The Science of Yoga by William Broad – Fit Perfection

Fit Perfection

Many yoga teachers purport yoga as the only form of exercise you need to do.  And they often see their way of yoga as the only way.

In his book Bikram Yoga, Bikram Choudry (The founder of Hot Yoga), is quoted:  “So many Americans ruin their bodies by blindly running around ‘exercising’ and playing sports.  I tell my students, ‘No barbells, no dumbbells, no racket.’  Games are ok for children, for recreation and to teach them sportsmanship.  But after that, you must give up trying to put a little round ball in a hole all the time.”

Unfortunately, Bikram is not a reliable witness to anything at this time as he is charged with financial fraud and sexual misconduct.   The last news I read about Bikram suggests that he is hiding from prosecution and that his location is unknown.  But still, he has made superlative claims about what yoga can do for you.  I love what Bikram says, not because I think he is right, but I find the boldness of his claims laughable and the superlatives he uses immediately make me suspicious of anything he says.  But there is a part of me that understands how those same bold claims inspire people and remove any ambiguity.  Often we are so tired of making and weighing decisions that it is a breath of fresh air when someone says, unequivocally, “Do this”!  The danger here, however, is always one step away from the Dixie cup with the Kool-Aid!

William Broad on Bikram:

“In great detail, Choudhury explains why his yoga is superior to every other type of physical workout and why it deserves your attention – and perhaps most important – your money.  Remarkably, he rejects all other styles of yoga.  A standard estimate for the number of people who do yoga is twenty million (as of 2012), and Choudhury happily cites that number as representing a world of misguided souls.

“’Bogus Yoga’ is what he calls their practice.  He ridicules other approaches as watered down to accommodate American weakness and inflexibility.  Among the competition he scoffs at Kundalini, Ashtanga and Vinyasa (“which never existed in India”), as well as Iyengar (“he uses so many props in his method that his method is called ‘The Furniture Yoga’ in India’)  The newer brands, he added, are even more ridiculous. You’ve got Easy Yoga, Sit-at-Your-Desk Yoga, Yoga for Beginners, Yoga for Dummies, Yoga for Pets, and Babaar Yoga. It’s all Mickey Mouse Yoga to me.”

“The false prophets, he charges, shirk their responsibilities to ancient tradition and cheat students out of the ‘perfect life’ keeping them from the rewards of ‘optimum health and maximum function’.  In contrast, he portrays his own style in cartoonish superlatives:  ’You’ll become a superman or a superwoman.’” 

Will Bikram yoga make you a superman or a super woman?  Is Yoga all you need to keep fit?  This is the question William Broad seeks to answer in this chapter.  First he defines the question as to how do you measure fitness.  He quotes the studies and the scientists and institutions that did the work.  He follows the evolution of how science defined physical fitness.  It starts with vital capacity and vital index to VO2 max and aerobic capacity.  He talks about how hard it is to study yoga primarily because there is no money in it for large institutions and also because of the vast differences in the various styles of yoga.  He describes some of the studies that were done and are widely quoted but which have very little real scientific significance either because of the small size of the sample, the lack of a control group in the study and/or because some of the studies have been hailed as fact even though they were self published and not submitted to peer reviewed journals.  He doesn’t state this, but it is so easy to find an article on the internet that supports whatever claim you would like to believe.  Very often we read these things but don’t necessarily vet their veracity.

At the end of all of this, the conclusion is that yoga equaled or surpassed exercise in such things as: improving balance, reducing fatigue, decreasing anxiety, cutting stress, lifting moods, improving sleep, reducing pain, lowering cholesterol and raising the quality of life both socially and on the job.

But the scientists also spoke of a conspicuous limitation for an activity that had long billed itself as a path to physical superiority.  They noted that the benefits of yoga ran through all categories “except those improving physical fitness.”

While yoga may not be the only form of physical exercise you need, it’s most important benefit may be the fact that it can alter your moods.  And that is the subject of the next chapter.

The Science of Yoga – Health

Health

This post summarizes the second chapter of William J. Broad's book:  The Science of Yoga.  This chapter describes yoga's transformation from a shady and esoteric past to a modern version based on the physical benefits of the practice.

The yoga of old differed from modern yoga in many ways:  Instruction was done in private rather than in group classes and relatively few women did yoga. But the most important difference centered on the lifestyles of the men who did yoga.

• “Yogis and holy men are potentially dangerous and an economic drain on society. “ – So says a sentence in William Broad’s chapter on Health.

• “Yogis were often vagabonds who engaged in ritual sex or showmen who contorted their bodies to win alms – even while dedicating their lives to high spirituality.”

• “Yogis were as much gypsies as circus performers.  They read palms, interpreted dreams and sold charms.  The more pious often sat naked – their beards uncut and hair matted – and smeared themselves with ashes from funeral pyres to emphasize the body’s temporality.”

• “Some sects had reputations as child snatchers.  To obtain new members, they would adopt orphans and, when the opportunity arose, buy or steal children.  Understandably, good families dreaded their presence.  At times bands of yogis would prey on trade caravans and descend on merchants to extort food and money.  When hired as guards, violent orders formed what we now would call protection rackets.”

• “Some yogis smoked ganja and ate opium.  Some carried begging bowls.  A British census put yogis under the heading of ‘miscellaneous and disreputable vagrants’.”

We all know that the word yoga means “union”.  But part of the yoga tradition centered on sex.  “Spiritually, the objective of the yogi was to achieve a blissful state of consciousness in which the male and female aspects of the universe merged into a realization of oneness.  The ancient yogis sought a divine state of consciousness ‘homologous to the bliss experienced in sexual orgasm’.”  This path was known as Tantra.

There was also a sect that practiced cannibalism.  While this was an exception, not the rule, it is a part of yoga’s past.

Another way that old yoga differs from modern yoga is in the postures, or asanas.  The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the holy book of the fifteenth century describes the earliest record we have of yoga postures.  Most of the book describes esoteric practices which focused on stimulation of the sexual organs and how to extend the duration of lovemaking.

Mr. Broad makes a distinction between the physical practice of yoga which came to the West and the religious practice of Hinduism.  Further back, in ancient times, postural yoga referred to nothing more than sitting in a relaxed position for meditation.

In the twentieth century, India’s elite became increasingly dissatisfied with British rule and sought to create a national identity that would unify the masses, counter notions of western superiority and forge the popular will to oust the hated foreigners.

This surge in nationalism sought to revive and modernize Hinduism as a foundation for Indian national identity.  Yoga was seen as one of the potential method for this process.  But, first, it’s act needed to be cleaned up.

In 1924, Jaganath G. Gune established something new, an ashram dedicated to the scientific study of yoga.  He began to do experiments on the exaggerated claims that surrounded yoga: stopping the heart, affecting blood pressure, etc.  He also declared that yoga was fit for women.

Gune had many admirers and patrons that helped him further his cause.  One was such patron came from the Mysore palace, a city and state in southern India.  The ruling family played a skillful role in the promotion of Hindu nationalism.  Like Gune, the Mysore palace sponsored a version of yoga that was far removed from the world of Tantra and eroticism.  For decades the royal family practiced an eclectic form of yoga that drew on Indian martial arts and wrestling as well as western gymnastics and physical fitness techniques.

In 1933 the Mysore Palace hired a teacher to run its yoga hall.  This man was Krishnamacharya who is famous for producing a number of gifted students who eventually made him history’s most influential figure in Hatha yoga’s modern rise.  His passion and ideas gave rise to the two most influential yoga teachers of our time:  Patthabi Jois who developed the system of Ashtanga yoga and B.K.S. Iyengar who was known for his attention to precision and alignment.

Mr. Iyengar had been sickly all of his life but used yoga to regain his health.  In 1936 Iyengar formed a relationship with a surgeon who became a friend, supported and a knowledgeable liaison to the world of human anatomy.

