Speaker 1: Pushkin. I was in graduate school and a friend of
Speaker 1: mine was like, oh my god, you should come to
Speaker 1: yoga because I was really depressed. This is one of
Speaker 1: my wellness idols. Jessamin Stanley. She had drunk the yoga
Speaker 1: kool aid. She was like, Oh my god, it's going
Speaker 1: to change your whole life. The idea of that sort
Speaker 1: of big change did appeal to Jessamin, who at the
Speaker 1: time was feeling a bit lost. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know who I am, what is the purpose of
Speaker 1: my life? What's going on? And she was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you should come to yoga. You're gonna love it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I am not doing that. Jessamin
Speaker 1: had tried yoga once before in high school and she
Speaker 1: absolutely hated it. But her friend wasn't going to take
Speaker 1: no for an answer and knew just how to make
Speaker 1: the case. She appealed to Jessaman's appetite for a bargain,
Speaker 1: and she got me caught up on a group on
Speaker 1: though she was like, what's the worst they can happen?
Speaker 1: You go one time you paid thirty dollars with this past, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the worst that can happen? Jessamin reluctantly agreed at
Speaker 1: first that yoga class wasn't the amazing, life changing experience
Speaker 1: Jessamin was hoping for. So it's really hot here, it smells,
Speaker 1: it kind of sucks. Actually, like everything about this is
Speaker 1: really hard. Jessamin couldn't do the poses as well as
Speaker 1: the other students around her. As a queer plus sized
Speaker 1: black woman in a mostly skinny, white lady yoga class.
Speaker 1: She felt uncomfortable in her body and painfully self conscious.
Speaker 1: I remember we were practicing a posture called awkward pose
Speaker 1: that is literally it's so aptly named because it is
Speaker 1: extremely awkward. So I'm looking at myself in this mirror
Speaker 1: and which is traumatizing on its own, because I literally
Speaker 1: would go out of my way at that stage in
Speaker 1: my life to avoid mirrors and looking at myself. And
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, like, why did you even think you
Speaker 1: could come to this class? Like you obviously don't know
Speaker 1: what you're doing, and everybody here knows it, and you
Speaker 1: can't even do this basic thing. This is like maybe
Speaker 1: the third or fourth posture in the class. I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's no like, if you can't do this, then why
Speaker 1: even show up? And I was just talking cash shit
Speaker 1: to myself, and I had this moment where I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you could just try. Maybe you just try, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: maybe you're gonna fall down. Maybe everyone in the room
Speaker 1: is going to know that you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Maybe the teacher's gonna know that you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing. And maybe that's just gotta be okay, Because
Speaker 1: did you spend this money to come to this class
Speaker 1: to just stand here and talk shit about yourself because
Speaker 1: you could have done that at home. Jessamin decided to
Speaker 1: make good on her thirty dollar investment. She committed to
Speaker 1: halting her usual self criticism, if only for the length
Speaker 1: of that one class. She started leaning into all the
Speaker 1: new postures and movements, and then something incredible happened. She
Speaker 1: actually started to enjoy yoga. It was the first time
Speaker 1: Esseman was able to get out of her head and
Speaker 1: as long as she could remember. So it was this
Speaker 1: insane moment of like actually having to reckon with something
Speaker 1: that I had just decided about myself, and that moment
Speaker 1: that breaking point to this day. Ultimately, that is why
Speaker 1: I continue to practice yoga, because it really is it's
Speaker 1: a cracking open of the spirit. It's like you're looking
Speaker 1: in a foggy bathroom mirror, a mirror that you fogged up,
Speaker 1: and like just swiping across it and seeing your actual
Speaker 1: reflection back at you. And it was so profound for
Speaker 1: me in a way that I certainly didn't walk into
Speaker 1: the class thinking I was going to experience. Decades later,
Speaker 1: Jessaman has gone from an awkward novice to becoming a
Speaker 1: famous yoga professional. She's now one of the most sought
Speaker 1: after yoga and wellness instructors in the world. Jessaman's done
Speaker 1: ad campaigns for places like Gatorade, Adidas, and Amazon. She's
Speaker 1: the co founder of The Underbelly, an international yoga community
Speaker 1: that celebrates bringing yoga and movement to people of all
Speaker 1: body types and identities. But initially that experience, I really
Speaker 1: only understood it on a physical level, an example being
Speaker 1: like I'm just going to work on this pose, like
Speaker 1: I'm going to work on camel pose or downward facing
Speaker 1: dog like. I got really into headstanding and understanding the
Speaker 1: mechanics of that, and through that practice of focusing on
Speaker 1: different postures, I did start to understand that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of themes that come up when you are
Speaker 1: practicing yoga so like grounding stability, strength, flexibility, and understanding
Speaker 1: those concepts beyond what they were offering me physically, So like,
Speaker 1: if I am in a posture that is offering flexibility
Speaker 1: in my physical whole body, what other parts of my
Speaker 1: life can I be more flexible in. Jessamin was training
Speaker 1: extensively in the physical side of her practice, but she
Speaker 1: hadn't yet looked at the historic or spiritual roots of yoga.
