Yoga as the Ultimate Creative State of Consciousness

By Anna Mikheeva

“Yogas Citta Vritti Nirodah” 1.2. Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Yoga is a state of consciousness, where the unnecessary and self-limiting thoughts fade away, and the person enters a state of union with and surrender to a higher force.  I would like to argue in the next few pages that it is a spontaneous state that arises when the conditions are ripe, however even if the conditions are ripe, the state may still not arise.  It is not a guarantee.  I will also argue that the state of Yoga, the state of Union with the Moment, is the ultimate creative state of mind.  Let me first talk about what is a creative state of mind, and make a distinction between creativity, which is “a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations between existing ideas or concepts,”(1) and creative state of mind, which we will compare with the state of Yoga.

The neurobiology of creativity has been addressed (2) in the article "Creative Innovation: Possible Brain Mechanisms." The authors write that "creative innovation might require co-activation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected". The article also notes that highly creative people tend to have a high level of specialized knowledge.  This relates to the fact that a regular Yoga practice has been known to have a certain effect on the mind – “rewiring of the brain.”  Our Yoga practice, over a long period of time, gives us a chance to develop that highly specialized knowledge – of the body, the mind, and the breath.  That, in turn, seems to enable us to make new connections on all levels of our beings.

The Yoga Sutra 1.44, as interpreted by T.K.V. Desikachar states that Yoga “process is possible with any type of object, at any level of perception, whether superficial and general or in depth and specific.”(3) It can be found in any field of human activity.  “Although popularly associated with art and literature, creativity is also an essential part of innovation and invention and is important in professions such as business, economics, architecture, industrial design, science and engineering". (4)

A creative state of mind is such a state when the person is completely engrossed in the object of creation or creative activity.  If Yoga is single-pointed concentration, then a person in a creative state could be in a state of Yoga.  “Yogasgcittavrittinirodah”, as interpreted by T.K.V. Desikachar in his book “The Heart of Yoga” means “Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively toward an object and sustain that direction without any distractions." (5)

In this paper I would like to argue that the state of Yoga is a natural, spontaneously arising state in human consciousness, however it is more likely to arise if the conditions are favorable.  My argument is that Yoga is very similar to and may very well be what some call “a creative state of mind.”  That creative state is the same that a dancer experiences on stage when she transcends her body and feels like a conduit for the music and the energy of the dance.  The same state that a marathon runner experiences when the road disappears, the pain disappears, and the line separating the runner from running also disappears.  It is the same state that a painter enters when mixing colors and spreading them on the canvas, in total bliss, lost in the creative current.  The same state that a writer enters, when he becomes one with the protagonists of his books.  The same state that an actor enters, becoming the character.  Yoga Asana, if done with that single-pointed concentration can induce the state of Yoga.  So can pranayama, so can meditation. 

It does not mean, however, that if a person does the Asana perfectly, has learned the most advanced pranayama, or is an adept at meditation that he or she is guaranteed a state of Yoga.  But Asana-pranayama-meditataion can bring a person closer to that state, provided the person is not attached to the results of his efforts and has been practicing it for a long time (Yoga Sutras 1.12 and 1.14). (6) According to Sutra 1.13, as translated in “The Heart of Yoga” by T.K.V. Desikachar, “Practice is the correct effort required to move toward, achieve and maintain a State of Yoga,” separating the practice of achievement of the state from the actual state.(7)  Therefore, Yoga is not so much something you do, as an exercise/meditation practice, but rather it is the spontaneous result of it, not guaranteed, but possible, even likely.  Yoga Sutras of Patanjali then describe a way to create ideal conditions for the state of Yoga to arise.  The Sutra 1.19, as interpreted by Desikachar, says that “Yoga is a state, and one can be born in that state and does not need to practice." (8)

People have since the dawn of human civilization said that creativity is divine in its nature, and the Yoga Sutras say that surrendering to the creative force that moves us and the universe is one of the prerequisites to the achievement of the state of Yoga.  One of the conditions in the Sutras is surrender to Isvara (9), which is sometimes translated as God, sometimes as a force of energy that is greater than man.  Desikachar describes it as “to be one with the divine.”  A person in a creative state of single-pointed concentration often would describe it as if though their own sense of separateness, their sense of self has dissolved, and they feel one with the action or the subject of their concentration, one with the divine, as if God was moving through them.

