Swami Maheshananda: Yoga and creativity

Last week I got a newsletter from Asram Yoga center informing that a wandering Indian swami, Swami Maheshananda will pay a visit and give a lecture on Yoga and creativity. I got excited, and inside I said Yes, I am coming! Oupps, but the lecture was scheduled in the same time span as my regular Thursday class. Oh no. But life may surprise you rapidly and in two minutes I got a mail from the director of the yoga studio in which she asked me to be the translator for the Swami. I was very happy and truly felt honored by the request.

The great day had come and I was again travelling home from Sarospatak after a week of hard work. I did several hours of massage daily and on top of that gave 4 days yoga workshop. So physically, I was a little tired, but driven by enthusiasm I was almost “flying” back to Budapest. The sky produced some wonderful light parade again. For November the weather was unexpectedly warm and sunny and these I always consider signs that I shall continuously notice. As above, so below.

Entering the yoga center, of course the first person I saw was the Swami. He was standing in the door, undoing his laces; he just arrived a second earlier than me. I quickly introduced myself and we started conversing. Since my last post “Guru or not guru”, I felt a great desire to meet someone spiritually advanced. Therefore, I must admit that I was full of expectations as regards our meeting. I longed more than anything to be in the presence of a person with a higher vibration. And voila, here is the Swami, his being radiates with calmness, wisdom and light. It is not his words that count the most, but his pure being, his presence. I was not disappointed. He is real, and I felt gratefulness and bliss in my heart that I could get so close to him. I was consciously bathing in the energies he ushered in, thus despite my tiredness the translation went smoother than I’d anticipated.

The lecture dealt with the connection of yoga and creativity. For me this topic was of particular interest, since I wrote already about it in this blog, not to mention that I constantly feel that this subject is a definite momentum of my life. Swami Maheshananda started from the question: What is Hatha yoga? It is interesting that no matter the number of actual or would be yoga teachers present in the room, no one could answer properly. Maybe, it was just a momentarily lapse of focus, or sheer embarrassment, but anyways, it convinced me of the importance of the proverb: Repetitio est mater studiorum, in other words, Repetition/revision is the mother of learning, so it is always useful to repeat what was studied before.  So, Ha and Tha, directly translated from Sanskrit mean Sun and Moon. Hatha yoga is the balancing of Sun and Moon, male and female, active and passive, rational and emotional energies in the human body. This balance comes from the proper functioning of the three most important nadis, the Ida, the Pingala and the Sushumna. Ida on the left side represents the energies of the Moon, Pingala on the right is the energy channel of the Sun, and Sushumna in the middle comes into play once the two previous are balanced making it possible for the Kundalini energy to  rise up, towards the brain in the central channel, in the Sushumna. 

Kundalini is traditionally represented as a dormant snake coiling up at the bottom of the spine at the root chakra. As they go up on the sides of the spine, Ida and Pingala are crossing each other and their intersections form the chakras.  The Kundalini must travel through all the chakras, individually activating them and opening their elemental energies so that the nervous system gets prepared for the arrival of Kundalini to the brain.

And what happens when the Kundalini gets to the brain and opens completely the crown chakra? Well, that is the moment, when your individual soul, transitionally captured in a mortal body can finally liberate itself and unite with the universal consciousness, the Purusha, from which it was separated at its reincarnation into a human body. This is when the Unio mystica, the final Union is achieved, and the goal of Yoga is obtained. As a human being, you realize your true nature as pure consciousness.

You also need to come back to this pure consciousness, once you want to create something. If you wish to bring a new entity into this world that had not existed before. To all creation you need something divine, therefore you must find that divine sparkle within, your own way, your personal connection to the eternal consciousness. As one of the participants expressed it beautifully, creativity is when you colour the outside world from the inside. Yes, and this also starts by the balancing of the Ida and Pingala. You go beyond the emotions and feelings of the Ida, and you also calm the thoughts, reasons and activity of the Pingala. Once these have an equal share on the plates of the scale, in that perfect balance they become weightless, they become unimportant. You can focus on something else. Naturally, the energy flows into the Sushumna, and your soul opens to the Higher Self and through that to the cosmic consciousness, the Purusha.  Through this communication tunnel you gain direct knowledge. Not by thinking or sensing/feeling, but without any kind of ego distortion. And this direct knowledge will help you in creation, in art, in bringing in new qualities, in the coloring of the world from the inside.

The way to true creativity leads through yoga, through the calming of the fluctuations of the mind, and in the same time the manifestation of creativity is a meditation on its own right, it is a creative state, when your focus (dharana) gets concentrated on one point (dhyana, meditation). All sorts of actions, let them be the most simple ones  – to follow the example of the Swami e.g. sweeping the floor in an ashram – may be carried out so creatively, effortlessly and with the power of creation if you do them in this meditative state. 

Think about it, what a great opportunity, you can create in each moment of the day, and you might experience the endless power of creation of the Purusha even in the most mundane activities. Live and experience the joy of creation.