Speaker 1: Was her practice really supposed to be just about the poses,
Speaker 1: she wondered, or did the founders of yoga intend for
Speaker 1: it to be deeper. Jessamin was fascinated by all these questions,
Speaker 1: but she also worried that the answers might not be
Speaker 1: for people like her. I am black, I am American,
Speaker 1: I am not South Asian. I do not have a
Speaker 1: cultural relationship with yoga. And I was like, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure this is all appropriation and it's probably not cool
Speaker 1: for me to be doing this at all. But at
Speaker 1: a minimum, I'm just going to stick with the physical stuff,
Speaker 1: and then I won't. I'm not even going to dig
Speaker 1: into anything else. But as Jessamin thought more about the
Speaker 1: varied benefits that she and her students got from yoga.
Speaker 1: She began to realize that the physical side of this
Speaker 1: ancient tradition was just the tip of the iceberg. As
Speaker 1: she explains in her most recent book, Yoga, My Yoga
Speaker 1: of Self Acceptance, she came to learn that it's less
Speaker 1: about fitness and more about dealing with your mental and
Speaker 1: emotional baggage. So much of what was making me unhappy
Speaker 1: and unsatisfied in my life was that I'd created all
Speaker 1: of these boundaries for myself, and I made all these
Speaker 1: decisions about the type of person that I am and
Speaker 1: about what I'm capable of handling, and I never allowed
Speaker 1: myself to step outside of those boundaries. Yoga requires that
Speaker 1: you step outside of your boundaries, and it's put me
Speaker 1: in these situations where I actually had to look at
Speaker 1: the way that I talked to myself and look at
Speaker 1: the way that I process information and be like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I know. I decided that I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be able to do this, but maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: going to try. And part of that commitment to moving
Speaker 1: past her boundaries involved taking a careful look at the
Speaker 1: cultural origins of yoga. Jessamine began reading about the history
Speaker 1: of her practice, and in doing so, returned to an
Speaker 1: important spiritual work that she'd first heard about and her
Speaker 1: yoga teacher training a book that's often thought of as
Speaker 1: the earliest textbook of yoga. It's called The Yoga Suits.
Speaker 1: Such means thread, so it's literally like threads that tie
Speaker 1: us together. These sutras have been passed down for thousands
Speaker 1: of years, and they've been translated an untold number of times,
Speaker 1: and they really are just words that were captured by
Speaker 1: the students of a teacher. Parts and jolly, and these
Speaker 1: words were just guiding thoughts for life. Potentially was the
Speaker 1: wise Sanskrit stage who first outlined what's known as the
Speaker 1: eight limbed Path. The eight limbed path was a way
Speaker 1: for students not just to achieve a fitter body, as
Speaker 1: we often think of yoga today, but to gain a
Speaker 1: fitter mind and spirit. Potentially argued that when followed correctly,
Speaker 1: the eight limbed path is a way for us all
Speaker 1: to become free of mental suffering. It's really just like
Speaker 1: so many other ancient texts, and it's been passed down
Speaker 1: because the universality of the aphorisms. They can be applied
Speaker 1: in every circumstance, no matter who you are or where
Speaker 1: you are, and that's one of the reasons we'll be
Speaker 1: turning to the yoga sutras in this episode. Today we'll
Speaker 1: explore what the eight Lived path says about how to
Speaker 1: live a happier, healthier life. Welcome back to Happiness Lessons
Speaker 1: of the Ancients on the Happiness Lap with me, Doctor
Speaker 1: Laurie Santos. Certainly, yoga has become in the mainstream almost
Speaker 1: entirely associated with exercise. What poses are you doing? The
Speaker 1: difficulty of the practice is engaged by the difficulty of
Speaker 1: the postures, like how acrobatic is your practice becomes the metric,
Speaker 1: so that when people go to a yoga class, it's
Speaker 1: always about like what are the physical benefits going to be?
