather little besides the physical workout.

What I learnt through reading many books, practising more and taking an amazing yoga teacher training is that yoga is somewhat of an intuition that comes from being present in the moment and observing your own body and mind, sensations and thoughts. It is something that you can do subtly in everyday life by staying mindful and present and approaching life in a specific way. The goal of yoga is not to become good at asanas, it is to get to know yourself better and thereby become more mindful, more loving and more joyful in all aspects of life. And in that sense it is a “union” with your true self because love, compassion, contentment and joyfulness are seen by Eastern traditions as qualities of people that are in touch with their nature.

The best guideline for all the aspects of yoga is probably the 8 limbs of yoga that Patanjali gives us. They are very interlinked in between each other. For example, concentration is very important in asana and in breathwork. At the same time, the approach you have towards yourself while doing asanas is also very important. Pranayama or Asana can lead to Pratyahara, absorption of the senses. I will go more in detail about these later.

  1. Yamas (social ethics)
  2. Niyamas (personal ethics)
  3. Asana (physical postures)
  4. Pranayama (breathwork)
  5. Pratyahara (absorption of the senses)
  6. Dharana (Concentration)
  7. Dhyana (Absorption)
  8. Samadhi (Insight)

For this purpose, I think one can regroup the 8 limbs into 4 groups

  1. Ethics (attitude towards yourself and others): Yamas and Niyamas 
  2. Physical practice: Asana
  3. Breathwork as the bridge between physical practice and meditation: Pranayama
  4. Meditation: Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi

Why do you do yoga?

When you ask people this question, the answers can vary widely. And maybe you should take some time to answer this question for yourself before reading this text.

 Most people would reply something along the line of:

  • It makes me feel better
  • It makes me stay fit and work on my flexibility
  • It makes me relax and calm down
  • It makes me clearer in my head

All these are very valid and good reasons to practise yoga and a lot of them have also been corroborated by scientific studies. Scientific evidence shows for example that yoga supports stress management, mental health, mindfulness, healthy eating, weight loss and sleep quality.

Personally, I think that all these benefits are very important but that there is something more subtle underlying this which is at the root of many of the positive after effects. And this is the pleasure and effects of getting to know yourself better. By practising the different parts of yoga (ethics, asana, pranayama and meditation), you get to know yourself better and you build a better relationship with yourself. And this closer listening to your true nature will make you feel more contentment in life, you will build and maintain relationships with others more easily and you will feel more motivated to practice. It will also give you more clarity in what you want and what is your purpose in life.

Patanjali wrote in his text that “yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind”. What he meant hereby is that when you practise yoga, you might reach a state where your mind stops thinking about the past and the future and you are entirely in the present moment. When your mind slows down, you are able to listen to the more subtle things within yourself. This can be tensions in your body or long-suppressed feelings that have resided in the more unconscious areas of your brain so far that come up to consciousness when the high level thinking process fades away. This is also what I mean by “getting to know yourself better”, it is about discovering the more subtle things within yourself that only become visible when the surface becomes quiet.

This state of calmness is when you are truly in touch with your nature and the nature of your consciousness and personally I experienced very positive feelings of universal love and joy of life in that state. This idea is very similar to those described by other contemplative practices such as other meditation techniques like for example the Buddhist Vipassana meditation practise or Tibetan meditation practises. 

What do your yoga practices look like?

I teach a holistic practice of yoga that involves all its elements. This probably means that my practice will look way more “spiritual” than the typical “Power Vinyasa Flow” that you mostly see in Berlin’s yoga studios these days. While I am using elements and methods from traditional, spiritual yoga, rest assured however that I only teach what has worked well for me and what can be explained in secular terms without invoking any religious dogmatic arguments or forced beliefs in spiritual, metaphysical concepts. Still, yoga for me is a contemplative practice to get to know yourself better that also involves physical elements. Of course there are differences depending on the style of the class but in general, I want my classes to feel like a moving meditation. If you want a purely physical practice, I do not recommend my classes.