Joyce Carol Oates in an interview with the Academy of Achievement said that, “Being a writer is something I would rather just do, instead of talking about being.”  She describes her process of writing as “In a sense, I may not consciously know what I'm doing. I feel that I'm telling a story. I'm a kind of medium by which something is transmitted.” (10) John Updike has a nice description of the feeling of surrender: “But I found when I attempted fiction -- I took a few writing courses at Harvard -- it's like sort of a horse you don't know is there, but if you jump on the back there is something under you that begins to move and gallop." (11)

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an artist as, among other definitions: “A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice - the opposite of a theorist." (12)

The Yoga Sutras also say, that “Yoga must be practiced for a long time...” and  “Now is the teaching of Yoga.”  Those two sutras have been interpreted to mean that a Yoga practitioner must actually physically practice consistently over a long period of time, become proficient in it, and achieve certain self-realization through it.  Achieve a certain level of mastery in it.

“Another adequate definition of creativity is that it is an "Assumptions breaking process". Many creative ideas are generated when somebody discards preconceived assumptions and decides on a new approach or method that might seem to others unthinkable." (13)  And to me, that too, echoes the Sutras 1:7, 1:15, 1:41.

Non-Attachment to the Outcome and Showing up for “Work”

Joyce Carol Oates talks about failure that is reminiscent of the Sutra’s stance on non-attachment (14), one aspect of which is non-avoidance of failure and willingness to learn from it: “I'm very deeply inculcated with a sense of failure for some reason. And I'm drawn to failure. I often write about it, and I'm sympathetic with it I think, because I feel I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.  A sense that there is a movement toward light or illumination which requires strength and ingenuity.  But then there's another contrary force that pulls us back into defeat and a sense of giving up. I feel, probably, that I'm in the throes of that contest every day of my life, virtually." (15)

John Updike in an interview at the Academy of Achievement also talks about non-attachment to the outcome: “I was prepared to fail. I was prepared to not be able to get things accepted, because I saw that happen to my mother. I knew that not everybody who tried to write actually got published, and in fact that's kind of a long odds proposition, but I figured I'd give myself five years, and if I couldn't get into print in five years I should know that I didn't have what it took. But as it turned out, I got into print pretty readily.”(16)  This attitude of non-attachment “saves you from giving up,” he says, and that is a good point.  If a Yoga student expected the state of Yoga every time he or she practiced, then disappointment would certainly happen all too often, if not all the time.  But if we practice the attitude of non-attachment, then it does not matter if we “fail,” in fact we should be “prepared to fail,” and give ourselves a long time to practice, because especially in Yoga, the effects are cumulative and subtle, and take years to manifest themselves. 

Suzanne Farrell, a prima-ballerina, describes her non-attachment to the outcome this way in an interview with the Academy of Achievement: “I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina. Because I think it made me realize that there was a lot of hard work involved before you get to be a ballerina. And I never lost loving the actual work that was involved in it.”(17)  That closely describes the attitude of non-attachment.   This was also a person who certainly achieved a certain level of mastery in her craft.  She goes on in the same interview: “I'm grateful that I had ballet to get me through those days. In fact, even when I became famous, it was a great friend to have. It's a wonderful thing to be able to dance, to tell your body what you want it to do. You tell your leg to go up, and it goes. Not without a lot of hard work in the beginning, but the fact that you tell yourself what you want to do, is a wonderful form of security to me. I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life, or in the politics of the world around you, it is wonderful to go into that studio, and tell yourself what to do. You respond, and it works." (18)

Suzanne Farrell showed up for work every day of her life with outmost dedication.  As a long time Yoga practitioner I identify completely with the above – it certainly is wonderful to have some kind of control over one’s body, breath, and mind, and to do the practice for its own sake, every day.  The path of a successful artist is very similar to that of an accomplished Yogi – show up, pay attention, and don’t be attached to the outcome.  One of the meanings of the word Asana, in addition “to sit”, means “to be present.”  The first Yoga Sutra 1.1 says – “Now is the teaching of Yoga." (19)  One can surmise that being there, showing up is the first step towards a Yogic state of mind. 