Speaker 1: And that even when you talk about like meditation or breathwork,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily seen as a necessary component of a
Speaker 1: yoga practice. And ultimately though, the physical experience of yoga
Speaker 1: is really a very minor part of the experience. As
Speaker 1: Jessamin learned more about the history of yoga and the
Speaker 1: yoga sutras specifically, she quickly realized that yoga poses, or
Speaker 1: asina's as they're called in Sanskrit, are just a tiny
Speaker 1: part only one branch of the eight limb path that
Speaker 1: Potentially originally outlined. In fact, Asina's didn't even make it
Speaker 1: into the first limb that Potentially preached about. His classic
Speaker 1: text started not with Asina's but with what are known
Speaker 1: as the yamas or restraints. Yama's especially, I think, because
Speaker 1: they go first. It's the suture that I think people
Speaker 1: are most familiar with and the ones that have the
Speaker 1: most intense translations in our society. The yamas remind us
Speaker 1: about the responsibility we have to other people. In doing so,
Speaker 1: the yamas fit well with one of the most well
Speaker 1: documented effects in the entire field of happiness science that
Speaker 1: becoming more other oriented is a quick way to improve
Speaker 1: our well being. Study after study shows that focusing on
Speaker 1: other people, either through volunteering or donating money, can make
Speaker 1: us feel happier, and acting intentionally towards others is what
Speaker 1: the first limb of the eight limb path is all about.
Speaker 1: In fact, Potentially thought our responsibilities to others were so
Speaker 1: important that he divided the yamas into five tinier principles,
Speaker 1: as he called them, and the first and most famous
Speaker 1: of these principles is what's known as ahimsa, which is
Speaker 1: this idea of non violence, and often Ahimsa is translated
Speaker 1: as a call to action for vegetarianism or veganism, because
Speaker 1: the best way to be non violent in terms of
Speaker 1: not harming other creatures is to literally not consume other creatures.
Speaker 1: But that's just one translation of Ahimsa, and that's just
Speaker 1: one translation for some people. Non violence, to me has
Speaker 1: always come up more in the language that we used
Speaker 1: to talk not just about other people, but about ourselves,
Speaker 1: because if you are using violent language to talk about yourself,
Speaker 1: that is coming into the way that you communicate about
Speaker 1: other people as well, which is kind of ironic, because
Speaker 1: I think the whole idea of a himself is not
Speaker 1: to engage in violence, and in some ways, critiquing people,
Speaker 1: especially critiquing people's bodies, you know, might be really a
Speaker 1: violation of the very principle exactly. And another one that
Speaker 1: jumps up for me is Bramacharia, which is this idea
Speaker 1: of chastity. And like I remember in my own teacher
Speaker 1: training it being said like, oh, well, we don't really
Speaker 1: think about Bramacharia that much, like it's not that big
Speaker 1: of a deal. You don't need to worry about it
Speaker 1: because bramacharia being translated as chastity and therefore meaning celibacy,
Speaker 1: no sex, no sex. People are like, I'm not not
Speaker 1: going to have sex what you're saying, And in my
Speaker 1: own understanding of brahmacharia, I think that it's more about
Speaker 1: owning your own spirit so that when you are engaged
Speaker 1: in acts that are literally sharing your spirit with other
Speaker 1: human beings, that you can at a minimum know what
Speaker 1: you're getting into. And that's what sex is. It's offering
Speaker 1: yourself to another human being, and sex it can get
Speaker 1: you twisted in the game. It will get you confused,
Speaker 1: and that is really all that Brahmacharia is. It's really
Speaker 1: just asking a question. It's like, you know, what does
Speaker 1: it mean to hold onto your essence? To preserve your spirit.
Speaker 1: Jessamine has a similar interpretation of the other three Yamas principles.
