Yogafly2

now discipline enough to make room for all the ecstasy

this yogini gets b-b-b-busy.  And most often what I need to do is make room to do and say n-n-n-nothing.  This repeating of the first consonant is my attempt at rapping.  You know, hip-hop.  It's one of the musical genres i seem to fail miserably at.  really, i wanna be a believable rapper - not just the kind you laugh at.  anyhow, that's one of the reasons why I ran away from the Big Apple - ya know - not because i was a bad rapper, but because i was too busy to feel my own ecstasy.  Ha ha!  I do love this exercise of writing.  I find myself very funny.  don't you?  it's okay if you don't, I won't hold ya to it.  "Let them off every hook," as my buddy Harshada says.  Does he say this at the end of each e-mail? Why yes, he does.  

Here's what some of my friends have at the end of each of their e-mails:

Cynthia Espinal -- "Say what you mean and mean what you say for those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."  - Dr. Seuss.  

Sunny Sims -- "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." - Carl Jung

 Don't ya just love my friends?  I just love my friends.  I am oozing oozing with love for all my friends.  (I just chanted for 2 hours with Zoe Mantarakis and the rockin rockin with shaktih Bhakta crew at Pure Austin Quarry Lake, so I'm just oozing with ecstasy right now.  I hope you can feel it all over this blog post. 

I was just getting kinda a little bit too wound up in the city of Zen yogis - Zoo Yawk.  And it was time to go for a bit  because I somehow booked every hour in the day with something and my mantra went something like - "I gotta run, I gotta go.  I gotta run, I gotta run.  I gotta go."  Because I was always running somewhere.  I mean really, I would sprint sometimes across Manhattan on foot because it was faster than catching a cab or train or bus.  Across town.  Cross-town was always harder than up and down the citay- ahay -hay.  But can't you feel me missing the city?  Ah I can feel me missing the city.  

I kept looking around Houston yesterday and wondering where the heck everyone was.  Where is everyone?  Space - we have the liberty of space down here in zee Tejas.  Beautiful beautiful space.  Akasha in Sanskrit.  I love Space.  I do.  I love Akasha.  I mean, my mom and I watched a Coen brothers movie - A Serious Man - in downtown Houston with all of our Jewish friends and we leave the theater with my mom saying, "That poor boy didn't know Rabbi Kushner.  He needed to know Rabbi Kushner."  And I was like, "Mom, who the heck is Rabbi Kushner?"  Leave it to my Catholic Catholic Filipino mother  to know the best Rabbis.  This is the same woman who taught me the word "chutzpah" back in 3rd grade and told me I needed to develop this.  Okay.  Let's just say, developed.   But our Jewish friends in the theater numbered around 30 folks (I didn't know any of them but we were all speaking Hebrew by the end of watching this movie.)  And we drove through Houston and I was like - where are all the people on the streets?  "They're at home watching baseball," my mother said.  "Or is it football?"  We are so not from this country, and it always shows on Thanksgiving.

And on Monday, I start working again - as an Interactive Producer.  I certainly hope all Producers are interactive, eh?  But I am excited because I wake up every morning at 5 am.  It's a blessing - sometimes it's 4 am.  I love this time of the morning.  In NY - I would often be at the Ashram - meditating or running around in the dark with the deer - trying to see who could scare each other first.  There was a bear prowling around for a time at the Ashram and when I was up during 4 am nocturnal bear and deer hours I always made sure not to have food on me.  Somehow in my mind, I figured the bear would have no desire to be near me if I didn't smell like food.  I always have food near me, on my person, in my pocket, purse, backpack.  My stomach's not big enough to hold much food.  So I carry food around me.  Ask anyone who knows me well enough.  Shawn Harrison said she was amazed when I would take the tinfoil piece of nothing that I wrapped up from one restaurant and eat it a few hours later.  I secretly think it grossed her out.  But she was too much of a lady to tell me this.

