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flowartists
Hello, my name is Rane Bowen and this is the Flow Artist Podcast. Every episode my co-host Joe Stewart and I speak with inspiring movers, thinkers and teachers about how they find their flow and much, much more.
I'd like to start by honouring the traditional owners of the unceded land on which this episode was recorded, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Jo and I pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
For today's episode we're speaking with Dave Charlton and Ranju Roy. Dave and Ranju have been practicing yoga since the mid-80s and have been teaching for over 20 years apiece. They teach numerous workshops and have written the book, Embodying the Yoga Sutra, Support, Direction, Space.
The book is written in a clear and concise style which for me really emphasises one of the major goals of yoga, to be able to see the world and ourselves with clarity. In this episode we talk about Dave's background as an engineer and Ranju's background as an art therapist and how they combine their strengths and wealth of knowledge to teach these practices in an accessible, authentic and grounded way.
Alright that's enough from me, let's get into our conversation with Dave and Ranju.

All right, Well, thank you so much for speaking with us today all the way over from the UK or at least virtually, so perhaps we could start with you both introducing yourselves and telling us how you both discovered yoga and how you met?

Ranju Roy
Okay, ah well we coincidentally met at the same residential summer school when I think I was I think I was 23 and maybe Dave was 22 I don't know and we were...


David Charlton
Yeah, that's right? yeah.


Ranju
I was living in Bristol in the UK and I was doing a lot of Iyengar yoga, I'd never heard of Desikachar, well I'd never done any yoga in the tradition of Desikachar and I saw a advert I saw an advert for a summer residential in 19... I think it was eighty six or eighty seven, I can't remember, for summer residential with somebody called Paul Harvey who was Desikachar's only student in the Uk at that time and I was kind of intrigued I knew that Desikachar was Iyengar's nephew. So I've been doing all this Iyengar yoga. So I just kind of rocked up there, and met this very studious young man who was making lots of notes in his Light on Yoga book. So I met Dave there and and yeah I was very young I was 23 and met Paul Harvey my you know, both of our teachers for a long time and Dave there.

David
yeah and I yeah I mean I think for for me, I was studying at university in Bath the city of Bath, in the Uk and for some reason, I actually don't quite know why I just decided that I'd like to...

David
do some yoga and I just looked for a local yoga class and it just happened to be Paul Harvey who was the the teacher that Ranju was talking about and so I just really fell into Paul's clutches purely by chance really. And then went on that retreat and and met Ranju and um, we didn't we didn't say much to each other on that retreat did we as I remember?

Ranju
I remember though I'm going the pub with Mike Young but way off, thinking what are we doing here?
What are we doing because it was pretty strange. Everybody else was 25 years older than us and a woman I mean you know middle aged women were mainly the you know there were these like 3 young guys.
So it was kind of a bit unusual for us to to be there really? Um, but it really fired me up, it was working. It was great. It was great.

flowartists
And and I guess what what was it about that experience that did really fire you up?

Ranju
For me it was I had been doing a yoga, I basically started yoga, I mean my grandfather, I'm half Indian but I've been brought up in England. So my Indian grandfather was really keen on yoga. I remember going to India in about 1987, something like that when I was about 20 and I was sharing a bedroom with my Indian grandfather.
I remember like the second day that I was in India, it was the first time I'd been in India since, you know, since I was very young. And I was sharing a bedroom I was sleeping on the floor and I remember waking up at about 4 or five five o'clock in the morning and kind of peering out of my sleeping bag and seeing my five foot one grandfather in shoulderstand at five thirty I was thinking "what the hell? what's that about?"
I thought "oh now I've got to go back to sleep" so I went back to sleep.
But he was he was very interested in yoga and was very interested in philosophy and one of the things about Paul's teaching for me was that and the approach. But Desikachar was very very coherent and introduced philosophy in a very practical manner so it wasn't like doing like gym and then philosophy like two different different classes.

Ranju
The way that the philosophy was integrated into the physical work that we doing that we were doing and the breath work was very, very coherent I think.

David
Yeah, I'd echo a lot of that actually in the sense that there is something about the coherence of the whole system and this was the first time really on on this retreat that I appreciated that. Certainly within this approach. You can pretty much explain the reasons why you know why we're doing what we're doing. It was kind of the first time where I really had an explanation for "oh this is why you do this?" This is how you structure the practice. This is the way that we would develop things and this is why you do this breathing, etc, etc and that for me was compelling actually, that that actually I had reasons and that there was seemed to be a structure to what we would do and it wasn't it wasn't random. You know and that really appealed to me I think, ah yeah, I agree.


Ranju
Um, or because I told you or because I told you this is what the this is what we do.

flowartists
and yeah yeah and I've and I believe that you're um, an engineer actually Dave, like a software engineer, and trained as a mechanical engineer and I know that Desikachar is famously also an engineer and a yoga teacher and it seems to be um, there's actually quite a few other engineers that I've met who do yoga. Do you think there's something about that type of problem solving brain that is really led to this very logical coherent structure of teaching?

David
Yeah I do, I mean, I think for Desikachar in the way that he presented a number of the principles and certainly the kind of system of practice planning that we use.

