Episode 02 - What Can We Learn from Yoga to Help Us Live?
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SHOW NOTES
What can we learn from yoga to help us live every day?
Jeanne Heileman specializes in discovering the needs of an individual and gently guides each student to their own grace and balance. She has been a Teacher Trainer with YogaWorks since 2005. She is a Level II Certified ParaYoga Instructor and a 500-ERYT. She is the founder of Tantra Yoga Flow.
IN THIS EPISODE:
Jeanne answers questions about yoga.
What are some ways yoga can help us in our everyday living? Like overcoming fear? Getting comfortable with change?
How can we use yoga to stop the chatter in our heads that keep us from doing our best work?
Is yoga a religion?
What is yoga for you?
What are the main paths of yoga? (karma, bhakti, jnana, raja, tantra, hatha)
Where does the Bhagavad Gita fit into all of this?
What are the koshas?
How does one get started with practicing yoga?
LINKS
Jeanne’s Weekly Class: https://mailchi.mp/jeanneheileman/tantra-flow-yoga-class
Jeanne’s Class Library: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tantraflowyoga
Bhagavad Gita Library: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/foodforthesoul
Jeanne’s website: jeanneheileman.com
Jeanne’s Yoga International classes: https://yogainternational.com/classes/?query=jeanne+heileman
Jeanne’s YogaWorks Classes: www.yogaworks.com/classes/live
Jeanne’s Den Meditation class: https://denanywhere.com/schedule/
TRANSCRIPT
(Please excuse any errors in the transcription.)
Monica Phillips (00:05):
Welcome to yoga philosophy for everyday living. I'm so glad to have Jeanne Heileman here. Welcome Jeanne.
Jeanne Heileman (00:47):
It's an honor to be here. Monica. Thank you.
Monica Phillips (00:50):
Jeanne led a weekly workshop for us as well as a weekend workshop for the YogaWorks teacher training program. And it's just such an honor to have you here and share your wisdom. I really love the way you showed up for us as a teacher. And I learned so much from you. Jeanne is specialized in discovering the needs of an individual and gently guiding each student to their own grace and balance. I love that vision. She really creates a safe haven for students to dive deep and find their edge and transform. She is the founder of tantra flow yoga. So you can see her website link in the list below, and it brings together all of her studies on Asana, Ayurveda, mindfulness with the added focus of the poses energy. She was a dancer and actress. That's how you got introduced to yoga and certification upon certification, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Anusara, ParaYoga, Vini and Tantra...
Monica Phillips (01:44):
This podcast I started to really learn from ancient wisdom of yoga to connect to everyday living yoga and all of its forms can help us live better lives. I've had the joy of meeting people who experienced yoga in so many different ways. And so I'm glad to have you here to share your wisdom with us, Jeanne. Sometimes when I say I'm a yoga teacher, I hear things like, Oh, I'm not in shape. I'm not flexible. Other times, I'm way too, type a to sit in Savasana. I need to get a really sweaty workout. I need to go kickboxing, right? I do have a lot of friends who get yoga and are familiar with it and know even, you know, the different kinds and what they want, whether they want a sweaty flow or something, more mellow or something else, Iyengar or something completely different. Give us the big picture. What is yoga? And this podcast breaks down the eight limbs according to Patanjali. Talk to us a little bit about the Asanas, breath, anatomy, spirituality in this bigger vision of what is yoga. That's huge. That's a huge question.
Jeanne Heileman (02:44):
Yeah, it's become very popular and I may be answering it from an indirection. I'm not sure. It's huge, it has become very popular and people are doing yoga. A lot of the popular yoga out there right now - it's exercise with yoga poses. It's for those who are saying yoga is not hard. I need a good workout. And so I'm not going to do yoga. And that is a myth. You can get an excellent workout. You can get a killer workout, muscles cut abs everything that you want through yoga. There are a lot of yoga teachers and styles of yoga that are now going from that angle. And that's great because at least it's getting people to try yoga, to learn how to move with their body. And a lot of people think that they need external substances, weights, or ropes or things to enhance their workout.