Speaker 1: They're there so our minds don't get twisted up and
Speaker 1: so that we can preserve our spirit. These final free
Speaker 1: principles include Satya or truthfulness, basically, don't lie to people
Speaker 1: and commit to living in truth even when doing so
Speaker 1: is painful. Then there's estey, which tells us not to
Speaker 1: be covetous Astea is all about nipping that green eyed
Speaker 1: monster of jealousy in the bud and to try to
Speaker 1: avoid social comparison generally. And finally, there's a paragraha, which
Speaker 1: is freedom from desire. A paragraha fits nicely with a
Speaker 1: happiness strategy we talk about a lot on this podcast,
Speaker 1: remembering that more stuff and more accolades are not going
Speaker 1: to make us happy. A paragraha is all about trying
Speaker 1: to notice times when we're feeling a little greedy. It's
Speaker 1: really not like hard rules, it's opportunities to engage with
Speaker 1: yourself on a more visceral pud For the next limb
Speaker 1: of the eight limb path, the Niyamas is even more
Speaker 1: focused on engaging internally, and that's because the five principles
Speaker 1: of the Niyamas are focused on the responsibilities we have
Speaker 1: not towards other people, but towards ourselves. Those principles include
Speaker 1: sautcha keeping your body clean physically, mentally and emotionally, tap
Speaker 1: Us a sense of austerity and self discipline. Svadiaya, a
Speaker 1: commitment to studying yourself and looking within yourself for answers.
Speaker 1: Isfara pranidana committing to finding a spiritual path, and my
Speaker 1: favorite of the niyamas Santosa. Santosa is my favorite, not
Speaker 1: because the word kind of sounds like it should be
Speaker 1: the name of some cousin of mine, but because it's
Speaker 1: the principle that's focused on finding contentment in the present
Speaker 1: moment and doing so without ruminating about the past or
Speaker 1: the future. You could spend your whole life just focusing
Speaker 1: on the yamas, honestly, because they show up in everything,
Speaker 1: and they can be interpreted so many different ways, whether
Speaker 1: that's through the language that you use, through your personal
Speaker 1: definition of chastity, through the things that you consume, how
Speaker 1: you cleanse your body, but then it's also the way
Speaker 1: that you engage with other human beings, not coveting what
Speaker 1: other people have, not speaking ill of other people, and
Speaker 1: really like having an attention to your words and the
Speaker 1: language that you use. But the eight limp path doesn't
Speaker 1: just stop with the yamas and the ni Yamas. When
Speaker 1: we get back from the break, we'll continue our discussion
Speaker 1: of Patanjali's other six limbs. We'll see where all those
Speaker 1: tough yoga poses we use in the modern day fit
Speaker 1: into the ancient stage's vision of the good life. And
Speaker 1: we'll learn how a true eight limbed path towards flourishing
Speaker 1: requires regulating not just the body, but also the mind.
Speaker 1: The happiness lab will be right back. When you look
Speaker 1: at people who are extreme athletes, like I think a
Speaker 1: lot about ultramarathoners and people who run ultramarathons, they're not
Speaker 1: doing that for their health, Like they're not obsessed with
Speaker 1: that experience because it's like, oh my god, my body
Speaker 1: is going to look this way. No, they are working
Speaker 1: out deep psychological truth, so they are they are having
Speaker 1: a spiritual experience. The ancient sage patan Jolly lived way
Speaker 1: before modern fitness practices like CrossFit and tough Mutters were
Speaker 1: a thing, but he still recognized that moving our bodies
Speaker 1: could be an important step towards spiritual enlightenment. And that's
Speaker 1: the logic behind the third and most famous limb of
Speaker 1: patan Jolly's eight limbed path, the asanas. The asinas are
Speaker 1: what most Westerners typically think of when they think of yoga,
Speaker 1: the poses, things like downward facing dog, chaturanga, gomu casana,
Speaker 1: and chair pose. But the key to getting the most
Speaker 1: out of all these asanas isn't what most modern practitioners
Speaker 1: think from Patan Jolly's perspective, the goal wasn't to twist
Speaker 1: your body into an uncomfortable pretzel. Author and yoga instructor
Speaker 1: Jessamine Stanley says that the original idea behind the asinas
Speaker 1: was much simpler, asina really means to sit, so it's
Speaker 1: not even as complicated as assume this specific posture. It's
Speaker 1: literally like to be just to exist. Patan Jolli is
Speaker 1: really saying that any form that your body takes is
Speaker 1: assuming a shape that then is a part of this world,
Speaker 1: and it's something that evolves for every person throughout their life,
Speaker 1: depending on what's going on in their life. But the
Speaker 1: reality is that you really only need to practice one posture,
Speaker 1: and it can be any posture. The posture can be
Speaker 1: sitting down, it can be lying on your back, it
Speaker 1: can be standing up. That's sufficient posture because ultimately they're
Speaker 1: very complex postures, and in truth, being able to just
Speaker 1: be in stillness is the hardest posture. Jessamin tells her
Speaker 1: students that this is the point performing all the yoga
Speaker 1: poses they practice. The austins are there to help us
Speaker 1: accept the hard challenges that come not on our yoga mats,
Speaker 1: but in life. Let's take a posture like post For example,
Speaker 1: you look at a posture like cheer pose and it's like,
Speaker 1: what do I need to do? I need to turn
Speaker 1: my thighs toward one another. I need to engage my core.
