Not Knowing Yoga!
Ganga White explains how saying “I don’t
know” expands the traditions of yoga
By Lorraine Shea
Fit Yoga Magazine, December, 2007
 Ganga
White begins our workshop by talking about vichara, the
Sanskrit word for inquiry. For him, asking is the best
way to learn. As poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Live
the questions now.”
In his book, Yoga
Beyond Belief - Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your
Practice (North Atlantic Books, 2007), Ganga
does just that, by gently deconstructing yoga traditions.
How can we expand on these ancient teachings? By maintaining
their benefits and boldly stepping into the unknown -
which, of course, only generates more questions. “The
caterpillar doesn’t know what a butterfly does,”
he says at the workshop, held at Yamuna Studio in New
York City. “You can only project where you’re
going by what you know. But future possibility is way
beyond what you can project. We don’t know where
we’re going - the possibilities are unlimited.”
Ganga established the White Lotus
Foundation in 1968, initially as part of the Sivananda
organization, but a few years later, he ventured out on
his own, due to philosophical differences. He and his
wife, Tracey Rich, opened their Santa Barbara retreat
center in 1983, where they sponsor workshops in asana,
meditation, pranayama, yoga therapy, and teacher training.
This December, the couple will be leading a retreat in
Koh Samui, Thailand, and in July 2008, at the Feathered
Pipe in Helena, Montana.
In this particular workshop, after
a lively discussion, Ganga and Tracey taught the Flow
Series, encouraging us to feel the energy within each
pose, or finding the “a-ha” in hatha and “surfing
the edges.” We were asking the questions within
our own bodies.
Here, Ganga further explains his
evolutionary perspective of yoga. --Lorraine Shea
INTERVIEW
Fit Magazine: How/when
did you “discover” yoga?
I had heard of yoga a couple times as a kid, but didn’t
really discover it until I was 20 at the height of the
60’s when literally an inner voice said, “go
learn about yoga”. I was mainly interested in the
philosophical, mystical and spiritual aspects of yoga
and didn’t even know there was a physical component.
A Zoroastrian high priest introduced me with inspiring
lectures and classes in yoga and comparative religion.
He then sent me to the Sivananda organization where I
discovered asanas.
How did you get the name
Ganga?
I started out as a much more traditional believer and
was given a name by a Swami. Westerners weren’t
really using their Sanskrit names much at the time, and
since I intended to, I asked for another because I didn’t
like the first. My name became Ganga which comes from
the god Siva and is supposed to remind me to stay fresh
and keep flowing like the river Ganges.
What philosophical differences
caused you to leave Sivananda?
I found their Hatha yoga approach very limited, lacking
any alignment, and resting and relaxing after every pose
was counter productive, except for the elderly or infirm.
I was questioning and moving away from the traditional
guru disciple relationship and worldview.
What is your current view
of the guru/disciple relationship?
In the past, people depended on following tradition and
unquestioning belief in elders. In the present, we need
insight to respond to the moment, instead of an operating
system based on obedience.
Worthy teachers of all kinds deserve our love, honor
and respect, but we tend to elevate spiritual teachers
to divinity and worship. We would do well to get over
the romantic and immature notions of supreme holiness,
perfect masters, total purity, and unerring wisdom that
are often solicited by and projected onto so-called spiritual
masters. I think we need to outgrow the belief in the
necessity of an intermediary's blessing and grace for
our growth and awakening.
To see gurus as a necessary intermediary without whose
grace we can't grow or evolve is part of the recipe for
spiritual authoritarianism that we need to deconstruct.
Instead we need to be lights unto each other and ourselves.
Teachers are the central part of the maintenance and evolution
of culture and society; teaching is the most noble and
honorable profession.
How
does the tradition of yoga work—or not work—in
today’s society?
Tradition means to carry over from the past. Tradition
wants to be obeyed and not questioned. When we call something
sacred, it usually implies that we shouldn’t question
or change it. Why not? I think it’s obvious that
there are great things in the yoga tradition but also
areas that need to change, grow, or be eliminated, with
an evolutionary approach.
Can you be more specific
about what in yoga needs "to change, grow, or be
eliminated," as well as what's important to sustain?
