Ojai Yoga Crib 2006
Hard Disk Discussion

Erich: So yay to another successful Ojai Yoga Crib! This is Kira in case you don’t know. She’s the leader of the pack. And this is Eric.

Ed Brown: Stiff white guy makes good.

Erich: There could be a number of jokes around that!

So we go until noon. Is that right? Noon.

So, thank you for being here. I’m excited to be here. I love the Crib. And we’ve got the primo room. It’s nice in here in the morning

Thank you for being here. What I’m thinking to do is talk a little bit, is that okay? Are you sore, by the way? Good sore. I want to talk a little bit for a few minutes, then we’ll meditate together for a few minutes, and then we’ll bend over for a few minutes. I think the talking part is really essential, important. It’s sort of why I got into yoga. Not so I could talk about it, but I was interested in the philosophy. I didn’t want to bend over particularly. I didn’t want to exercise particularly. So I just want to get into a couple fundamental ideas because if we get clear on these fundamental, three ideas is what I’ve got in mind, if we get clear on these three simple ideas you’ll find that they transfer into everything. It’s hard to come up with the simple, clear, fundamental ideas. And to then talk about it in agreeable words. You’ve got to do a lot of homework to make it as simple as it actually is!

Okay, now if you’ve been around the yoga scene for a while, and even if you haven’t, you’ve probably become aware of how popular yoga has become, as evidenced by this conference and others. I thought yoga was big in the 70’s, and it was, but ever since then it’s just been growing exponentially. It’s still just getting more popular everyday. And this is a good thing, and I wasn’t so sure at first it was a good thing. But, you know, the more people on the planet doing yoga, the better. It’s good for the person doing the yoga, it’s good for them, and it’s good for others that they’re doing yoga. You know what I mean? And what I’ve always liked about my involvement with yoga, and with life actually, is that the learning just doesn’t stop. It just keeps going. It’s not like you learn yoga and then you do it. Or that you learn everything there is to know about life and then you live it. It’s sorta like the whole process is about getting clearer and clearer about what is yoga, really? What is life, really? What’s going on, really?

Now there are a lot of different yoga styles. There are many many teachers, more and more everyday, and everyone has their own slightly different emphasis point, which is cool. And again it’s evidenced in a conference like this where people are saying slightly different things. And it’s interesting. And as the teachers learn, and as the teachers understanding grows, they find that what they teach has got to morph and change in order to stay congruent with what they’re learning. And so gradually the cultural understanding of what yoga is begins to spiral toward greater clarity, coming from different emphasis points.

Now, no matter what style you’re studying, and no matter what style anyone else is teaching, and no matter what the emphasis point is, there’s one simple idea to just really be clear on. All of the practices in yoga, all the exercises, all the breathings, all the theory, all the philosophy, just like all the stuff is aimed at one simple thing. The reason for doing yoga is to have a clear experience of what yoga means. The reason for doing yoga is to experience yoga!

That’s a simple thought, and it’s almost too obvious. But keep it in the forefront of your mind because as you get more involved with the complexities of your specific technique, it’s easy to overlook the fact that what it’s really all about is understanding yoga. Especially if someone else is doing something different from you. It’s like, huh, who’s right? You know?

Now the word yoga is a very interesting word and it would be good to be clear on what it means or at least how I’m using the word. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root word yuj, y-u-j, which is similar to the English word yoke. Not yolk, like egg yolk, but yoke like yoking together, joining together, bringing together. A yoke remember is the wooden frame that holds two oxen together, so that the two oxen pull as one. And so the word yoga is referencing the act of joining together, as well as the increased strength you’ll experience as a result of joining together—you know, two oxen are stronger than one—as well as the new experience of felt unity that you do experience when you join, when you merge with.

Now the merging that’s being referred to in yoga is what might be called the individual soul merging with the universal Soul, the Oversoul. Small mind merging with Big Mind.

And so the word yoga is talking about the unity of Mind. It’s a statement that says “unity,” and it’s also the whole body of various processes that help you join with the feeling of unity, so you experience the unity. So it means “union” and “joining.”

