by Prajna Lorin Piper

In Buddhism, the brahma viharas, or the four heavenly abodes, are the individual qualities of metta (kindness), compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. These would be the four mind states, if you will, where enlightened beings dwell. They aren’t actually heavenly realms, up in the sky, they’re maybe what we call states of being, where the heavenly beings, figuratively at least, hang out. You can understand the idea that an awakened being doesn’t hang out in mind states of ill will or grasping or agitation or torpor or doubt. They would dwell in the wholesome, the lovely states.

The first one, metta, commonly translated as loving kindness or good will or benevolence or friendliness is the basis for them all, and equanimity, often considered to be the equivalent of nirvana, is referred to as the crown. I once heard someone ask a spiritual teacher how to practice equanimity and the teacher was actually kind of flummoxed. He said maybe, after a while, just by realizing how exhausting it is to be teeter-tottering back and forth between one mood and another, one would give it up and go for balance.

It was interesting to me because I’d often wondered the same thing. If equanimity is the equivalent of nirvana, enlightenment, well, you can’t really tell people precisely how to practice enlightenment. But we can also look at it another way. If metta is the basis for the other qualities, and we all know, without a doubt, what kindness feels like, when it’s present and when it’s not, then we can simply practice kindness. This is both humbling and immediately liberating. We can know what we’re about, in the same way as the Dalai Lama, when he said, “My religion is kindness.”

The other obvious situation for cultivating the brahma viharas is in sitting practice, in meditation. We learn to sit with the unpleasant – the unpleasant sensations, the feelings, the moods and the mental processes – and then we learn to sit with the pleasant sensations, feelings moods and mental processes. And we learn to sit with the neutral. We cultivate an attitude of kindness, of friendliness, and we get more skillful in how we respond to what arises, to meet the unpleasant with compassion and the pleasant with appreciation and to stay balanced with what arises, not to contract or reject or ignore or chase after it.

In Buddhist practice, this is aided by mindfulness and effort, two of the cultivations of the Buddha’s 8 fold path. Wise mindfulness minds and cares – it’s aware of what we’re doing and knows if it’s healthy or unhealthy, if it will lead to more suffering or not. Wise effort is our response to that – we make the effort to abandon the unwholesome and cultivate the wholesome, moment after moment.

In truth, the whole path works together. In my last retreat with Christina Feldman, one of the teachers I admire most, she asked us “Do you have confidence in the cultivation of the lovely qualities as a path to liberation or do you think something else has to happen first?” I know that early in my spiritual practice I definitely thought something else had to happen, and that that metta was just some sort of fluffy side offering to sweeten things up. But as I mature in my practice, I incline more and more to the cultivation of the brahma viharas as a direct path, beginning with kindness.

by Richard Miller, PhD

I first experienced the power of meditation in 1970 during my first-ever yoga class at the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute. I came into that initial class feeling sad, alone, isolated, and depressed and left feeling whole, healthy, joyful and in touch with and not-separate from the Mystery that has given birth to the entire cosmos. This initial glimpse of my essential nature awakened within me an insatiable desire to unravel the process I had just experienced, which I would later learn as Yoga Nidra. My yearning would eventually lead me to study with some of the most renowned teachers in the world and become adept as a teacher of Yoga Nidra, through years of personal practice and guiding thousands of students in its process.

During that first class, I recovered a secret that I now know is open to everyone who is interested in finding true peace of mind and unbreakable and unchanging Equanimity, joy, and well-being that remain undisturbed, free of circumstance or situation. And I know that if I can realize this, so can you. The key to inner peace is not some impenetrable secret. While seemingly obscure, it is actually in plain sight and readily available to you, as the open secret of yoga nidra.

In today’s fast-paced and often chaotic world, cultivating unshakable resilience and a joyful mindset has become more crucial than ever for realizing and embodying unbreakable well-being. Meditation is not just about positive thinking and wishful optimism; it is a powerful tool that can shape our lives, enhance our relationships, and enable us to meet the challenges we face on a daily basis.

Our Innate Wholeness

A core theme in the realm of meditation is the realization, at the outset, that our birthright is, and we can experience at the outset of meditation, an innate felt-sense of wholeness that is beyond lack, need, or want; is incapable of being hurt or harmed; is never in need healing; is always whole and healthy; and is easily recognized and embodied no matter our circumstance. True meditation, such as in the iRest way, introduces us to our wholeness at the beginning, rather than as a goal to be achieved at some future moment. Then we are engaging meditation from our wholeness, rather than meditating to achieve and become whole, which makes a tremendous difference in all that follows as we take up the practice of meditation.