There is no simple, short answer to this question. In
a sense, my book, Yoga
Beyond Belief, is my reply and the expression
of my perspective on this. I think much of the evolutionary
growth and the changes in yoga in the West today are representative
of a big leap forward. Contemporary yoga is actually a
syncretic amalgam of many things, East and West, and is
already going well beyond any one tradition. We’re
in humanity’s final exam and going back to the old
ways isn’t what is going to save us. Change and
growth are accelerating and our technological world is
much too complicated. We need to think and see in new
ways. We need to alchemically forge a new vision out of
all the elements we have in this modern moment. I would
like to see yoga move beyond formulated, mechanical practices
and doctrines into something far more subtle and alive.
We need to move beyond what has been called spiritual
materialism, or seeing mechanistic practice and ritual,
as the measure of spirituality, into a fresh new energy
that is present and alive in ordinary daily life. We need
to create a better balance of the masculine and feminine
in our vision. We could grow beyond patriarchal, authoritarian
definitions of spirituality and would do well to put more
value on bringing spirituality down to earth, in the present,
instead of putting so much value on the hereafter. We
need to integrate a great respect for nature and develop
a deep ecology to help end the greatest terrorism—the
terrorism against the environment. All these things are
beginning to unfold in our modern definition of yoga and
will help us grow beyond the limitations of tradition.
How do the Yoga Sutras apply
to our practices today?
Some of the Sutras may be useful and may apply to us
and others do not. Possibly in their time they were a
revelation, but we have grown enormously since then. Now
I know I may be stepping on a sacred cow here, but the
Sutras are very short and limited in scope. But they are
tremendously stretched, extrapolated, and interpreted.
Much of this is probably because many teachers feel a
need to root or justify their teachings in Patanjali.
The Sutras are essentially ascetic and male oriented.
For example, brahmacharya means chastity or celibacy but
now it must be reinterpreted in modern times to mean “responsible
sexuality” because celibacy has been shown to be
fairly dysfunctional. Patanjali has little to nothing
to say about nature, relationship or love. Additionally,
a majority of scholars agree that the Sutras predate Hatha
yoga by at least a thousand years. Patanjali was speaking
of sitting and controlling the mind, not about asana practice.
So, essentially I’m not a big Patanjali follower.
His sutras may be important to look at, study, and stimulate
inquiry, but I don’t see them as a complete map
for whole living.
What is your favorite translation
of yoga sutra 1.2 and why?
Many people get fixated on this sutra as the be all and
end all of yoga. Translations usually center around controlling
the mind, senses, or consciousness. I like my friend and
mentor, Swami Venkatesananda’s translation. I was
with him when he wrote his commentary. We had just been
with J. Krishnamurti in England and Switzerland and Swamiji
was struggling to integrate the revelations of his talks
with Krishnaji on the place of traditional yoga in modern
times.
(These two amazing dialogues are available free on our
website in the library. www.whitelotus.org/library2/)
I think he really succeeded in reinterpreting Patanjali
to fit his new insights. He dedicated Enlightened Living,
his commentary on the Sutras, to “Krishnaji”
and few people know it was Krishnamurti he was referring
to.
“Yoga happens when there is stilling (in the sense
of continual and vigilant watchfulness) of the movement
of thought - without expression or suppression - in the
indivisible intelligence in which there is no movement.”
Venkatesa was a Sanskrit scholar and he managed to pull
out a very different, enlightening perspective from 1.2
and move it beyond merely controlling something. He relates
it to a “happening” that comes about as a
result of choiceless awareness and watching, not from
a technique of control.
How
did your asana practice known as the Flow
Series transpire?
I started experimenting with flowing yoga practices in
the early seventies—linking poses together, using
dance-like movements, music and various sequencings. In
1980 while touring in Hawaii I met many of the now senior
ashtanga teachers and K. Pattabhi Jois. I was really taken
by the practice and did all four series for a couple of
years, there were only four then. At that time there was
little to no attention on alignment and after some time
I noticed myself and others having problems and injuries
from some of the practices and sequences so I began to
integrate alignment into the practice and started teaching
it to my ashtanga friends. I loved connecting asanas with
sun salutes and I started working on what I considered
a better complement and balance of poses and sequencing
for my personal practice. Soon many people started asking
me to teach it to them, and it has stood the test of time
with many all over the world finding great value in the
Flow Series. At
our White Lotus retreat we teach many different modes
and tools of practice, some are more intuitively and inwardly
directed, others are more structured and sequence oriented.