John Updike talks about “showing up” in his interview: “There's a danger if you don't move it along steadily that you're going to forget what it's about, so you must keep in touch with it I figure. So once embarked, yes, I do try to stick to a schedule." (20)

Updike describes his method of “showing up” this way: “This present novel that will be out -- Villages -- I several times thought it might be a bad idea and kind of abandoned it. So it was really the habit--the habit of writing that kept me at it.  In the end it was like a bad marriage.  I mean, whatever.  This is the wife I'm married to here, and I'm going to finish this book.  Finishing it becomes the only way to get rid of it.  So yes, it's good to have a certain doggedness to your technique.  In college I was struck by the fact that Bernard Shaw, who became a playwright only after writing five novels, would sit in the British Museum, the reading room, and his quota was something like maybe five pages a day, but when he got to the last word on the last page, -- whether it was the middle of a sentence -- he would stop.  So this notion that when you have a quota, whether it's two pages or -- three is how I think of it, three pages -- that it's a fairly modest quota, but nevertheless if you do it, really do it, the stuff will accumulate." (21) That goes back again to the notion of “doing it for a long time”, and the result of the work will be cumulative. 

On being non-attached to the outcome, Joyce Carol Oates says to her students, who want to know how to become a writer “to live life, and to read very voraciously without any definite program." (22) That is exactly the kind of thing I would be telling my Yoga students who are asking how to become a successful Yogi – to live life, to practice Yoga passionately, consistently (tapas), and remain unattached to the fruit of their efforts!

 

The State of Union with the Moment

Suzanne Farrell says: “I realized that dancing was getting inside my body, emotionally, as well as physically. And that it was taking on a whole new dimension, and my life was changing, and I had a performance where I got on stage with an orchestra. At the dress rehearsal, there was no one in the audience, but I suddenly was in the real atmosphere of the theater. I looked out at these empty seats. But I felt all this sort of dust, or feelings of people who had been there before. It was palpable." (23) It could very well be that she had a Yoga moment at that time, a feeling of being one with the moment.  “Far from feeling that it is not the real world, I feel that I see the real world more realistically because I see it clearer when I am dancing,”(24) she says, which echoes Sutra 1.51, as interpreted by Desikachar: “The mind reaches a state when it has no impressions of any sort.  It is open, clear, simply transparent." (25)

She also quotes her best influence and teacher, George Balanchine, as saying that “He had a wonderful theory that you live in the now. Along with living in the moment, you also have to assume the responsibility that goes along with it, and you don't take your position lightly. But it also means that you get the full value of the moment that you are living…”  I find that any great artist and a yoga student both have their teacher, the lineage of where they come from.  On being in the moment, she says: “I think it takes away a lot of energy, to be wishing you were doing something else. People ask what my favorite ballet is. It's the one I'm doing at that moment. It's ungrateful to be wishing you were doing something else at the moment you are living. You haven't lived in the moment that you are really living if you are wishing you were somewhere else." (26) One has that kind of insight only when one has experienced or came very close to experiencing a state of Yoga.  As a Yoga teacher, my favorite class is always the one I am teaching now, and as a Yoga student, my favorite practice is always the one I am doing now, and to feel otherwise is a waste of energy.

In his book “Yoga for Wellness”, Gary Kraftsow says that “In Yoga practice, the performance doesn’t consist of striving to achieve perfection in executing the asanas; in a sense, it doesn’t ultimately have to do with asana practice itself.  No, in Yoga the performance is life itself." (27)  And it seems that Suzanne Farrell agrees: “Technique doesn't really play as big a part as how you look at the picture, the part that you play in the picture [your attitude].”(5)