The Mind-Body Connection

Another core theme is the mind-body connection. Research reveals that our thoughts and emotions directly influence our physical health and well-being. By understanding how to meet, greet, listen, and responds to our emotions and thoughts, we can reduce stress, boost our immune system, speed up healing processes, and realize unbreakable peace and well-being. Moreover, meditation fosters our birthright of empowerment and resilience, allowing us to navigate life’s ups and downs with grace and ease.

Shifting Perspectives

Another vital aspect of meditation is the ability to shift perspectives. By reframing negative situations or setbacks as opportunities for growth, we transform challenges into catalysts for personal development. This shift in perspective empowers us to feel in control of our lives and realize valuable lessons in every experience. By focusing on solutions and actions rather than problems, we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities and a creative future.

Nourishing Gratitude and Love

Gratitude and love are powerful practices of meditation. When we nourish gratitude and love, we shift our attention from what is lacking in our lives to what we already have and are. By regularly feeling and nourishing gratitude and love, for big and small everyday blessings, as well as gratitude and love for no reason at all, we invite positivity into our lives. Nourishing gratitude and love strengthens our relationships, improves our mental health, and increases our overall life satisfaction.

Self-Love and Self-Acceptance

Meditation helps us develop a healthy relationship with ourselves. Self-love and self-acceptance play crucial roles in this process. By embracing our strengths and weaknesses, we develop a positive sense of self and self-esteem. When we practice self-compassion, we grow our capacity to be resilient in the face of adversity and realize our birthright of unshakable inner peace.

The Power of Core Statements

Core statements are phrases that we use to inquire into our true state of mind and being. For instance, during meditation we can inquire: “Is it true, I’m safe with myself. I don’t betray myself. I say yes when I mean yes, and no when I mean no. Is this true?” Statements like this help us unearth and heal destructive conditioned patterns and beliefs that lay in our subconscious mind blocking us from feeling our innate wholeness and well-being. By inquiring with core statements, we can overcome self-doubt and build a strong foundation for realizing our true potential as a human being. Core statements are simple, effective tools for realizing unbreakable confidence, esteem, motivation, and well-being.

Nourishing Positivity

The people and environments we surround ourselves with influence our thoughts and attitudes. By consciously choosing to spend time with positive, supportive individuals and communities, we amplify our own positive thinking, motivations, values, and meaning. Additionally, creating an environment that reflects our values and aspirations further enhances our overall resilience and well-being.

Conclusion

In a world where negativity often prevails, embracing the power of meditation, such as in the iRest way, is a transformative choice. By acknowledging the mind-body connection, shifting perspectives, nourishing gratitude, and self-love, utilizing core statement, and surrounding ourselves with positivity, we unlock our full potential as human beings and realize a fulfilling and meaningful life. Remember, meditation is not about denying the challenges of life but rather approaching them from unbreakable resilience, well-being, optimism, and a joyful mindset.

Please join Richard Miller online & in-person  for Living Your Essential Nature: The Integration of Meditation into Daily Life, 1-Day Meditation and iRest Yoga Nidra Workshop on Sat. June 24 @ 10:00 am – 4:30 pm PDT.

Richard C. Miller, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, yogic scholar, and spiritual teacher who has devoted his life to integrating Western psychology and neuroscience with the ancient nondual wisdom teachings of Yoga, Tantra, Advaita, Taoism, and Buddhism. Richard is the founder of iRest Institute, co-founder of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and founding past president of the Institute for Spirituality

and Psychology.

by Louis Mahadev Carlino, MA, LPC, E-RYT 500

Most ancient theories of health and well-being include balance as a core concept. You can think of Yin/Yang in the Chinese system; even in the West, the Greek philosopher Aristotle writes: “Both excessive and deficient exercise ruin bodily strength, and, similarly, too much or too little eating or drinking ruins health, whereas the proportionate amount produces, increases, and preserves it.”

In the Yogic tradition we have the concepts of Ha/Ṭha, which literally translates as Sun/Moon, and corresponds directly with the Yin/Yang of the Chinese system. Ha or Yang is portrayed as masculine, active, warm, energetic, and expansive. It represents the energy of the sun. Ṭha or Yin is characterized as feminine, receptive, dark, cool, soft, still, and contemplative. It represents the energy of the earth and moon.