After meditation, I would take a shower, get ready, to go to the city.  I would then have breakfast - most of the time in the dining hall.  Me and Dick Bruns.  I love Dick Bruns.  Amazing disciple of Guruji's.  So much love in this man's being.  And I would catch the train or the bus by 7:35 am.  

I'd be on the train/bus for an hour and a half or so and got to work by 9:30-9:45 - depending on where I stopped on my way to pick up more food.  The Japanese grocer at Penn Station was one place. Cipriani's breakfast - so Scrumptious - was another one.

BUT check this out!  Check it out YO!  I now have all this time before I have to be at work at 9 am in Austin to feel my ecstasy by myself instead of in all of NYC's public places!!!!!!!!!!   That's 4 hours I just won back in each day just by moving back to Austin.  I am going to paint, sing, dance, write a musical, run, jog, bike around the neighborhood, go for a swim at Barton Springs....Not to mention that it's so impossible to find work in Austin that I have been blissfully unemployed for the past few months.  That's how many months off of work - that would be 3 months.  Without work.  And okay, I was going a little batty-cakes there in the end - especially because I have no money and spend every penny that I have.  Thank God for my Faith in God to see me through all things.  And I have been working a lot at teaching Yoga and creating the YOGALife curriculum at Love Yoga Co-op.  These are both very very important to this beingness.  

Okay Really - I'm going to try not fill up the hours - as they get filled up.  Instead,  I'm going to do as Rob Brezsny suggests on www.freewillastrology.com:

Leo Horoscope for week of November 26, 2009

I believe that in the coming weeks you'll enjoy experiences that have an emotional resemblance to those referred to in this passage by French novelist Gustave Flaubert: "I want to cover you with love, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh . . . I want you to be astonished by me, to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports . . . When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours. I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them." Please note, Leo, that I'm not necessarily saying the pleasures you gather in will stem from an engagement with an actual lover. They might. But your delight may also have a more mysterious origin. 

Self-discipline enough to make room for all the ecstasy.  "I pray for the power to stay in love with you," - Rufus Wainwright.  The power of ecstasy - it's always there - it stays - we just have to have the discipline to be with her.  "Without rain, there would be no rainbows," - Sita Sings the Blues.  

We can never fix anyone else's ego

What a lesson.  This lesson is from Guruji - Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati.  "You can never fix anyone else's ego.  Even God can't do that.  If God could've fixed your ego, he would've done so.  The only one who can fix your own ego is you.  You can't fix your wife's ego or husband's ego."

 What is this ego?  It's this sense of self being separate from the Source of all that is.  It provides a set of boundaries that helps us each as individuals find our way through time and space.  It is individual I-am.  And there is nothing wrong with it.  It's a very necessary part of existence.  But the problem is - most humans stop there when thinking about who each human being is.  They stop at individual I-am - and Gurus, Yogis, Buddhas, Christ are all saying - WAIT one second - don't stop there - become who you totally are -

Cosmic I-Am

Absolute I-AM

Let these two other aspects of your I-AM-ness lead the Ego and then the ego will know its place.  This work as Guruji illustrates above can only be done to one's OWN Self.  Where we fail over and over again as humans is to try impose this work on others.  I have been guilty of this and am working really hard to catch myself every single time I want to "fix" the ego of others.   Mostly because when I look back at any attempt to working towards this in the past, all I see is failure.  Over and over again.  

Loving people for exactly where they are.  Helping to guide them to choices that will help make them whole.  While leaving them alone to figure themselves out - to figure things out on their own.  Is the work of a Yogi and a Yoga teacher.  We guide - we point in the right direction - then we surrender.  Ishvara Pranidhana.  We surrender.  We let go.  We let God.  We do this over and over again.  The same with a Guru.