Gary Kraftsow also compares the Yogi’s skill to that of a master in his or her craft: “With most learned skills, the test is in the performance.  This involves going through a learning phase to develop a skill that gradually, with proper training, becomes refined and finally mastered.  In tennis competition, for example, the movement must come spontaneously, reflexively: if you have to think yourself through the movements, you won’t be able to win.”  He concedes that “Developing skill in movement and action isn’t quite the same thing as mastering one’s backhand." (28)  And I would agree, but go a bit further to stipulate that backhand, serve, alertness and reaction all together, after years of practice for the pure enjoyment of it (without being attached to the outcome) can produce a great tennis player, who can transcend the technicalities of a game and enter a state of pure union with the tennis raquet, ball, net, and court, each moment of the game.  I love to watch athletic competitions, and tennis is one of my favorite.  It always inspires me to watch a great tennis player stay in the moment, just a like a Yogi stays with the breath, no matter what.  If a tennis player loses a point, I watch for the emotion of annoyance in him, which, if he allows it to get the better of him, can cost him the game.  However, a great tennis player can let go of the moment that has passed, and commit again to the moment that has replaced it, and win the next point, much like a Yogi who, noticing the mind stray during a meditation practice, directs it back to the breath.  That, to me, is single-pointed concentration, a state of Yoga.

 

Samadhi

At this point it would be appropriate to make the distinction between the spontaneous state of Union, or Samadhi, that is fleeting, and the highest form of Samadhi, which is permanent, and what this means to me in my teaching of Yoga.  There are no guarantees that such a state will be achieved if you practice diligently, but if the favorable conditions are created in the mind, such a state becomes possible.(29,30)  That brings me to my notion that Yoga is a spontaneously arising, natural state of consciousness in human beings, that it is probably always there, and when all the distractions are removed, we are finally able to experience it.  It can mean that anyone can experience the state of Yoga, anytime, anywhere, spontaneously, if the level of concentration is reached.  And sometimes that level of concentration takes a lot of practice to achieve, for an athlete, an artist, an inventor, and a Yogi.  But sometimes, this level of concentration happens by itself, without any preparation, spontaneously. 

Therefore, I, as a teacher, would say to my students, that it would make sense to simply be open to the possibility of that state happening anytime, anywhere, to let go of expectations that it can only happen if you do this asana, this pranayama, and this meditation.  Moreover, for some of us such a state did happen when we were doing our Yoga practice, and we at that moment became attached to whatever prompted it.  We decide that practicing Yoga that way from now on will bring the state of Yoga about.  And we close ourselves to the possibility that it can happen at any other time.  Then we actually create distractions in our mind by having expectations of our practice, by becoming frustrated if our expectations are not met in a Yoga class or by a Yoga teacher, or by that very thing that “made it happen” for us that one time.

Yoga Sutra 1:16., as explained by Sri Swami Satchidananda, then goes to tell us precisely how we can make sure that these moments of Samadhi can become permanent. (31)  So that there is always peace and joy in our heart, as the body keeps on doing the work of living.  Then we can enjoy everything, all the time.  We can all experience the state of Yoga, however briefly, sometimes after long hours, days, years of practice, sometimes by accident, but the Yoga Sutras tell us how to recognize the state of  “abiding in one’s true self,” and how make it permanent.  Letting go of our aversions and cravings, when even the Gunas no longer affect us, then “you find such peace and bliss that … petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specs of light in front of the brilliant sun.  You lose interest in them permanently.  That is the highest non-attachment.”  Swami Satchidananda says that when the mind becomes steady and pure “you experience a steady happiness.”  He goes on to say that it is almost the same as the ultimate Samadi.(10) This statement supports my premise that the state of Yoga is experienced spontaneously by millions of people, whether they know it or not.  Now, whether they are trying to bring it about or not, whether they can hold on to it or not, it is almost the same as the ultimate state of Yoga, but not quite.  Swami Satchidananda says that to achieve that state one needs to realize the true nature of that state, and then “You need not do anything more to get it.  The mind automatically ceases to exist, and all that remains is the original peace and joy which we call God or the Self.” 

This brings me to my final point – which is that even though the state of Yoga can be and is experienced by pretty much everyone at some point, a regular Yoga practice with  Yama, Niyamas, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi is a unique path that allows a conscious, directed, disciplined effort with clear goals and clear ideas of what to look for.  It is leading us, through mastery of certain skills towards a state of mind that, once achieved and recognized as such, becomes a permanent state of Bliss.

So, ultimately, in my own teaching of Yoga, I think it would be useful to tell my students to be on the lookout for that wonderful state of Union with the Moment, recognize it when it happens, and abide in the joy of it.