Sitting on a Zen meditation cushion in silence I felt nothing but the energy between us as if there was a cord roping us together.
My sweet, but we're-only-friends new homie invited me to a first silent meditation retreat in 2004.
Silence. Ha.
The communication between us was louder and clear.
I didn't speak, or even look at this friend, but my body could feel exactly where he was in proximity to mine the whole retreat. Electric. Zingy.
When he peeled me an orange during one deliciously silent lunch, it was like the most sensuous foreplay I'd ever experienced.
Go ahead. Roll your eyes. I do, a bit, when I think of early moments (the majority spent in silence) with my partner of 12 years now.
But these burning motivations got us both to meditation retreat. And retreat. And retreat....
With tapas, the yoga of discipline towards growth, the trick is sometimes to allure our urges for a sweet ride along to fulfillment and higher spiritual ground.
This is the yoga of skillful means.
This is also the yoga of the use of the erotic Audre Lorde speaks of in her work the Use of the Erotic as Power.
Traditionally, tapas is often equated with asceticism. This is patriarchally, and traditionally described as a negation of sensuality. If you look up tapas, the 3rd niyama, or ethical code, of the 8 limbs of yoga, you immediately see austerity and a turning away from world, self and desires..
Yet at its actual Sanskrit root tap means to burn. We burn with passion. We burn with love. We burn with yearning and longing.
We aren't talking a yoga of denial of the sensual.
So instead of inviting self-criticism or denial, let's turn toward that for which we burn.
We often start the year with big aspirations. We want to feel happy, be healthy.
Sometimes we have great resolutions. They stick for a week or two, often fade. Or we've gotten so disillusioned with others and ourselves for not keeping resolutions by now that we don't make them at all.
Either way, the yogic teaching of tapas offers powerful transformation of the self at the New Year or anytime.
New years resolutions are really about drive, intention and growth. But we are playing this human game. For us, intention is almost never pure. And if something doesn't feel great, it's almost never lasting.
Tapas is the very first word of the second chapter in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Here, it literally means "actions, techniques or tools of yoga." This tapas is action. Training the senses and body. Asana, pranayama and sitting meditation are the most common types of tapas we can practice.
But there are more sides to the coin of tapas.
Tapas is used differently in ch 2:32, as part of the 8-fold path- where it is the third of five of the niyamas- or inner codes of the yogi.
Here, it means more than just practice. Tapas is a way of life. It is lifestyle that is ardent, devoted, disciplined, passionate and fiery.
It's the yoga of doing what we love. What sets us alight. Burns with pleasure.
"I met the love of my life at a monastery" sounds like a contradiction. How can we be both ascetic and amorous?
In chapter 2 section 43 of the Yoga Sutras Patanjali says through training of the senses we can gain mastery of the body, senses and actions in the world. By uniting our human drives with our drive for higher spiritual aims we sometimes get farther with both.
The heart and soul burn for union with another. For union with the self.
We can use tapas to burn towards growth. We can unite the spiritual and erotic. Elevating the spiritual to a realm of whole, sensual and exciting exploration.
In a feminist yoga, one that includes the body and the senses, denying nothing, there is no dichotomy between the spiritual and the sensual. Tapas - burning desire- can be that bridge to intimate connection with all of ourself.
It's the yoga our bodies know organically. It's this Mary Oliver speaks of when she says "Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. . . "
Take the story of my meditative mixed motivations.
I've done yoga and meditated for 12 years pretty much everyday now. Spent close to 2 cumulative years in silent or mindfulness retreat.
Though I dearly love my partner, it's no longer chemistry between us that gets me to my mat or cushion.
The motivation started erotically...but now passion burns for the benefits practice gives me. It's part of my life. It's what I burn for.
Tapas is fiery, passionate discipline. Not focus towards aims that harm others or ourselves, but the kind of presence that gets us to our cushion, our yoga class, our lovers, our prayers or ritual practice. However we get there is winning at this human game.
The kind of discipline that invites connection to soul, self, love, higher power- the power within.
Urge to be better, more, higher, greater. More.
Be the best of ourselves. Never shame, guilt or hate on ourselves.
Heat is generated from the friction of striving towards something different. Of striving to grow. With love. Working against habit. Burning new pathways.
Doing something new. A sensual inspiring experience.
Heat can be built also simply by being still.
So follow your fire this New Year.
Forget resolutions.
Go for what you burn for.
And if it's something higher, ride the urges to get you along that path towards growth.
This is the tapas of yoga's skillful fire in action. Forget resolutions - feel the yogic fire of desire. Follow it fully. Towards unfoldment.
And who knows... we might just fall in love. We definitely will with ourselves.
Certainly, our meditations and yoga classes just got a lot more interesting.
This is the progression of yoga's natural unfoldment that unifies us with self and other through deep passionate union.
Let me know how it goes....
Burn on,
Susanna
If you are interested in developing your practice deeper, I work with individuals 1 on 1 in distance-learning custom curated yoga programs as well as in-person for Yoga Yoga Teacher Trainings.
More at www.susannabarkataki.com
Susanna writes from the heart, applying yoga and mindfulness to social justice. Learn more at www.SusannaBarkataki.com