New AMI Physician Education
The Albany Medical College has announced the preliminary accreditation of Leonard Perlmutter's course American Meditation: The Heart and Science of Yoga for physicians' continuing medical education. The content for this program was determined by assessment of educational need, as well as a comprehensive case study (conducted by Beth Netter, MD). Numerous studies have demonstrated that over 50% of the American population utilizes some form of complementary health care service. Today's physicians need to be familiar with these approaches in order to practice quality medicine. The first two-day, 12 credit hour CME workshop for physicians on the practical application of Yoga Science in their personal and professional lives is scheduled for the fall of 2009. 

Flesh is Harmful to Life  
A new, conclusive study in the Archives of Internal Medicine reports what Yoga scientists knew over 5,000 years ago: eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely. This new study of more than 500,000 middle-aged and elderly Americans found that those who consumed about four ounces of red meat a day (the equivalent of a small hamburger) were 30 percent more likely than non-flesh eaters to die during the 10 years they were followed--primarily from heart disease and cancer. Sausage, cold cuts and other processed meats also increased the risk. According to Rashmi Sinha of the National Cancer Institute, who led the study, there are many explanations of how red meat might be unhealthy: Cooking red meat generates cancer-causing compounds; red meat is also high in saturated fat, which has been associated with breast and colorectal cancer; and meat is high in iron, also believed to promote cancer. People who eat red meat are more likely to have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart disease. Processed meats contain substances known as nitrosamines, which have been linked to cancer. Although pork is often promoted as "white meat," it is believed to increase the risk of cancer because of its iron content.

Yoga for Kids
This summer The American Meditation Institute will host certified child yoga instructor Beth Dawson and her acclaimed Y.O.G.A. ("Young Ones Gaining Awareness") programs for grade school students. The Y.O.G.A. classes provide children a meaningful way to nurture a healthy body, mind and spirit. During two summer sessions at AMI, kids will enjoy stretching, music, crafts, readings, easy-to-do breathing practices and walking meditations.

High School Meditation
Some days high school students feel that they have no control, and that the demands of school, sports, family and friends leave them no time to call their own. AMI's new "High School Meditation" course (July 9-August 13), can help them cope and stay stress-free, confident and creative as they plan for the future and prepare for SATs and College Entrance Exams. Enrollment for this class will be limited, so students should plan to register early.

As most of you know, my wife Jenness is an accomplished artist whose work often graces the covers of Transformation. By teaching me how to look at paintings Jenness has, over the years, opened me to one of life's greatest gifts--the ability to see the world more clearly. "Regardless of subject matter or technique, if a painting can achieve a visual harmony and the viewer can concentrate his or her attention on the painting," Jenness once shared with me, "that visual meditation will bring the viewer's consciousness beyond the call of the senses, beyond the momentary concerns for past or future, to a clarity of creative vision in a timeless state free of anxiety and restlessness."

That's a beautiful state, but not a common one. Have you ever observed how some people wander through a museum or art gallery looking at paintings? If you charted their steps, you'd find patterns that resemble the course of a superball randomly bouncing from pillar to post. Their paths are erratic because they have not learned how to look at art. When faced with the choice of where to direct their attention, they quickly choose to look only at pictures they like and just as quickly, they move away from those they dislike. Because they lack the experience, skill and discipline to invest one-pointed attention in the paintings they encounter, they miss a great aesthetic reward.

But the distortion of likes and dislikes isn't limited only to what we see or fail to see in a painting. Likes and dislikes--raga/dveshas in Sanskrit--are like cataracts on the eyes; they make it impossible to see things clearly. Our personal attachments and aversions, though very powerful and persuasive, are also subtlely deceiving. Things we like are not always beneficial and things we dislike are not always harmful or unpleasant. As William Shakespeare understood, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." By remaining entrenched in our raga/dveshas, we cut ourselves off from an untold number of enriching and beneficial possibilities. This inflexibility makes us prisoners to the mental lenses through which we view the world. No matter what actually appears before us, our vision of it is always skewed, and as a result we suffer.

According to Sigmund Freud, the basis of all conditioned thinking is the pleasure principle: Do what brings pleasure and avoid what brings pain. Both attachment and aversion are emotional responses that create obstacles to freedom by impairing our ability to see the world around us clearly. These emotions often defy our inner intuitive wisdom and the resulting conflict produces a chemical dependence on mood altering hormones in the body. These physical addictions fortify the mental prison of extreme highs and lows.

