Photo courtesy of a kind race official.
Just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge that my father (at age 59) and I walked the sixth annual Little Rock Marathon Sunday. We finished together after 6 hours and 55 minutes. It’s a memory I’ll have the rest of my life.
Thanks, Dad!
This is Part 2 of a 5-part series of articles called The Search. Start from the beginning here.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Clifton.
William James was very pragmatic in his philosophy. He understood all too well that in the spiritual realm, individual experience holds the key to profundity. No amount of Sunday School lessons, inspired sermons, enlightenment weekends, or yoga retreats can turn you on like the graceful kick in the ass of life experience. However painful and difficult to deal with, one’s own personal experience can set him free.
The first line of Patanjali’s Yogasutras states, “Thus proceeds Yoga as I have observed it in the natural world.” And Socrates admitted centuries earlier, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Both these guys are saying just what the Bible says. As noted earlier, from Deuteronomy “…the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart…” and even more powerfully, from Jeremiah 31: 33-34,
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. All of them, high and low alike, will know me.”
And even more directly, from the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna,
“Give me back the fruits of my actions, you bastard! They are mine. Who said you could claim them for yourself? The fruits and the actions are mine. You are merely my instrument. Go forth and enjoy the delight of pulling the bowstring. Enjoy the satisfaction of hitting the mark, knowing that no one has ever been born, and no one ever dies, for there is but one, and that one is me. And I am Krishna and you are Krishna – that One is what we are.”
All these thoughts point to the same truth: that the higher power, that governing force, which makes all existence possible, indeed God, is in all of us. It is amazing how the truth resonates everywhere.
Last week I found myself on the treadmill reading a recent issue of Joe Weider’s Muscle and Fitness Magazine. I’m generally not a big fan of muscle-bound mags like this, but in the January 2008 issue, there’s a great article about NFL Wide Receiver and outspoken personality Terrell Owens, detailing his on- and off-season workouts. I’m not by any means a professional athlete, but as a trainer and general fitness dork, I love to see what kinds of things the pros do to keep themselves fit. Aside from the unique moves in T.O.’s workouts, his fitness philosophy really struck a chord with me and reiterates a mainstay of the Brickhouse Bodymind approach.
It’s a simple quote but one that truly speaks volumes. When describing how resistance bands increase the effectiveness of his chest presses, he mentions the obvious point that this really gives him an edge when throwing a stiff-arm at a defender. He goes on to say, “Everything I do in the gym is meant to translate directly to the football field.”
That’s beautiful! He is speaking to the crucial aspect of relevance in exercise. It’s hard for him to overlook, seeing as how his livelihood is staked upon his ability to kick major ass on the football field, but all too often the rest of us completely ignore this fundamental point. Most of us go to the gym and crank out one robotic set after another of generic, predetermined exercises. It’s not because we’re boring people. It’s not because we’re really doing anything wrong. It’s because no one told us any differently … and because we don’t get paid millions to be fit.
But I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to be a professional athlete to adopt and benefit from T.O.’s simple philosophy. His philosophy of relevance in exercise is also an integral part of the Brickhouse Bodymind program. I believe your exercise should be relevant to your life. It should prepare your body for the real live, day to day rigors of living. Otherwise it starts to feel like a Geometry or Trigonometry class in High School. You remember the burning question – When am I ever going use this stuff?! Many people I talk to see exercise as a necessary evil, something we do to conform to some ideal of attractiveness or to reactively return from the brink of death at the hands of heart disease or diabetes. If we could see exercise as an extension of living life, where every movement is relevant to making us better at being fathers, wives, brothers, homeowners, workers, whatever – we would look forward to the process more, we would be more likely to make time for it.
So the subtitle on this website says “be powerful, flexible, creative, and fearless.” That’s a nice, tight summary of what it means to be a brickhouse bodymind. I often consider adding “be light” to that subtitle since it refers to more than just keeping your weight at a healthy number, but even with that addition, it would still be a concise description of the things we strive for in the brickhouse bodymind program.
In contrast to said subtitle, you can read numerous long, probably at times verbose articles on this site about developing your own brickhouse bodymind, and if you buy my forthcoming book, The House That Yoga Built, you can read in great detail about the program and it’s principles.
That said, I was inspired recently to bridge the gap between lengthy prose and tight verse by drafting a description of the brickhouse bodymind and the lifestyle one lives in 100 words or less.
Here is what I came up with.
Love life. Live free of attachment. Consume foods in their natural form. Cook at home more often than not. Eat enough to sustain your activity but not so much that you carry unnecessary weight. Be proficient at manipulating your bodyweight with all four limbs, in positions familiar and awkward, upright and inverted. Learn balance – of body and mind. Smile, laugh, and dance often. Play an instrument. Play multiple sports. Read. Exchange ideas. Respect others. Put yourself out there … everywhere.
Now, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. … No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it.
Deuteronomy 30: 11, 14 NIV
I feel as though I am at the edge of a cliff. Jumping off would mean actually saying the word that is already viscerally in my mouth and in my heart. Turning back would mean remaining confused, being unauthentic. It would signify a failure to heed Bob Marley’s advice: “Get up. Stand up. Stand up for your right.” But just what are your rights? And even more difficult to answer, Just what is right?
William James spoke of a higher mind and a lower mind. For him, the aim of spiritual practice, and the pinnacle of spiritual or religious experience, was found in letting the higher mind win the war over the lower mind.
The higher mind is like your conscience. It is the presence that observes the world and your activity in it, knowing, in some mystical Jimminy Cricket way, what is best for you. It will forever reflect what you’ve been taught is right, always saying, in the tradition of Spike Lee, “Do The Right Thing.” The lower mind, however, is ruled by reptilian instincts and always prescribes to the instant gratification plan. Read the rest of this entry »
