How to be a modern yogi

How to be a modern yogiHow to be a modern yogi

(a practice to train your senses, liberate your (a practice to train your senses, liberate your mind, activate your soul and inspire mind, activate your soul and inspire others…)others…)

How to be a modern yogi

The ambition of the modern yogi is to be in the company of other yogis and to pursue spiritual activities.

Possibility begins with desire

How to be a modern yogiHow to be a modern yogi

How to be a modern yogi

and the transformation of desire is the color of yoga…

How to be a modern yogi

Overview how to be a modern yogi: Stage one

Train the senses• The force of virtue (putting yama-niyama into practice)

Strengthen the nervous system (nadis )• Prana is divine intelligence• Kundalini is expanding consciousness

Stage two Manage the mind

• Internal dialogue Transmute materialism into spiritualism

Stage three Design interdependent communities, institutes,

networks…• Reciprocal Benefit Incentives (RBI)

Lead, teach, or heal

How to be a modern yogi

Sadhana(practice)

Dharma(virtue)

Trains the sensesStrengthens the nervous system

STAGE ONE: Restore & Rehearse

Dharma and sadhana are interdependent: one without the other leads to failure or tragedy…

Dharma means behavior Thoughts are powerful Senses are more powerful Practicing virtue brings both

under control and protects the yogi from the dangers of heightened sensibilities.

Dharma: restoring the ecology of virtue

The force of virtue: four habits that will change your life and purify the nadis (subtle currents of your body that influence your senses and your thoughts)• • • •

Dharma

The force of virtue: four habits that will change your life and purify the nadis (subtle currents of your body that influence your senses and your thoughts)• Mercy – don’t eat anything that could

struggle for its life

Dharma

The force of virtue: four habits that will change your life and purify the nadis (subtle currents of your body that influence your senses and your thoughts)• Mercy – don’t eat anything that could

struggle for its life• Respectability – don’t live like a dog or a pig

(i.e. don’t sleep around and don’t be dirty or disorganized

Dharma

The force of virtue: four habits that will change your life and purify the nadis (subtle currents of your body that influence your senses and your thoughts)• Mercy – don’t eat anything that could

struggle for its life• Respectability – don’t live like a dog or a pig

(i.e. don’t sleep around and don’t be dirty or disorganized

• Truthfulness – no cheating, no gambling, no exploiting others, and above all be ruthlessly honest with your self.

Dharma

The force of virtue: four habits that will change your life and purify the nadis (subtle currents of your body that influence your senses and your thoughts)• Mercy – don’t eat anything that could struggle for

its life• Respectability – don’t live like a dog or a pig (i.e.

don’t sleep around and don’t be dirty or disorganized

• Truthfulness – no cheating, no gambling, no exploiting others, and above all be ruthlessly honest with your self.

• Sobriety (a meditative and controlled mind) - Start by excluding drugs, alcohol or nicotine and proceed to maintaining an attentive state of mind (cf. our workbook: journaling for enlightenment)

Dharma

Sadhana The value of gravity

• Asanas for confidence The intelligence in prana

• Heal the nervous system (strengthen the nadis)

» Pranayama: 1, 2, 3, hold & enjoy (viadhi kevala kumbaka)

The magic of mantras• Destiny thwarted, love recaptured

» Japa: Maha mantra with mirror and Yantra

Consider the relation of sadhana to our souls nature:

sat-chit-ananda

Sadhana

Confidence Wisdom Happiness

Awareness of weight

Surrender to prana

Vibration of mantra

Grounded Centered Liberated

Asana Pranayama Japa

Mother Bhumi

Divine intelligence

God as you understand

Your eternal nature

Connection to the divine

Ecstasy of divine love

Mantra in the mirror• In the faces of men and women I see God, and

in my own face in the glass,I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name.And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

» Walt Whitman (1819–92), U.S. poet. Song of Myself, sct. 48, in Leaves of Grass (1855).

How to be a modern yogi

RespiritualizationMind management

Create powerful allies

Physical therapy for the soul

STAGE TWO: Mind & Spirit

Managing the mind

• Internal dialog is deconstructing the human experience; in order to reclaim our spiritual nature.• “It is not enough to understand that

you are not your body; you must also understand that you are not this mind.”

