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| Why Yoga? |
I was always curious. I was attracted to the mystical and the divine. I was raised Catholic, and at
an early age I was fascinated by the lessons in the catechism.
“Who made us?”
“God made us.”
“Who is God?”
“God is the Supreme Being, Creator of the universe.”
I ate that up, but I wondered. Like many of us, I had questions of my own.
Who made God?
Why did Jesus have to suffer and die for us?
Was Mary really a virgin?
Why does the Body of Christ taste like fish wafers?
I took it seriously. (I didn’t want to go to Hell.) I was a virgin until I was twenty-one; that’s how
seriously I took the moral strictures that Christianity imposed on my innocence. I also didn't kill
anyone.
I did lie. In confession I would make up sins for the sake of the priest. I couldn’t see myself
coming in week after week for his blessing with no wrong-doing to reveal.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession. I stole three
times. I bore false witness against my neighbor twice. I coveted my neighbor’s goods four times.
I committed adultery seven times. For these and all my sins I am heartily sorry.”
“I absolve thee from all thy sins. For Penance say an ‘Act of Contrition’ and three ‘Hail Marys.’
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
“Amen.”
At the age of nine I didn’t even know what adultery was, but I was willing to own up to it,
hardened little sinner that I confessed myself to be. Then I would go and say the prayers, and the
next morning at Holy Mass I would take the Communion wafer on my tongue, and it still tasted
like fish food.
In my one year hiatus from college, along with the Great Books of the Western World, I also read
the Holy Bible. I read it all the way through, and then I read it again, skipping parts like
“Leviticus,” “Numbers” and “Deuteronomy.”
I finished college in a Catholic University. Along with the courses that were relevant to my major
and minor, I took twelve units of theology and twelve units of moral philosophy. Had I attended
that school for my lower division work, those courses would have been out of the way by my
junior year. As it was, I had to make them up, so I had precious little room in my schedule for
electives.
Theology was boring. Moral philosophy, on the other hand, was somewhat fascinating. The
subject is based on the works of Thomas Aquinas, who after seven hundred years was still
considered the final authority on good and evil, and the existence of God.
From the time I was seven, I never missed Mass on Sunday morning. Not through my own
volition I didn’t. There was one time when I was staying with a friend and his family in a cabin
up in the Canadian woods. When Sunday rolled around there was nobody willing to drive the
little Catholic boy thirty miles to town. I hoped that God would understand.
The next time I missed Mass was on the Sunday after my wedding. My beautiful seventeen year-
old Lutheran wife suggested that instead of getting up and going to church it would be just as
virtuous to stay in bed and fuck. I was easily convinced.
I didn’t stop doing Yoga, however. By then I had been practicing asanas and pranayama for four
years. I had made a lot of progress too, if achieving great flexibility counts as progress.
I wasn’t sure anymore that it did. The more I did Yoga, the less I understood why I was doing it.
I had no doubts when I began at age eighteen: I wanted to be a saint.
I read about the lives of a number of saints when I was a Catholic adolescent. Ignatius Loyola,
Francis Xavier, Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Avila, Theresa the Little Flower, Peter, John the
Baptist, John the Beloved, Paul… I learned about a lot of the saints of the Roman Catholic
Church. I devoured the confessions of Saint Augustine.
In addition to those, I studied the life of Paramahansa Yogananda, with its references to his guru,
Sri Yukteswar. I read about Lahiri Mahasha and Babaji. The latter was reputed to be more than
a thousand years old and still living.
The saint that I liked the best was Anthony. This was the Anthony who lived in Christian Egypt
and spent most of his life out in the desert dealing with demons and enlightenment. He lived to
be 105 years old. He died in the middle of the fourth century. A lot of the famous saints were
martyred, but Anthony just laid down and died one day. His life had been simple and happy. He
probably died a virgin.
This caught my fancy when I was eighteen. I wasn’t much into socializing, yet. My idea of a
good day was one spent in the open, hunting rabbits and quail or just exploring the back hills of
Southern California. I remember one afternoon vividly.
I had done a lot of hiking, and as evening approached I found myself at a grove of eucalyptus
trees. I dropped my game bag to the ground and leaned my .22 single-shot rifle against a tree. I
sat down and leaned back against the same tree. I may have been fourteen or fifteen years old.
I relaxed, and a profound feeling of contentment descended upon me. For the first time that I
can recall, the strains of childhood, adolescence, school, church and obedience fell away. I
became aware that I was in the right place at the right time, that I always had been and that I
always would be.
This was not any dramatic visitation. The soft breezes of autumn whispered in the leaves and
long grass. My breath came in easy, unnoticed rhythm. For a little while time had no meaning. I
wasn’t hungry; I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t lonely or afraid. I had no uncertainty about the future; I
had no guilt for the past. I gazed happily at the beautiful little valley that lay before me, at the
soft clouds, the brush covered hills and the groves of tall trees. I loved it all, and life was good.
I would be lying to you if I told you now that I clung to that feeling forever. I don’t know how
long it lasted. By evening I was home with my parents and siblings. There was firewood to be
chopped and lessons to be studied. There was dinner and bedtime and rising before dawn to
hurry down from the hill to catch the school bus that came rumbling through the dark valley.
There was all of the usual stress of scholarship and puberty, strict parents and poverty and the
uncertainty of the future.
But forever I had the memory with me like a precious talisman. I knew how good it could be, and
I wanted to know how to get that feeling back again and again.
During the remainder of my adolescence, there may have been a few moments of serenity that
popped up all on their own like that day beneath the eucalyptus tree. I don't remember. It was
not until I began to practice Yoga that I gained any objective understanding of the phenomenon,
what it was, and how I could find it again.
an early age I was fascinated by the lessons in the catechism.