David
I Think that a lot of that came out of his engineering background. I mean I don't know that for sure. But I think it did, and this whole business of of drawing the practices in terms of the the little stick people you know I'm sure you've seen these these these drawings these little line drawings. But he's really Desikachar. I Think you you first started doing that and and I suspect that came from his engineering background. Also so I think it's never been said explicitly. But I suspect it did have a big influence on the way that he presented things.

flowartists
And you're coming from a really different background Ranju because I believe that you're an art therapist and I'd kind of love to hear about how your creative side kind of is expressed through your yoga teaching and practice and then flowing on from that like, how your 2 different brains work together to do what you do.

Ranju
Well I think one thing I'd say is that you know coming from an Indian, you know my father is Indian, my father is an Indian engineer so he actually reminded me a bit you know like all good Indian boys...

flowartists
The engineer Gene is strong in you as well.

Ranju
My Dad Well but you know my dad basically wanted me to be ah, an engineer or a doctor or failing that um, a lawyer. Ah an art therapist... "What the hell is that?" you know.
I mean that didn't go doubt that you know that took a bit of...convincing. So I studied art, English literature and art.
How does it link him with my dad, has long since to come to terms with my lack of engineering it seems, but I do have you know, I also have a kind of logic but you know I have um, not completely...logical if you like. So is this it is a similar kind of thing that attracted me. Ah, how does the creative, well I would say that although Desikachar's approach and the approach of this style of yoga or this approach to yoga is very logical and is very consistent and kind of rational and that's compelling.
But I think really importantly, that's not all of it really?
That's not all of it and there is a huge aspect of yoga which is gone and not understandable through formulae. You can't keep up have a formula for silence. Do you hear what I read or for that I'm going to put it in air quote you know that mystical aspect of yoga and you know that okay I'm good. Here's a thing which comes to mind the syllable Om the syllable Om is made up of those 3 sounds and those 3 sounds are are said to be all that kind of that you can represent that there. That you can talk about they're the things that you can talk about but always the way we were taught was that always there's a silence after Om. So when you say "Om Shanti" there's "Om Shanti Shanti" there's always a silence after um and that silence is part of the actual, it's part of this the syllable.
I hope this doesn't sound too pretentious but the idea is that there's a mystical aspect that silence represents what cannot be represented or talked about or described. Maybe there's something of you know the engineer really covers the oh may that I don't know whether you agree with that Dave?

David
I mean it's certainly true and that and and this was particularly true for for both of us in in the sense that we have spent a lot of time working with one of Desikachar's students. Peter Hersnack and I think one of the things that Peter really did was to bring in the the whole idea of bhavana sort of creative, visualization, if you like a kind of meditation, and ah I think I mean it was always there.

David
But I think that he he really opened the doors for us into that whole arena and and that arena takes us into the the world of sort of imagery, imagination, visualization, creativity. So along with the the the rigor, there is this other side which as Ranju sort of suggested it's more the mystical side of what we're doing, rather than well "after you do uttansana we do this" or you know it's much more...

David
It's the slightly more esoteric and it's the important bit in a way. It is the important bit. Actually I think, yeah.

Ranju
I loved the idea you know with bhavana you know one of the ideas of bhavana is that the the word literally means an instrument of becoming it's ah it's a focus or ah, an image or ah, um, an idea. Which enables you to inhabit a posture in a particular way so you could have a bhavana of reaching up to the sun or a bhavana of being a warrior or whatever it is. You know whatever image. I think that bhavana rather than it being a direct instruction to raise your arms and push your front knee forward or something like that, if you have a bhavana at this this a poetic image it it enables a kind of a creative response, an individual creative response that enables you to inhabit your yoga, yeah, it enables you to embody your yoga in in a unique and creative way. I remember doing a retreat with Dave, you know, we did a retreat together twenty years ago probably, we were teaching a retreat together. One of the bhavanas that we were, that Dave used, was we were just sitting. We were all sitting at the end of a practice and Dave said imagine that you are already enlightened that there is nothing left to do. That's a bhavana that was that's a creative invitation to play to explore in a particular way and it's really powerful. I think it it it really changes one's yoga practice from being primarily structural, or a little bit mechanical, to engaging a creative aspect to our of ourselves.

flowartists
Beautiful and I guess it's relatively uncommon for um, two people to write together. Um, So how? how do you write? How does this partnership work and and what sort of advantages do you guys think it brings?
I see sort of a little bit of laughter happening...

Ranju
Many ways of answering that question. Well you know one thing and I've thought about this a lot, is that I'm actually a twin. I'm a twin, so I have a twin brother. One of the things of having a twin brothe, and you know sharing a womb and then sharing a room and then being you know and having ah having our names which rhyme with each other - Ranju and Sanju, you know, you know the boys, the twins. That's how we were as we were growing up and I think one of the things that arises from that experience is that we were always defined kind of both as together and in relationship to one another. So one of the one of us was sporty, one of us was not sporty. One of us was musical. You know you, there's this so they kind of contrast, it and in a sense we did a little bit of that, even with the engineer and the artist that kind of thing. Because it's not like I am some kind of you know, post-impressionist diva going off doing art all the time and and and Dave is Mr. Mechanic because Dave is very very creative as well. But I think I guess working together, and knowing each other for so long I do think of Dave as something of ah of another one another twin in a sense, and I think we work really creatively together. We have different strengths.
I think for the student, the experience of a student is that they, I have the idea that students have more of a binocular vision, in as much as you get two perspectives and I think those two perspectives are often very complementary but slightly different and in having two perspectives.