Now hang in here a little longer. What’s interesting about this, and what you begin to discover, is that the unity of Infinity… and often, words like unity and infinity don’t convey a lot of meaning to people… they make sense, though. The unity of Infinity is not the result of smaller pieces joining together to make one infinitely big piece. If you’ve got atoms, atoms can join together and they make a new unit. They make a molecule. And so if you’ve got two hydrogen atoms over here, and you’ve got an oxygen atom over here, and you get them near each other and you let them do their thing, and they bbblloopp, they join… and they become a bigger single unit, a water molecule. And if you’ve got a water molecule over here and another water molecule over here and you get them near each other and you let them do their thing, and they bblloooppp, they become a bigger single unit. And what I’m saying is that the unity of Infinity is different than that. It’s not the result of smaller pieces joining together to make one huge piece. The unity of Infinity is the pre-existing fact.

And so, what the yogi’s are talking about is that when you join with the Infinity from which you couldn’t actually be separate, when you join with it—it will feel like you are joining with it—when you join with That from which you could never actually be separate, and you begin to experience your unity with Infinity, with the Oneness of things, when you sense into it even just a little bit, then, naturally enough, you start feeling connected. You start feeling not so at odds with life. You start feeling more on the beam. And then suddenly life starts getting more fun again, more exciting again, and you’ll find yourself feeling more inspired, not so depressed, not so dis-spirited. And then just the simple fact that you’re still here on the planet—with a different point of view—your simple presence will act as a positive force which will make it more likely for everyone to start grokking the fact of unity consciousness. And this is so cool.

And so, the first big idea is the reason for the practice is to experience yoga, the meaning of yoga. Yoga means union, statement, as well as joining, all the processes that help you realize the statement. And then the third big idea is that the primary way to experience unity consciousness is through meditation.

Meditation, therefore, is the main practice in yoga. Meaning it’s the main thing that will help precipitate the awareness of unity. It’s how you join with That from which you couldn’t actually be separate. And so the third idea is that meditation is how you join. Joining is really essential to realizing the fundamental already-existing unity.

Now the way I like to talk about meditation… meditation isn’t just about sitting here like this… that’s part of it. The way I like to talk about it is that it means inner listening. You’re learning to listen to the Infinite for guidance about what to do or not do. And some of the time you sit quietly and you get centered and still and you listen and you merge and you experience Infinity. And some of the time when you meditate—and, again, I’m using the word meditate to mean inner listening—some of the time you listen inwardly as you are doing the yoga poses. And so as you learn to do yoga you’re actually learning how to meditate in action. And at first as you are doing the poses it’s all sort of mechanical. Tighten here, rotate here, do this… and you’ve kind of got to go through that stage in order to get the mechanics. But more and more, instead of dictating your alignment, you’re listening inwardly for how the alignment wants to be. And so you’re channeling the alignment, rather than forcing it on yourself. And learning to do yoga is an easy context in which you learn to listen and let it move through you.

And so some of the time you meditate sitting, some of the time you meditate yog-ing, doing the yoga, but most of the time you meditate—you listen inwardly for guidance—all day long. That’s what you’re doing most of the time. You’re being wherever you’re being and you’re doing whatever you’re doing, and wherever you be doing whatever you do—you know, just driving down the road, going to Starbucks, just whatever the event is—is the place to be listening for guidance about it.

Now the trick to inner listening, to getting into the meditative hearing guidance state, involves learning to get into a frame of mind wherein you are not thinking quite so much, and instead actively listen. You’ll find that when you actively listen there will be less thinking going on in your mind, and when there’s less thinking going on in your mind there’s suddenly more space in there for insight to flow in, for revelation to flow in, for the good answers to flow in. And what you want are the good answers. And so at a certain point it makes thinking, logical sense to use your thinking to help you get into a place where you’re not thinking quite so much, wherein essentially you learn to shut up, so that you can hear. It’s not that you shut up and just mentally flat-line it. You know, where nothing happens. That’s not the goal. The goal is to shut up so that you can hear. So that you join with the Infinity and let it channel through you as your experience.

And the idea is you do it during the day whenever you have a decision to make, whenever you have a choice about something. Having a choice about something, having a decision to make, is like being at a fork in the road. And having a choice, a decision, means that you’re not as clear as you could be. If you were clear about what to do at the fork in the road, if the obvious thing to do were obvious, you wouldn’t really be having a decision-choice moment. The fact that you have a decision or a choice should alert you to the fact that, wow, you know, I don’t have all the data I need to make a good choice… and therefore you need a bigger perspective than the one you are currently coming from.