All my yoga practises will involve these 3 elements with different focuses depending on style, session and time:

  1. Asana
  2. Pranayama (breathwork)
  3. Meditation

It is important to understand however that those practices are not entirely separate from each other. When you are doing asana, it is still important to focus on your breath and remain in a meditative mindset. When you are doing breathwork, you can do it in different postures as well. When you are meditating you also need to do it in an asana, be it seated, standing or lying down for example. This also means the order is never fixed and there might be breathwork at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a session for example.

The yoga styles I teach are Hatha, Kundalini, Vinyasa and Yin Yoga. I also teach conscious connected breathwork sessions. A detailed description of those can be found here: Yoga styles. 

Personally, I practise daily in the mornings after waking up with a 1 hour session that involves approximately 30’ asana, 10’ pranayama and 20’ meditation. On the weekends, I try to practise longer sessions. This is what the yogis call “daily sadhana” or daily spiritual practices. 

How do you approach the practice of yoga?

I approach yoga from a more spiritual perspective in that it helps you uncover your true self, become more present in everyday life and thereby calm your negative thoughts and increase general well being. This may sound a bit big as many people are allergic to the word spiritual but you can also just see it as a proven self-help tool to increase general well-being. The positive effects of yoga as a physical practice and meditation as a mindfulness practice are widely acknowledged. Increased focus, better mood, better body feeling, more energy, better sleep are just some of the benefits that I experienced. The goal of every yoga session therefore is to calm your mind and allow you to feel your body and soul better. The means to get there are a strong focus on the breath, a lot of awareness phases and a very concentrated practice that is something like a moving meditation instead of a physical workout.

I think a good yoga practice should be transformational. Transformational in the sense that it makes you feel something more than just your body and ordinary thoughts and maybe feel something deeper within you that can be called the soul or the ground on which conscious experiences happen. And with time you will notice this ground within you feels slightly positive, calm and comforting and is abundant with love of life and joy of living. This coming back to your true self is why you might feel better and more clear and positive after yoga.

The approach that you bring to the practice is also specified in great detail by Patanjali and I think it is very interesting. First, he details a few virtues or attitudes that you should bring to practise and also to life in general. This is called the yamas and the niyamas in the yoga sutras. I am picking some of them that I find most important in my own practice.

  • Non-violence (Ahimsa): This means that in yoga you should never be violent, in relation to others but also in relation to yourself. What this means in practice is that you should never force yourself to do anything. Of course there is a small boundary between discipline in achieving something you want to achieve and you know is good for yourself (f.ex. physical health through regular exercise) and giving up in the moment because it feels too hard. Generally, I think there is a pleasurable discomfort level that we should target and also actively try to enjoy while when we feel pain or are not in the mental state to practise yoga we should not push ourselves through but take rest instead (that’s why in any asana practice you are always free to take resting positions if need be). On the other hand, it also means a certain self-compassion and kindness to yourself. For example when your thoughts drift off in meditation or you skip a yoga session because you feel unwell, your inner dialogue should not be “I am so lazy I will never be able to do it” but it should be compassionate appreciation of yourself and kindly redirecting yourself back to meditation or the reasons why you want to practise (better mental health,..).
  • Discipline (Tapas): Discipline means showing up for practice and bringing your energy and attention to yoga every day. Discipline is very closely linked to motivation. We can only maintain habits in the long run that we also enjoy doing. This is why discipline has two essential components. One is the joy of practice and the other one is willpower. The moment you start practising yoga and you trust in the fact that it will help you to get to know yourself better and have a happier life it will also give you a certain joy of practising. It is important to sometimes actively bring this up in the practice to reinforce the positive conditioning in our brains towards the practice. The willpower to practice can come from the benefits yoga will give us but it will also come from the joy of practice we experience. When we enjoy the practice it is easier to motivate ourselves, it is a self-reinforcing relationship between these two. Willpower will of course also come from the successes we achieve in meditation or in asana. Therefore, it will be beneficial for our willpower if we can sit longer in meditation or are able to do an asana we were not able to do before but it should not be our main source of motivation. The main source of motivation should be the process of practice itself and not the results of it.
  • Devotion (Ishvara): Devotion means trusting the process in that you trust that the practice of yoga will help you and put you in a more “liberated” mental and bodily state. It is the trust in ancient wisdom and methods to avoid becoming too mindy by doubting the path (and it is perfectly normal and healthy to doubt it at times). The combination of the curiosity and thirst to get to know yourself and some genuine enjoyment and trust in the process of yoga to get there is what yoga practice is all about. This is what will keep you motivated in the long run. It’s not about the end-goals of having a nice body or a very calm mind. It’s about the daily joy of getting to know yourself better when you take time to practise yoga and be mindful.

