Yoga and the Fluid Body, November 19, 2016, The Yoga Room Berkeley
Foundation is Non Dual (Advaita) Wisdom: Can we differentiate The Seer from the Seen, Purusha from Prakriiti, Awareness from what arises in Awareness? This essential skill is known as viveka in Sanskrit. (See PYS II-17 – II-26) Differentiating “Now” vs ‘clock time’ is a very practical and easy entry into this.
Why is this essential? Most of the world is caught up in movement and action, 
completely missing the ever-present unbounded, unchanging stillness that is the source/background of action. In stillness, we can step out of habit and open to new possibilities; we can rest deeply, even if only for a few moments; and hopefully, we can realize that this unconditioned stillness is the very core of being, the home of the soul. Of course, the heart always knows this, which is why all practice begins and returns to the heart again and again.
Out of the unbounded quantum field of possibilities in stillness,
what arises in the human mind field? :
Perception, Intelligence, Action
How do we come to know something? The process of Attention links sensation to intelligence creating perception. This may trigger a memory encoded habit from which action flows. Or, the intelligence, through memory, insight, intuition and discernment, can create spontaneous action. Attention is a mental facultyskill/process that can be trained and refined. It can also follow pathways of old habits. Samyama, the simultaneous practice of dharana, dhyana and samadhi described by Patanjali in the Vibhuti Pada directly addresses the attentional process.
Awareness, directed through attention, to portals of perception, integrated with and through Intelligence (buddhi), to create/sustain of action. In a yoga pose or practice, this is known as ‘samyama in asana’.
We can define ‘Yoga’ as the continuing refinement and expansion of perception, intelligence and action, at all levels of reality and life, while remaining in the stillness of Now.
When we look deeply into the nature of things, we discover ‘Nested Levels of Reality,’ each with its own perceptions, intelligence and action. Please watch the mind expanding video “Powers of Ten” to get a sense of this.
Refinement of perception, intelligence and action engages the Five Outer Senses; seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling; and the Five Inner Senses: proprioception (tracking the internal energy flow of prana), kinesthesia (tracking where and how the body is moving through sapce), psychological perception, (noticing one’s thoughts and emotions), relational field perception and Imaginal perception (Dream Time)
In an embodied yoga practice, we can recognize/perceive/know three basic levels of reality;
Matter / Structure Energy / Flow Information/Fields
Attention usually goes to the structural level, muscle and bones, maybe skin. To refine our skills we need to bring our attention the the energy flow, prana or chi. The fluid body is prefect for this as it has weight, but also energy flow or movement. When we can track the movements inside the body (proprioception) through following the breath, or tracking the fluid flow, and sustain our attention there, we are in the present moment, grounded and alert.
Once we have learned to sustain this state of continuous connection with flow, we then begin to notice the level behind the flow, or the fields. A field gives direction and shape to 
the flow of energy in the body, just as the sun’s gravity gives shape to the orbits of the planets and other bodies of the solar system. Fields provide a crucial level of stability to the potentially chaotic movements of the life force. (The heart is beating at fluctuating rates, peristalsis is rippling along the digestive track, nerve current is flowing every where, gravity and outer movements are constantly shaking up the inner world.)A healthy filed is both dynamic and stable.
The field we are most interested in is the one involving the heart. In our practice we connect the heart to the organization of the basic physiological movements, known in yoga as the five prana vayus, and the three pressure cavities of the body; head, chest and abdominal-pelvic regions.
As we can see in the image above, the heart sustains a 3 dimensional energy field. There are 3 primary axes: head/tail/, right/left and front/back, or height, width and depth, which lead to our 7 sacred directions of embodiment: 1: to the heart; 2 and 3: head/heaven and tail/earth; 4 and 5: front/east and back/west; 6 and 7: right/south and left/north. Can we find a way to balance the energy flows of the body/mind,
by finding the field sustained by balancing the energies of the 7 sacred directions ?
In the torroidal heart field, the primary axis, connecting head and tail, heaven and earth, can be seen as a hollow tube expanding at the two ends. A two dimensional line becomes a 3 dimensional tube. When we move into the tube in perception/imagination, sustain attention there, feel the environment and how dynamic it is, and then create movement from the inner impulses, a whole new world opens.
The tube is complementary to the sphere, as the line is complementary to the circle in sacred geometry. They both can expand and condense like the hoberman spheres and a dynamic heathy field allows both possibilites to oscillate back and forth. You may feel this energy as wave like, as in the breathing rhythm; pulse like as in the heart beat; or as vibration, as in sounding any vowel. All are present to be felt and explored. All can be used to sustain the field that sustains a yoga posture. When the posture is ‘held’ by the dynamic field, there is minimal over contraction and dullness in the cells and tissues. Thus the field, when strong and stable, helps transform rajas (overworking) and tamas (dullness), into sattva, the clear energy of balance and harmony. This is Patanjali 101.
To begin this exploration, we will do a series of breathing explorations. As these were described in the previous post, I’ll send you there now.
After the breathing work, explore this feeling/possibility in many different relations to gravity: sitting, lying prone or supine, standing, inverting, flexing, extending, and rotating. And in any combination. You can make up your own poses!
All the time of course, staying grounded in Awareness/Silence/Stillness/NOW!
Homework for January: in savasna, begin to imagine ‘Your’ ideal place/space of healing. Use all of your senses to create this imaginal space. What do you see, hear, smell, feel? What other beings are there to help in your healing. As your space evolves (return to it every day), it may begin to offer its own suggestions. Be open to awe and wonder at the possibilities that begin to reveal themselves.