Loose Leaf Notes

I finally understand my aversion to jumping on the yoga band wagon.  I checked out yoga in my 20’s when I was reading self-help books and exploring all things new and mysterious.   At that time, I drew what I needed from it, but it did not take in the long term, and I am not interested in it now, although many of my friends are.

In his memoir Balancing Heaven and Earth Jungian analyst Robert Johnson explains that there are four branches of yoga that fit into Jung’s system of typology (Meyers Briggs), but only one of them is commonly known in the west: hatha yoga.   He explains that hatha yoga is a physical yoga of positions that can alter temperature, change heart rate and blood pressure and develop focused attention and control.  It’s best suited for sensing types, of which I am not. 

Also, I am also not a feeling type, which is why bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion to a bhakti master doesn’t appeal to me either.  He writes, “Bhakti yoga takes you to salvation and enlightenment by exercising the feeling function … you pour out devotion and love until everything but the living flame of loves has been extinguished.”  He points out that many Westerners are at home with bhakti yoga because so many have been raised on Christianity, and Jesus is thought to be a high bhaki master by some of the greatest Indian teachers.

As a meditater (currently lapsed but with 12 years of daily practice behind me), and as an intuitive in the Jungian typology, the third type of yoga that Johnson lists is a better fit for me: raja yogs. With raja yoga one meditates or listens as intently as possible, though not to any audible or specific information.  “When the listener finally hears the unhearable and experiences that which is beauty outside the realm of ordinary human consciousness, then he or she has attained enlightenment. Intuitives are delighted with this language and in it find a home for that quality in themselves that the Western world fails to honor,” he writes.

I did TM (transcendental meditation) for six years before my sons were born and Passage Meditation for six years after they were grown.  Although Passage Meditation is not a devotional meditation there is a devotional aspect to it and reading Johnson’s words helped me realize the likely the reason I dropped it after years of practice.  

The next form of yoga Johnson writes about was a revelation to me.  It appeals to Jung’s thinking type, of which I am, and explains a lot about who I am and am not.   In this form of yoga you are “instructed to reason and use intellectual focus until you have reasoned yourself out of the world of illusion.  Not embraced by Westerners, this type of yoga maintains that by through intense concentration of intelligent thought one can pierce through neurotic behavior.   It’s an impersonal disciple that thinking types feel at home with.”  

I’m not sure what the detailed practice of Jana Yoga is and, as one who is mostly averse to discipline practices, I’m not even interested in engaging in it.  But the description of it explains my deep interest in pondering the human psyche and the penetrating quality I bring to writing, which is like a mediation of its own, especially the practice of writing poetry.

I think of books like I think of dreams.  Many are entertaining and many are forgettable. There are only a few are big dreams that reveal insights into realm of the psyche/soul and offer direction.  This book was like one of those big dreams and the above is just one reason why.

 Note: If I was going to do yoga it would be THIS.