My relationship to my Guru - Guruji - Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati - is that he/Guru is a force that comes when I begin tumbling down a path that is potentially painful for me and others.  He (an energy) guides me to look at my self, my motivations, my actions clearly before I do and say anything.  And I'm not always listening.  I know this.  It's why I make every bit of room always to practice, to sit, to stop and drop everything.  To meditate, to breathe, to practice Hatha Yoga.  Because I realize when the ego is again bowling over my life.  And I start feeling disconnected from what?  not just my Guru because he's only pointing the way, but from my very SELF.   

Boom.  back to the practice of yoga.  Back to clearing the mind of all debris.  Back to clearing it all out.  Back to Empty.  Empty.  Emptying everything completely.  Emptying everything completely.  Total and utter emptiness.  Cleared out.  And completely aware in the process.  Completely and utterly aware.  Wanting nothing more than total awareness.  We breathe in.  We breathe out.

Caroline Myss - Ridiculous how she is so RIGHT on

The science of intutition.  REALLLLLY amazing to have this vocabulary with Caroline Myss.

http://www.myss.com

Why New York City Rocks the Yoga World

There are so many reasons why New York City is the Big Apple - even in the world of Yoga.  

One - the Yogis in New York City stand up and Fight - in a beautiful way - not to be regulated by a government that knows not a hair about Yoga.  

Guess to where this yogini is donating funds this year?  http://www.yogaforny.org/

"You must fight, therefore fight without hatred.  And love without any attachments" - Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, aka Guruji, Ramamurti S. Mishra, M.D.

Two - the Yogis in New York City write.  Talk - gather - get together.  As a community.  Not as one yoga studio versus another.  Here's a great New York City Yoga Blog:

 See, I learned a lot from my living in one of the toughest and most loving cities in the world.  I bow to Manhattan as a great Guru, really, because we are tough on the exterior but totally sweet on the interior.  You don't have to prove anything to New Yorkers. New Yorkers are really busy proving things to themselves.  And really getting to know their very selves.

Now that I'm back in Austin, Texas, it's wonderful too.  How laid-back and non-aggressive the people are.  But perhaps, sometimes, to a fault.  I have found that because Yoga doesn't have the deep historical roots that it does in New York and California, that many yoga students/teachers in Austin seem to tread this holy ground of Yoga with trepidation.  And I have seen that unlike New York City, the large yoga centers in Texas say yes, yes, Government regulate US.  Regulate us, Texas Workforce Commission.  Because you guys, yes you, are experts on who should teach yoga out there.  Huh?

Odd enough that this is a right-to-work state and Republican.  But that YOGIS, whose very foundation of existence is liberation, LIBERATION, governance resides within, my darlings.  Should say, YES, YES, Texas Workforce Commission, you tell us who should train others to teach yoga as a VOCATION.  A vocation?  When did yoga become a vocation?  From what I understand Yoga is a Service.  There are 3 big paths, yes, in Yoga?  Karma, Jnana, Bhakti.  And then there's your Dharma.  The Purushartas, baby.  Where in these words can you find the word vocation?

Let's look at the roots of the word "vocation."  If you looked it up, it is often used as calling to the clergy.  To the priesthood, darlings.  Do you know what priests do?  Priests and preachers preach.  Do you know what a Yoga Teacher does?  A Yoga teacher facilitates transformation.  Hmmm.  

And then the classification of Yoga Teacher Training next to Beauty Schools, Manicurists and Pedicurists...I have not a problem with any of these Vocational schools, but I can't even begin to compare my meditation, Sanskrit, asana practice to any of these "vocations."  See what I mean?  You can get better at cutting cuticles in a school setting.  It might take a few lifetimes to understand one Sutra of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.  But we try to measure this in hours.  In 200 hours, I attained samadhi and therefore am qualified to transmit these teachings to you, innocent masses.  See, how laughable?

Anyways, it's good to be a New Yorkini yogini, whose heart is in India, living in Texas for the time-being.

What next?