And so you ask for guidance… and just the coolest thing is that once you start doing this, wow, you do feel responses about what to do or not do. And then your job becomes that of daring to do as the inner feeling is guiding you to do, whether you can explain it to yourself or not.

Okay, now at home I have a big hard drive on my computer, and I have numerous external hard drives. I’ve got about 3,000 gigabytes of hard drive. Do you know how much that is?

Q: Not enough.

Erich: It’s not enough! But it’s a shitload. In fact, I’m planning on getting more. But 3,000 is almost obscene. You know, 1 gigabyte is a lot. But if you’re doing video or audio you need a lot. I wouldn’t have it otherwise. But no matter how big your hard drive is, even if it’s a really big hard drive, no matter how big it is it can only hold so much information. You know, how much information it can hold is limited. And so if you are basing all your decisions and your choices on the necessarily limited amount of information in your hard drive, then the choices and decisions you’ll make are not going to be as good as they could be. They’ll probably be okay, but you’ll be drawing on a limited amount of information. And so the idea is to use your mind, to use your PC, your puny consciousness, to tune in to the internet of Mind. You use your mind to tune in to the internet of Mind and suddenly you’ll have access to the whole schlaboodle.

Just the phrase “internet of Mind,” whenever I say that or think that, suddenly it’s like phwooomp! It feels like a huge expansion. And everyone gets it pretty much. It’s like, wow, yes, internet, huge, connected. And the thing is you’re already connected to the internet of Infinite Mind. It’s not like you’ve got to build the connection, or build the internet. It’s built-in. It’s the way it is. It’s the way it’s always been.

And so, yoga is about learning to use your mind to connect with the internet of Mind, rather than drawing on a necessarily limited—even though it’s big—hard drive. It’s like from now on whenever you have a decision to make, google the internet! Become still. Let it download. And then do as you are guided to do. It’s so cool, and it’s such a cool analogy, and it’s simple, and I think it’s accurate. And more important I think it’s true. And the more of us that start doing it, like when cell phones came out, at first there were one or two, but then suddenly you know a good thing… people will connect into this fast once it really starts registering with people.

And so like to the best of your ability, connect with the internet of Mind. Encourage your friends to connect with the internet of Mind. Encourage your kids to dare to do as their deepest feelings guide them to do. Because as more and more people start doing it, then there will be more and more people who will be operating out of unity consciousness, and then everyone’s experience will begin to evidence that. Rather than the whole world looking like a scary fucked up place because everyone is scared.

If you’re feeling at odds with life, you’re going to feel defensive and fearful and you’ll lash out stupidly. And other people will go, hey, whoa dude, what are you doing? And a lot of them will lash back. And so it takes a few yogi’s, and we are the current yogi’s on the planet, you know… it takes a few yogi’s to do it for those who can’t. And it’s sorta like now is the time for the current yogi’s on the planet to really no longer just sorta think about it, but like really meditate to the best of your ability. Some of the time sit down, some of the time gyrate, most of the time just go through your life but connecting. Do it now before the world gets too wacko. Do it now so the world doesn’t need to get any more wacko than it already is. Mentally encourage Mr. North Korea to dare to do as his deepest feelings guide him to do. Mentally encourage Mr. Bush to, yeah, dare to do as your deepest feelings guide you to do. Knowing that, wow, they are part of the internet and if they are plugging in then, yeah, they will work in concert.

And so try to be alert in your mind to not cut out certain people or groups, “Oh, you’re not part of the internet. You’re not part of the Infinity.” If that is what you are decreeing with your mind, then with all the power of your infinite mind it causes things to spin wacko. And we’ve had enough wacko.

Yoga has been on the planet for thousands of years, and I think it is finally at the reaping its fruit stage, where the thousands of years of work is finally beginning to really pay off. And we’re the ones to finally flick it into completion. To just, finally, click into the obviousness of, “Oh yeah, like yeah, one mind, unity, one people.” And the way that it will become real for you is if you join with it through meditation. You practice listening for guidance.

The problem is isolation. The solution is joining. The subsequent experience is unity. But the joining doesn’t establish the unity, the joining just helps you realize the already existing fact.

So cool! So cool. And so just pretty simple. And exciting, I think. It’s so life affirming.
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