Jeanne Heileman (03:34):
And there's things you can do through yoga that create strength on your own. And in fact, some people who are doing Pilates, well Pilates came from yoga. Mr. Pilates used a lot of the yoga postures for rehabbing, I believe it was soldiers from the war. Even if you're doing Pilates, the root of Pilates came from yoga. What is yoga? Some people are doing yoga where they're not moving their body at all. And then some people see all the exercise and say, "I don't want to do that. That stresses me out." Yoga is huge. What I tell people is it's like a blueberry pie and Monica, if I give you a bunch of blueberries and I say, hi, here's a pie. Here's a blueberry pie. You're going to say no, Jeanne, that's a bunch of blueberries. And I'm going to say, no, no, no, it's a blueberry pie. Look.
Jeanne Heileman (04:24):
And you're going to say, no, a pie has a crust made with eggs and flour. A little bit of sugar. If you don't mind some salt, probably something to bind. Maybe a little bit of butter. I'm going to say no, no, no, that stuff. That's not interesting. Blueberries. There's your blueberry pie. And it's not. It's just blueberries. And yoga has these eight limbs, which you mentioned that you're focusing on. And the physical postures is just the blueberries and the blueberries without the crust, and without all the ingredients that make the crust without being baked isn't pie, it's blueberries and yoga has postures, but what are we doing with the postures? Are we breathing deeply in them or are we just forcing them upon our body? If we're breathing deeply in the body, then we're opening the body from the inside out. And there's a huge transformation.
Jeanne Heileman (05:21):
One of the benefits that yoga provides that other physical activity doesn't necessarily provide - and I speak from experience. I also, being home-bound, having a lot of arthritis and a crooked spine and an older body that I want to keep safe - I am doing other physical activity as well as Asana. And I noticed that I'm not even with all of my breathing wisdom. There is a deeper experience when I do the yoga postures and I breathe deeply inside my body. And it opens things from the inside out. And then it strengthens things deeper from the inside out. And then that deep breathing, when we breathe deep in a posture, then that - how we breathe - changes how we think. And so if we're coming frustrated, stressed, dealing with our life - sad, depressed, feeling left out anything. When we change our breathing, it changes the behavior, the pattern of the tendency in the mind.
Jeanne Heileman (06:26):
And that's how we can start to see things positively. That's why a lot of yogis, you know, they're always in bliss, well, breathing deeper. They're able to see different perspectives. They're able to see positive perspective in amidst the mind. And then from that, it takes us to a sense of being quiet and still, and then turning our attention inward. That's yoga. When we're really tuning to a piece of us that never changes often called our soul or our higher self or Christians would call it the Holy spirit or there's so many different words for it. What is yoga? It's huge, but it's not blueberries. It's all the ingredients that make a real good blueberry pie. And yoga is all of those. So if we just say, ah, I don't want to do that. I don't like yoga. When people say that I don't force the argument. Well, you might consider looking at it another time, because it's so much more than what you think it is.
Monica Phillips (07:28):
You say "breath." I suddenly noticed myself breathing deeper. It's so powerful. These triggers, right? When we name something. Oh yeah. Oh my breath. And I was teaching a class when someone said, I like when you cue breath, because I actually forget to breathe. And I thought, Oh, imagine people forgetting to breathe. It happens. Right. But when we name it, we go, Oh, there it is. There's my breath.
Jeanne Heileman (07:54):
Breathing is autonomic. Which means that the body's naturally doing it. If I tell you don't breathe at some point, your body's going to make you breathe. But it's also something that we can regulate and we can control. And because it's autonomic, we are unaware of it. The moment we mentioned breath, we start to pay attention to it. The moment we put attention to it, it changes the moment we put attention to our thoughts. They start to adjust a little bit. So in a way, yoga is increasing one's attention. And mostly we're going through life paying so much attention to the outside stuff that we're not aware of our own present whole universe. And there's a whole universe within us.
Monica Phillips (08:43):
Let's talk about that presence. I decided to get certified in yoga because as a coach, I found that everything I was doing was yoga. It's overcoming fear and being grounded in presence. And it's understanding how to create more space and discerning what's around us. And we were talking about that earlier, discernment versus judgment. Even I grew up with yoga in my life and then started practicing in a studio in my twenties. So I've had yoga practice for almost 30 years and I've had yoga in my life, my entire life. What I love is this philosophy. When I coach, when I meet with other coaches, I'm like, yep, that's yoga. We'll talk about the four locks in a minute. But this power of tell me how we can use yoga for these everyday situations of overcoming fear, of getting comfortable with all of the change that has come up over the past year of the loss.
