The Secret Strength of Disillusionment

The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living
By Stephen Cope

For modern spiritual seekers and yoga students alike, here is an irreverent yet profound guide to the most sophisticated teachings of the yoga wisdom tradition - now brought to contemporary life by a celebrated author, psychotherapist, and leading American yoga instructor.

While many Westerners still think of yoga as an invigorating series of postures and breathing exercises, these physical practices are only part of a vast and ancient spiritual science. For more than three millennia, yoga sages systematically explored the essential questions of our human existence: What are the root causes of suffering, and how can we achieve freedom and happiness? What would it be like to function at the maximum potential of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What is an optimal human life?

Nowhere have their discoveries been more brilliantly distilled than in a short - but famously difficult - treatise called the Yogasutra. This revered text lays out the entire path of inner development in remarkable detail - ranging from practices that build character and mental power to the highest reaches of spiritual realization.

Now Stephen Cope unlocks the teachings of the Yogasutra by showing them at work in the lives of a group of friends and fellow yoga students who are confronting the full modern catastrophe of careers, relationships, and dysfunctional family dynamics. Interweaving their daily dilemmas with insights from modern psychology, neuroscience, religion, and philosophy, he shows the astonishing relevance and practicality of this timeless psychology of awakening.

Leavened with wit and passion, The Wisdom of Yoga is a superb companion and guide for anyone seeking enhanced creativity, better relationships, and a more ethical and graceful way of living in the world.

Chapter 1

Samvega: Turning away from the bone

During the summer of his "breakdown," all Jake knew was that he couldn't go backward, and apparently he wouldn't go forward. The experience of direct involvement with the present moment was just the place in which he had previously been unable to dwell. He was determined now to stay put. He knew that, paradoxically, some great success was buried within his failure. He sensed that he had had some kind of awakening. But what was it?

Yogis call this state samvega - a complex state involving a kind of disillusionment with mundane life, and a wholehearted longing for a deeper investigation into the inner workings of the mind and the self. Samvega, as described by the contemporary Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, involves "at least three clusters of feelings at once":

the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle.

Samvega is a developmental state not mentioned in Western psychological texts. It brings with it a realization that objects of grasping (money, fine things, titles, fame, even people - when seen as objects) cannot supply any true satisfaction. It involves a radical realization that all objects are intrinsically empty of the capacity to feed us in the way we really want - or need - to be fed.

A classic Buddhist teaching story describes this realization:

A dog stumbles across a bone that has been exposed to the elements for many months, and is therefore bleached of any residual flesh or marrow. The dog gnaws on it for some time before he finally determines that he is "not finding" any satisfaction in the bone, and he thus turns away from it in disgust. It is not that the bone is intrinsically disgusting; it is rather the case that the dog's raging desire for meat just will not be satisfied by the bone . . . when he wakes up to the truth that the bone is empty of anything that will offer him satisfaction, he becomes disenchanted, and spits it out in disgust.

Of course, the symptoms of samvega arise only after extensive experimentation with "the bone." Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche says it elegantly: "The shoe of ego is only worn out by walking on it." For many of us, objects of longing gradually reveal themselves to offer no real happiness. No matter how hard we gnaw on them, we find no meat on the bone. Samvega then arises with a linked complex of symptoms, many of which Jake was now experiencing. These can include:

A puzzling failure of previous sources of satisfaction A heightened concern with authenticity A deepening pull toward an intuited interior world A sense of urgency about realizing deeply hidden gifts and talents A global and diffuse sense of internal disorganization - equal parts psychological and spiritual A deeply felt internal imperative to stop business as usual - or, as Jake said, to "get quiet" A call to explore a path that might give transcendent meaning to the enigmas of life

One of the harbingers of the developmental imperative of samvega is that we - like Jake - begin to hear ourselves muttering about our Old Life and our New Life. Out of the blue, we begin to feel like captives in our lives - lives which may have fit comfortably for years. Our well-known world begins to feel stale and dead. Gradually we start hankering to leave for the New World. We begin to feel imbued with the spirit of our Seeker ancestors. We want nothing more than to leave the Old Country. This internal movement presages a profound reorganization of the psyche, a redirection of the energy of longing, and a completely new relationship with the world of people, places, and things.

Even though this developmental stage is as common in human life as adolescence, one will search Western psychology books in vain for a clear description of its causes and trajectory. We ordinarily attempt to fit the complexities of samvega into our old, usually pathological, categories. We trivialize it as "midlife crisis," or we wonder if it is not really just neurotic depression, or regression - as Susan Goldstein did when encountering Jake's version of samvega.

But contrary to the typical Western view, the kind of "breakdown" in which Jake found himself is not a regression into the past. It is not a pathological state. It is not a move backward at all. It is, rather, a step toward the possibility of a vastly expanded way of living in the world.

In yogic texts, the word samvega is often translated as "vehemence," because it brings with it an unshakeable resolve to develop into a fully alive human being. Patanjali introduces the term samvega in the first chapter of the Yoga-Sutra - using the word to indicate a "wholehearted" (or "vehement") determination to find a way out of suffering.

For those who seek liberation wholeheartedly, realization is near. How near depends on whether the practice is mild, moderate, or intense. (1.21-22)

Yogis found that even though this state of "vehemence" carries with it a tremendous amount of feeling and power, it does not disturb the mind - rather it calms the mind. (In the summer of his breakthrough, everyone noticed that Jake was not disturbed. He was calm and profoundly "resolved.") samvega is a kind of passion that does not create suffering - but, rather, generates the happiness that comes with the sure knowledge of freedom. Because the state of samvega is so full of possibilities, it is often referred to as a state of "emergence." Through the practice of yoga, says Patanjali, we can emerge from the traps of ordinary suffering. How quickly this emergence takes place depends on the intensity and persistence of our practice.

Nirodha: Stop the world

When samvega emerges, it brings with it an altogether new hunger: the hunger for internal quiet. We seek this quiet not just because we're exhausted by living at right angles to life - as Jake certainly was - but also so that we can see more clearly. It becomes obvious that in order to know our true nature, we will have to stop the world. Stop the world! The Native American shaman Don Juan gives precisely this advice to his student Carlos Castaneda. "In order to become a man of knowledge, a warrior-traveler, you will first have to learn to stop the world."

Copyright © 2006 by Stephen Cope.

About the Author

Stephen Cope is a psychotherapist, senior Kripalu yoga teacher, and author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. He is currently Senior Scholar in Residence at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts.