Become One Living
Welcome to the BecomeOne Living Podcast. While yoga maybe the entry way into a deeper understanding of self, we invite you to dive even deeper into your practice. Here we will explore the transformative power of yogic philosophy, anatomy, and mindfulness.
In each episode, we embark on a journey through the rich
tapestry of yoga, drawing from various traditions and perspectives. From the ancient
teachings of The Gita to the mystical insights of the Akashic records, we delve
into the timeless wisdom that has guided seekers for centuries.
We bridge the gap between science and spirituality, exploring
the fascinating intersection of neuroscience and anatomy with yoga. Discover
how understanding your body's inner workings can enhance your practice and
overall well-being.
We also explore cutting-edge techniques like Internal Family
Systems and Neurosculpting, offering practical tools for personal growth and
self-discovery. Our goal is to equip you with a holistic toolkit for navigating
the complexities of modern life.
We’ll share our endless hours of study and insights, providing
you with a deeper understanding of yoga's core principles and how they can be
applied in today's world. Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just
beginning your practice, there's something here for everyone.
Delve into the world of challenging entrenched beliefs, welcoming fresh perspectives, and unraveling unnoticed habits through our podcast. Join us while we discuss a wide range of topics and how yogic principals can weave its way through all facets of life. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Join us on this enlightening quest for self-discovery, healing,
and personal transformation. The BecomeOne Living Podcast is your guide to
unearthing ancient wisdom for modern-day living.
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Become One Living
Ta-Da! Living Sutra 3 & 4
Stop adding to your chit! Get out your journals for this one, folks. Today, embark with us on a discussion on how to live the sutras. Jody and Dan guide us in examining how the integration of mind, body, and soul is vital to engaging meaningfully with ourselves and our surroundings. We dive into the critical aspects of ceasing mental noise and distractions—highlighted by the practice of pratyahara—to uncover our true nature amidst life's complexities.
In this episode, we explore how understanding our true selves involves more than just introspection; it requires a shift in how we perceive our conditioned responses and judgments. We delve into the role of the prefrontal cortex in spiritual growth, and how embracing neutrality can lead to a more authentic engagement with life. Jody and Dan share their collective wisdoms on challenging preconceived notions and conditioned beliefs, enabling us to navigate life's challenges with creativity and calmness. Our conversation is filled with questions for you to ask yourselves.
Mindfulness and self-awareness take center stage as foundational elements of the Yoga Sutras. The episode emphasizes the importance of concentrating on the breath to avoid getting lost in thoughts, and how mindfulness can help us meet life as it unfolds. We invite you to join us in questioning your own narratives, encouraging a pathway to self-discovery and growth through the timeless wisdom of yoga.
We would love to hear from you! Email us at becomeoneliving@gmail.com or reach out to us on Instagram at BecomeOne Living.
Welcome back to another episode of Become One Living, where we're discussing today the sutras with Jodi Dahmerstadt-Boysitz and me, Dan Boysitz.
Speaker 2:Welcome. In another episode we talked about the Yoga Sutras, and in some books there's 196 with Vasana and Krishnamacharya Some there's 195, which is with patanjali. The history of yoga philosophy is a little all over the place, so if some of the timelines do not match up, that's okay. It wasn't really kept in good time.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and there are scholars these days that will also have these debates and little disagreements as to the exact so the Yoga Sutras are guidelines and little aphorisms, little short statements on yoga, and it's divided up into four, one book for Padas. Pada means foot, pada means chapter. So there's four different segments and the first segment is about yoga. Yoga Sutra is Atta Yoga Anusha Sanam, which Atta means a gift. I'm about to share this gift of yoga with you, and we talked about this on another episode, so feel free to go back and listen to. What I want to touch on before I move forward is this the word yoga comes from the word yag, which means to yoke, but this word yag has 150 different definitions in Sanskrit.
Speaker 1:Right, depending on context.
Speaker 2:Yes, and what was realized is the word in yoga Sanskrit into English. There isn't a word or a way to describe it, so it became union. Okay. So, if your understanding is, the word yoga means union, perfect, that's cool. And there's another 150 different ways to describe it, and the one that always calls to me is relationship. I love that one. And it means relationship. It means connection, it means integration. And what are we integrating? Well, we're, we're integrating the body, the mind, the soul. We're coming back home to this idea of who we really are. So yoga is about engaging the body, the mind, to remember spirit and soul. Okay, so it's about relationships.
Speaker 2:The second Yoga Sutra says Yoga, chitta, verdi, narodaha. Yoga, relationship, whatever you're doing, whatever you're eating, you're in relationship with. Chitta means knowledge, verdi means fluctuation, means twisting, parvirti means twisting and Naroda means to cease. Now stay with me. The third Yoga Sutra says what does that mean? It means when you stop attaching or creating tumultuous, twisted stories and believing them, then ta-da worries. And believing them then ta-da, then drastu means to see, dristi means to see or gaze. You see the seer abides in their true nature. So yoga, in those three things I shared, not one thing about the body. Yoga is about getting into a handstand, yoga is about a back bend or a crow pose. No, the definition of yoga is yoga chitta verti narodaha is how can I stop creating something that's not happening, how can I stop adding stories or beliefs to what's happening? Because if I can stop that, neroda, cease that, then, and only then, can I abide in my true nature.
Speaker 1:In another way you might say how can I see clearly?
Speaker 2:Yes, Vidya, a vidya Vidya to see, a vidya Ignorance. So the practice of yoga is about pratyahara. Prata means turning away from or going against, and hara means food, and it doesn't mean necessarily food you eat, but the food you take in what you see, what you smell, Nurturing yeah. What you're looking at, okay, what you're reading. It means turn away from all the things your senses are looking out towards and come back home.
Speaker 1:Right, so I always go or jump right to turn within.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But to gain that understanding it's like putting the external influences and distractions aside. Yes, To go in.
Speaker 2:Yes, Before. That is to even know you're attaching. Before, before, before, before all of this comes the human that says, hmm, something's not right, Something's not working. Every time I do this, I struggle or I see this thing repeating and it doesn't feel good. How can I, the engager, the participator, the creator, the co-creator, how can I do it differently? Well, now, in yoga it says well, you got to look at what you're thinking. What are you attached to? What are you buying into? What are you believing so much that you become, If you buy into stories and then you have people around you in relationship that say, yeah, screw them, or yeah, you're right, they're wrong division and divisiveness, you now move further and further and further away from your true nature, which is peace, calm, clarity, neutrality equanimity.
Speaker 2:In IFS we call it the C's compassion, connectedness. When we're in story, divisiveness happens, differences, judgment. So the second yoga sutra is so important that you are invited to and I wanted to say you need to, but I'll say you're invited to find a practice to concentrate all your energy in one place, because we live in a world that offers multiple things to focus on in multiple, at multiple times. I mean it feels like that multiple times. It's like I got my phone, the computer, music in the background. I mean I don't. People do All these things happening at once. So until you say I'm done gossiping, I'm done eating late at night, I'm done drinking coffee, until you realize the things you do that feed your senses, realize the things you do that feed your senses, not your soul, not your spirit, but the senses. Once you say I'm done, that's when you start to inquire and learn.
Speaker 2:The sutra says ta-da means get excited. I always think of like ta-da, here it is, isn't it exciting? Drastu means dristy to see the seer. Abide means you sit in this state. You become present in this peace and this void that calls for nothing and needs nothing. It's just there. And people say how can I live in peacefulness when the world isn't peaceful. That's the reason why you have to learn to be peaceful in unpeacefulness. You have to learn to find comfort in uncomfortability. You have to learn to find calm in the rage and in the storm. That's the practice. No one that's not a numbing or a bypassing. I'm not saying shut down and say it is what it is. I have people say that to me all the time. It is what it is and I say no, it ain't. No, it ain't what it is, it's more than that. What do you feel? What are your senses telling you? You want to experience all of that and then say I'm more than this, these are my parts. That's what IFS would say. These are stories, and the practice of yoga then becomes not learning something new, but unlearning and unpacking the stories that we were told who we were.
Speaker 2:I was told by a nun in catechism that I was stupid and that I should never, she said to me, read out loud because I was illiterate. That's what she told me Because I struggled reading as a child and from that moment on I wouldn't read out loud and I wouldn't raise my hand. All through school, from high school, everything I thought, and I was in remedial courses. So in my mind I was stupid, and I was. I was externally told that in many ways, why can't you be smarter? What's wrong with you? And I started to buy that story. And then in college something happened and I said wait a minute, I'm not stupid, I don't learn like that. And so I started to study. I graduated with a 3.99, almost a 4.0. I mean, I couldn't believe how smart I was and what I was able to do.
Speaker 2:But that's what I mean by buying into a verti right. You get told something or some experience and then next thing, you know, you live it, you become it, you believe it and you'll fight for it. You'll fight. No, I have dyslexia, so I'm like this and that's what I had. So I'm not saying anything about anyone listening, I'm just sharing. When someone would say, oh, you can't do this, the first thing was well, I'm dyslexic. That's why we will fight the stories, the verities, and we then lose sight that we can abide in something different. That's the healing of the mind and the softening of the body brings us back into this place of presence.
Speaker 1:Are there tools that feature or highlight this for you, like things that you do, practices that you do that bring this to light, or yeah, yes, I want to share one piece, and then I'll tell you how.
Speaker 2:So the third yoga sutra says you abide in your true nature. And then the fourth one says you're ready for this, and then there's times you don't. I love that it's like it's so practical. It's like sometimes you're in it and you're in the flow state and you're like, oh, and the next minute you're like, I'm so attached to that I'm I'm a horrible human.
Speaker 1:I suck, I stink to that I'm. I'm a horrible human. I suck, I stink. I mean, where my mind goes with that piece is, is, is, is the? The beauty that? That that the discipline of becoming one with something brings, whether it's a partnership or or a relationship with a guitar or relationship with writing poetry, the discipline of focusing on that act or thing to do or tool yields, you know, a greater understanding of that. You know. From that practice you get a greater understanding of how to live.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, the discipline of yoga. So first is atta. Here's a gift, here's the system of yoga. Atta, sutra 1. Sutra 2 says the first thing I want you to know is that yoga really is in relationship with everything. And stopping these stories in relationships. Right the virtues. Then that, only then you can understand your true spirit, your true nature, and other times you will identify. So it's really honest. You'll identify in the fifths and then, going further, stay with me. You'll identify it as painful or non-painful, which means judgment. So we have to learn. You asked for tools, so tools. One offering is really becoming extremely aware of being judgmental. As soon as I start to make someone bad or good, I then use that as a goal to know I'm creating stories. My chit is vertering.
Speaker 2:My knowledge is really twisting, I'm twisting the knowledge so it suits my needs to attack you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see To blame, see to blame. Yeah, oh my gosh, you know it's what? What just came to me is how, how everything is in play. Right so Right. So I can do pretty well, but I'll notice that if I get tired, my ability to maintain those capacities diminishes, right. So it's interesting how everything is a part of it.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, because we live in nature, we're whole. The way we look at life me and you is wholeness right. So you just said, when I'm tired I can't have that awareness. Yes, friends, when you get overtired, you're not a superhuman. So if you work from eight till seven, or you get home from work and you keep working and you don't stop, you will not have the resources to change, because your default will be fight or flight. You now have no resources to move to the prefrontal cortex, because the front of the brain is where compassion lies, it's where witnessing lies.
Speaker 1:I have to plug in. I think it's a piece of that IFS part where it's like they had a rating system or something that you read. There was a couple, and for couples out there or people that you're in a relationship with, it's like they had a rating system where it's like, if you come home at five o'clock and you have very little resources to interact with your loved one in the capacity of, like saying, making a decision or getting something done, it's like you've got to say I've got like three.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:I've got this much resources to do this. Otherwise it could result in like a misunderstanding and a fight for no reason, just because you don't have the brain power to interact at that level.
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't know. I'm sure Dan remembers this, because multiple times I'll say to Dan, can you just do me a favor, I'll come with you, but don't talk to me. It would be like a weekend, 30 hours after teaching, yoga training, and he'll say, well, you want to come to Whole Foods, the grocery store, and I say I'll come, but don't talk to me, because I knew I had no resources and I was cranky and I felt depleted. And I knew if he, if his breathing was off, I would snap. I knew if he farted, if he, if he, didn't put his blinker on, and so I, I also will do that decision-wise right. When you're like, what do you want to eat, I'll say I am so tired right now I can't decide. Don't ask again. Please decide for us.
Speaker 1:Right, and that I'm totally fine with, because there's three places that you can eat at. It's not a big decision.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:But I love what you said, what dan and I share and what we talk about all the time, and he's taught me this. Dan has been my greatest teacher. We're together 14 years now and he has taught me it's not the smoking gun, because I used to always want to figure out what was wrong with me. I I had physical pain, chronic, mental, emotional, psychological, and I would say I figured it out and he'd say, joe, it's not a smoking gun, it's not what you think it is. And what we're sharing is even in the yoga sutras.
Speaker 2:Oh, I just want to study yoga, I want to study. There's a science behind it, it's a system, and so the tools that you just asked, dan, is if you're not getting enough sleep, if you're still running and gunning, if you don't listen to your signals, you cannot change because you won't have the energetic resources to tap into the prefrontal cortex that lives off of high fats and most people don't change, not because they don't want to, but they don't have the resources because it takes a lot of energy in the human body and caloric intake to get you from this sugary primal response that's automated, the sympathetic nervous system all the way up to the prefrontal cortex, which is in the front of the brain.
Speaker 1:You know, would you say a spiritual journey, in that, in just in what you were talking about, it is a prefrontal endeavor.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, most definitely, it's highly, it's more evolved and the more involved discussion occurs in the front of the brain.
Speaker 1:Curiosity and advanced yes Sutras.
Speaker 2:Coming back to the yoga sutras yes, we're pulsing out and now we're going to come right back in. So reading the yoga sutras is not suggested, doing them so you asked how do you tadadrastu svarupe vastanam right, how do you abide in your own true nature? First thing I want to invite everyone to is what do you even think true nature means? That's what I would start to question before you go. Start and teaching people like you. Got to know your true self, your true one self, yeah, what are the attributes?
Speaker 1:I don't even know what that means I mean and, and, and that that that calls forth a whole bunch of questions in terms of what any one person is in relationship at that point, who they're in relationship with, what they like to do, what they don't like to do, what hurts them, what makes them feel good. There's so many, so many things. I always come back to the analogy of a soup, the ingredients of a soup. There's there's not a pinning the tail on the donkey. There's not just exclusively a chicken broth soup. It's like life is a tapestry of.
Speaker 2:I agree, and though you have to have clarity if you want to change. So what I'm saying is there's many ways to get there absolutely. Is there's many ways to get there absolutely. But if you don't know what true nature means, or self capital S means to you, or spirituality means, your brain needs contexting. So if you don't have a reference point for those words, you'll take one on and you might not like what you're taking on or you might not even know what you think it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I understand where I went with that, like what you're taking on, or you might not even know what you think it is. Yeah, no, I I understand where I went with with that is as how, how groomed, uh little beings are from you know, zero to 10 or 12 or 15, all those formative years. There's so much laid on you in terms of your name and who you are and where you belong and what you stand for, so so that right, there can be an unpacking.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you, if you don't, if you're not in good relationship with, uh um something you know honestly that your family stands for and you don't feel it in your heart, or that's just not your journey, you know uh it's, it's, it's, it's a it's a bit of a thing to get to your true nature.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, but you asked me for tools, so I'm sharing tools. I'm not. I agree it is huge, but the first tool is to question. Any time you start judging something as soon as you say good or bad, I know I'm not in my true state, because my true state is neutrality.
Speaker 2:Remember, the only meaning something has is the meaning we make of it. The only reason we know what a plant looks like is because we were told what a plant looked like. And then we look at it and we say, well, that's a plant. And then we have feelings I kill all plants, I don't like plants. So that's not true. It's not I don't like plants. That's not true. It's not I don't like plants. It's I don't know how to care for the plants. The true nature is I'm lost when it comes to a plant. It's this digging in under layers where you come to the truth. And true nature is being truthful about the situation you're in, and in that state rises a void where you can then move into the, a pause where you either attach to the object or you don't. The fourth yoga sutra says sometimes you then relate to that object and you're judging and you're hating.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's okay. They're saying in the fourth sutra they say it's okay. Then you retract and you say no, I don't want to. So it is this dance, but you all have to get to the place where you're able to dance if you don't know the steps. And one is focus. Set a timer for one minute and sit and just focus on your breath. I say this I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out, I'm breathing in. And then, as I breathe, I stop saying that and I say to myself inhale and exhale. And I follow that. And when I start thinking, um, I'm hungry, or Gabby, our dog, I have to walk her, or I got to get to work, I come back and go breath. Breath is moving in, breath is moving out. I'm not meditating at that point. That's called focusing. If you cannot focus your mind for a minute, it's going to be hard to catch yourself.
Speaker 2:When you're buying into the vertes, the chit vertes, when you're buying into the stories, okay. So one is concentrate on something. And two is am I judgmental? Am I attaching to this object? Am I buying into it? And then am I employing people to buy into it with me? You know division and attack. And then to be gentle with the fourth yoga sutra is to be gentle, if you attach to it or not. And then the fifth yoga sutra we will not talk about, but there's five things that tell you if you're making up a story. That's why the yoga sutras are really cool.
