Every human being wants his or her life enhanced. We all strive to live the fullest possible life. Whether it is to live better or longer, do more or have more it is always about enhancement. Naturally it is activated by two qualities inherent in our consciousness: attention and intention.
Attention enlivens what is while intention transforms. If we want something to grow in our lives, we need to direct our attention to it and if we want something to diminish, we need to withdraw our attention from it. Intention, on the other hand, catalyses the transformation by creating a definite direction along the course of change. They both fuelled from our core which is the seat of our power in the world. This is the third chakra, Manipura, localised in our solar plexus. To be able to manifest our intentions and desires this chakra needs to be open and flowing. Keeping our life energy flowing freely through this chakra will radiate our light and heat of our intention into the world and we will also soon experience our intentions being increasingly supported by nature. Therefore, the Fire element of the Manipura chakra is of vital importance in the process of life enhancement as well as in the practice of yoga. It is the heat that represents expansion, spaciousness, change, manifestation and brings about the desired upward motion of life force (prana) purifying and awakening the higher chakras. By properly utilising this fire element our mind can do miracles. It can make the impossible possible. Heat manifesting on the physical level is called flexibility which is nothing else than having extra range of motion due to spaciousness in our joints not being restricted by tension in surrounding muscles and connective tissues. When warmed up we are more flexible, feel more comfortable, more graceful and live with more ease in the world around us. Isn’t that a miracle already?
However, when drinking water in a yoga class we literally pour water onto the fire that we have been and still should further cultivate with care. The water, as we know, extinguishes fire which loses its potentiality, its light. The increasing Water element in our body drags our consciousness down into the dark and murky wells of the Svadhisthana chakra at the level of the procreative organ. Finding the way out of a dark place requires light, courage and will power. These are all manifestations of fire. Without fire it is an extraordinary difficult thing to do which kills us right-off and we are a dead duck from then on. Any desperate situation like that would turn even an atheist to prayer. Svadhithana is the place where the individual self is established, the home of the second affliction - impediments to spiritual growth (klesha) - called the ego sense (asmita). Its distinguishing sense of “I” and feeling of “Mine” with the body and its relations is the reason why we suffer from great calamities in our lives. It is where the ego’s roller-coaster ride of desires (kama) begins and predictably results in either greed (moha) when satisfied or in anger (krodha) when unsatisfied. In that bleak and damp valley of life one possesses no ears for any subtler call than the howling urgent hungers of the flesh.
This ego sense directly stems from an even darker space called the root, Muladhara chakra, the home of the first affliction, named as spiritual ignorance (avidya). It is our relation to anything and everything in the manifested world. Believing that we are the body, we seek comfort in the material world outside, chase never-ending arrays of desires, by which we unfortunately create a miserable life for ourselves and for others. However much, we try to glorify this by calling it ‘healthy competitive living’ or ‘progressive / high standards of living’ we instinctively know it is an unavoidable heartbreak. The curse of living a human existence with body identification needs a special treatment. Medicine may treat all other physical illnesses but this fundamental spiritual disease of being the body creates a thousand and one illnesses at the level of the body outside that can only be cured by a very different kind of medicine, meditation.
The solution to a problem is rarely on the level of the problem. Rather, it comes from the domain of creativity from where we simply are and witnessing things freely without the emotional baggage. It is where we are the watcher on the hill, the cool architect of a bright future. The one who, by the Fire element of the Manipura chakra, has burnt away the undesirable stains of the two lower chakras and risen into the realms of higher centres. Removing all impediments such as labels, conditioning and projections we become who we essentially are. To be and to be creative are synonymous. Being is where pure creation, magic and wonder happens. We become more divine as we become more creative. All the religions of the world have said: “God is the Creator”. The more we grow into creativity, the godlier we become. One level up, at the Anahata chakra, we find our actions soaked in selflessness, feelings matured in kindness and thoughts flavoured with love. It is where creativity comes to a climax and the whole life becomes creative, so we live in God. There, we must be the Creator because people who have been creative have been the closest to God. How about that for life enhancement?