In 1947 Krishnamachary took in his first female student, who was also looking to yoga to cure a heart condition.  This woman became known as Indra Devi and was instrumental along with Iyengar and Jois in bringing yoga to the west.

From the influence of men like Gune and Krishnamacharya yoga began to shed the old emphasis on magic and eroticism and to focus instead on science and health.  In 1965 Iyengar published his book Light on Yoga which quickly became the how-to bible of Hatha yoga.

Since Iyengar’s time, yoga has been studied by science and a large number of findings have come out that support some of yoga’s claims:

• The physiological slowing from yoga can reduce stress, the heart rate and blood pressure

• Clinical studies show that patients who do yoga have fewer hospital visits, need less drug therapy and have a smaller number of serious coronary events

• Yoga improves balance which is important for seniors as falls are the leading cause of death by injury

• Yoga can slow the deterioration of the spine and keep it more flexible

• Yoga can have a positive influence on the immune system by stimulating the vagus nerve through the postures and slow breathing

• Yoga also influences the telomeres, the tips of the chromosomes, that have something to do with the aging of the cells.

• Yoga has cardiovascular benefits as studied and popularized by Dean Ornish

Yoga has gone from an ancient obsession with transcendence of the body to a modern crusade for a new kind of physicality.

The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards – by William Broad

Opening quote:

“ There is no subject which is so wrapped up in mystery and on which one can write whatever one likes without any risk of being proved wrong.”
-- I.K. Taimini, Indian scholar and chemist on the obscurity of yoga. 

Prologue

Yoga has become so mainstream these days.  It seems like everyone is doing it: from babies in the womb during their mother’s pre-natal yoga classes all the way up through senior citizens living in assisted living facilities and everyone in between.   It has become so popular here in the west that it has even included in the annual Easter Egg Roll at the Whitehouse since 2009.

In his book, William Broad, a lifelong yoga practitioner, sorts out the myth and the hyperbole from the traditions and what we really know about the history and practice of yoga.  People have made many claims about what yoga can do for our health and well-being over the years.  Science supports some of these claims, but many aspects of yoga’s famous healing powers come from story and legend rather than scientific fact.  This is partly due to the fact that a lot of research done on yoga was often a hobby or a sideline. There is not a lot of money for research in something that cannot be turned into an expensive pill or medical device.

As Mr. Broad dove into the scientific research that had been done on yoga, he ran into my teacher Mel Robin.  As a scientist for Bell Labs for 30 years, Mel also turned his keen scientific eye towards yoga.  He has written three books on the science behind the practice of yoga.  Mel is listed in the Who’s Who of yoga at the beginning of this book and Mr. Broad quotes his research throughout the book.

One of the reviews on the book’s jacket warns us: “The Science of Yoga is a wonderful read that any yoga practitioner thirsting for authenticity should study carefully before suiting up”  --David Gordon White, author of Kiss of the Yogini

One important fact that Mr. Broad points out is that yoga has no governing body.  There’s no hierarchy of officials or organizations meant to ensure purity and adherence to agreed upon sets of facts poses, rules and procedures, outcomes and benefits.  There is also no government oversight, no Safety Commission or Administration to ensure that yoga lives up to its promises.  This can be very confusing for the beginner and even for seasoned yogis.  You never really know if what you've read or been taught is something that is truly coming from the history of yoga, or if it is just what someone made up to suit their purposes.  This happens a lot and is not necessarily a bad thing.  Personally, I like studying within the Iyengar lineage.  They have a long history of tradition, practice and they also have a research institute to study the effects of yoga.

All yoga is basically Hatha Yoga which is a practice that centers on postures and breathing meant to strengthen the body and mind.  Separate from the practice of physical postures is the ethical and philosophical side of yoga and the religious aspect of Hinduism.

Yoga differs from most other forms of exercise in that it goes slow rather than fast emphasizing static postures and fluid motions.  Its low-impact nature puts less strain on the body than traditional sports making it appealing for a wide variety of ages.  The greatest emphasis is on regulating the breath and creating an awareness of the body position in space.  Advanced yoga encourages concentration on subtle energy flows.  Overall, compared to sports and other forms of Western exercise, yoga seems safer and the focus is not just on the physical; the practice also draws the attention inward.