Speaker 1: I need to fall down backwards while also sitting upright.
Speaker 1: I need to lengthen out of the crowd of my head.
Speaker 1: All of these things are things that I need to
Speaker 1: do when I'm challenged, when someone is pushing back against
Speaker 1: me at work, when I feel like someone is being
Speaker 1: mean to me, when I'm feeling challenged, those are the
Speaker 1: same things that I need to do. I need to
Speaker 1: pull into my core. I need to try to fall
Speaker 1: down backwards but also stay upright. I need to lengthen
Speaker 1: up to the sky. I need to pull It's all
Speaker 1: of these ideas that seemed theoretical and that seemed like
Speaker 1: philosophical but that are really actually very practical, And I
Speaker 1: think it makes it easier to deal with the parts
Speaker 1: of life that are really hard, really really hard and
Speaker 1: complicated and that are not meant to be anything other
Speaker 1: than that. Like I think sometimes in life, really hard shit,
Speaker 1: bad shit happens, and you think this isn't how things
Speaker 1: are supposed to be things are supposed to be good.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be happy. This is wrong, And what
Speaker 1: yoga reminds is that everything in life is not good.
Speaker 1: Everything in life is not happy. You need for things
Speaker 1: to be hard so that you can actually strengthen from
Speaker 1: the inside. So practice the things that you do when
Speaker 1: things get hard. Pull into your core, become flexible in
Speaker 1: your hamstrings, draw your butt cheeks together, whatever the things are.
Speaker 1: Practice that in the moments that feel emotionally hard, and
Speaker 1: you will be strengthened as a result. The fourth limb
Speaker 1: of the eightfold path, it is also about harnessing something
Speaker 1: that can help us get through tough times. Not mindful
Speaker 1: movements as in the Ausinas, but mindful breath. It's called prana,
Speaker 1: the full word as prana yama, Prana being this energy
Speaker 1: that we we most consciously understand as breath, and so
Speaker 1: breathwork becomes the focus of pranayama. Scientists have long recognized
Speaker 1: that our breath can have a huge impact on our
Speaker 1: well being. Take for example, one of the easiest ways
Speaker 1: to shut off activation in our fighter flight system, or
Speaker 1: what neuroscientists refer to as our sympathetic nervous system. You're
Speaker 1: probably familiar with the activation of this system if you've
Speaker 1: ever felt overwhelmed by too many demands at work, or
Speaker 1: anxious after reading some scary news article, or pissed off
Speaker 1: by an annoying email. Our sympathetic nervous system kicks in
Speaker 1: whenever we feel under threat. It's a system that's only
Speaker 1: supposed to turn on once in a while in moments
Speaker 1: of urgent threat or danger, but many of us keep
Speaker 1: this system running chronically, which leads to a whole host
Speaker 1: of stress related illnesses and bad feelings. But there's a
Speaker 1: fast and easy way to get our fighter flight systems
Speaker 1: to chill out for a while, and we can do
Speaker 1: that through our breath. There's evidence that we can switch
Speaker 1: off sympathetic nervousness to activity simply by taking a slow,
Speaker 1: deep belly breath, especially one with a long exhale. Pat
Speaker 1: and Jolly wasn't a neuroscientist, but he realized that we
Speaker 1: can use the breath to change the way we feel
Speaker 1: in our bodies and our minds. But Jessamin says that
Speaker 1: prani Yama isn't just about taking a few deep breaths
Speaker 1: when we're feeling stressed. Prama is really like everything. Once
Speaker 1: you focus on your breath and once you assume a posture,
Speaker 1: whatever that posture is, then your body starts to go
Speaker 1: into a state of actually engaging with what is underneath
Speaker 1: your skin and what is happening beyond your mind. It's
Speaker 1: starting to unite the way that your body moves and
Speaker 1: the way that your mind works, and the way that
Speaker 1: you feel so that you're able to understand yourself as
Speaker 1: a full spiritual being. But if you really want to
Speaker 1: understand yourself as a full spiritual being, you can't stop
Speaker 1: at Praniyama. You also need to commit to practicing what's
