Yoga As Your Box of Toys
Come on kids!
Let’s meditate on the outward appearance of the body (rupa) and give ourselves the power of invisibility. (Yoga Sutras 3.21) We can be like Invisible Woman and sneak around — no one will see us!
Let’s meditate on elephants (hasti) and become strong as the Hulk! (YS 3.25).
Let’s meditate on the impressions in the mind, (samskaras) and have knowledge of our past lives! (YS 3.18). I was a pirate in the Indian Ocean! ARRRR!
Let’s meditate on the pit of the throat (YS 3.31) and conquer hunger. . . .UH OH, must have done it wrong, I am totally craving hamburgers. Off to Smashburger!
These and thousands of other yoga techniques utilize the power of make-believe to explore inner and outer space, and liberate ourselves from the strict confines of daily life. Make-believe or pretend are one element of play. Another is free choice and self-regulation. In the realm of meditation, exploring our inner worlds, the time we spend playing allows us to develop a healthy relationship with the energies and elements we encounter.
The yoga lineage playground includes every area of your body — from the areas around the base of your spine all the way to the top of your head, including your feet and hands — not just your physical body. You have many subtle bodies, of subtler and subtler dimensions along the matter/energy continuum. Each body has many senses: outer and inner vision, outer and inner hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. All of your bodies and all of your senses engage and play around with fire, swim in the water, walk on the earth, fly through the air, and travel through space. The combinations are infinite.
You could meditate every day for a lifetime and never experience the same thing twice. As a matter of fact, if you are meditating in a way that suits your nature—that is the way it will tend to be. There is so much to explore that you are continually experiencing new combinations and sensations. When we enter any new world, we are children again. As new vistas open up inside ourselves, we need to give ourselves several years to playfully explore these new domains and map them out. I think it is essential for our emotional health that we do so.
Pretend play involves the imagination and leads to immersion in experience, or ananyacetas– “giving one’s undivided thought to.” What makes something playful is that it is intrinsically or instinctively motivated. The urge comes from within; we are totally immersed in our field of play. When you meditate with breath, your body becomes a musical instrument that the breath of life is playing. Spirit is playing with the flesh. When you meditate with a mantra you go deeper, allowing a spirit to play and improvise with the sound. You never tire of a mantra because you are hearing it new and fresh in every moment. You are playing with it because you love it.
I have mantras I have used every day for 45 years and they still seem totally new each second. The mantra carries me into the wave forms of the inner universe – that’s what they are for. And yet most mantras are simple euphonic sounds similar to what children make up when they are playing.
Last year, I went through lots of comic books of many genres, including manga, and found they contain the basic seed syllable mantras. The cartoonists use them as sound effects for the action happening in each frame. In a comic book, the sound effect for the bell at the desk in a hotel is BING – a guest is here, pay attention. In meditation, one of the seed sounds is ING and variations on that basic sound, and the meaning is the same: pay attention, listen up. The artists who drew the comics and made up the sounds were truly gifted. They must have meditated in their own way to discover what works.
In the yoga lineage, we have thousands of mantras available to us. Their perfection becomes available if we play with them. The people I know who are dead serious about mantras often create a stultifying and oppressive atmosphere in themselves. This is the dark side of tradition, like becoming a walking museum piece. The playground of yoga meditation is vast, inviting us into multiple universes for sport. Even the elements that you would think are serious — ritual worship, for example — have strong elements of play. In a puja, you might dress up the goddess or god as a doll, talk to her and give her little bits of food. Ullas, used in the context of consuming ritual offerings, means “to radiate, be brilliant, to come forth, to sport, play, dance, be wanton or joyful. To divert, delight. To cause to dance or jump.” Look at the definition of bh?va: “Any state of mind or body, opinion, intention, love, affection, attachment. . . Wanton sport, dalliance… contemplation, meditation.”
The word lila (pronounced leela) is Sanskrit for play and amusement, and the sense that all of manifestation is an act of play by the divine. When you take a playful approach to meditation, a surprising benefit is that you get to witness the soap opera of your own life with greater amusement. Everyone reviews their daily life during meditation – the mental movies just come in and won’t be denied. God did not build the universe to be an obstacle to meditation. Our inner lives are not an obstacle to meditation, they are the pathway. Anything you can think of or perceive, the ancient yogis had an app for that.
Around our house, meditation time is play time. Inside, the world’s best music is playing; a subtle light show illuminates the unlimited sky, prana is giving the best bodywork. On the outside, it looks like Camille and I are just sitting in the living room. No candles, no music, no incense, no props. Just the miracle of meditation. There is no effort whatsoever. The flow of pranashakti is so entertaining that we are enraptured. The life force never tires of restoring our tired nerves.
If you have been working at meditation, explore what happens if you put yourself in a playful bhav before you meditate – indulge in some “wanton sport” or pastime you love. Play cards, ping pong, watch a comedy show, sing karaoke, just to loosen up. Then pretend to meditate, with the joyous curiosity of a child. Through play, find your way.
Lorin Roche began practicing with the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra in 1968 and it has been a love affair ever since. He is the author of The Radiance Sutras, Meditation Made Easy, and Meditation Secrets for Women (written with his wild Shakti wife Camille Maurine). He has a PhD from the University of California at Irvine in Social Science, where he studied the language yogis and meditators develop to describe their inner experiences. Lorin does one-to-one coaching and trains meditation teachers. Visit lorinroche.com to order copies of The Radiance Sutras.
Dr. Lorin Roche began practicing with the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra in 1968 as part of scientific research on the physiology of meditation. He has a PhD from the University of California at Irvine, where his research focused on the language meditators generate to describe their inner experiences. He is the author of The Radiance Sutras and Meditation Made Easy. With his wife, Camille Maurine, he wrote Meditation Secrets for Women. A teacher of meditation for 46 years, Lorin’s approach centers on how to customize the practices to suit one’s individual nature. Lorin leads the Radiance Sutras Meditation Teacher Training, a 200 hour certification program registered with Yoga Alliance. Lorin teaches regularly at the Esalen Institute and around the world.