This yogini highly recommends spending time with 3-year-olds raised by yogini social workers such as Omkari  (Anita Stoll).  Sadie - this mighty mighty 3-year-old - has started the phase that lasts our entire lifetime - the phase of establishing autonomy, figuring out her own power and what is needed from others, the world, and eventually from the Source of the Universe itself.   And she loves to do things "by herself."  Such as pour her own Chinese medical herbal cough syrup into a spoon - and spill it on the counter.  Or take all the beads out of the box and watch them scatter in every direction.  The spilling and the scattering are not her intentions.  And after each spill, scatter, "mess-up,"  Sadie says, "That's okay."

"That's okay."  And proceeds to try to gather it up. 

Fine motor skills are still being honed.  But I can hear Sadie say it now - every time I trip or fall or am not certain of what's next.  I hear her say, in her three-year-old voice, "That's okay."

And mama Anita and I talked about it because my heart just sighs around this sweetness.  "I messed up.  And that's okay."  Is what she is saying again and again.  And eventually, we know, the cough syrup will stay on the spoon and the beads won't scatter everywhere when she empties the box out on the floor.

Simultaneously - I get the following story from OSHO.  Osho.  Osho.  Osho.  (Shawn Harrison liked to tell me about spending time at his Ashram in India and they chant Osho.  Osho.  Osho.  Osho.  weird, but appropriate somehow).

 "Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples.  A man came and spit on his face.  He wiped it off, and he asked the man, 'What next?  What do you want to say next?'  The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on someone's face, he will ask, 'What next?'  He had had no such experience in his past.  He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted.  Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man.  But Buddha was like neither;  he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly.  But just matter-of-factly he said, 'What next?'  There was no reaction on his part.

Buddha's disciples became angry, they reacted.  His closest disciple, Ananda, said, "This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it.  You keep your teaching with you, and we will just show this man that he cannot do what he has done.  He has to be punished for it.  Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this."

Buddha said, 'You keep silent.  He has not offended me, but you are offending me.  He is new, a stranger.  He must have heard from people something about me, that 'this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their trace, a revolutionary, a corrupter.'  And he may  have formed some idea, a notion of me.  He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion, he has spit on his idea of me --- because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?'

'If you think on it deeply,'  Buddha said, 'he has spit on his own mind.  I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something --- spitting is a way of saying something.  There are moments when you feel that language is impotent --- in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer.  There are intense moments when language is impotent.  They you have to do something.  When you are in deep love and you kiss the person or embrace the person, what are you doing?  You are saying something.  When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something.  I can understand him.  He must have something more to say, that's why I'm asking 'What next?'

The man was even more puzzled!  And Buddha said to his disciples, 'I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.'

Puzzled, confused, the man returned home.  He could not sleep the whole night.  When you see a buddha, it is difficult, impossible, to sleep again the way you used to sleep before.  Again and again he was haunted by the experience.  He could not explain it to himself, what had happened.  He was trembling all over and perspiring.  He had never come across such a man;  he shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.

The next morning he was back there.  He threw himself at Buddha's feet.  Buddha asked him again, 'What next?  This too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language.  When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are a little narrow; it cannot be contained in them.'

Buddha said, 'Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something.  This man is a man of deep emotions.'

The man looked at Buddha and said, 'Forgive me for what I did yesterday.'

Buddha said, 'Forgive?  But I am not the same man to whom you did it.  The Ganges goes on flowing;  it is never the same Ganges again.  Every man is a river.  The man you spit upon is no longer here -- I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours!  The river has flowed so much.  So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.

'And you also are new.  I can see that you are not the same man who came to me yesterday because that man was angry - he was anger!  He spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet --- how can you be the same man?  You are not the same man, so let us forget about it.  Those two people --- the man who spit, and the man on whom he spit --- both are no more.  Come closer.  Let us talk of something else.'

from Ramana Maharshi (whom I call Bhagavan)

via Nirmala Devi (Norma Berrios)' Daily Inspiration e-mails:

---

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Excerpt from:  Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

D.: Taking the first part first, how is the mind to be eliminated or relative consciousness transcended?