Speaker 1: discussed and the rest of the limbs of the eightfold Path,
Speaker 1: the ones that we haven't talked about yet. We'll hear
Speaker 1: more from Jessamine about what these final spiritual practices are
Speaker 1: and how we can harness them to live and feel
Speaker 1: better when the Happiness Lab gets back from the short break,
Speaker 1: so that the last limbs of the eight limb path, Pratiahara, Darana, Diana,
Speaker 1: and the Samodi are all the stages that happen once
Speaker 1: you have united your breath with what reform your body
Speaker 1: is taking. So far in our progress through Patanjali's path.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the importance of the yamas our responsibilities
Speaker 1: to other people. The ni yamas are responsibilities to ourselves.
Speaker 1: The Austina's physical postures we can relax into distay, grounded
Speaker 1: and prani yama, the importance of controlling our breath. And
Speaker 1: if you're counting and keeping track of where we are
Speaker 1: in the eight limbs, you might be tempted to think
Speaker 1: that we basically hit the halfway point towards spiritual enlightenment.
Speaker 1: But author and yoga instructor Jessamine Stanley's quick to point
Speaker 1: out that Pat and Jolly didn't intend for the limbs.
Speaker 1: He described to be boxes that we check off on
Speaker 1: some spiritual to do list. So the idea behind the
Speaker 1: eight limb path is that it provides structure for your life,
Speaker 1: and it provides a way to go about taking care
Speaker 1: of yourself, and then the way that you show up
Speaker 1: in the world, and then the way that you are
Speaker 1: engaging with the energy of the world, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: the way that you process that energy and bring it
Speaker 1: forth into back into the world. And I think that
Speaker 1: when you say eight limb path, it's always like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: So I've done the first three. Once I get to
Speaker 1: level eight, I will have figured out how to be
Speaker 1: a perfect human. And it's like no All of the
Speaker 1: limbs are happening at once, and there's no ending points. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: you're just moving through and around them at all times.
Speaker 1: The sutras are just the truth. They're the truth of
Speaker 1: the human experience, and they can be applied in different
Speaker 1: ways depending on what's going on in your life. Patan
Speaker 1: Jolly's eight Limb Path was also not meant to be
Speaker 1: a quick journey. His tips can't be mastered in a
Speaker 1: forty five minute yoga class. His spiritual path was meant
Speaker 1: to be a lifelong practice, which is kind of a relief,
Speaker 1: especially since the last four limbs described in the eight
Speaker 1: Limb Path may require even more time and care than
Speaker 1: the earlier ones. Take for example, pat and Jolly's fifth limb,
Speaker 1: which Jessamin thinks is probably the hardest for modern Western
Speaker 1: practitioners to work through. It's called profe yahara, the commitment
Speaker 1: to detaching from things external. What does Patu and Jelly
Speaker 1: mean here by external things? Think what we look like,
Speaker 1: how much money we have, the stuff we own, how
Speaker 1: successful we are at work? And all the identities we
Speaker 1: share online on social media. It's so hard because we
Speaker 1: live in a world where we are constantly tapped into everything.
Speaker 1: And I think that that idea of withdrawal and what
Speaker 1: it means to withdraw and how you withdraw. Is it
Speaker 1: all your senses? Is it only in certain circumstances? Is
Speaker 1: it for an hour in the morning and then you're
Speaker 1: good for the rest of the day, Like what does
Speaker 1: that mean? And the reality is that there are no
Speaker 1: hard and fast lines or limits. It's really just about
Speaker 1: understanding it for yourself on a personal level. For me,
Speaker 1: withdrawal of senses only happens when I accept the fact
Speaker 1: that my senses are alive and are awake. And that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean trying to shut them down or pretend that
Speaker 1: certain things are and happening, or trying to avoid things.