Why is asana important?

As the ancient Romans and the founder of asics (anima sana in corpore sano) already knew, a healthy mind lives in a healthy body. Therefore, the first reason why asana is important is to keep our body healthy and to keep us in touch with our bodies. 

There is also a little urban yogi legend that the only reason why we practice asanas is in order to sit longer in meditation. And it’s true that the more flexible your body is and the stronger your core and lower back are the better you can sit in meditation seats such as the lotus pose or the Burmese pose.

Patanjali describes two qualities that are important in all asanas:

  • stihram  “easiness”
  • sukham  “stability”

So in every pose you should find a balance between stability and easiness. Personally, I think stability mostly comes from the bandhas (i.e. the 3 points or “locks” in your body that need to be activated in all asanas – pelvic floor, core and chin neck area) while easiness comes from the breath. This means when you are holding an asana such as for example warrior 2 you should try to find stability from the activation of core muscles and easiness through continuous breathing.

Ideally an asana practice should feel like a moving meditation, where your mind is entirely with the movements of your body and your thoughts are with the practice alone and not drifting away (of course in practice this can sometimes happen but is also really difficult when your mind is more troubled so we need to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves).

Why is breathwork important?

Breathwork is very important in yoga. From a physiological perspective, it helps regulate your nervous system as it is the bridge between your somatic nervous system (voluntary movements) and your autonomous nervous system (inner organs). You can influence both the sympathetic part of your nervous system (responsible for stress handling and fight or flight) by fast breathing techniques such as Kapalabati (breath of fire) for example and the parasympathetic part of your nervous system (rest and digest) by techniques such as full yogic breath or box breathing. This will help your body regulate your nervous system better also in everyday life which means you will be able to handle stress better but it might also improve your sleep and general feeling of well being.

From a non-materialist, yogic perspective, the breath also helps freeing your energy and sharpening your awareness. This means that after a breathwork exercise you will often notice that both your body feeling and your thoughts might have changed to a more focused, reduced awareness. This is what we also call Pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses and can help in increasing the focus for meditation or asana practice. In Hatha and Kundalini Yoga in particular, we also use breathing to open energy channels, this means that we do breathing techniques so that the energy or prana in our body can flow more freely. We notice this by feeling more “spacious” in our thoughts and more energized in our body.

Longer, more intense breathwork techniques also have a psycho-somatic effect. These techniques are often quite intense (breathing fast for 20minutes+) and can lead to bodily sensations of contraction and opening of certain body parts, paired with an emotional release as well. Conscious connected breath is the particular technique that I teach.

Why is meditation important?

As we said earlier the goal of yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind and meditation is the state where you observe those fluctuations and can reach a state of complete absorption and gain new insights about yourself and the world.

Essentially, meditation is observing yourself and thereby getting to know yourself better. We do this by two different types of meditation. The first type is a focus meditation where you focus on a specific object, usually a body part or the breath and observe all the sensations and details of this object to the greatest detail possible and with a focus that is as continuous as possible. Once we have established this attention on sensations, we move to the second type which is insight meditation. In insight meditation we keep our attention mostly on the breath but we open it to general awareness of all contents of consciousness: emotions, bodily pain, sounds, smells. By coming into this state of only witnessing, our thoughts might slow down and even come to a stand still where we can feel the essence of our own consciousness. This is essentially what meditation is about: tuning into the essence of our self and how we perceive the world.