Jeanne Heileman (09:37):
Ooh, that's another deep, deep question.
Monica Phillips (09:40):
Just taking it easy - easy, gentle questions,
Jeanne Heileman (09:44):
How we breathe, affects the body's physiology. And our breath also affects the mind. And so if the mind receives information, "I'm in lockdown, I've lost my job. I don't have an income. I'm afraid of the virus." All valid. I went through that in March and April. I saw everything on my calendar go away. It was like, Oh, this is interesting. How am I going to get by? And then the studio was closing down. All right, well, what's going on? So this isn't me preaching. So when we're seeing all of that, how the mind response will affect how we breathe and if the breath starts to tighten, if the breath gets short, I mean, literally when we're inhaling, oxygen is food for the body. We can go a reasonable time without food and a fairly reasonable time without water, but we cannot go a long time without breath.
Jeanne Heileman (10:42):
Breath is literally food for the body, but it's not just average breathing. It's how we breathe, can contribute to constipation, indigestion, headaches, shoulder aches, backaches, your circulation, and that can contribute to a stroke and a heart attack. Not all, but it can. So how we're breathing affects the physiology, the physical, all the 10 systems, then that affects our physical structure. Now, all of a sudden we are - we're stooped over because we're on computers all the time - and then we're breathing short because we're scared and everything. And if we're stuck in our home, that will affect the body. And that can lead to all kinds of challenges, physical ailments, and just the need with all the things that are pent up to express in ways that are not positive behaviors, eating late at night, ice cream, alcohol, drugs, bingeing television, late at night, having to get up early in the morning.
Jeanne Heileman (11:45):
Now you're walking around and sleep deprived, et cetera, et cetera, All things I think that all of us have done to a degree. When we do yoga, Asana, just posture, we're moving the body and the body holds, the muscles hold memory. They hold positive memory, and they hold negative memory from 10, 15, 20 years ago. And from last week. So if we move the body in different shapes and we're breathing deep, it's a way of purifying. A lot of that negative toxicity, either from, if we ate a bag of Cheetos, it's, COVID everyone's has permission, or a gallon of ice cream or whatever. But if we start to breathe, physical toxins can move through the body. The emotions can start to move through the body. The breath deepens that starts to change the tendencies in the mind. So that even though there's fear and worry, we can start to get some ideas and we can start to get some hope or a gut sense that says, I know this is crazy, but something tells me we're going to be okay.
Jeanne Heileman (12:48):
So that's how yoga can work for those who are doing Asana. It can start from the outside and they just move deeper and deeper inside to affect how the mind functions to where we can start to tap into something. As I mentioned earlier, that just notes is possible. If, when we're doing Asana, we are breathing deeply. And if we take our mind's attention to what we're doing, instead of looking at the dirty floor and checking your cell phone during the yoga practice. I'm all game for a good playlist, but if we're focused more on the music than on what's happening, the playlist isn't fully serving us. It's a distraction. That's how I would answer it. Just, it can actually help us move inward and in the process, clear things so that even during this time, we can have some hope and we can remain healthy, not just physically, Pranicly very important these days and mentally to the best that we can.
Monica Phillips (13:45):
I have definitely felt a shift in energy in the last few weeks. I think it has a lot to do with the days getting longer. And I live in sunny, California, but I'm in the Bay area. And so it's getting a little warmer and it comes and goes. We've had a lot of rain, but I still love the sense of renewal. The daffodils came up and I just felt so much more energy all of a sudden. And I've noticed that during COVID a lot of people in my life had lower energy and weren't able to do as much. And I was thinking of that in the sense of what is yoga and really Asana means to sit comfortably, to prepare for meditation. Tell us about that. And then also what is enough yoga? So I think of the sense, like we're not the Buddha, we're not going to sit under a tree and meditate all day. We have busy lives. We have a lot going on and we have changed everything in our lives and things are more stressful, right? So what is enough? And what's a reasonable yoga practice to have.