David
Um, yeah.

Ranju
I Think you get a richer 3D image.

David
Yeah I mean one of the reasons I smiled is because everybody asked us that question. And I think it worked actually very well, I mean I mean we we essentially we divided the the book up into chapters, so we did start out doing separate sections. But I think because we work together for such a long time and we've done so many retreats and training courses together, we kind of know the sort of things we're going to say. It's not as if um, one of us is going to say something completely outrageous that the other one's never heard before. I mean it's highly unlikely that that's going to happen, so we did kind of we did kind of divvy it up to begin with and then we kind of I suppose together read through the bits that we that we'd each done.

David
Um, and it became an opportunity to really sort of critique it, if you like to change it a little bit to ask the question "Well I don't you know what you mean by that?" or or in some cases "Well I don't see it like that" and and actually I think that worked really well actually. Ah so I don't I didn't think it was a particular problem in fact, actually it felt like quite a natural thing to do but but I think part of that was because we've done such a lot of things over the years together
Would would you agree with that Ranju?

Ranju
Actually yeah yeah, it was like having a great editor. You know somebody who... yeah in terms of the book. Yeah, very much so, very much so you get it.

flowartists
I definitely get a kind of egalitarian aspect to your teaching, like I think you mentioned earlier that you're not the kind of teachers who tell people to believe something just because "I say so" and I think it probably helps that this two of you, so there's already different points of view and multiple perspectives and just branching out further, like when I was researching for this episode I listened to a couple of other podcasts and 1 thing that really stood out to me as something to chew over in my own brain was a reference to Desikachar quoting Thich Nhat Hanh which is the quote that "the next Buddha will be the sangha".

flowartists
Would you like to elaborate on that idea a bit more?

Ranju
Um, Desikachar in 1998, I think it was a group of 12 of us who were Paul Harvey's at that time. Most you know I'm going to again, put it in air quotes senior students from the UK had done what was called a postgraduates Diploma. So I think I think 12 of us went to India at that time and I remember when we were getting our certificates at the end of two weeks in in Madras as it was called then Desikachar quoted Thich Nhat Hanh with that with those lines "the future Buddha is th sangha" my feeling at that time was that Desikachar, this is conjecture but my feeling is that Desikachar was concerned that the too much power in any one individual causes problems and we've seen...

Ranju
In our you know in Desikachar tradition as well as in many other traditions, problems that have occurred where a single teacher has well, I don't know, you know what I'm going to say you know it's about abusing their position, abusing their power, etc, etc. And I think even in 1998 there had already been problems and of course those problems have multiplied or have been exposed more in the last twenty years and I think that Desikachar felt that there was, I remember him saying something like "the era of the single great person is over", something along those lines and perhaps there was an invitation to work more creatively together as groups, which would have the effect of ameliorating any tendency for one person to kind of grow too big for their boots, or to become too... to have too much power centered on them. I think that's what he was talking to. I don't know the context of Thich Nhat Hanh saying that. But I do remember very clearly Desikachar saying that and I do think that was what was um I think he was troubled by the amount of power that certain individuals had within the yoga community and he wanted to develop groups of people.
In fact, Dave and I working together we call it Sadhana Mala and the idea is that sadhana is practice but Mala is a garland, and there's something about just having a community you know a community feeling, a garland and not having all the power centered in one person or one figure. I don't know what you want to say Dave, over to you...

David
Well, I'd just like to say, I think that another thing for us was that, perhaps putting words into your mouth Ranju, but both of us would see ourselves as being um, fairly normal sort of people with with um, no with with like with the normal range of you know humans flaws and defects and and certainly for me, I don't, I wouldn't feel happy to be in a situation of...

flowartists
You're not seeing yourself as the next Buddha?

David
Um, putting myself on some kind of Pedestal. You know to pretending that I've somehow got everything sorted out because I definitely haven't. I mean I think it's a delicate one because I think as a yoga teacher you do have to be prepared to, to you know, assuming that you've got some good experience and understanding. You do have to be prepared to say "this is how I think it is" and I was going to say sometimes you have to say "no, that's not right? You know this isn't the way that that I understand yoga tradition". So I think there are times, There are times as a yoga teacher where you have to be prepared to to to stand up and and assume authority, indeed, but a very human level I kind of feel we're pretty ordinary really. You know, in that standpoint of view, like I wouldn't feel that comfortable with with taking on too elevated a position.

Ranju
But there is a little, there is a little kind of dilemma there. I Think as a fine line to walk because if we're just, if we're just completely normal if we could just get you know? Well why would anybody come and study with us?
You know what? I mean there's that there's that fine line between okay we have done some stuff and we but we're not setting ourselves up as any any kind of guru thing and I think working together is a little sangha in a sense. It's a little sangha. It's a little community.

David
Yeah it does. It's very helpful, I think when you're when you're teaching and particularly handling groups of people and inevitably you know within a groups of people there'll be people who are perhaps a little bit more difficult or a little bit more difficult for us as individuals and so it's very helpful to have at least one other person as a sounding board. I mean I think it's kept doing certainly the the training courses, I think it's kept to sane to have somebody else to kind of sound things. You know as a sounding board and also to to to sort of discuss things with and so I think that's been very helpful actually.

flowartists
And I think what you're saying as well of the dual sense of having that little bit more responsibility but also knowing that we're all just people is really true, because everyone else is paying to be there and you are being paid to be there and everyone else is really only responsible for their own wellbeing and their own safety. But as the teacher you have that extra responsibility for the whole group, like everyone's wellbeing, everyone's safety and as well everybody getting something.
from your training and feeling like it's helpful and beneficial and I don't think that is necessarily putting yourself on a pedestal. It's just kind of acknowledging that there is a power differential in this relationship and um, part of that is like for everyone's benefit really.