 

M.: The mind is by nature restless. Begin liberating it from its restlessness; give it peace; make it free from distractions; train it to look inward; make this a habit. This is done by ignoring the

external world and removing the obstacles to peace of mind.

 

D.: How is restlessness removed from the mind?

 

M.: External contacts - contacts with objects other than itself - make the mind restless. Loss of interest in non-Self, (vairagya) is the first step.  Then the habits of introspection and concentration follow. They are characterised by control of external senses, internal faculties, etc. (sama, dama, etc.) ending in samadhi (undistracted mind).

 

D.: How are they practised?

 

M.: An examination of the ephemeral nature of external phenomena leads to vairagya (dispassion). Hence enquiry (vichara) is the first and foremost step to be taken.  When vichara continues automatically, it results in a contempt for wealth, fame, ease, pleasure, etc. The ‘I’ thought becomes clearer for inspection. The source of ‘I’ is the Heart - the

final goal. If, however, the aspirant is not temperamentally suited to Vichara Marga (to the introspective analytical method), he must develop bhakti (devotion) to an ideal - may be God, Guru, humanity in general, ethical laws, or even the idea of beauty. When one of these takes possession of the individual, other attachments grow weaker, i.e., dispassion (vairagya) develops. Attachment for the ideal simultaneously grows and finally holds the field. Thus ekagrata (concentration) grows simultaneously and imperceptibly - with or without visions and direct aids.  

In the absence of enquiry and devotion, the natural sedative pranayama (breath regulation) may be tried. This is known as Yoga Marga. If life is imperilled the whole interest centres round

the one point, the saving of life. If the breath is held the mind cannot afford to (and does not) jump at its pets - external objects.  Thus there is rest for the mind so long as the breath is held. All

attention being turned on breath or its regulation, other interests are lost. Again, passions are attended with irregular breathing, whereas calm and happiness are attended with slow and regular breathing.

Paroxysm of joy is in fact as painful as one of pain, and both are accompanied by ruffled breaths. Real peace is happiness. Pleasures do not form happiness. The mind improves by practice and becomes finer just as the razor’s edge is sharpened by stropping. The mind is then better able to tackle internal or external problems. If an aspirant be unsuited temperamentally for the first two methods and circumstantially (on account of age) for the third method, he must try the Karma Marga (doing good deeds, for example, social service). His nobler instincts become more evident and he derives impersonal pleasure. His smaller self is less assertive and has a chance of expanding its good side. The man becomes duly equipped for one of the three aforesaid paths. His intuition may also develop directly by this single method.

 

:  Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi - pg 26

The Heart-Mind

Hrd-akasha. Hrd-ananda.  Hrim Shrim Lakshmyai Namaha.

Pedalling through the layers into the Heart of the Self - I feel a deep sigh - and realize that this world created by mine eyes is one of many.  

I ran into this site: http://www.joshabene.com/ and this photo of the Heart-Mind - he's an artist/molecular biologist from Austin who lives in Brooklyn.  Hmmm, what  a small circular world.  Perfecto (said with Spanish accent, is more appropriate here and now -->)

"The eyes are small, but they see big things," - Rumi

Constantly, I am reminded that there are many lokas (universes, if you please, or "worlds") within our worlds.  It's important that we explore them with a very knowledgeable guide - that would be "Guru."  Guru helps you relax as he/she takes you into these lokas.  

"The heart is the hub of all holy places.  Go there and roam in it." - Baba Nityananda

As my friend Lauren Cleff - your friend too! - sends me blessings from Rishikesh where she is looking over Mother Ganga - and I send her blessings from Austin, where the skies gaze at me and hold me in her arms.

How do we know we are progressing in this practice?  This was asked of Shankar from the Shambhava School of Yoga (Shoshoni Yoga in Colorado) - and he said,  "You feel happier."  