Jeanne Heileman (14:42):
Oh, that varies for each person. I mean, I wouldn't give a formula. That's not appropriate. And then yoga, what is enough yoga? Does that mean Asana does mean pranayama. Does that mean seated meditation? And then I have no time already. You're killing me. And I get it. I took on an extra practice that my teacher had encouraged a number of us to do for the new year. It's 11:00 PM. I want to go to bed and I made a promise and a commitment and now I have to go to the mat and I'm tired. Start out if you're new to everything, find a 30 minute practice online. A lot of studio that I work with yoga works teaches one hour classes or hour and 15. And that really is a good chunk compared to the fact that yoga used to be an hour and a half long. Classes used to be an hour and a half long.
Jeanne Heileman (15:28):
So those of us who've been teaching forever. We're like perish the thought - an hour. How could you. I have 20 minute classes up on yoga, international, a website that has all kinds of wonderful classes on it. Just, can you move your body for 30 minutes to combat, to balance the amount of time that we're sitting so much? Can we move our body for 30 minutes. While we will say, I don't have time, we need the circulation. It will affect our heart. If the circulation doesn't get to the heart, we can end up with heart problems. And this is less expensive than medical prescriptive drugs. So if we could move our body for 30 minutes and then maybe an hour, if you moved your body for 30 minutes, and if you could sit down for five minutes and just be with yourself, which is so hard, nobody can be with ourselves.
Jeanne Heileman (16:21):
It's so difficult to be with ourselves. We want to be with anybody but ourselves, because the moment we sit down, we usually want a guided meditation because, and with music in the background, because we need the distraction. When I teach meditation, I'm teaching a couple of meditation trainings - can you actually just be with yourself? And I swear, I want to make a t-shirt that says, I survived (dot dot dot) myself, because what comes up is the worst, worst than the worst movie in the whole wide world. Our thoughts, what will come up is I'm going to die from my thoughts. They're going to kill me. And we won't. And the more we can start to look at our thoughts and look at ourselves and just see them without fixing them without labeling them, which is to go, wow, that's a lot of jealousy going on. Wow. You really a *****. That's a lot of complaining.
Jeanne Heileman (17:13):
Wow. That's a lot of ego - Whoa, look at me, so cute. Without judging. And just to say, huh? I mean, I've had times where it's like, you're a *****.
Monica Phillips (17:22):
It sounds like allowing ourselves to be imperfect.
New Speaker (17:26):
What is perfection? Maybe it's not imperfect. Maybe it's being perfect. Maybe perfection has this slice of imperfection. Maybe perfection without any flaws is weird. If a human has no flaws, they no longer need to be a human. And that's when they may leave their body. We, our souls are in the form purposely with flaws and the flaws are there for us to grow and to help other people grow up. Sometimes it's not about us, but our flaws prick other people. And so it's about us working with the prick of the other person, the button being pushed. And it's just, can you sit with yourself and just acknowledge things without having to change or to comment and just to say, this is also part of me, okay.
Jeanne Heileman (18:15):
That was five minutes, but it's part of us and it, you don't have to walk away going, but now my day is ruined, like looking inside your shoulder, that's all you did, but you've got an ear. You've got a left abdomen. You've got a right and left ear lobe. So if it's really bothering you, that one aspect of you, well, then the more we do it, we can start to see other aspects. We can say, Oh, well, let's look inside my right nostril. And that's when we start to see inside all of us that we're full multicolored, interesting beings. And when we can see our own bitchiness and jealousy and ego, we can then tolerate other people's bitchiness and jealousy and ego a whole lot more because we can see people with, Oh yeah, I recognize you. And when we can't tolerate it in someone, it's because we haven't looked at it.
Monica Phillips (19:07):
So true. Sounds like a good time to ask you about the koshas - five layers of consciousness that start with this outside physical body that we see in the mirror and go all the way into bliss. But they go from physical body to emotional.