The book is organized into the following chapters which follows the development of scientific interest over the decades:
Health
Fitness
Moods
Risk of Injury
Healing
Sex
Inspiration

So, read along with me as Mr. Broad sheds light on the risks and rewards of yoga.

Monsters

Last week I was talking about “monsters”.  Those tricks of the mind that fool us into thinking our thoughts are real and that we are better off staying safe and not venturing out into the scary unknown. But when we face our monsters and take them on, then true transformation can happen. 

I had been sharing from Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth and wondering aloud what would be the next book I would read.   One of my students recommended Tea and Cake with Demons by Adreanna Limbach.  It fits so nicely in with the theme of monsters.  In the introduction Ms. Limbach shares the classic story of the Buddha and the demon Mara: 

There is a widely circulated Buddhist story about the time that a demon came to town and everyone lost their minds. This wasn’t any garden-variety demon, mind you, and yes, there are garden-variety demons. A touch of awkwardness, restlessness, longing—anything that nibbles at our peace of mind can be considered a demon; albeit some are harmless and benign. These are the basic sorts of demons that we meet any old Monday afternoon when we’re pinged with the impulse to be somewhere else or somebody else or to just go grab a snack out of boredom. This particular demon story, however, is about Mara, who in Buddhist cosmology is the most malignant demon of all. You might recognize Mara if you saw him, but if he’s a pervasive force in your life, then in the same way that we can develop an acclimated blindness to what is overly familiar, you might not see him at all. Mara is the specter of delusion whom we chauffeur through our life; the interior voice that robs us of our faith, trust, and confidence, of our belief that we are fundamentally whole. In Buddhist mythology, Mara is self-doubt personified; a force that’s depicted as convincing, relentless, and strategic, and in this story he’s coming for the Buddha.

Buddha’s attendants caught wind that Mara had materialized, and they went running to alert Buddha that his nemesis was near. In my own paraphrased version, I imagine a cohort of visibly shaken monks clad in saffron robes banging on the Buddha’s door. “Buddha! Buddha! Mara is here! Mara is here!” When the Buddha opened the door to his distressed attendants, they understandably launched into strategy. “What should we do? Should we run? Let’s pack up our begging bowls and get out of town. We have enough advance warning that we can probably outrun him!” Another monk chimed in, “We’ll never be able to run fast enough. Let’s hide! I know of a place that is secure and hidden. Mara will never find us there. Quick!” Yet another chimed in, “Maybe we should plan an ambush! Let’s arm ourselves with shields and spears and face Mara on the offensive!”

This part of the story I relate to deeply. It’s as though these monks are diplomats of my own mind. More than a decade of meditation practice has afforded me many hours of watching my relationship to discomfort. The moment I feel it, I’m on the express track to strategizing my way out of it. This reaction applies to even the most mundane experiences. The absence of air-conditioning in August. An awkward conversation. A mosquito in my vicinity. Never mind how I might react if Mara, the Lord of Delusion, rolled into town with my name in his mouth. Just like the monks, without skipping a beat, my mind launches into How do I fix this right now? I don’t want to spend time with my discomfort. I certainly don’t want to feel it. I just want it to be different. Better . . . with the least amount of effort, if possible.

There is something universal being spoken to in this story of Mara, which is, of course, the enduring beauty of mythology. Each of these monks represents our habitual ways of reacting when we come into contact with our demons. We want to run from them, or hide, or fight. What the Buddha does instead is so counterintuitive that it offers us a wholly alternative plan of action for when we encounter our demons. In the presence of his attendants trying to strategize the problem of Mara away, he holds his seat and gives simple instructions: “Go fetch Mara and escort him to my door. Set the table with my finest china. And invite him in for tea, not as my enemy, but as my esteemed guest.”