This state is called avidya; literally, non-seeing. It is a condition in which we habitually mistake passing pleasure for perennial joy, and experience pain instead of our desired happiness. As we continue to reinforce our state of non-seeing, we ignore or dismiss situations that could grant us peace and insight.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian saint of the last century concluded, "Desire is the memory of pleasure [that gives rise to likes], and fear is the memory of pain [that gives rise to dislikes]. Both make the mind restless." But if it is only passing moments of pleasure and pain that constitute our lives, how can we ever be free and happy? How can we unlearn what we've already learned?

From the yogic perspective the answer lies in detachment (vairagya). When we can successfully create a space between stimulus and response, the ego (ahamkara) performs as a coordinated and valuable function of the mind, rather than as its master. Under the influence of detachment--learned from a regular meditation practice--the ego no longer tries to define pleasure strictly as that which we like. Instead, it willingly defers to the unerring wisdom of the purified buddhi (conscience) because it learns through personal experimentation (sadhana) that the wisdom of the buddhi always suggests an action that leads to the end of sorrow.

You have already experienced the pleasure of doing things you like. Now, just for a moment, imagine the colossal pleasure that awaits you when you can also begin to enjoy things you've disliked. Imagine then the added thrill of enjoying not doing those things you like--when that choice serves your long-term best interest. This is the same philosophy enunciated by our Native American ancestors. "In every deliberation," the Great Law of the Iroquois taught, "we must consider the impact on the seventh generation . . . even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine."

This is not a novel concept. We regularly place limits on our raga/dveshas willingly in many everyday circumstances when we reject instant gratification in favor of some greater value. Every accomplished athlete understands the inherent wisdom of this principle; so does the loving parent who stays up at night with a sick child. This precious human capacity is discrimination (viveka). It is our intuitive ability to distinguish between an immediate ego or sense gratification (preya) and the eventual, lasting benefit (shreya). This understanding is what motivated Gandhi to exclaim, "Renounce and rejoice!" He was simply saying that when we are self-controlled in the face of likes and dislikes, we can go beyond both pleasure and pain to live in a state of perpetual joy.

Much of our everyday stress is caused by our conditioning to likes and dislikes concerning food, sex, sleep and self preservation. When we contact external objects in the world, we instantly hear a hypnotizing chorus from the senses, ego and unconscious mind celebrating or reviling that which we see, taste, touch, smell and hear. These convincing voices usually go unquestioned.

But as your meditation practice deepens, you'll begin to recognize and resist rigid likes and dislikes. Even where food is concerned, you can train your mind not to get too excited when things you like or dislike come your way.

In my own sadhana, food has been a perfect training ground for the mind. Just by saying "no, thank you," to the preya of unwise food choices, or saying "yes" to the shreya of wholesome and nourishing food, you too can rewrite the software of the mind. Because food choice is now an integral part of my sadhana, I no longer serve the old habits of my youth and yet I enjoy the food I eat today more than I ever did before. Today, instead of eating only what my taste buds like and avoiding what they don't like, I am increasingly attracted to food that loves me and my body--that includes my stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, bladder, gall bladder, pancreas, prostate, colon, heart, lungs, eyes, bones, ears, teeth, gums and brain, et al.

Because I consider my life to be a trust, I want to eat those foods that help me live longer and healthier so I can be of service for the benefit of all (including myself). Whether it is food, exercise or entertainment--all of which have an important place in my sadhana--the question I ask is not, "Do I like this?" but "Does my buddhi believe this will expand my capacity to serve?"

Baruch Spinoza, 17th century Dutch philosopher observed that we often mistake our desires for rational decisions. We repeatedly convince ourselves, "I like this, so I'm going to do it. I don't like that, so I can't even consider it." What we're really saying is that we're so thoroughly identified with the habits of the mind that we can't (or won't) even conceive another, more beneficial way of interacting with the world. It's a little bit like driving an automobile that turns only in only one direction. You can't drive very far without having a collision.

To this condition Shankaracharya (a yogic sage circa 788-820 AD) advised, "To live for the physical, mental and sensual pleasures is like building a home on quicksand, or trying to cross a stream on the back of a crocodile, believing it to be the trunk of a tree."

Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship and author of "Autobiography of a Yogi" often presented the following analogy to explain how attachments to raga/dveshas limit our experiences. Yogananda explained that our Essential Nature or soul (Sat-Chit-Ananda--eternal consciousness, wisdom and bliss) is like the pure, white light shining through a motion picture projector. The transparent and opaque areas of each picture frame in the film represent the software of the mind--the transparent areas are the purified mind in service to the buddhi, and the darkened areas are the ignorance of fear, anger and self-willed desire. When we shine the light of consciousness through the projector, these patterns (moving at high speed) produce images on a blank screen in the darkened theater of the mind. The movie we see--be it joyful or tragic--is actually an interplay of the purity and ignorance of our conditioning.

This understanding is tremendously empowering. If you're disenchanted or stressed by the movie currently playing in the theater of your life, remember that you have the power to rewrite the script for the better. All you need to do is apply a more flexible and discriminating attitude when facing your raga/dveshas. By skillfully serving shreyas and sacrificing preyas--regardless of whether the choice is pleasant or unpleasant--you will automatically diminish the dark areas of debilitating habit while increasing the transparent portions for the Light of creative wisdom to shine through. Base your thoughts, words and deeds on the inner, intuitive wisdom of your buddhi, and the consequent relationships and experiences will inevitably bring you everything you need.

In daily life we all encounter relationships that we perceive as being either pleasant or painful. The sages remind us, however, that pairs of opposites are not what they seem. That which appears as pleasant eventually can become unpleasant. For instance, you may love chocolate ice cream, but if you ate it at every meal, the pleasure would yield to dis-ease. And that which appears as unpleasant will just as certainly yield a special blessing.

The key, of course, is to be present in each moment--not hijacked by the memory of pleasure or pain, but remaining centered in the fullness of your Essential Nature. What is truly needed reveals itself only at the point of equanimity. If you are open, attentive and flexible, you can benefit from observing raga/dveshas as they appear, without being swept away by them. You can accept the gift your likes and dislikes represent, carefully remove its wrapping, open the box and delight in that treasure designed just for you.

When your raga/dveshas insist that you act immediately, without discrimination, the key is to simply honor and witness the suggestion, lovingly sacrifice the thought and swim against the tide of habit by choosing to serve the wisdom of the buddhi. For example, when your taste buds are doing battle with your better judgment, or some unnecessary busy-ness is keeping you from meditating, make those choices part of your spiritual practice. After all, every thought is only a suggestion. It is not an imperial command.

Learning to go beyond the prison of your likes and dislikes provides you more than just flexibility in weighing the merits of food, sex, sleep, work or people. It teaches you the practical benefits of living in freedom. Your habitual responses to small, everyday choices reflect the way you respond in every other aspect of life. The person with rigid tastes in food, for example, is likely to have restricted tastes in other areas as well. Very strong likes and dislikes lead to strong passions, which then open the floodgates to anger. Just contradict someone with strong opinions and watch the reaction. The unexamined habit of choosing the passing pleasure over the perennial joy condemns you to being happy only when you get what you like. When you get what you don't like, you are miserable, irritable and even depressed--not a very pretty picture.

This past winter we experienced a catastrophic ice storm that left the AMI Home Center without electrical power for three and a half days. It started innocently in the morning as a common, upstate New York snowfall, but by mid-day temperatures began to rise and the precipitation turned to freezing rain. In late afternoon the landscape was completely coated with an inch and a half of heavy ice. That's when the tall pines in our woods began to snap and fall like pick-up sticks. Through the night the crackling noise of their destruction sounded like a battlefield. By the time the sun rose, we had lost close to 70 trees.

Afterwards, as we faced the awful carnage and cleanup, I began to wonder why the huge white pines suffered so much more devastation than the willow, maple and birch trees that were left relatively uneffected. Then I realized: pine trees don't know how to bend. They're inflexible. They stand rigid, holding on to a heavy burden of snow and ice until the sheer weight of the load topples them over.

Only when you can easily bend in the face of strong emotional likes and dislikes can you weather the storms that life inevitably brings. The physical, mental and emotional flexibility you gain through the regular practice of meditation provides you the necessary detachment, discrimination and will power to make choices that not only permit you to survive, but to thrive--regardless of the circumstance. At the end of the second chapter in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna (our higher Self) offers Arjuna (the personality imprisoned by likes and dislikes) this sage advice: "When you move amidst the world of sense from both attachment and aversion freed, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end." Learn to give up your raga/dveshas, Krishna promises, and all sorrows end! Now that's a prize worth the practice of meditation.