Jeanne Heileman (19:25):
Physical and then Pranic is how we breathe. You're sitting next to someone who's seething in anger. They're breathing very differently then someone next to you, who is very amorous towards you. Both are very engaged and they're breathing very differently. And that's creating a different energy. That's rippling past their physical form, past the limitation of their skin. And we usually want to be around the person unless we don't like that person, but that person has amorous energy towards us. And we like them. We want to be around that. And if someone has seething, raging, anger towards us, it doesn't matter even if we like them, we don't want to be around that right now, but that's the pranic. And then the mental is what feeds how we breathe and it's planning everything. And a wisdom layer, which is what's underneath all the busy-ness of the mind. And then the soul, which is just bliss.
Jeanne Heileman (20:17):
It doesn't have opinions. It doesn't have a gender. It's connected to creation. So we walk around with these five layers. And the only layer that can be seen is the physical and some healing practitioners, different modalities may say, Oh, I can see your energy body. That may be true. What had worked with this stuff enough, that when I'm in the presence of someone, I could start to feel and see where their energy is dominant and what's going on with them. And I can see through how they're presenting themselves. But these are layers that we're more than just what we physically see. And we're more than what we think. And when we start to tap into these other layers, this is part of the whole of yoga.
Monica Phillips (20:58):
Okay. So is yoga a religion?
Jeanne Heileman (21:03):
No. And I've heard that before and I don't know why I responded like that. Sorry. No, no. Yoga is not a religion. I'm finding my light. Where's my light. The sun is moving. It's beautiful outside, but it's casting interesting shadows inside. Yoga is not a religion. Religion is organized spirituality and that's not a judgment nor blame. That's what it is. It's spirituality that's organized by human beings. And usually in order to have some organization, you need to have some people in power and then there's rules and regulations to keep everybody organized. And again, I'm not judging. That's how things operate and it can be operated if there are good humans and souls, then they're guiding the religion in a great direction. And if the human is struggling more with some of their flaws and limitations, which we all have, then the religion or that gathering, that community can be struggling as a result of the leaders, limitations, that's religion.
Jeanne Heileman (22:00):
But the root of religion is spirituality and yoga is communicating in essence of spirituality. And if you have a religion, yoga can help you deepen, grow deeper in whatever religion you're in. If you don't have a religion and you're agnostic or even atheist, there is yoga that can simply help you feel good in your body and tap into a higher knowing. You obviously would prefer to study with someone who's not mentioning God and all the deities or anything like that. So it's just a matter of how is the teacher presenting the material. And it doesn't mean, well, I just like Iyengar because they have no spirituality. That's not true. It depends on which Iyengar teacher you're hanging out with, which Ashtanga teacher, which any teacher, the teachers themselves, in addition to the Asana that they teach will either have a spiritual path or not. And so when you find a teacher that you resonate with, what can help. And that means trying a few teachers.
Monica Phillips (23:00):
I've always been drawn to more spiritual teachers. And I like the sense of yoga, where I am tapping into myself. Yeah. Let's talk about the different types of yoga. Well, Tiffany Russo is my mentor teacher and I just absolutely love her. You were talking about all the different kinds of exercise and all that in here now, because we still joke in training. It's not a pilot squat. It's a one leg Utkatasana. Of course we're allowed to have other movement in our bodies. I run, I work out, I lift weights. I do all of that and it's different energy and I love yoga. So it's not, Oh, you have to pick, or you have to put yoga on a pedestal. And that's the only thing for you. Yoga can be part of everyday living and it's all of these dimensions. So I do like the Bhakti elements of yoga. The sense of, even as I've talked with you about coaching, you know, overcoming fear, how do we connect to ourselves? How do we see the world? What's the, how did the yamas and the niyamas, which we will talk about in later episodes - how do those affect what we're experiencing in our bodies? There's karma, yoga Raja, Tantra, Hatha, Jnana. Tell us about the different kinds. How does someone explore what's right for them?