Emotions on the Mat

I was listening to this radio program about how some people get emotional at the gym during a workout.  While it was interesting, it didn’t have any real answers except to say that it happens.  I’ve not had much experience with emotions at the gym, but I have experienced and seen a lot of emotions on the yoga mat.

After my father died, I couldn’t lie down for Savasana without crying.  I wasn’t aware that I had even been thinking of him at the time, but suddenly I would be flooded with tears.  It didn’t happen if I did Savasana lying on my belly or if I just sat in meditation while everyone else was lyingd own.

The article talks about how your brain receives information through your senses and it has to figure out what those sensations were caused by. 

“We all have these four most basic types of sensations. They’re called affect, Barrett said. “Things like feeling worked up, feeling calm, feeling pleasant, feeling unpleasant,” she said.

Affect is basically always there while you’re conscious.

“Emotions are the brain’s attempt to make sense of what the bodily sensations mean in a particular circumstance, in a particular situation, based on past experience, based on memory,”Barrett said.”

I underlined the part about how your brain processes what bodily sensations to mean based on past experiences.  While the article doesn’t state this, (you can read the whole article here.) what that means is that our “issues are in our tissues”  (I like to quote this, but I didn’t make it up, it comes from Candace Pert, a molecular biologist who wrote a book called the Molecules of Emotion.)

Another way to say this is that if something happened to you that caused your body to react in a certain way, then every time your body feels a similar experience, it will cause your brain to respond in the sam way it did to the first occurrence. In yoga we call this a samskara.

I’ve noticed that this can happen a lot in yoga.  Because we stretch and contract our bodies every which way on our mats, it’s inevitable that we will stretch a particular part of the body that may have previously contracted in response to a certain situation. 

For example, we call back bending postures “heart openers”.  For a lot of people, emotional pain causes them want to protect their hearts from future occurrences. The typical response is to contract the muscles on the front body by rounding the shoulders forward and drawing more into themselves in to not be hurt by the outside world, again.  Performing postures that challenge that physical pattern can recall the original emotion associated with the response.  Sometimes you can feel this emotion coming u and you can stop it. Especially if you feel self-conscious getting emotional in a public setting.  But sometimes the emotion is surprising and strong and you can’t help it. 

I think what was happening for me was that I was closest to my dad.  He was the one that always made me feel safe and held.  When I would lie down in Savasana, I felt like my safety net was missing.  He was no longer there to catch me when I fell.  This went on for about a year, until I finally felt strong enough without him.  And then my crying jags on the mat stopped. 

There is always a box of tissues in a yoga studio.  My training as a yoga teacher has been to allow people their emotional space if I notice someone crying quietly on their mat.  Reaching out to them during the episode can bring it to a halt and processing their emotions can be very therapeutic.  However, I do like to reach out to that student afterwards, to check in and see if they are ok.  You always have to exercise your own judgment.  Maybe that student needs your help right then.  I try to let their behavior dictate how I respond.  Some people will quickly exit the room, sending a clear signal that they want to keep their emotions private.  But some people have lingered on their mat as everyone else is leaving.  I have read that as an invitation for me to check in and offer a hug or a shoulder to cry on. 

In my example, I didn't really want anyone to interfere with my emotions at that time. There was something sad and delicious about those moments, almost as if I could feel his presence. That would immediately evaporate as soon as someone asked me what was wrong. I wanted those few extra moments alone with him, even if they were sad.

Processing our emotions as we open our physical bodies and challenge our patterns and habits is part of the transformative process of yoga. 

Have you ever had an emotional experience on your yoga mat?  What is your take on it? I'd be curious to know. If it happened during one of my classes, would you want me to comfort you? Or, to leave you alone?

The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards by William J. Broad

This book came out in 2012.  I had read the New York Times review of the book and never wanted to read any more.  I think I was afraid that, by listing all of the risks, the book would ruin all the things I loved about yoga.  But I have to remind myself that the book also lists the rewards, too.