• “If we are still governed by sense gratification and unable to regulate our behavior at will then we have not understood that we are not this body or this mind.”

Managing the mind

8 step to healing the mind:1. Establish the awareness of the mind as an

“other”2. Initiate friendly relations3. Practice listening to the mind’s issues (daily

basis)4. Ask to meet the other members of the mind5. Learn the needs & concerns of all parts of the

mind; develop a cooperative relationship6. Present the goals of your training program

and your ideas for spiritual progress to your mind, listen to objections and concerns and try to gain mutual agreement.

7. Introduce the concept of a spiritual coach or guide(s) (multiple forms are possible: teacher, acarya, deity, mantra)

8. Practice techniques & activities to build a relationship with a spiritual guide

Respiritualization

• Decontamination: derail your stars – application of tilaka

• Soul therapy: select a deity - offer it your food, and your purchases

• Galvanize the soul: Listen to spiritual sounds, stories, and stories at home, school, work and in transit

Respiritualization

• Decontamination: derail your stars – application of tilaka

o The moon affects watero The stars reflect your karmao 12 mantras and 12 marks

create a new horoscopeo Sacred clay or sanctified

water

Respiritualization

• Soul therapy: select a deity - offer it your food, and your purchases

o The power of PUJA (honoring the divine)

o Deity – the sanctioned forms of the divine

Respiritualization

• Soul therapy: selecting a deity o Sanctioned forms of the divine

should come from culturally recognized spiritual texts» Vedic: gaur-nitai, yantras, » Christian: Jesus, Mary, the holy

ghost» Jewish: the arc of the covenant, a

burning bush, Moses…» Muslim: the Koran, Mohammed

Fabrication is fuel for the false ego!

Respiritualization

• Soul therapy: selecting a deity o Select an altar placeo Consistency counts – DON’T be

rude!

Respiritualization

• Soul therapy cont: the four parts of puja…

o Part 1 - purification of un-offered goods» Removal of inauspicious subtle influences

and contamination by prokñaëa (sprinkling with purified water),

» chanting a mantra (om asträya phaö), and » showing a mudrä (cakra-mudrä). » To remove from liquids any unknown,

minute impurities, one may show the gäliné-mudrä (strainer).

» Use the dhenu-mudrä (cow) in order to transform into nectar (amåta) the article or substance to be used in worship.

Respiritualization

• Soul therapy cont: the four parts of puja…

o Part 2 - spiritualization» Spiritualize an article or substance

by silently chanting the béja-mantra (seed mantra) of the Deity one is honoring while showing the béjäkñara-mudrä over it,

» all the while meditating that the béja-mantra is being infused into it.

Respiritualization

• Soul therapy cont: the four parts of puja…

o Part 3 - Invocation» By means of mudräs and mantras, one asks

the Divine to be present, begs Him or Her to come near so one may render service, invokes His or her form, requesting the Lord to be blissful and to give His/Her blessings.

Respiritualization• Soul therapy cont: the four

parts of puja… o Part 4 - displays of love and respect

» veneration entails offering the divine sixteen, twelve, ten, five, three, two, or even one item according to one's capacity

o Items of respect can be divided in to four parts:1. Welcoming the divine as an honored guest2. Bathing and dressing the divine3. Honoring the divine (offering flowers, incence, an

oil lamp and food with drink)4. Expression of humily (pranama – offering respect

associates agents of the deity, apologising for your insufficent display of honor, and offering yourself completely to the divine

Respiritualization

• Galvanize the soul: Listen to spiritual sounds, and stories at home, school, work and in transit

o Mantraso Bhajanso Hymnso Lectures by saints and guruso Spiritual stories on tape

How to be a modern yogi

Lead, teach, or healSadhana communities

Staying in the game

Victims saving victims

STAGE THREE: Network & Teach

build better communities

•RBI – Reciprocal Benefit Incentives: game theoryo Mechanistic design for spiritual institutes

and communitieso Participate in a sadhana networko Develop RBI’s in your home, school, work,

place

• Join spiritmatters.biz o Read, “Is there a place for God in business?”o Subscribe to receive a weekly wisdom

tradition articleo Attend a leadership weekend

Game theory• Game theory is a branch of applied

mathematics that studies strategic situations where players choose different actions in an attempt to maximize their returns.