From a more materialistic perspective, meditation also offers many health benefits. It gives you improved focus, better regulation of emotions and better sleep.

In my personal opinion, meditation is the most important part of yoga as it really allows you to change the experience of yourself and how you perceive the world out of practice and thereby it can also change your behaviour in “normal” life towards being more courageous, compassionate and positive about life in general.

Why yoga for men?

Anyone who has visited a Yoga studio in Berlin knows that there is quite a gender disparity in the typical yoga audience. Mostly you see about 80-90% women in the classes and this can be quite intimidating for men that are starting with yoga as often women are just physiologically more flexible and also the more soft, feminine language that is often used in yoga can be quite challenging for men. Of course also masculinity stereotypes about yoga not being a sport, vulnerability being something to avoid and emotions something to push away play a role. This is a pity in my opinion as it has so much balancing potential in particular for men because it might not come so naturally to them.

Personally, before yoga I had only done sports that I was kind of good at, being in a yoga class and struggling with my flexibility, balance while everyone else seemed to be doing fine was a challenge for me and it has happened many times that I wanted to leave a yoga class just because the exercise instructed was not feasible for me (I am looking at you wide-angled forward fold). In the end however, it was such an important learning for me to learn to surrender, be compassionate with myself and touch the softer sides within myself that do not come naturally to me such as patience and not being able to force something through effort. 

I am to this day not very flexible and I think I can relate to the struggles that many men have with yoga, it is therefore my intention to create a safe space with some adapted postures and practices that make it easier for men to find their way into yoga.

Recommendations for books, podcasts, ..

Here, I am just listing a few books and podcasts of people that have influenced me a lot. Feel free to ask any questions or discuss with me about them. 🙂

Favorites

  • Sam Harris – Waking Up
    • This is probably the book that was the most influential for my own understanding of spirituality and the purpose of contemplative practices such as yoga or meditation. Sam Harris does an extremely good job in merging a materialist, sceptical, western worldview with the approach of Eastern traditions. He is also just a very gifted author and explains complicated concepts in an easy, eloquent and tangible way. Highly, highly recommended, will make you want to start meditation right away.
    • Podcast with him (Disclaimer: very long and very nerdy) Dr. Sam Harris: Using Meditation to Focus, View Consciousness & Expand Your Mind | Huberman Lab 105 
  • Oliver Burkeman – 4000 weeks
    • Maybe a bit more of a self help book but the author does an extremely good job in translating buddhist concepts to the modern world
    • In particular how he thinks about setting priorities, finitude and commitment to less than perfect scenarios is extremely insightful
  • Jack Kornfield – A path with heart
    • This book is more meditation practices focused
    • Jack Kornfield was a Buddhist monk and returned to the US to teach meditation and is also a trained clinical psychologist
    • He explains Buddhist concepts and meditation practices very, very well and in a non-dogmatic, relatable way. On top of that he is able to link them with the mental health struggles people in the Western world tend to have.
    • Highly recommended podcast with Tim Ferris: Jack Kornfield — Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy in the Present | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

Meditation

  • John Yates – The Mind Illuminated
    • The cookbook to build a meditation practice with very clear stages and how-to guides. This is what helped me build and understand my meditation practice when I first started. Based on Buddhist traditions.

Yoga

  • Daniel Simpson – The truth of yoga
    • Good books about yoga philosophy are very hard to find. This is one of them. The author puts modern yoga practice in a historic context and traces back its origins in  an evidence-based, factual way.

Breathwork

  • James Nestor – Breath
    • Author does several self-tests and summarises research to show you how essential is correct breathing for physical and mental well being.
    • Very easy to read and written in a story based way.

Motivation / Dopamine