“Who made us?”
“God made us.”
“Who is God?”
“God is the Supreme Being, Creator of the universe.”
I ate that up, but I wondered. Like many of us, I had questions of my own.
Who made God?
Why did Jesus have to suffer and die for us?
Was Mary really a virgin?
Why does the Body of Christ taste like fish wafers?
I took it seriously. (I didn’t want to go to Hell.) I was a virgin until I was twenty-one; that’s how
seriously I took the moral strictures that Christianity imposed on my innocence. I also didn't kill
anyone.
I did lie. In confession I would make up sins for the sake of the priest. I couldn’t see myself
coming in week after week for his blessing with no wrong-doing to reveal.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession. I stole three
times. I bore false witness against my neighbor twice. I coveted my neighbor’s goods four times.
I committed adultery seven times. For these and all my sins I am heartily sorry.”
“I absolve thee from all thy sins. For Penance say an ‘Act of Contrition’ and three ‘Hail Marys.’
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
“Amen.”
At the age of nine I didn’t even know what adultery was, but I was willing to own up to it,
hardened little sinner that I confessed myself to be. Then I would go and say the prayers, and the
next morning at Holy Mass I would take the Communion wafer on my tongue, and it still tasted
like fish food.
In my one year hiatus from college, along with the Great Books of the Western World, I also read
the Holy Bible. I read it all the way through, and then I read it again, skipping parts like
“Leviticus,” “Numbers” and “Deuteronomy.”
I finished college in a Catholic University. Along with the courses that were relevant to my major
and minor, I took twelve units of theology and twelve units of moral philosophy. Had I attended
that school for my lower division work, those courses would have been out of the way by my
junior year. As it was, I had to make them up, so I had precious little room in my schedule for
electives.
Theology was boring. Moral philosophy, on the other hand, was somewhat fascinating. The
subject is based on the works of Thomas Aquinas, who after seven hundred years was still
considered the final authority on good and evil, and the existence of God.
From the time I was seven, I never missed Mass on Sunday morning. Not through my own
volition I didn’t. There was one time when I was staying with a friend and his family in a cabin
up in the Canadian woods. When Sunday rolled around there was nobody willing to drive the
little Catholic boy thirty miles to town. I hoped that God would understand.
The next time I missed Mass was on the Sunday after my wedding. My beautiful seventeen year-
old Lutheran wife suggested that instead of getting up and going to church it would be just as
virtuous to stay in bed and fuck. I was easily convinced.
I didn’t stop doing Yoga, however. By then I had been practicing asanas and pranayama for four
years. I had made a lot of progress too, if achieving great flexibility counts as progress.
I wasn’t sure anymore that it did. The more I did Yoga, the less I understood why I was doing it.
I had no doubts when I began at age eighteen: I wanted to be a saint.
I read about the lives of a number of saints when I was a Catholic adolescent. Ignatius Loyola,
Francis Xavier, Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Avila, Theresa the Little Flower, Peter, John the
Baptist, John the Beloved, Paul… I learned about a lot of the saints of the Roman Catholic
Church. I devoured the confessions of Saint Augustine.
In addition to those, I studied the life of Paramahansa Yogananda, with its references to his guru,
Sri Yukteswar. I read about Lahiri Mahasha and Babaji. The latter was reputed to be more than
a thousand years old and still living.
The saint that I liked the best was Anthony. This was the Anthony who lived in Christian Egypt
and spent most of his life out in the desert dealing with demons and enlightenment. He lived to
be 105 years old. He died in the middle of the fourth century. A lot of the famous saints were
martyred, but Anthony just laid down and died one day. His life had been simple and happy. He
probably died a virgin.
This caught my fancy when I was eighteen. I wasn’t much into socializing, yet. My idea of a
good day was one spent in the open, hunting rabbits and quail or just exploring the back hills of
Southern California. I remember one afternoon vividly.
I had done a lot of hiking, and as evening approached I found myself at a grove of eucalyptus
trees. I dropped my game bag to the ground and leaned my .22 single-shot rifle against a tree. I
sat down and leaned back against the same tree. I may have been fourteen or fifteen years old.
I relaxed, and a profound feeling of contentment descended upon me. For the first time that I
can recall, the strains of childhood, adolescence, school, church and obedience fell away. I
became aware that I was in the right place at the right time, that I always had been and that I
always would be.
This was not any dramatic visitation. The soft breezes of autumn whispered in the leaves and
long grass. My breath came in easy, unnoticed rhythm. For a little while time had no meaning. I
wasn’t hungry; I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t lonely or afraid. I had no uncertainty about the future; I
had no guilt for the past. I gazed happily at the beautiful little valley that lay before me, at the
soft clouds, the brush covered hills and the groves of tall trees. I loved it all, and life was good.
I would be lying to you if I told you now that I clung to that feeling forever. I don’t know how
long it lasted. By evening I was home with my parents and siblings. There was firewood to be
chopped and lessons to be studied. There was dinner and bedtime and rising before dawn to
hurry down from the hill to catch the school bus that came rumbling through the dark valley.
There was all of the usual stress of scholarship and puberty, strict parents and poverty and the
uncertainty of the future.
But forever I had the memory with me like a precious talisman. I knew how good it could be, and
I wanted to know how to get that feeling back again and again.
During the remainder of my adolescence, there may have been a few moments of serenity that
popped up all on their own like that day beneath the eucalyptus tree. I don't remember. It was
not until I began to practice Yoga that I gained any objective understanding of the phenomenon,
what it was, and how I could find it again.
| Yoga for Carnivores by Jay Dyck |