Jeanne Heileman (24:10):
When you say different kinds, that could be misunderstood. I think you're really meaning is the different paths. There's the different paths of yoga, which is often referred to as Margas, or maybe even types versus the different kinds of yoga - Ashtanga, Iyengar, Power Flow, restorative, therapeutic. The paths of yoga - Raja Yoga is like making the blueberry pie, the eight limbs and the eight ingredients - if there were eight ingredients in the pie, it was called Raja yoga because it was the yoga that Kings practiced in India. So it was Raj means King. And so it was the Royal path, often referred to as the Royal path, the noble path. Bhakti yoga, it's yoga of devotion. So this is another path of yoga. So someone might say, I'm a Bhakti. I practice back to yoga. They're not doing Asana. They're not doing the physical postures. They might be a wonderful, chubby little round, roly-poly thing.
Jeanne Heileman (25:08):
You do yoga? I don't think you're confused. They're absolutely doing yoga because it's whole it's union. They're probably using a lot of mantra and chanting and every single aspect of their life is infused with celebrating the divine. So it is a lineage or not a lineage, but a path that honors and reveres and has a very close relationship with an essence of divinity. And so if you're an agnostic or an atheist, that's not your path. You can hang out with them and do chanting and you'll have fun. But if you're really strong in your views is not for you. Jnana yoga, J-N-A-N-A, that's the yoga many call the wisdom. Many people say, it's where you study scriptures. It's a mistake to say, it's a cerebral path. Introverts may like it. People who don't want to move their body a lot may like it. They want to just hang out and study books.
Jeanne Heileman (26:04):
But the real essence of it is that when you study the scripture, you're not studying in your brain, but you're starting to process the messages. And this is what I do with my Bhagavad Gita sessions, which you might've experienced with me, but we process, we chew and then we apply to our life to where we can actually start to live the message. And the roots is truth. So Jnana yogi is looking for truth, to live Truth, truth with a capital T. So all the tiny truths lead to the big Truth. And once you connect to that, then everything you do, your behavior is truthful. And for many of us, our behaviors are kind of not fully truthful. And then we have Raja yoga, Karma yoga, Jnana yoga, Bhakti yoga. You can also go into Tantra. And Tantra is an aspect that came later and, or did it? The scriptures came later.
Jeanne Heileman (27:00):
People often base information based on the scriptures, but a lot of stuff was secret and hidden. And orally transmuted scriptures came later. So we really don't know. Tantra uses Raja yoga, and it just infuses the whole body. It's not a sexual practice, but it uses energy, uses all the five koshas and it uses every aspect of life. So that the whole living day is a practice similar to the Bhaktis, where we do see the divine in everything, even in a difficult experience, we see the divine dwelling in that. It's like, where's the divine in this? What's she trying to tell me. What she's showing me? So it's hard to be in a tantric lineage without having an awareness and a relationship, it will increase a relationship with a higher divinity. And if you don't like that Tantra probably is not a path for you. There's also a path - Kriya yoga. And that is more along the lines of, I'm not remembering his name right now who wrote "Autobiography of a Yogi" and this uses special techniques, scientific formulas with your breath, with your body, with your mind to create an energy that heightens the space for meditation and the practices seep into our daily life. So that's like six different paths.
Monica Phillips (28:22):
Yeah. I love how you described those paths, Jeanne. I loved your Bhagavad Gita workshops. And is there a short definition of what is this Bhagavad Gita, how does it fit into what we study in yoga? I know it's massive and we attended several workshops together, but what's the short version of that.
Jeanne Heileman (28:39):
It's an ancient scripture. It's part - Bhagavad Gita is in a larger scripture called the Mahabharata, the tale of an epic, epic war that did exist in India. In India, people grow up with the awareness of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and or the Bhagavad Gita. Mostly I would say some people understand also the Mahabharata .Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana are two major epic tales that most children will grow up knowing and learning about to a degree. In the scope of yoga, the ancient ancient scriptures, possibly the oldest scriptures on the planet, not just in yoga are known as the Vedas and these Vedas are ancient, ancient, and they're written in very formulate, very scientific, very specific manner with instructions that have to be followed. And it's very ritual-oriented from that came the Upanishads and the Upanishads are more of a commentary on the Vedas. Later
Jeanne Heileman (29:46):
the Mahabharata followed just to give an order of how everything unfolds and in the Mahabharata is the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is it's written in Upanishadic form like Upanishads. It is believed it came a little bit later than the 200 year era of when the Upanishads were written. The Gita is a dialogue between what starts out to be two friends and becomes a teacher and student. Student is asking all kinds of questions and it's really wonderful how the teacher remains his composure and his love and his patience as he answers the question. What's wonderful about the Bhagavad Gita, is it's, well all of this stuff can be lofty. Don't even bother. I studied some of the Vedic stuff through my teachers, Vedic practices or Vedic chanting. That's very specific. The Upanishads that's already a lot of stuff to work with. And then later on, we get the yoga sutras, Patanjali's yoga sutras, and that's like all my mind, and then there's other scriptures as well.