What is the best way to
approach a yoga practice? How do we find the a-ha?
By reading Yoga
Beyond Belief, of course! I’m
only half joking. There are over forty principles and
insights you can learn to use to guide and inform your
practice—no matter what form you’re using.
I purposely left out specific asana photos and instruction
and aimed at awakening the reader’s insights. When
we begin yoga practice we focus on attaining the poses—just
being able to do them. Progressing is more about refining
your ability to listen and to use the practices to serve
your well-being and growth. This is much more important
and valuable than attaining a pose or a certain degree
of flexibility. Yoga then becomes more of a timeless,
endless process to serve us for a lifetime. When you learn
how to see, feel and read inner effects of the poses that
is the ah ha! Then the practice guides itself.
What about practicing with
pain? How do we do that?
None of us wants pain, but we actually need it. Excessive
pain is the problem. Pain defines our limits and is a
voice of the body’s own intelligence and life force.
Learning to listen to the guidance of the pain is the
key. It can actually tell you how to move, align, how
long to hold, and more. We just have to start slowly,
pay attention to the immediate and longer term feedback,
make mistakes and learn. In the beginning, it’s
best not to push very far into painful movements. It is
also important to get guidance from professionals like
teachers, physical therapists, doctors and others if necessary,
and try to integrate and balance the external information
from others with the internal information from practice.
What
is the most common cause of injury?
Aggressive, goal oriented practice is the most common.
Too many yogis push their edges of flexibility too far.
Injury is near or just past the maximum range of movement.
Yoga is very forgiving but like anything it can be overdone.
Other causes of injury are not warming up, demonstrating,
and practicing unconsciously or sporadically.
What helps you feel the
flow of energy when you’re in a pose?
You simply start paying attention and tuning into subtler
levels. You can start with the mechanical or extensional
energy of the muscles, then move onto other sensations
and feelings. Even on a purely physical level there are
many types of energy we can learn to sense such as heat,
muscular, nerve, caloric, extensional, and mechanical.
Can you explain what you
mean by “surfing the edges”?
Often when teachers or practitioners speak of “staying
on the edge” they imply working at your maximum
level of strength, flexibility or endurance. Surfing implies
tuning into an entire wave and spectrum. For example,
you can work at your maximum, intermediate, or minimum
levels of flexibility. Every edge, such as the preceding
ones as well as others like pain, alignment, fear, and
enjoyment, have entire ranges and varying levels to experiment
with. The effects of working at different levels, and
the interrelationships of the different edges is profound.
It may sound complicated but learning to “surf”
or work with the different edges and levels comes naturally
by becoming aware of and paying attention to them.
What is your own personal
practice?
I do a lot of what I call “intuitive flow”
or an inner directed practice that varies somewhat each
time according to how I feel and what my body needs. And
I regularly come back to the Flow
Series or a variation of it, as a staple, balanced
practice. I also see walking, hiking, swimming, dancing
and other physical activities as a natural part of my
overall personal practice, but yoga is the essence and
core.
In your class, you mentioned
that the caterpillar doesn’t know what a butterfly
is… can you talk a little more about this?
We’re living in difficult, transitional times.
With any hope, we’re in the growing pains of reaching
a new, higher level as the old dinosaurs kick and die.
Higher levels of order come about as many lower stages
and systems interact and coalesce in novel ways that we
can’t foresee or project. We may be caterpillars
that don’t know how we’ll emerge as butterflies.
But we have to be vigilant and make sure we don’t
destroy the environment that is our incubator.
The main causes of our problems and the roadblocks to
a better present are in our consciousness, in the clash
of doctrines, and in our outmoded belief systems. We really
have everything we need to make this planet a paradise
for everyone. We have the sustainable resources and all
the technological know how, without any breakthroughs
needed, to transform the entire planet completely. All
we need is the awakening and transformation that begins
with each one of us.
What are your philosophies
of teaching?
The teacher is also the student and the student is also
the teacher. Questioning and doubt are our dear friends
that keep us young and open to the unknown. Saying “I
know” is the end of growth.
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