Speaker 1: It's just let it all be there, Let every sound
Speaker 1: be there, like every connection be there. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let it all hang out. That's when you can pull
Speaker 1: into yourself. That's when you can withdraw. And the importance
Speaker 1: of pulling into yourself leads us to both the sixth
Speaker 1: and seventh limbs of the eightfold Path, which are known
Speaker 1: as dharana concentration, and the practice that leads to daharana,
Speaker 1: which is diana or meditation. If you've listened to other
Speaker 1: episodes of The Happiness Lab, you've probably heard about the
Speaker 1: many physical and psychological benefits of meditation and concentrating on
Speaker 1: your internal experience of the present moment. There's evidence that
Speaker 1: practicing meditation regularly can lead to reduced anxiety, less stress,
Speaker 1: better sleep, and fewer negative emotions. But Jessemin worries that
Speaker 1: the hype about meditation may sometimes cause modern practitioners to
Speaker 1: miss out on the way the practice was intended back
Speaker 1: in Patanjali's day. Meditation has become so trendy. I think
Speaker 1: that it makes it seem more complicated than actually is.
Speaker 1: But when you assume a posture, let's say that the pasture,
Speaker 1: you're sitting cross legged, and you are working on your
Speaker 1: breath work, and it doesn't need to be any kind
Speaker 1: of complicated breathwork. It doesn't need to be alternate nostril
Speaker 1: or lions roar or anything. It can literally just be
Speaker 1: breathing through your nose out through your mouth. You can
Speaker 1: close your eyes, you cannot close your eyes. It's not
Speaker 1: that big of a deal, but you find the posture
Speaker 1: that works for you. When you tune in, that's when
Speaker 1: the concentration starts, Like, that's when that one pointedness, the
Speaker 1: concentration derama, that's when that begins. I think sometimes when
Speaker 1: you sit for meditation and you're withdrawing your senses, that
Speaker 1: you think, oh, there's supposed to be this magic moment
Speaker 1: where my mind is clear and I'm totally calm. But
Speaker 1: what actually happens is that all your thoughts collide and
Speaker 1: it just becomes complete chaos inside your mind, and that
Speaker 1: contemplation you find that as the focus and you just
Speaker 1: sit in a space of contemplation, so that I always
Speaker 1: think that meditation is like the best time to obsess
Speaker 1: over something like as a virgo rising, I'm here, I'm
Speaker 1: anxious and think too much, just like anybody else, and
Speaker 1: meditation is my time to like, Okay, now I can
Speaker 1: make all those lists that I was thinking about. Now
Speaker 1: I can obsess over everything. Because the reality is that
Speaker 1: if you apply focus and if you stay in a
Speaker 1: space of concentration, you can't obsess over anything forever. And
Speaker 1: the more that you just let your mind not be clear,
Speaker 1: the clearer it will become. When you're in that state
Speaker 1: of concentration and when you are really present and are
Speaker 1: withdrawing your senses and these This is Patiajara, this is Drana,
Speaker 1: this is Diana, all in action. And that gets us
Speaker 1: to the final limb of the eight limp path, somebody
Speaker 1: or total absorption. I think that somebody. It's seen as
Speaker 1: like final level of yoga. Look at what a good
Speaker 1: yoga I am. And it's like, if you know that
Speaker 1: you're experiencing somebody, you're not experiencing somebody. First of all,
Speaker 1: potentially thought that somebody was the ultimate goal, not just
Speaker 1: of the eight limbed path, but of a well lived life.
Speaker 1: It's the point at which we finally achieve balance across
Speaker 1: our mind, body, and soul. He envisioned it as a
Speaker 1: sense of union between ourselves and all the other beings
Speaker 1: in the universe. So, yeah, somebody is pretty intense, not
Speaker 1: for the beginner, the deepest form of somebody. Ultimately, it
Speaker 1: is death. It is to move beyond this world. Thinking
Speaker 1: of the eight limb path, it's not the same as
Speaker 1: like eight steps to a great life. It's this is
Speaker 1: just what it means to be alive. Ultimately, it's not
Speaker 1: really more complicated than that. As long as you practice
Speaker 1: the first few limbs, the others will come naturally. You've
Speaker 1: been thinking about the sutures for a long time. You know,
Speaker 1: what have you learned from following the eight limbed path?
