Painting by Januz Miralles
“Bodies have form…minds do not.” This is my favorite utterance from my six-day teaching trip in London at Triyoga this past week. My own line caught me off guard – a weird feeling, but happens all the time because I am ever a writer fumbling for description. The line is so direct and literal. Our minds, our thoughts don’t take up space and do not have substance, at least not in a normal sense. They do seem to have a location – mostly within the head – but they don’t have outer form, not without a mouth to speak them, a hand to write them down, or a body to act them out. If a thought remains only in the head, it eventually disappears and the world remains unchanged.
This surprising utterance came at the end of a yoga class on day four. The focus that morning had been sensing direction within poses in ways that help breathing, especially within standing poses. As a completely paralyzed yoga teacher who gets around in a wheelchair, I forget how ironic it is that I am teaching a room full of standing people how to do standing poses. That afternoon our focus had been seated forward bends and seated twists. Students, including myself, often resist forward bends because they can feel entrapping, difficult, with seemingly little hope of reprieve. I had watched these students work hard, struggle, and become a little agitated. By the end, however, they had reached a place of deepened contentment.
My original intent had been to say something about the struggle that yoga poses can present and the way our minds find ways to resist. But instead, something else came out of my mouth, “Bodies have form…minds do not….is it a wonder that our minds try to control things? They have to in order to know that they exist.” Through judgments, the mind creates connections to events and things and then becomes attached to those judgments. These outward attachments give the mind form. Without them, the mind merges with nothingness and dissolves.
The description “Bodies have form…minds to do not,” explains a lot of human history. Under the influence of inward inspiration, the Crusades attempt to create outer expression by conquering (saving) other people and imposing a belief system on them. But wonderful things also happen when formless ideal is applied to outer action. For example, the global community moved against Apartheid in South Africa.
On a more individual level, regardless of the physical, psychological or emotional causes, reaction against our mind’s own formlessness is a fundamental factor in anxiety. It is also an essential feature in many eating disorders. Unable to seemingly control anything, the person living with an eating disorder controls food and ultimately turns it against his or her body. The condition of PTSD is also an injury at the formless level of the mind-body relationship. My point is that this fundamental issue, i.e. our mind does not possess the same kind of reality that the body does, is an essential contributor to so many things in our lives, both good and bad.
We carry a formless energy within our consciousness, a formless depth, and we became aware of it. This is our Fall. This is our Awakening. Our minds sprung from this formlessness by gaining self-awareness, like a child emerging out of darkness. But the price was steep. We lost connection with our source, with our parent so to speak. We sit alone with our formlessness and long for company and companionship. We seek any form of reference or attachment, both good and bad. (Notice how faith in a Higher Power exactly keeps this formless part of us company. Many of these belief systems also offer solutions to the issues presented by death and dying – the ultimate formlessness. This is not a coincidence.)
As I utter these words in London, I am grateful that I am not alone, that there is a roomful of people. We sit quietly. We have worked hard and have shared much. As the words are felt between us, we smile and shudder just a little. The Universe is a very big place.
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