• Although similar to decision theory, game theory studies decisions that are made in an environment where various players interact.

• In other words, game theory studies choice of optimal behavior when costs and benefits of each option are not fixed, but depend upon the choices of other individuals.

Prisoner's dilemma

• The Nash equilibrium for this type of game does not lead to Pareto optimums (jointly optimum solutions). In equilibrium, each prisoner chooses to defect even though the joint payoff would be higher by cooperating. Unfortunately for the prisoners, each has an individual incentive to cheat even after promising to cooperate. This is the heart of the dilemma.

Two suspects A, B are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and having separated both prisoners, each is offer the same deal:

•If one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence and the betrayer goes free.

•If both stay silent, the police can only give both prisoners 6 months for a minor charge.

•If both betray each other, they receive a 5 year sentence each.

Reciprocal Benefit Incentive• The question in fact is not how to become a modern yogi but

rather how to remain a modern yogi. • The answer I believe will at least in part be found in the

creation of institutional (or societal) roles that are driven by reciprocal mutual aide incentive. Our starting point for discussing this will be game theory

• Take the example of the Prisoner’s dilemma in which the only so called rational choice is to choose selfish behavior. The only possibility of selflessness as a dominating strategy is if you assume super rational beings. What the model fails to specify (whether in one time or in repeated playing) is what are the implied institutional (or societal) values that inform the utility of the various outcomes.

Reciprocal Benefit Incentive• For example if one prisoner turns states evidence on the other

he has the potential of going free while the other remains imprisoned for ten years. This assumes that the institution to which the freed prisoner returns will be tolerant or even accepting of his decision. If the societal norm is intolerant of his turncoat decision he may not so easily defect; choosing to cooperate rather than be ostracized. (In some cases he may even risk the threat of a greater loss as in the possible danger to a member of a mob or crime family.)

• If an institution prizes as the highest and most rewarded ideal, selflessness, compassion etc… and ostracizes or condemns the opposite then the two prisoners may find that the Nash equilibrium is to always cooperate.

• We will now consider how to change or create the institutional roles that imply (or require) so called superrational thought.

• First we must restate our assumption on the issue of human nature and the plasticity of human character within roles and environment.

humans are inherently adaptable (have immense plasticity)

[cf. human nature vs. souls nature]

We are not our roles, however we accept what we are presented with…

Due to this plasticity humans readily adapt to the nature of the

roles presented

• The question then becomes how do you design for superrational thought and/or behaviour

• First, an explanation of supperrationality

Superrationality • Applying superrationality to the prisoner's dilemma

provides an explanation of how cooperation can be a rational choice even in a one-shot game. If two superrational people are playing the Prisoner's Dilemma, they will realise that because the situation is symmetrical, they will both eventually come up with the same choice. Either they will both choose to cooperate, or they will both choose to defect. Because they will be better off if they both choose to cooperate, that is what they will do. This assumes that each person knows that the other will act in an equally rational manner.

This leads to our objective which we will call Mechanistic Design..

Mechanism design

• Mechanism design is a sub-field of game theory. It is the art of designing rules of a game to achieve a specific outcome. This is done by setting up a structure in which each player has an incentive to behave as the designer intends.

You tell me…

• What are some example of mechanistic design that would help people stay in the sadhana game…

• Follow sadhana as a group in exchange for a shared interdependent premium

• Shared interdependent tasks that result in a mutual benefit

Lead, teach, or heal• Make a plan to share the modern yogi

lifestyle with otherso E.g. start a japa network, host a step group,

become a trained yogi (then teach how to be a modern yogi), publish a newsletter, hold charity drives, hold spiritual dinner parties, learn a new healing modality (face reading, ayurveda, vastu, yoga massage, pranic healing, give vegetarian cooking classes, become a peer counselor, become a tour guide to spiritual sites…)

o Complete the leader’s journal daily, file the report with your RBI team

o Chart, develop and report your progress in the 18 yogic qualities