Speaker 1: Any big insights that have come along the way, summarize,
Speaker 1: But my biggest takeaway is that everything is okay. Everything
Speaker 1: is exactly where it needs to be. The bumps in
Speaker 1: the road are supposed to happen. The darkness has to
Speaker 1: be there. If you don't experience a darkness, you cannot
Speaker 1: understand the light. You cannot appreciate it. There is no
Speaker 1: love without the opposite side. There is no love without
Speaker 1: fear and hate. And when you can just accept it all,
Speaker 1: there is so much beauty in this world. There's the
Speaker 1: beauty becomes easier to see because you're not trying to pretend,
Speaker 1: you're not obscuring it with nonsense. And also a part
Speaker 1: of that is that the practice is going to ebb
Speaker 1: and flow with time, and that it's just going to change.
Speaker 1: It's always changing. Your needs and understandings are always involving.
Speaker 1: And if you can say, like the difficulty is why
Speaker 1: I'm here, I was built to withstand it. And actually
Speaker 1: it's not even being built to withstand it, because some
Speaker 1: things you're not built to withstand. Some things you are
Speaker 1: meant to fall to the floor and to melt into
Speaker 1: the pavement. It's supposed to be hard. That was the point,
Speaker 1: And it's about awareness and losing the need to perform
Speaker 1: any aspect of yourself, and ultimately like, as long as
Speaker 1: you're in a state of acceptance of all that is,
Speaker 1: no matter how you are, you're really living the eight
Speaker 1: mon Path, doesn't It admits that committing to Pat and
Speaker 1: Jelly's Eightfold Path isn't easy. She's quick to remind us
Speaker 1: that it's called a practice for a reason. I think
Speaker 1: that I am on a journey for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life to accept what the universe has brought me,
Speaker 1: and that the more that I can just accept that
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing journey and that there will always be
Speaker 1: new ways that that journey looks, the more that I
Speaker 1: can accept that the better, because it's never going to end. Potentially,
Speaker 1: knew that following the path would take a lot of
Speaker 1: work and that you probably wouldn't fully reach somebody, But
Speaker 1: Jessamin will attest that sticking with this lifelong ancient journey,
Speaker 1: both on and off the yoga mat is worth it.
Speaker 1: It's like these truths of being revealed to me in
Speaker 1: different ways in every moment of every day, and it's
Speaker 1: beautiful and I'm grateful because to live is such a privilege,
Speaker 1: and there's so much dope shit that happens every day,
Speaker 1: and if it means hitting the pavement every day, it's
Speaker 1: worth it. Talking with Jessamin has reminded me that there's
Speaker 1: so much more to yoga that a bunch of twisted
Speaker 1: poses on some colorful mat and that committing to a
Speaker 1: broader version of the yoga path can pay real dividends.
Speaker 1: So why not take a few steps down Patanjali's ancient path.
Speaker 1: You can start by thinking more intentionally about the responsibilities
Speaker 1: you have towards other people and to your own body
Speaker 1: and spirit. You can try to find a space to
Speaker 1: meditate and breathe, either in a tough yoga posture or
Speaker 1: just lying down. You can think more critically about your
Speaker 1: relationship with all things external and commit to getting back
Speaker 1: to that meditation practice you know is pretty good for you.
Speaker 1: And remember it's not about striving for the next level
Speaker 1: like in most modern practices. It's more about accepting that
Speaker 1: the path is there to guide you on a journey
Speaker 1: towards better health and happiness that will last a lifetime.
Speaker 1: Next week, the Happiness Lab will continue its investigation of
Speaker 1: spiritual traditions from South Asia. We'll meet a scholar who
Speaker 1: will help us explore the tenets of Sikhism, and we'll
Speaker 1: see that committing to the full humanity of all people
Speaker 1: may be a quicker path to well being than we expect.
Speaker 1: So I hope you'll join me back here next week
Speaker 1: for the next episode of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients
Speaker 1: With me. It is Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: is co written by Ryan Dilley and is produced by
Speaker 1: Ryan Dilley, Courtney Grano, and Britney Brown. The show was
Speaker 1: mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed
Speaker 1: by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Greta Kone, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Carl Migliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: by me, Doctor Laurie Santos.