David
Yeah, absolutely yeah, absolutely. I think as a yoga teacher or trainer, you have to accept that, you know, and have to be prepared to to embody that for sure.

flowartists
And like like what you're saying if there's like a bit of a challenging difficult person in the group. Ah you have a responsibility for that person so that they get what they need from the training but also for everyone else there so that their experience isn't derailed. By this one particular person.

David
Yeah, absolutely and to acknowledge that, so often when we find people difficult it often says as much about us as it does about them and and the actually other perhaps co-teachers might find it easier to deal with those people.

Ranju
Um, completely.

David
So I yeah I think the whole but the whole business of handling a group being a teacher. It's a big thing actually, and I and I think it's difficult to get the balance right? I think it is a thin, you know, there's a line to walk as Ranju said, that's a little delicate at times.

flowartists
And actually it kind of brings to mind the title of your book which is Embodying the Yoga Sutras: Support, Direction and Space because that sounds like what we're talking about here, supporting people, kind of guiding the direction, the flow of thought and also giving people their own individual space within that. But I know actually that's not what that title is based on, it's based on the gunas and I'd love to hear your explanation of it.

Ranju
Well, it's just a master key. It's the master key for everything those three words put together are so, you mean you've used them in a particular context and it completely works. So many people who don't know very much about yoga when you say you're a yoga teacher when you talk about yoga or why they can't do yoga. The whole emphasis is on flexibility isn't it. They say "oh I can't do yoga because I'm stiff" or "oh you must be really flexible" that sort of thing and I think one of the really important messages that we try to get across in our teaching is that before flexibility, you just need stability. So this word about psychological stability, physical stability, emotional stability. These are the these are the kind of qualities that we are aiming to cultivate through our practice of yoga. And I think we could say that having done a practice of yoga most of the time you feel a little more centered and a bit more stable. So this stability links to the Sanskrit words stira which is "Stiram Suhkam Asanam", qualities of asana - stability and ease. But this quality of stability has something to do with support. So How do we cultivate Support?
How do we engage with our support?
What supports do we have available etc at a physical level, at an emotional level, at all sorts of levels?
And it's only through engaging creatively and authentically with a support that a good direction gets revealed. I think that's real. That's such a that's that's worth considering, that's worth thinking about a lot. I mean sometimes if you're standing on two skateboards. It's really difficult to get a direction if you're taking support on two skateboards, if you have a creative relationship with one skateboard. And you can engage with that one skateboard, a good deal direction can reveal itself. Dave do you push off?

David
And yeah I was just thinking. Yeah, you push off, don't you?
With the the one foot you use the support of the earth, or the ground to push you off and and away you go!
I would think the first thing to say perhaps, is that this formulation of support, direction, space is not ours. It it came from Peter Hersnack who as I say was one of Desikachar's longtime students who sadly passed away a few years ago. But one of the things that Peter said was that he felt he had a kind of eureka moment you know like um when the Apple falls and and and and his view which I increasingly...

Ranju
On on Newton's head.

David
Start to appreciate is that this idea of taking support in order to find a direction and to create a more spacious experience is something that he realized or what he felt was an essential principle that applies to. Pretty much all of the practices of yoga whether it be asana, the pranayama or meditation but also in the way that we understand and view the world. See if you know, in terms of accurate perception in terms of how we conduct our relationships. And so it it it does seem to be um, a principle that you can apply very very generally. Actually it takes a little bit of decoding. We do appreciate that the words support direction support and direction. They're not the most immediately understandable words you know or phrases.
It's like they they have a certain sense and you have to chew on them for a while. I remember the first time we encountered them via Peter we will, you know, many of us there who went on that particular retreat where we first first met Peter. Um, we've been doing yoga a long time and he started using all this terminology such as support, direction. We were kind of scratching our heads but actually the more you chew on it the more you begin to appreciate what's meant by it and how that, how widely it can be applied.

Ranju
Yes, support isn't just about being nice to each other. It wouldn't be supportive if...

David charlton
I no no, that's right it's not, and I and I think actually to understand the practice of yoga as taking support is actually which is one of the things that we discuss in the book. It is an incredibly useful way to understand what the practice of yoga is about you know, and again if you're listening to this for the first time what you know what does taking support mean you might be thinking "well sounds a little bit of an awkward phrase" but again, if you start to really unpick it, and you go into it and you start to meditate on it, I suppose you begin to appreciate that. It's such a good description of the yoga process which is essentially a process where we we choose something to engage with.

David
And through that engagement we get something back. Something is something is opened up in us if you like and I think that is basically essence of what the yoga method is you know we pick all sorts of different techniques, or methods but they all involve essentially in engaging with something, giving ourselves to something whether it be a breathing practice or meditation practice and um, allowing it to really touch us. That's the idea of taking support.

Ranju
Opening opening up to what is coming back. That's really important as well.