When my friend and mentor, Mel Robin, was downsizing and moving out of his house, he invited me to come over and take some of his vast book collection.  The Science of Yoga was one of the books I took.  It sat on my shelf for a while until I recently decided to pick it up.  In the prologue of the book, it mentioned MelRobin.  Well, that piqued my interest! I also saw that the author used Mel’s extensive work on the science of yoga as are source for his book.  It was this connection that caused me to commit to calling Mel up to make a lunch date.  And that is when I discovered that he had just passed away.

What we in the west have come to practice and know as yoga is very different from its ancient roots.  Read along with me to discover those ancient roots (some of which may surprise you!) and see what science can tell us about this ancient and ever evolving practice.

Ego and the Current State of Humanity

Words, Tolle points out, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell on you.  You can easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is.  The fact is: You don’t know what it is.  You have only covered up the mystery with a label.  Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable.  This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg.

Words help create form.  Ego is always identification with form, seeking yourself and thereby losing yourself in some form.  Forms could be material objects, but they could also be the forms of thought that continuously arise in the field of consciousness.  The following list are some examples some of the forms that we identify with.

Words and labeling – allow us to pretend we know something because we have identified it and attached a label to it.  It fits into our preconceived idea of what it is.  It allows us to not dig any deeper.

Possessive pronouns.  Once we attach the words: I, me and mine to anything, it becomes a part of who we think we are and shores up our ego.  If something happens to our stuff, we suffer because our stuff is an extension of ourselves.

The voices in our head.  Often we confuse the thoughts swirling around in our heads with who we are.  This coincides with the Cartesian idea of “I think, therefore I am.”  But, Jean Paul Sartre had the insight, long after the yogis did, that the consciousness that says “I am” is not the consciousness that thinks.  The only truth is that “I Am.”  If you identify with the thoughts in your head, you are lost in ego.  If you realize that you are not your thoughts, you are beginning enter into a new state of consciousness.

Identification with things and wanting more– Our ego often gets caught up in the identification with things.  The ego sees the car we drive or the clothes we wear, or the house we live in as a definition of who we are.  This identification with things can lead to wanting more as the newness of things wears off, or others acquire things that we think we should have.

Identification with the body.  The body is another symbol of impermanence.  What happens when youth, good looks and athletic prowess fade?  Who are we then?

The illusion of ownership – having vs. being.  The ego identifies having with Being.  I have, therefore I am.  But our satisfaction with having is relatively shallow and short-lived.  Concealed within it remains a deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction, of incompleteness, of “not enough”.  “I don’t have enough, yet.” By which the ego really means, “I am not enough, yet.”  We all know that expression, “You can’t take it with you.”  So what does it mean to really own something?  And if we lose what we own, are we diminished in any way?

Awakening can arise out of a sense of Being

Being.  Feeling the inner body or life energy = being.  Body awareness , not body identification, not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego.  It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.  Body awareness is feeling the life force in your body.  Feeling that life force and that part of you that is aware that you are aware, is one of the first steps towards Being and Awakening.

Awakening can often happen after a sense of loss.

When forms that you had identified with, that gave you a sense of self, collapse or are taken away, it can lead to a collapse of the ego, since ego is identification with form.  When there is nothing left to identify with anymore, who are you?  When forms around you die or death approaches, you sense of Beingness, of I Am, is freed from its entanglement with form.  Spirit is released from its imprisonment with matter.  You realize your essential identity as formless, as an all-pervasive Presence, of Being prior to all forms, all identifications.  You realize your true identity as consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness had identified with.  That’s the peace of God.  The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I am.

Loss can cause an awakening, a dis-identification with form. However, it is also possible to create a strong attachment to being a victim of loss which can create a new contracted and more rigid form of ego.  Whenever loss occurs, you either resist it or you yield.  Some people become bitter or deeply resentful; others become compassionate, wise and loving.  Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life.  Resistance is an inner contraction, a hardening of the shell of the ego.  You are closed.  Whatever action you take in a state of inner resistance (negativity) will create more outer resistance and the universe will not be on your side; life will not be helpful.  When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with.  Circumstances and people become helpful, cooperative.  Coincidences happen.  If no action is possible, you rest in the peace and inner stillness that come with surrender.  You rest in God.

