Choice. Taking it or leaving it. This was the option Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England, offered his customers - either taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all. Our choice was accepting the Pneumatic drilling sound that filled the room or leaving.
OMG, I thought, as I opened the door and entered. The sound was HORRIFIC. I reacted to it and felt irritated. We need quiet for our yoga practice, I said to myself. My next thought was if this is going to go on for an hour, perhaps I should cancel the yoga class.
Then I said a big “NO.”
We are all here for yoga and that is what we will do, pneumatic drilling or no drilling.
I knew from experience that it was just a case of accepting that the drilling sound was there and I could use it as a teaching tool.
So we sat in the Hero's posture for our opening and I asked everyone to focus on the drilling. This was what was happening in the present moment. I asked David Grove's clean questions: What kind of sound is it for you? Where is the sound? Is there anything else about the sound?
We were in a conference room and the sound was happening above us and it was part of our existence. There was a choice to make. Resist it or align with it.
“Now shift your attention to your body”, I said. “What is happening in your body? What's your posture like. Start to use your body intuition to shift your body if it needs to move for you to be more comfortable...”
They were individuals within a group moving together and at the same time being alone in their practice and creating whatever outcome they required body-mind-spirit.
One of my favourite quotes is from Sri Aurobindo, who said “All life is yoga”. Sri Aurobindo was an Indian yoga master, visionary, guru, poet, philosopher and nationalist campaigning for independence from British rule. During imprisonment by the British, he had many spiritual experiences and when he was released he left politics for spiritual work.
If “all life is yoga”, what is yoga? The yogi, visionary and mystic, Sadhguru, describes it as
“...quite simply, the science of being in perfect alignment, in absolute harmony, in complete sync with existence”.
The Buddha said that the only thing that is certain is that everything changes. The fast changing nature of the modern technological world has a huge impact on all of us. And we all have to find ways to manage ourselves so that this impact isn't negative.
As the “science of creating inner situations exactly the way you want them,” yoga helps you to go within (an environment that is in your control and sphere of influence) and create the state that you would like.
The word yoga means “union” and goes deeper than creating well-being at the physical, mental, emotional and energy levels.
When you are in yoga it means that “ in your experience, everything has become one”. This is the deepest aim of yoga. It is not merely a practice, exercise or form of contortionist body postures.
Teaching yoga for an hour with the piercing sound and vibration of drilling our aim was to be one with the drilling sound itself so that it filled our bodies and consciousness. I provided guidance but everyone had to find their own path to this oneness or get as close to it as was possible at that time.
After a short while, for me and for the class participants (who said this at the end of the class) the drilling sound faded into the background and the breath, body, movement...were the focus of attention.
Then there was silence for who knows how long and we were more sharply aware of the silence. And the silence also faded into the background. Then the drilling re-started, stopped for a bit, re-started and I loved to rest my attention on the drilling sound and also in the moments of silence; guiding everyone to remain present so the mind was less lively to wander.
During the final relaxation, sounds were the focus. First the drilling, then it stopped and then the other sounds around us: the traffic in the distance, the sound of people talking, the sound of the breath...And we moved into stillness. We all had to create the inner situation we wanted rather than get negatively caught up in the outside situation.
At the end of the class, my mind was quiet and I felt a deep stillness inside.
The drilling sound proved to be a gift in disguise by providing the opportunity for deep awareness that led us from initial irritation to quietness within.
“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.” Rumi
A great lesson from this experience is that in every situation, you have a choice. You have the power to change your state, to decide how to respond, to choose the outcome that you would like.
We are not just cogs in a global machinery. We always have a choice and the first place to start is within.
No matter what the situation is, you can always change your inner state.
I love this quote by Viktor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning, which documents his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
If you would like to go more deeply into creating inner situations the way you want them so that you are not pulled here and there by the outside fluctuations of everyday life, I am running and facilitating my Say “YES” to Life Limitless Retreat in Goa, India from 1st March - 8th March, 2018. I would love to have you join me. I invite you to click here to find out more.