Speaker 2:When people say yoga's not complete and you need more than that, no, you, you really don't. You may need a therapist or an acupuncturist, but they're part of the yoga system, because everybody had yoga teachers and yoga gurus, and a guru means the remover of darkness. The guru means the weighty one. It doesn't mean a person that knows it all. It's a person that shares information, that sheds light on something. So I meet gurus all day. We met a guy the other day at the beach who was sharing about building boats. He was my guru in that moment. He was telling us about an old pier or something they made a the mast, a 40 foot mast and so the guru.
Speaker 2:The guru moves around, and so the yoga practice. The yoga sutras beautifully lay out how you'll get lost and what yoga is. And again, sutra 1.1 says it's a system and it's a blessing that we're sharing the system with you. 2 says vritti means fluctuation or tumultuous thoughts have to stop. The healing of the mind needs to occur for you to feel peace. That's the fourth sutra.
Speaker 2:Your true nature is in suffering. We suffer because number four we attach to things that we want or things we don't want. I don't want that. I'm not. Nope. Have you ever said this? I'm not dealing with this, I am not going to deal with it, or I'm't want that. I'm not, nope. Have you ever said this I'm not dealing with this, I'm not going to deal with it, or I'm not doing that. Too bad, it's happening. So when you say I can't or I won't, your nervous system goes into fight or flight, into fight or flight. And now you're creating this battle with life as it's unfolding, instead of yoga is meeting life as it unfolds. I want to share briefly, if I can do. You have something you want to?
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:I want to share some attributes of this pulse, of this true nature, right, something like inside of. Some of the attributes are similar to IFS compassion, right? Calmness, connection yeah, I relate to you. Think of connection as relating, like yeah, I get you, I get this. I see why I'm so upset Calmness, clarity, creativity. When we're stuck in fight or flight or attached, like the yoga sutras say, in a story, we're attached to the story or the object. We can't be creative because we're so angry at this one thing or this one person, or blame or victimization, so the attributes aren't transcending is what I want you to hear. These practices don't say you're going to transcend what's happening. You transmute it, you alchemize it. You look at it and you say, oh, look what I'm doing here. Perfect example.
Speaker 2:I'm not a hot yogi. Okay, I'm not against it, I'm just. It doesn't work for my body and I taught it for a couple of years. When I was wanting to quit, I started hating it. I would come home. I hate hot yoga, I don't like it, I hate it, I hate it and I started to thank God for yoga Watch.
Speaker 2:I wanted to hate it, so I would leave it, because I didn't have the courage to leave because I was telling myself I need the money. What am I going to do? That's a story. Those are all stories. Yes, okay, Maybe I needed income, but I could have gotten it somewhere else. So I tried to make hot yoga bad so that I could be good enough or make a good decision to leave. And because I do the yoga practice, I realized, oh, wait a minute, this has nothing to do with the heat at all. It's not good or bad, it's just that's what is, and I don't thrive in that. That's not where I thrive. So I'm going to go and see where I thrive. So to practice it again is to become curious, also about your stories. Become curious about the beliefs you have and the beliefs that you won't budge, that you are like no, I know this and bop-bop, and you'll fight for it.
Speaker 1:Step in and lean into those, because under those is this peaceful state, deep under those, yeah, so many of the tools that we keep going over are about like shravana, you know, just slowing down and not rushing to judgment or even doing anything besides listening in the moment you know and waiting your turn to express yourself in relationship to that, and not expanding beyond what is necessary. It's almost like efficient living efficiently, yeah, not making extra stuff or creating chaos.
Speaker 2:Not making extra stuff, Not adding vertes to your chit, C-H-I-T-T or C-H-I-T, and living simply not adding on. Yeah, so, to wrap up, the Yoga Sutras tell you what yoga is and then tell you practices on what to do. And number one says here's a beautiful gift of a system of yoga. Number two says yoga is stopping the fluctuations of the mind or the stories that you create. And fourth and third, tada drastu svarupe vastanam. And then you get to abide in your true nature, this peaceful state that is connected, always resourceful and filled with potentiality, filled with potentiality.
Speaker 2:Thank you, my friends. We'll add on to the Yoga Sutras more and more. Homework is the invitation to question your thoughts, question your stories, your vertis, your chit and see if you're willing to shift them. Awesome, becomeoneliving at gmailcom. We're here.