David
Yeah, yeah.

flowartists
And I'm really enjoying where you're going with this and to cycle back to something that you mentioned a little bit before a big part of our yoga practice as well is to clear the lens. And I love that you open with this as the ultimate yoga sutras shortcut in your book and I'm just going to quote you quickly "So the purpose of yoga is to clear the lens so that we encounter the world fully in the present just as it is without distraction or distortion. We could somewhat creatively say that the whole of the yoga project is encapsulated in this very first word of the Yoga Sutras - Atha being completely present and aware of what i"s and I remember this from my yoga teacher training and I had a bit of a think about that because that was almost twenty years ago, and I still feel like I only really see the distortions when I've moved past them, so when you kind of have that realization of like "oh that's what happened there".
I'd love to know your thoughts about getting more present so that we can see those distortions in the present moment and make better decisions and how about when we notice them and then we still continue in that habitual pattern anyway, have you got any thoughts around that process?

Ranju
I think the the first thing is to take some time take some time. There's you know, the power of the exhalation is really important I think because the way that we've worked with yoga is very breath oriented and I think that inhale and the exhale have different...they evoke different things, and for me the exhalation is about coming back to the center. It's not about getting rid of stuff. It's about coming back to my center and then the inhalation is about opening up to the possibilities. So every single exhalation has the potential to draw back. Well actually to clear the lens actually but to clear the lens to some extent. So the first thing is exhale, exhale slowly and just take some time just take some time...

Ranju
I think that does good things to the nervous system, and therefore the mind, so exhaling is a good place to start to come into the present, a lot of times. I was thinking that the the way we punctuate inhales and exhales is really really significant because if you think of a single breath, as inhale get stuff in and then exhale let it go. That's very different from thinking about exhale return to yourself find support. You know exhale is about bringing you back to your support about creating firmness in the abdomen and kind of just clearing the way and then that leads you to experience of opening on the inhale. So if you think about exhale first and then inhale rather than inhale first and then compensate with the exhale it's a very different experience. So I don't know whether that makes any sense but so in in terms of coming into the present. Exhale first.

flowartists
I Think that is a.. I was just going to say I think just taking that moment to respond rather than to react and just taking that beat can be really powerful.

David
Yeah I think it's very, I mean that's a very deep question actually, that you're asked in terms of observing you know, beginning to observe patterns. But then asking a question 'why do we continue to to carry on. In the same in the same manner?' and I think that's a very tricky issue, because we need to appreciate that from the yoga point of view at least, it acknowledges that we have these patterns within us. We call them Samskara, which are activated repeatedly and if we're not careful, become almost like automatic behaviours and I suppose.
I'm going to take a slightly different tack around you actually, which is that as I'll come back to yoga sutra and the second chapter. The yoga sutra which is really the the chapter which has got all of the the very practical stuff in. You might say begins with the word tapas and I think I tapas is an incredibly important idea in our practice.

David
Whenever I talk about this I always feel a little bit kind of guilty, because'm I'm not the most disciplined of people habitually, put it that way, by nature. But the idea of tapas really is about observing certain boundaries and actually being prepared to either do something on a regular basis say, or indeed not do something on a regular basis. Even when it goes against your natural inclination.
It's like you're prepared to sort of set up a boundary and then stay with it. It's an example of a support. Actually, you know we put a support in place which is like a boundary and then we we stick with it and I think this is a really important principle in yoga.
I don't think always people appreciate that that part of the practice of yoga really involves being prepared to not necessarily do what you most naturally feel like doing, and you know I see this in all sorts of different contexts even in just a regular class, when you when you see people up standing at the beginning of the class. You know part of the idea is to start without the intense, but to you know, just to be still.. It's not naturally and it's not our natural inclination and you see students all fidgeting and looking around and all the rest of it and actually part of the practice is to say "No, I'm going to be still even though my body wants to fidget and move" and it's a fine line obviously because we think we're not seeking to be tense and and awkward about that. But actually there's something about "can I allow myself to be still even if there is that inclination to do to do otherwise". And I think that principle is really important within the context that you're talking about. You know there are certain habits and behaviours that once we've identified them you have to kind of say "now I'm not going to do that" and have the awareness to catch it when...

Ranju
Do you know what? this reminds me of something that Paul said years and years ago and it's interesting because because of the title of your podcast that it's kind of going with the flow and it's you know and the double-edged sword of going with the flow is at times I think going with the flow is absolutely the right thing to do, and at other times you've got to go against the flow.
You've got to go upstream and you've got to resist your natural tendencies and to have to have the discrimination to know "is this a good thing for me to be doing or is this just my own patterns acting out in particular ways which are not necessarily helpful?"
So understanding how to navigate the flow if you I remember Paul saying sometimes "if you go with the flow you end up in the doldrums" or whatever you know you get stuck in your own patterns if you just go with the flow.
So sometimes you have to resist the flow but at other times you've absolutely got to go with the flow but navigating those currents, it requires discrimination and discernment I should say.

flowartists
And I think as well just with the whole idea of the flow state like you need that tapas and that discipline to do something that is slightly a bit too challenging and practice it lots of times to hit that sweet spot where you are really in the flow with it.

Ranju
100%

David
Yeah, absolutely absolutely yeah.

flowartists
So another one that's been um, on my mind since Yoga school. It was a concept that didn't really sit with me then, so I'd love your thoughts now and it's Ishvara Pranidhana and the translation I Remember from my teacher training was "surrender to the divine" or like a more secular take "being unattached to the outcome of a particular action" would you like to share your interpretation? and also please correct my Sanskrit pronunciation...