Leonard is a philosopher, educator, author and founder of the American Meditation Institute.

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It's torture. As spasms of pain rocket through my nervous system, I focus on my breath. Inhaling from my diaphragm, I mentally suggest to the tense muscles in my arms and hands, "Guys, relax." I allow my legs to ease back into the chair, my toes to uncurl. As the steel pick once again jabs my gums, I ride my breath like a cowgirl on a palomino.

My dentist is chattering about a favorite singer on American Idol. Staring up into his cheerful face, my mouth propped open to his ministrations, I'm secretly focusing on the air passing in and out of my nostrils. For me, each visit to the dentist's office is an invitation to spiritual practice. I am challenged to find balance during an experience I find intensely uncomfortable.

But pleasurable experiences can be challenging too. Each time I walk past the bakery in Whole Foods I have to rein in my senses, which otherwise gallop toward the almond tarts. "Just breathe," I advise myself as I redirect my attention to the produce department.

We humans are like ping-pong balls, ricocheting back and forth between things that attract us and those we'd rather avoid. The universe itself is structured this way, built on opposing forces of push and pull. There's gravity pulling everything together, and dark energy driving everything apart. Like these cosmic forces, our own inner energies are always rushing toward, or away from, the things we desire or fear. Sometimes it feels like these inclinations virtually control us.


Goal of Yoga 
Yogis, though, are in control of themselves. According to the Yoga Sutras, the yogis' goal is to attain samadhi. When we try to picture this, we usually visualize an ascetic sitting motionless in meditation for hours, with back straight and eyes sealed shut. But advanced yogis are supposed to remain in samadhi all the time, whether they're sitting for meditation or lecturing to an auditorium full of students.

What does samadhi really mean? Sama means equal (think of the English word "same"), balanced, in between either extreme. Dhi means our mind, or the contents of our awareness. When we are in samadhi, we are unaffected by the pushing and pulling of our desires and aversions. We remain in a state that's focused but relaxed, that's perfectly balanced like a rider on a horse.

In India, one of the best-known examples of sahaja samadhi (samadhi in daily life) is the story of Ramachandra, the prince of Ayodhya. When he learns he's about to be coronated as king, Ramachandra takes the joyful news calmly. Several hours later more news arrives. There's been a change in plans: Ramachandra's younger brother will become king instead, and he himself is being exiled to the jungle. Our hero doesn't even blink. He accepts this unjust sentence with the same composure with which he accepted rulership of the kingdom shortly before. He finds contentment and fulfillment in his own inner nature. No external event can elate or disturb him. Push or pull, Ramachandra remains centered.

Yoga masters know the secret to Ramachandra's balanced emotional state. But when my teacher, Swami Rama, first revealed it to me, I didn't believe him! "Bring your full awareness to your nasal septum, the bridge between your nostrils. Feel the breath passing in and out of your nostrils. Feel how cool your breath is when you inhale. Feel how warm it is when you exhale.

"Let there be no jerks or pauses in your breath. Breathe smoothly and silently. The breath is the flywheel that connects your mind and your body. Regulate your breath and you will control your reactions."

Swami Rama taught us there are three primary currents in the subtle body. All three run up the central column of our torso through our neck into the head. The current that ends in the left nostril is called the ida; it represents a passive, indrawn force. The current ending in the right nostril is the pingala; it is dynamic and outgoing. But when the central channel between these two is flowing, you experience a tranquil, balanced mental state. You know the central channel or sushumna is active when your breath is flowing equally in both your nostrils. You feel serene but alert, relaxed but engaged. Yogis know how to shift into the sushumna at will, so that in the midst of crisis situations they have immediate access to a calm and clear state of being that helps them deal far more effectively with events at hand, just like Ramachandra.

Swami Rama encouraged us to practice nadi shodana (alternate nostril breathing) several times a day so that we could develop control of our breathing patterns. I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't try it at first; I just couldn't believe it worked! During nadi shodana you bring your full awareness to the inside of your nostrils, alternately inhaling through one nostril and exhaling through the other (using your fingers to block off your nose appropriately). When I did begin working with this method, I was astonished how powerful it is. The body's energies settle down and the brain becomes lucid yet relaxed. If you practice this for a few weeks you no longer need to use your fingers to regulate the flow of air through one side of your nose or the other. You quickly gain the ability to mentally "turn on" or "turn off" the function of each nostril through an act of will, much like toddlers learn to control their body functions when they're toilet trained.