It's true - externals become so external to this JOY - this is MUDITA in Sanskrit (name of our yoga studio in Kingston, New York - see - Mudita - Prema (Love in Austin) - and Shanti (this one's going to be in Sugar Land)...

Thank goddess, one of my bestest friends is Omkari - the bliss of Shiva - the bliss of love unending - who has a key to my apartment when they fall away into the playground and whose husband is a dear friend and a great lawyer.  It's so great to have lawyers married to great yoginis as friends.  Contentment not dependent on the laws of ever-changing governances.  Nevertheless - greater ease incurred by knowledge of the laws.  

we are never alone.  only the thinking mind - we'll break down all the levels of the mind-self:

Citta - Vritti - Buddhi - Ahamkara - Mahat - Manas - Gunas - Tanmatras - Tattvas

in the YOGALife program at Love Yoga Co-op so we can understand this part of our beingness.  Om Aim Hrim Shrim Lakshmyai Namaha.  Hrdaye Citta Samvit.  or as Bharati Devi explained to me - "Samyamah Hrdaye Citta Samvit."

You are Your Greatest Healer - Intro to Ayurveda with Kerry Meath

I love to eat, exercise, work, play, practice yoga, meditate, chant and sleep.  But it took me a while to figure out in what proportion each of these things should take up my day.  Sometimes I meditate so much, I don't sleep.  And at other times I'm sleeping throughout all my meditations.  Yes - that's me in your yoga class asleep in Handstand.  And guess what really helped me to hone some semblance of balance alongside Yoga, living on an Ashram, chanting everyday, studying Yogic scriptures, working at McCann Erickson as a Project Manager, studying for med school? Ayurveda.  

But what is Ayurveda?  And how does it apply to you and your Yoga practice?  Kerry Meath can give you a superb introduction to this huge body of natural healing from India at Love Yoga Co-op on Saturday, November 7, at 4:30 pm.  For $10 - you'll get a fantastic overview from someone who studied with Dr. Vasant Lad, directly.  Have I yet to go on about how I love Dr. Vasant Lad?  Well, I Love Dr. Vasant Lad -  1 week of Dr. Vasant Lad and I stopped studying for med school. again - again yes the old doctor karma sometimes lures me back into studying genetics, anatomy and physiology from a Western standpoint.  I'm leaving that to my momma in this lifetime.   But I am studying Ayurveda (currently with Dr. Frawley's courses).  And then I met Kerry Meath.  She is a wise woman healer.   I encourage everyone to spend time with her.

Kerry has given me such a thorough regimen of foods and herbs that work for my dosha (Vata-Pitta) - I feel like I could move mountains.  Mountains, I tell ya.  And what does Vata-Pitta mean?  Air-Fire.  In Ayurveda, there are 3 main doshas (my friend Li asked me, you mean like the flatbread?  No, that's dosa), or constitutions - Air - Fire - Earth.  All human beings have all 3 - but 1 can be more dominant than another.  The dominant one is the one that often goes out of balance.  And then bang-o - you wonder why it is that you suddenly feel "uncomfortable in your own skin."  

Kerry will give you just some insight into how to fit Ayurveda in with your Yoga practices of meditation, asana, chanting, etcetera.  It's quite healing and wonderful.  Won't you join us?

Love Yoga Co-op, Saturday, November 7, 4:30 pm

2525 South Lamar, Austin, TX 78704, behind Maria's Tacos - the goddess leads the way, Santa Maria de Taco points you towards LOVE.  But seriously, who could make this stuff up?

