Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

systems. Our breathing affects the mind, our thoughts affect the immune system, what we eat affects our mood, physical activity affects emotions, and so on and on. Watching these interactions and learning to work with them is an important part of the inner process of yogic development.
    Looking back on an experience I had as a teen helped me to understand this. I had just turned sixteen and made friends with an older, more experienced kid who had just moved to town from Detroit. We went together to the house of a young girl my friend was trying to woo. She pulled out a cigarette and he whipped out his metal lighter and, with a practiced movement, opened it, quickly gave her a light, and snapped it shut with a loud metallic click. Then he got out his pack of Marlboros, popped one in his mouth, and offered me one. “You smoke, don’t you?” he asked. “Of course,” I replied, having never had a puff in my life. He lit our cigarettes with the same snapping movements, and I was really impressed. I took a deep drag of smoke. To this day I remember the nausea, the room spinning around, and the intense urge to choke and cough. I would love to see the expression on my face as I sat there using every ounce of will power to fight off the sensations and look cool as I took repeated drags.
    What I later learned was that my body was telling me in every way it could that this was a toxic substance. It screamed, it shouted, it sent coughs and mucus, but I fought back, saying essentially, “Shut up!” So in a short time it gave up and stopped using energy to shout on deaf ears. Instead, it adjusted by creating the inner systems necessary to process the toxic, new chemicals. This is how the addiction process works. I went on to eventually smoke a pack of cigarettes a day until one day, a couple of years into college, I took a fresh look at my habit. With the same will power I used to fake it before, I threw my cigarettes in the trash, never to smoke again. Our bodies can teach us and speak to us (as silly as that may sound). When we do not listen, the body stops wasting energy and just adjusts to our bad habits. When we begin to live more sensitively and to watch and tune in, the body will tentatively begin giving us feedback again and the process reverses. Our own bodies can become our most important teachers. When watching and listening to feedback, it is important to pay attention to the immediate effects as well as intermediate and long-term effects of the practices. We keep an eye on how our practice affects us in the moment, what the effects are the next day, and several days later. We may not be able to see all the effects exactly or specifically, but staying as attentive as possible will go a long way.
    I also learned a lot about listening from an Indian yogi in Europe. The yogi was not an advanced Hatha practitioner by ordinary measures—the ability to perform feats of strength or flexibility—but he was truly a master of more important levels of yogic practice. He pointed out that we must balance the inner voice with our intellectual knowledge. One morning he came into the room where we were all going to practice together, did a few stretches, sat for a few minutes, and then got up and left. At lunch I asked him what happened. He said that he felt tired and uninspired so he took a look at it. He “asked his body,” which he said replied that it had a hard and very physical day yesterday with lots of interviews and it needed rest now more than work.He also pointed out that this message could be a sign of laziness so one must look at all levels of feedback and think them through. We should make use of all the capacities available to us, including our minds, intellectual knowledge, and the internal feedback from the body’s intelligence. It is millions of years old, which gives it seniority even to tradition.
    The yogi’s behavior contrasts sharply with another experience I had. When traveling I visited a teacher well known for being a strict disciplinarian and for an uncompromising approach. After a morning class he took written questions in a formal way, without any dialogue or interaction. I asked him what he thought of listening to the body’s intelligence. What should we do if one morning we feel our body is telling us to take it easy or take rest? His brow furrowed and he got fiery and intense. He said that he couldn’t believe a “senior” yoga teacher would ask a question like this. He said that if he