In all the systems which see balance as a fundamental to well-being, the opposites are not in opposition but work complementarily to create a coherent order. Take a tree, for example. Its roots go down, deep into the earth, absorbing and receiving nourishment from the soil. Without the root system, or its Ṭha aspect, a tree could not branch out fully and expand toward the sky and sun and express its Ha aspect. The two complementing energies allow a tree to be a tree.

The same complementary relationship of Ha and Ṭha plays out in us. Think of the opposing but balancing relationship between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Our mind and body can also be seen as opposites forming a complementary relationship. The mind is Ha in nature and tends to rise to the head. The body is seen as Ṭha and finds its ground through the legs and feet. Although the term we use is ‘mental’ health, the energies of both the mind and body must be balanced for mental health to be well-established. The balance implicit in the very name Ha/ṭha Yoga includes practices that result in balancing and harmonizing the mind and body.

In each of the sections of an Integral Yoga Haṭha practice, from āsana (physical postures) to prāṇāyāma (breathing practices) and culminating in meditation, the principle of mind/body balance is at work. Through the lens of the Integral Yoga Haṭha practice, this article will focus on the potency of Haṭha Yoga to bring the mind and body into alignment. It is a premise of this article that a mind in balance with the body is an essential feature of mental health.

The Dilemma

In the year 2023, what ails most of us is too much mind. Our default is to overthink. Stuck in our heads, we lose connection with the subjectivity of our bodies, and we no longer truly feel our feelings or make direct contact with who we are. Instead, we are left with a mental construction of ourselves, a more rigid, inflexible pseudo self, that overly identifies with how we are perceived by others. This kind of self no longer inhabits or feels connected to the body. Instead, this self relates to the body as an object, something to be seen by ourselves and others, but not internally felt.

Here is an example that illustrates this mindset. Imagine that you’re getting ready for an event. You’re in front of a mirror. Maybe you just blow dried your hair, maybe you’re applying make-up, or just checking out the outfit you’re wearing as it’s reflected back to you. When you relate to your body in this way, you’re experiencing your body as another would experience it, not internally, but from a distance. If you like what you see, being in front of a mirror is a whole lot of fun, and presenting your image to the world is equally exciting. If you’re not as pleased by what you see, the entire experience can be very painful. Whatever the judgement, in this frame of mind, at least for the moment, you’ve become an object to yourself. While it is important to care about how you look and present yourself well in public, if you’re not able to reorient back to yourself as a subject, you will present yourself to the world equally as an object, and likely be treated as an object in return. If this mindset persists, you run the risk of falling victim to being a person defined solely by how the world perceives and judges you (whether that judgement is positive or negative). Your value as a person will then be decided by others, and you’ll lose touch with the direct experience of your own intrinsic worthiness.

If we bring our awareness back into alignment with what our bodies are experiencing moment-to-moment, our sense of self will be embodied and not be just a theory, not just a complicated web of ideas we have about who we think we are. In other words, we’ll feel who we are (intrinsically worthy), and this felt sense of ourselves will be the center out of which we relate to the world. This embodied self will be more adaptive and conscious of the feelings and impulses that arise in response to life’s changing circumstances, and so our choices and actions will be more flexible and be felt as more authentic.

The Resolution

Integral Yoga Haṭha has a reputation of focusing on the internal experience while practicing an āsana and less on the external form. As in the example of the mirror above, the external form is visible and can be seen by others. When we identify with the external form of an āsana, again, we run the risk of becoming an object to ourselves, and to others. We also fall prey to judging our practice by how we appear, and not by the quality of our inner experience.

Most beginners come to Haṭha Yoga more focused on the external. Many more shy away from Yoga altogether because they conclude that they wouldn’t be good at it, meaning they wouldn’t be able to bend forward enough to touch their toes, for example. As beginners are guided and grow in their practice, they learn to draw their awareness inward. As they progress, they gradually become more sensitive to the inner experience of their practice and realize that the true advancement/adventure in Haṭha Yoga is becoming ever more sensitive to this subtler internal dimension.

By going inward, not only is the practitioner able to adjust the external form through the inner feel of an āsana, and truly perfect a pose based on their own unique body, but an entirely new realm of experience opens. In addition to becoming sensitive to muscles stretching or strengthening, or the rate and texture of the breath, or even the quality of thoughts, all of which become apparent when awareness is drawn inward, the practitioner’s sensitivities gradually deepen, and an entirely new and transformational experience of the body occurs. The practitioner comes into direct contact with the experience of aliveness that pervades the body. This experience of aliveness and the body itself become indistinguishable. From this more direct vantage point, the body is no longer experienced as an object but as a field of vital energy, not a solid thing at all. This is the real body; not the body reflected in a mirror, seen in a photo, viewed from the outside, or judged by some external standard imposed by yourself or others.