Some Basic Yoga Terminology

It seems that we are ruled by semantics in our limited English vocabulary.  It's so much fun to see how language forms the mental make-up of a culture.  English - for me is a fine, beautiful language, but a language within many that I play around with for a good stretch of the imagination (yes I stretch my imagination, but I don't call it "Yoga.")  This parenthetical statement is a very bad attempt at a joke.  My love of languages is not common in our mono-lingual society.  It's sweet to come from countries where we speak lots of them - even crude, bizarre and wild sing-songy ones.  Now Sanskrit is one of the Proto-Indo-European languages (Latin and Greek are the other two)   from which many Asian dialects came.  

So I've found that many people out there who teach and practice Yoga (based in the Sanskrit language) have never studied much Sanskrit.  This is where so much confusion arises.  So let's take a stab at this huge topic so you can see whether or not you are actually practicing "Yoga" or some wonderful stretching exercises/gymnastics (these are very important things, I love stretching and gymnastics.)

"Yoga" - comes from the root word "yug" which means "to yoke."  What exactly are you "yoking?"  Well, it could be more ego-identification to your body.  Or, you could take some definition from Patanjali - the author of the Yoga Sutras:

2nd Sutra, 1st chapter:

"YOGAH CITTA VRTTI NIRODHA."

Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, (Ramamurti S. Mishra) translates this as "Yoga or Union is the cessation of the thinking mind: 'Who am I?'"

Hmm.  Intriguing that Patanjali didn't say, "Yoga is being able to stretch the physical body into different positions."

Not in one sutra - he doesn't say this.  He says it in many sutras when describing the third limb of yoga - "asana."  This third limb of Yoga has stretched and expanded into "Hatha Yoga."  And yes, many of our famous Hatha Yoga teachers are great, not only at teaching Yoga according to Patanjali's definitions, but also at advertising (I work in advertising, we create brands and infinities of brands with tms and circle register rs, so I am familiar).  So most folks out there say, in subtext, "the brand of Hatha Yoga I practice is"...insert name of your style of Yoga here.  But the words that come out of the mouth are "the type of Yoga I practice is..." and they are only talking about Hatha Yoga.  It would be more precise to say, "the type of Hatha Yoga I practice is..."

And then we gad on about how we jump around more in that class or we stand on our head more in that class and in that class we put our foot behind our head.  So if you breathe faster and move around that is one brand of Hatha Yoga.  If you breathe slower and move around that's another brand of Hatha Yoga.  

And the point of this "third limb" of the "8-limbs" of Yoga according to Patanjali - "asana" - see how the ancients really knew how to put "names" on things so they don't "bind" us?  They called the physical postures and mudras "seats."  "Asana" means "seat" in Sanskrit.  You could be sitting upside down for all the heavens care.  Just have "santosha," contentment and ease and "Tadah drastuh svarupe Avasthanam."  This is the third sutra of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.  Guruji translates it as "Then the witness is established in its own form, in pure Self-awareness, "I-am":  Be still and know I am That I-AM."  Who was one of our greatest yogis?  Jesus Christ himself.  And YOU - when you "drop the thinking mind."

The point of this third limb is to get you to where you can understand within your "asana," your "hatha yoga" posture, the other Seven (yes, seven) limbs of Yoga: "Yama, Niyama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi."  

Shri Brahmananda further translates:

"Yama"  - 5 yamas = Ahinsa (nonviolence), Satya (Truthfulness),  Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (abidance in the "I-am" in Godhood and continence (oh yes, he said the word GOD), Aparigraha - non=possessiveness of the mind.

When you practice the five Yamas, guess what, you create "gigantic willpower."  Try it.  Then, you can understand, "Atha Yoganusasanam."  Which is the very first Sutra in all the glorious Sutras.  It says "Now the discipline of Yoga is explained," according to Guruji.  Others translate it as "Now Yoga begins."  Brilliant little mathematical equation in so few words, even in English!

I could go on.  But it's not the point of yoga.  If I plug more information into your thinking mind - and you run it around over and over again in your noggin, guess what?  We have again failed at the above definition of Yoga.  So as Guruji - Shri Brahmananda Sasrasvati - said, "Drop everything and feel...Aham Brahmasmi."