Ranju
Ishvara Pranidhana. I think you, we, can think about each Ishvara Pranidhana and the term comes up really 3 times or in 3 parts of the yoga sutras. It comes up as part of kriya yoga right? at the beginning of chapter 2 then it comes up later on in chapter 2 of the yoga sutras as part of the Niyama and then it comes in chapter one where it's quite a lot in the middle of a chunk of sutras which talks about Ishvara. So how that Ishvara Pranidhana is presented and how we can understand them can be thought of in 3 different ways. Really so it's made up of 2 words Ishvara and Pranidhana. Ishwara is like um the highest principle, I mean you know in a feudal in a feudal context. Ishvara is the lord is the feudal lord it's the kind of top bod now that's translated as god often and it is often Ishvara is another name for one of the gods is the name for Shiva and Ishvara is often talked about as as a deity or something. But if you think about it as the highest principle. It doesn't link it to a theistic it doesn't necessarily link it to a theistic interpretation and Pranidhana has... it evokes something of a laying down or surrendering, not a subjugation but what would you say Dave? Ah, ah, an opening to an opening to...

David
Yeah, yeah.

Ranju
To the highest principle. Desikachar, I think translated Ishvara Pranidhana as acknowledging that we're not necessarily the masters of our own lives. So the masters of our own destiny. You know things happen that we could do what we can do. And then something happens and you think "well that's not what, I wasn't planning on that" and the ability to kind of accept that and open to that is one form of Ishvara Pranidhana but it can go all the way from you kind of cultivating something of the attitude of pranidhanna to life, the attitude of opening to life to to whatever the circumstances are. It can go at one end of the spectrum we can think of Ishvara Pranidhana like that, and at the other end of the spectrum it can be a real full on devotional practice which is theistic, so how you interpret Ishvara Pranidhana is you know, there's a broad spectrum I would say.

David
Um, I think the term Pranidhana is really important in a way. It's that attitude of um of trusting, of opening up to something.
To appreciate that we're not the boss. I remember there was one particular retreat that Desikachar repeatedly would ask the question would in connection with this idea of Ishvara Pranidhana. He would say "it's about appreciating. We're not the boss". He said, used to say, that was an expression. He used, I ah think from that point of view, I think it's that's the attitude, that's important and again it's taking support. It's just taking the ultimate support if you like the support on life or itself or on the divine or on. However, you want to understand that I was just a bit curious when you when you asked the question you said one of the things that you were I can't remember exactly what what you said? Jo, things from your teacher training that you weren't so...

flowartists
Yeah I can unpack that a bit more for you. There were some things like say the lens through which you see the world that I automatically was like yes "I'm going to keep working with this. This is really going to help me understand the world and understand myself" and maybe because the particular lecturer who was taking us through the Ishvara Pranidhana section was very devotional and very bhakti and...

David
Um, yeah.

47:57.58
flowartists
I kind of I get the idea from the Bhagavad Gita to like do things to do your best. Don't necessarily just do things because you want something in return, and your life will ultimately be unsatisfying if you're are only doing something for a reward versus a way to create a more meaningful life could be to just do your best and to do what you know feels right in your heart. But the idea of doing something and then surrendering it didn't feel helpful to me because I feel like doing something to be immersed in the process, or doing something because it feels meaningful was more resonant to me and it felt more helpful for me, so that one and also bhamacharya, were two of the yoga sutra concepts that are just like "well I'm just going to file those away for later and work with the ones that are really feeling helpful for me right now."

David
Ah, yeah, you know, I think it's quite common actually to think when you first meet it and particularly dare I say when we're a little bit younger, the the the idea of Ishvara Pranidhana doesn't necessarily, how can I put it? stand out and but I remember Desikachar said he felt that if if you practiced sincerely over a long period of time. He said ishvararanidana is inevitable consequence I've probably changed his words slightly I think he actually used the term bhakti but I've kind of slotted in Ishvara Pranidhana and I kind of do wonder whether it's something that actually grows in us, and I don't know how you might relate to that concept now, you know perhaps compared to where you were say twenty years ago. I mean I know, certainly I suppose, perhaps I'm objecting a bit of my own story here. But I feel this concept has more of a life or there's more meaning for me as I've got a little bit older, and actually you begin to realize that you know, your part in the grand scheme of things isn't perhaps quite so great as we might have thought when we were 25

Ranju
There are a couple, I agree at table but there are also a couple of other things that really struck me in that conversation in that in that discussion one was the way you translate Sanskrit words is really really important. So when if you're being taught, if you're being told this means "devotion to God", I mean, or "surrender to God" they're very heavy English words which evoke certain responses. That's not Ishvara Pranidhana. I mean that's because Ishvara Pranidhana is Ishvara Pranidhana. Devotion to God or surrender to God - they're different words they evoke different responses within us so that was the first thing and Brahmaracharya equals celibacy. Well celibacy equals you know evokes certain words, Brahmaracharya does not mean celibacy.