A bit more philosophy for you… otherwise jump to the next
The human personality is considered by the great seers (rsis) of India in their analysis as being bound by three powerful chords and these are called as the knots of the heart (hrdayagranthih). The heart of the human personality is conditioned by three essential but delusory factors such as spiritual ignorance (avidya), desire (kama) and work (karma).
The spiritual ignorance of our real nature causes us to feel, in ourselves, a sense of imperfection, a kind of a vacuum that needs to be filled. So, the suggestion that the intellect gives to complete this sense of imperfection are called desires. The intellectual desires breed agitations in the mind which expresses as vigorous activities at the body level. All these three – ignorance, desire and work – limit us, restrict our freedom, constrain us to pits of sorrow and pain all through our physical existence in this world.
The source of this triple personality entanglement is certainly the non-apprehension of the Reality, the spiritual ignorance. Therefore, all the mystical practices are about to cut asunder the painful knots of the heart by rectifying the ignorance of our Reality.
The spiritual ignorance in us is expressed in our psychological personality as three different mental climates called Sattva (goodness, constructive, harmonious), Rajas (passion, active, confused) and Tamas (darkness, destructive, chaotic). All these three obstruct our vision of the spiritual Reality. Tamas veils the intellect from its direct perception of the Self (avarana). Then the mind gets agitated by Rajas, consequently the mind starts projecting the world of plurality through its agitations (viksepa). The veiling of the intellect (tamas) and the agitations of the mind (rajas) together make us what we are – an egocentric entity - only capable of desires, sorrows, sighs and tears.
To lift Rajas from our mind we have the outer spiritual practices such as yoga asanas, pranayamas and to eliminate Tamas from the intellect we are advised to practice meditation which is the inner spiritual practice. However, without the skilfully cultivated heat of the Manipura chakra none of these are possible.
Anyhow, if this philosophical viewpoint and the whole chakra business sounds too far-fetched, because yoga is just a physical practice for you and meditation or the realms of higher consciousness were never meant to be on your radar, … take a cookie and don’t worry about all this.
The truth is that every drop of water suffocates fire, reduces its potentiality to transform. A sip of cold water to cool the body down in a yoga class creates a sudden imbalance, a hiccup in your Solar Plexus. This interference in the steady heat is a shock, a thermal stress, strain that disturbs the delicate balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, confuses the mind and develops disharmony in the body. It is how cracks manifest in material objects. A disturbed gut intelligence triggers diverse physical and psychic problems, such as, diabetes, skin disease, cardio-vascular disease, gout, arthritis, rheumatic disease, many types of migraines, the disability to think clearly and to express thought and feelings. Therefore, you should not be one of those people who quickly reach for the water bottle in classes when not coping, or not sure about something and procrastinating, or trying to distract themselves from feeling something they would rather not feel such as boredom or embarrassment. Adopting the habit of drinking helps to press the eject button on facing challenges, we forget the power of living in remembrance of the witness and we lose ourselves in likes and dislikes, in wanting more and wondering less.
Drinking for the fear of dehydration is also a needy excuse because it is not that straightforward for a healthy human being to dehydrate that quickly, not even in a hot climate. Particularly in a hot yoga class, when we think we could do with drinking a little water, we quickly come to realise the more we drink the more we sweat. The relief we may feel is truly short-lived when we start perspiring ferociously and we aid ourselves with a new and greater problem, the uncomfortable and mostly unsafe environment around us to practice in. Eventually we must hear and listen to the teacher who has already repeated 3121 times since the beginning of the class “the best temperature control is always a strong steady nose breathing”.
The feeling of dry mouth usually indicates mouth-breathing (essentially hyperventilating) obviously when gasping with no apparent exhalation which is a simple sign of over-exertion and it is the body’s way of saying ‘give me a break man, I need more Oxygen’.
The acceptance of our current condition / limitations and choosing to do less, attending a lower level class or having a short break in the practice is a much wiser approach than stopping for a sip and trying to disguise things that we don’t want others to see. Guess what, they are not looking anyway.
So, do your practice and drink later.
by Swami Gopal Puri