Our Inherited Dysfunction

From the Yoga Sutras:

Atha yoganusanam Y.S. I.1
With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga.

Yogah cittavrtti nirodhah Y.S. I.2
Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.

Tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam Y.S. I.3
Then, the seer dwells in his own true splendor.

Vrtti sarupyam itaratra Y.S. I.4
At other times the seer identifies with the fluctuating consciousness.

In A New Earth, Tolle explains a core insight that is common to most ancient religions and spiritual traditions. That is the idea of a basic problem or dysfunction of the human mind. (see Y.S. I.4 above)

In the yogic texts of Hinduism this problem is referred to as maya, or the veil of delusion. I often talk about this in class. It comes from the Yoga Sutras and describes the kleshas, or the five afflictions of the mind. These are the citta vrttis of the mind from Y.S. I.2 above. The first, and most important of these is avidya, or not seeing things clearly.

Avidya asmita raga dvesha abhinivesha klesha. Y.S. II.3
Avidya – ignorance
asmita – self-centeredness
raga – attachment
dvesha – aversion
abhinivesha –fear of death
klesha – afflictions, impediments, obstacles

The five afflictions which disturb the equilibrium of consciousness are: ignorance or lack of wisdom, ego, pride of the ego or the sense of “I”, attachment to pleasure, aversion to pain, fear of death and clinging to life.

In Buddhism this fundamental problem is referred to as suffering, or dukkha. The important thing to remember about dukkha is that it will manifest in every situation, good or bad, sooner or later.

According to Christian teachings, there is the idea that we are all born with an “original sin” (fundamental problem). Over time the word has come to mean that we did something that was bad, and maybe on purpose. But Tolle points out that the original meaning of the word, from the ancient Greek, in which the New Testament was written, means to miss the mark, or to miss the point. It means to live unskillfully and thus to cause suffering.

Tolle points out a lot of suffering in the world is caused by this first delusion. He calls this the bad news. This first problem is the cause of destructive, cruel wars motivated by fear, greed and the desire for power which have been common occurrences throughout human history, as have slavery, torture and widespread violence inflicted for religious and ideological reasons. As you can see from the sutra above that the rest of the kleshas follow from the first. You cannot eradicate the other four without acknowledging the first.

Often we are unaware of these states in ourselves or others. We cannot see when we are motivated by fear, greed or the desire for power. We are simply aware that we are suffering.  These are symptoms of the inner dysfunction that every human carries within: the ego, which is the second klesha.

The second core insight in A New Earth is the good news. And that is that our normal state of mind can be transcended. In Hinduism this is called enlightenment, in Christianity it is called salvation and it is the end of suffering in Buddhism. Liberation and awakening are two other terms used to describe this process. This is the promise of Y.S. I.3 above.

In the past, there were a few enlightened beings that emerged: Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu. They have sown the seeds for future people to awaken from the dysfunction of their minds. The world was not yet ready for these teachings, although they were a vital and necessary part of human awakening. Their teachings, over time, became distorted and misinterpreted. Many things were added that had nothing to do with the original teachings, but were reflections of a fundamental misunderstanding. Teachings that pointed the way beyond the dysfunction of the human mind, the way out of the collective insanity , were distorted and became part of the insanity itself.

Tolle’s book teaches us the way out of that insanity. He describes how the title of his book came from a reference from the Bible that appears in both the Old Testament (Isaiah 65:17) and the New Testament (Revelation 21:1) which describes the collapse of the existing world order and the arising of “a new heaven and a new earth”. He points out that heaven is not meant as a location but refers to the realm of the inner consciousness. Earth is an outer manifestation of form, which is always a reflection of the inner.

The way out of that insanity is to understand the second Yoga Sutra; to be able to see clearly the fluctuations of the mind and to recognize the dysfunction that every human being carries within: the ego.