Ranju
You know if you unpack the literal meaning of the words. That's not what it means. What words come, like snowballs they kind of pick up stuff and they, you know, and and that means that we're really seeing a lot of stuff rather than the word itself. So that's the first thing to say. And the second thing to say just to pick up on some stuff that Dave was talking about there about how you might grow into Ishvara Pranidhana and um, whilst whilst Dave was talking, whilst you were talking, I was thinking about things like gratitude the idea of gratitude and the idea of, you know, Dave said "taking support" and I was thinking about like taking support on reality like this is how it is and I'm gonna accept that and I'm not gonna, it's not about becoming passive in relation or, you know, or um passive or or resigned to how things are but it is about accepting how things are and even maybe cultivating some gratitude for that. Maybe.

Ranju
And then seeing what kind of space and potential that opens up for you and I know that there are many things in life which we might not be grateful for or we might find it difficult to accept. But I think the first part of engaging with them is some kind of creative acceptance of the reality. And maybe there's a flavor I'm not I'm not saying that that that's what Ishvara Pranidhana is I'm not even saying that that's what potentially said it is but in terms of understanding Ishvara Pranidhana as a concept for now, perhaps that's a creative way of thinking about it.

Ranju
Cultivating acceptance and gratitude to how things are and I think we talked about in the book. We used a phrase of Peter's which was "trust in life" and really in order to trust something, in order to take support on something you need to trust it, you need to trust that it's not going to fall apart if you lean on it or that it's going to carry you and you've got to trust it sufficiently that you're open to what it gives back and I think trust in life again, it's a... it's a phrase which needs a little bit of unpacking but it absolutely links to the concept of support, and a creative response to life and life's ups and downs does that make sense?

flowartists
Definitely and it seems very in tune with the phrase itself. It's like there's not a clear definitive answer here and you can't go reaching for it too hard. You just have to like be open to it to reveal itself over time. One of those times where you kind of have to go with the flow and take a breath.

David
Um, yeah, yeah, absolutely you do, but that's very true. Actually yeah, yeah.

flowartists
And so while we're on the theme of my unfinished, my unanswered questions from yoga teacher training. Can we dig a bit more into Brahmacharya because I absolutely got the sense that it was celibacy and also a bit of not being too into the central pleasures of life in general.

David
Okay I think, I think, you know if you look up Brahmacharya in popular Sanskrit dictionary you will get that meaning. | I mean I mean it is a common meaning for Brahmacharya but we really um. As Ranju suggested if you really unpick the words it means something like moving within or moving towards Brahma. So the absolute. So within the context of Brahmacharya the the stage of life of Brahmacharya, which really was the the stage of studentship and the idea was to stay focused on that which was most important, and in the traditional Vedic world as it were, then what's most important within the ah the time of Brahmacharya is to focus on one's studies and ones understanding of the principles of the Veda, the principles of yoga for example, so, it was really about maintaining one's focus. So we often translate Brahmacharya as maintaining your priorities because that's actually what it is, it's about directing and channeling your energy and vitality and in that sense we can think about Brahmacharya as being about staying focused if you like, not dissipating your energy unwisely.

David
That takes it out, it makes it much more general is not and it's not necessarily about celibacy or sexuality. It's it's about acknowledging that actually as human beings we have a certain vitality and energy that we can bring to things. And it's very easy for us to dissipate it, and to become distracted and for me I think that's essentially what Brahmacharya means. It also acknowledges that our sexual energy and our sexual desires are very very strong forces within us.

Ranju
There's an intimate link between semen, breathing and mental stuff, you know within the yoga literature and there's a lot of emphasis on containment. So I think within certain strands of yoga. There's ah, there's an emphasis on containing the breath and holding the breath. In the same way there's a lot of emphasis on containing semen and you know and not dissipating it as Dave will say and chitta vritti nirodha, containing our mind, containing our thoughts. So, those three things are quite intimately linked particularly in Tantric perspectives, so Brahmacharya linking to celibacy, it kind of has flavors of holding the breath in, like Kumbaka, you know holding things in, not letting, but as Dave said it links to this idea of moving towards Brahma. Charya, Brahmacharya - the charya part of that links to the English word chariot. So it's kind of moving Brahma Chariot moving to the highest principle and in order to move to the highest principle, you don't want to be leaking. If you kind of leaking your energies or your thoughts or your sexual, you know whatever, so it's about containing. So I kind of, we use this term as maintaining we think about it as maintaining our boundaries or...

Ranju
Maintaining our priorities, not getting distracted. That's the way with Brahmacharya.

David
Yeah I, I mean was thinking about one particular student who would get lost in their work and it would take them over. It was a very creative, engaged in a very creative sort of occupation.
And they would get completely lost in it, in this work to the extent that it kind of dominated. Dominated everything and then it started to deplete them and then they would become exhausted and then they would have to stop, and then that same thing would happen again. It would be a pattern. In a way the way I would see that, I would see that, that's an issue of Brahmacharya because it's not actually keeping one's boundaries about it.

Ranju
So sex is an example of that isn't it. It's an example of that or a subset of that wider...

David
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's kind of much more practical. So I don't whether that helps, that that's kind of some of the ways that I would understand Brahmacharya.

flowartists
And I think um one of the things that was losing me at the time which kind of resurfaced in your explanation. It seems kind of like a male centric view like we're talking about semen we're talking about aiming our Chariot and I kind of felt like there was maybe a bit of um patriarchy in the texts that I was reading and a bit of control and a bit of "women are just going to distract you from your spiritual path" and kind of cutting out a big section of the population who are human beings in their own right. So I think there was a bit of a ah buttons getting pushed in my brain with that one.