At this level of experience, the mind is no longer lost in thought, distracted, disconnected from real life, but is now in the same place as the body. In fact, absorbed in this experience, the question of whether you’re experiencing the mind, or the body is not really a valid one. An accurate description here would be that the mind is in the body and the body is in the mind. In other words, they’ve become aligned, and the opposites are not in opposition but blend to form an integral whole.

By turning awareness inward during practice, we sensitize ourselves to inward sources of strength that extend into every aspect of our lives. The experience of aliveness is in essence tapping into the power of Life itself, no different than the power one might intuit through nature; for example, standing before a rushing body of water, or sensing the power visible in a big tree with a big trunk soring upward into the sky. You could say that what connects us to nature is recognizing that the power felt inside us (through our bodies) is in fact the same power that imbues nature with its potency. How could sensitizing ourselves to that power not improve our mental health?

Haṭha Yoga is expertly suited to get us out of our heads and into our bodies. By drawing our awareness inward through Haṭha Yoga practices and shifting into feeling and sensing through subtle body awareness, our thoughts naturally slow down. Shifting into body awareness is a process of letting go of thoughts which are often driving our moods, driving our stress and anxiety, and driving our depression. When we let go of the hold that thinking has on our perceptions and our mood, what remains is the naturally healthy Being that we are. Discovering mental health through Haṭha Yoga is less about discovering our healthy selves through figuring ourselves out and more about that which is revealed to us through a letting go process.

This way of understanding practice is supported by Patañjāli. In his Yoga Sūtras, Book 1, Sūtra 2 he writes, “The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga”. In the very next sutra, he writes, “And the Seer [Self] abides in his own nature”. That’s the formula: quiet our minds and the true worthiness of Reality reveals itself—the same Reality that is the very essence of who we are.

In the same way that we lose ourselves by identifying who we are with our outward appearance and tying in our self-worth to feedback received from others, we also tend to focus on the way other personal attributes and characteristics are judged. Will others think I’m smart, will others think I’m confident, will others think I’m nice? We often become obsessed with fitting in and looking for acceptance. Looking for our value in the judgement of other doesn’t lead to lasting happiness.

The power of Haṭha Yoga is in cultivating an inward focus, a dimension of first-person experience that can’t be seen by others and therefore can’t be judged. It’s a realm of value that doesn’t depend on external validation but is intrinsically worthy. By becoming increasingly sensitive to feeling the body internally through Haṭha Yoga practices, we realize that through body awareness Spirit or the Self is realized. It’s in this realm that ultimate well-being is experienced, and in this realm that we come to realize what is meant by “the body is the temple of God”.

Finally, Integral Yogis are familiar with Swami Śivanānanda’s words, “I am not the body, I am not the mind, immortal Self I am.” It might seem that the ideas presented in this article contradict Master Śivanānanda’s famous words. However, the gist of this article is appreciating that the inner experience of the body is a polar opposite to the body we experience externally. The body we see in a mirror will eventually be a corpse. The body we experience internally is vitality and consciousness itself. Just as inner experience is body and mind melding into one, there is a Light that shines here as well, the Light of pure consciousness or the Self of Śatchidānanda (Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss), the ultimate source of worth and well-being.

Join Louis Mahadev Carlino for Integral Yoga and Mental Health on May 27, 12 – 1:30 pm PT

Louis Mahadev Carlino, MA, LPC is a certified Integral Yoga Teacher with over 1000 hours of training. From 2001 through 2006, Mahadev lived at Satchidananda Ashram—Yogaville where he led Teacher Trainings at all levels. In 2009, he earned a Masters’ Degree in Somatic Counseling Psychotherapy from Naropa University in Boulder, CO. He has developed a style of somatic psychotherapy informed by the teachings of Integral Yoga. Mahadev has led numerous workshops on the healing power of Hatha Yoga, and teaches therapeutic Hatha Yoga classes in Boulder. Mahadev is primarily focused on the body and mind balance in mental health, and the extraordinary potency of Hatha Yoga practices to quiet our minds and deepen our sensitivity to the aliveness and awareness animating our bodies.