You quickly discover it's most useful to "open" the left nostril while you're doing something passive, like listening to a lecture. If you're going to be active however, going to the gym for example, your body functions better if you turn off the left nostril and open the right. Most dramatically of all, when you sit for meditation, will both nostrils to open equally. Instead of struggling to maintain a meditative focus, you'll find yourself gliding immediately into a deep state.

When I was first studying with Swami Rama 35 years ago, this was all new information to us in the West. Today physiologists know that depending on where the flow of our breath is directed inside the nasal cavity, nerves leading into different portions of our brain are stimulated. Practiced diligently, breathing techniques can carry us to a place in ourselves beyond push and pull, beyond our desire for things we want to possess and our fear or hatred of things we wish to avoid.

I, for one, am happy to use breath awareness to transcend the negative experiences life throws my way. But how many of us are ready to transcend the positive ones? It's one thing to practice yoga in the dentist's chair, cultivating a state of ease and imperturbability in the face of discomfort. It's another to turn away from the euphoria of romantic love, the surge of egoic satisfaction when we're praised for a job well done, or the seductive flavors of a cup of fresh brewed premium arabica coffee. Why should we turn our backs on pleasure? Given how short life is, shouldn't we try to jam as much pleasure into it as it will hold?

Fortunately for yoga students like me, who take delight in a fine cup of coffee, the yoga tradition acknowledges the value of kama or pleasure in life. After all, Ramachandra was not an unfeeling automaton. He dearly loved his wife and family, and enjoyed his royal lifestyle. What made him such a valuable example for the rest of us though, was that his ability to maintain his inner center no matter what was happening, made him a ruler of the pleasures of life--not their slave. No doubt he relished his privileged life in Ayodhya, but when he was banned to the jungle he didn't waste a moment bemoaning the many pleasures he was about to lose. They didn't own him. Focused on his breath, he was always able to stay in the moment and deal capably with each event of his life, positive or negative, as it unfolded.


The Balance Point 
As I write, the world is experiencing a collective financial meltdown. Several of my neighbors' houses have been foreclosed. Like Ramachandra, they are in their own way being banished to the jungle. Overnight, the beautiful, overpriced home that gave them incredible pleasure has become the source of shattering disappointment. Letting go of their previous lifestyle is much harder for them than it was for Ramachandra. In our culture we're not trained in simple yogic techniques that can make life's ups and downs more manageable.

Even if we somehow make it through our entire lives unscathed, at the time of death everything we own, even our body, goes into foreclosure. Serious yoga practice gives us the strength to face life's inevitable harsh lessons, and the dispassion to enjoy what the world has to offer without the illusion that this enjoyment will go on forever.

Seeing the dentist isn't fun for any of us. In reality however it-and every other difficult experience in life-is an opportunity for spiritual growth. Negative experiences propel us to find the balance point inside ourselves, to accept the unfolding reality without overreacting. During practices like nadi shodana, and meditation too when we're doing it correctly, we experience a point between pleasure and pain where we feel balanced, lucid, and completely content. There we discover equanimity, compassion and inner wisdom. Once we have a taste of this inner world, we seek to expand that state till it remains with us at all times.

Sometimes we get so caught up in what we want, we forget what we are. "I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am the ever watchful inner dweller," Swami Rama told us to remember. Instead we're so preoccupied with what we want to avoid (wrinkles, foreclosure, getting laid off) that we inadvertently avoid reality. Yoga is about getting real. Bad things pass. So do good things. Behind both is a deeper reality, unbounded by time, that our meditation practice leads us toward. We cannot experience it while we are distracted by passing objects and experiences that fascinate or repel us. We abide in samadhi only when we balance in between desire and repulsion in the center of our being.

Whether he's ruling his prosperous kingdom, or wandering the dark and dangerous jungle, Ramachandra is king of himself. He shows us what we also can be, when we take life in stride and calmly accept the unpleasant with the pleasant. While we abide in our Higher Self, the entire universe (along with all the raga/dveshas of the personality), simply unfolds as it will. We enjoy the view from the balance point of joy.


Linda Johnsen, M.S. is a regular contributor to Transformation and is the author of "Lost Masters: The Sages of Ancient Greece," and seven other books on spiritual life currently available at the AMI bookstore.

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