Ranju
Well, whether or not the origin, you know whether or not the originators of these expressions and terms and ideas felt that or not, I mean we just don't know. I mean probably they did let's face it, but whether they did or not who knows. But certainly the history of yoga has been dominated by a lot of masc.. you know? There are lots of texts which say basically that women are distractions. Women, gold, food. Sex, Gold, food for them, you know all that it's all distraction. Get over it. There's also this idea that you know, Purusha and Prakriti there. There can be this idea that Purusha is basically masculine, Prakriti is feminine. Which is a polarity and and and that's fine, but it can be interpreted that you know it's all about Purusha, we want to be all about Purusha and Prakriti full of all the nasty horrible squidgy horrible dirty stuff which we want to transcend. So I think there can be a kind of ah implicit misogyny in that understanding. And I think we'd like to stand up for Prakriti.

David
Ah, yeah I mean you can't get away from the fact that some of the expressions in the texts and the commentaries in particular that they're not very helpful from a modern perspective. I think you just got to read them and see them a product of their time unfortunately and try and look for the, you know the universal message...they need a bit of cultural translation for sure I mean...

flowartists
And fully acknowledging as well that it may not be the original text. It is the translation and the translator's perspective shaping the interpretation of the text, rather than what maybe the original message was.

Ranju
Yeah I mean we just don't know what the original message. It's difficult to unpack the mind of Patanjali, but we could say that this is what he wrote, this is how we might understand it from what we understand of his perspective and this is how it would be good...this is how we understand it now. This is how it can be applied now, and I think an understanding of Sanskrit and the way the Sanskrit words work is helpful for that.

David
Yeah, no I agree. I think it is helpful. And again, it's quite a tricky business to approach these traditional texts I think because one of the things that you noticed, well I've certainly noticed with training courses, is that students often have an idea of what they would like yoga and spirituality to be about, and then they look at the texts and they try and interpret the text so that essentially it fits their idea of what they think it should be and often it isn't that.
You know, and sometimes again, I think we've got to be clear that there's what I believe, there's what the texts appear to be saying, and they don't always necessarily marry up, but this is the teaching that's given, that say in the Yoga Sutra. And then you have to marry up, that up with the the fact that these texts were written some couple of thousand years ago and it was a particular context and that context isn't necessarily very helpful for today attitudes that are very different. And so then you've got to do a bit of also cultural translation, and it's tricky because we we've got to reflect what they say and yet we need to do a little bit of translation and we don't want to mix it up with what our notions of what yoga should be about, because often they're very different. Particularly when people come to yoga for the first time or they're fairly fairly new. They have certain ideas that yoga should be about this, it should say this kind of thing. It should reinforce my ideas of of what the world is like and what it should be like and it's not always quite like that. So I think it's, the whole translation thing and the study thing is is actually a very tricky and it's another tricky line to to negotiate I'm afraid.

flowartists
And I do appreciate in your book as well. You really unpack the translation and often you'll kind of give a few different words that. This word could be translated into, and sometimes you will kind of make references to previous translations and how you've reinterpreted that, like one that really stood out to me was yoga meaning yoke rather than union. Because those 2 things are actually quite different.

Ranju
Um, yeah, absolutely yeah.

flowartists
Beautiful, well um I guess we've got one more question, one we ask at the end of every episode, and our question is if you could distill everything that you've learned and everything that you teach down to one core essence. What do you think that one thing would be?

flowartists
take a breath.

Ranju
The first thing that came to mind, was Atha actually for me, which was is the first word of the Yoga Sutra. It's the first word of the Yoka Sutra and it evokes it. You know Eckhart Tolle famously wrote The Power of Now. Atha is now in a sense, so the power of now is Atha.

Ranju
I'm sure I could think of other...That's what that's what comes to mind immediately.

David
Well, the the word that comes to to mind to me is Vairagya, which essentially means I mean, it's often translated as detachment but actually and that's not kind of the way that we tend to understand it. We understand it more in terms of openness actually and an ability to to be to be open to things as they are and again I increasingly I feel this is an important thing. Yeah I think this is the most important thing, for me.

flowartists
Beautiful. Well thank you both so much for speaking with us and sharing some really interesting discussions that I've I've definitely taken a lot from. Yeah, thank you both so much for speaking with us and sharing some really interesting discussions that i've definitely taken a lot from.
Yeah, that was great thank you for dealing with my unanswered questions and um...

David
Those are great questions i have to say. I think your questions have been great today.

Flowartists
Oh i'm glad you appreciated them. Thank you so much.
I really got a lot out of our conversation with dave and ranju and I can heartily recommend their book if you'd like to learn more from Dave and Ranju they're offering a workshop series based on the book Embodying the Yoga Sutra they'll be running as two series of four zoom workshops starting on the 1st of November 2022 from 5 to 7 pm Australian Eastern Standard time. There's also a free introductory session on the 20th of September at 7 pm. For more information go to Sadhanamalayogatraining.com and we'll include a link in our show notes to everything we've spoken about on our website podcast.flowartist.com
You can also leave a comment there if you like we'd love to hear from you, you can find me on instagram at ranlovesyoga and Jo at Garden of Yoga. Our theme song is baby robots by ghostsoul and is used with permission. Check out ghostsoul.bandcamp.com thank you so much for listening we really appreciate you spending your precious time with us big big love