Jeanne Heileman (30:46):
But when we look at the Bhagavad Gita, and this is actually, you don't need to be an organized Yogi. If you get a translation that's accessible, you can start to just follow the messages and live as a Yogi wherever you are, as what's called a householder where you'd have a job or trying to have a job, you're trying to pay your bills. You're trying to find time to go grocery shopping and cook some food. And your house is a mess. And how are you keeping your composure? And you have a million emails and you haven't seen your friends in ages, and now they're upset because you haven't reached out. How do you live and still be a Yogi in this and not lose it? When you look at the news? The messages in the Gita are designed, not for someone -- some of the other scriptures are more for, you know what, I can't do this unless I'm at an Ashram, unless I'm at a yoga retreat -- but the Bhagavad Gita, we can do these things while we're in the middle of the mess. And that's why the scripture is so powerful. I think it's a beautiful scripture. And one of its main messages is love and who doesn't need some love write now.
Monica Phillips (31:51):
I want to ask you about the Four Locks next. And this is in Patanjali's sutras,
Jeanne Heileman (31:55):
Chapter One, verse 33
Monica Phillips (31:57):
“By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.” In one of my Facebook coaching groups, someone had asked about an exercise to help people let go of things. And I mentioned the Four Locks as a way to bring in this notion of letting go, because the first three are pretty easy. You know, they vary in difficulty - friendly toward the happy, yeah. Oh, you're happy. I want to be friendly toward you, right?
Jeanne Heileman (32:31):
That's hard when someone's all of a sudden got the promotion and you didn't, and you're the one who deserves it.
Monica Phillips (32:36):
Right! And so jealousy can seep in that's delight the virtuous, I guess?
Jeanne Heileman (32:40):
It's more someone who's just more, it's a little bit different. It's when they're more, serene, they're more perfect. They just, they seem better than you in their character. Not in their when it's, someone's more successful than you they're prettier than you. They're aging less than you. Whatever. It's not fair. And we can be easily jealous on so many different ways. And if you're not, I have students who say, I'm not jealous. I'm happy for my friend. And two weeks later when I'm working with the students, Oh, so here we are now. We really do need to do due diligence about that one. It is tricky because they are similar, but virtue has more to do with, they're just people who are just sincerely a little bit more. If not the word, virtuous, their character - they're kinder, we normally would lose our temper and we would be a *****.
Jeanne Heileman (33:28):
And they're just, no, I actually think they're really sweet. How can you be so kind in such a place like this? One of our tendencies is we want to put people down because we can't handle their character is so much better than us. And the shift is instead of needing to put them down, can we choose? All right, this annoys me with the point is it shows our flaw, Oh, I'm not as patient. I'm not as open-minded. I'm not as kind. So therefore I need to put that person down. If we can catch it and say, all right, I'm not as patient. This person, this person meditates much more than I do. Clearly. I want to put her down and I want to say that she has no life. She's not engaged. And she's not dealing with paying her bills as much as I am.
Jeanne Heileman (34:18):
And she's not cleaning her floor. She probably she's so blissful off in the lofty world. She probably has someone else cleaning for her because she has no idea what's (inaudible). So I need to put her down because I'm not meditating as long as she is. So instead I can turn it around and say, you know what, God bless. I am going to try it someday. I want to get to the place where I meditate 10 minutes longer. And so that's where we can turn it into an aspiration instead of needing to put someone down and just want to clarify, because those two are confusing.
Monica Phillips (34:52):
I'm glad you shared that. I have a friend I was talking to recently about loneliness in the spiritual journey because people think, Oh, well, why are you so great? And why do you get to do that? And, Oh, things are just easy for you. And you have no anxiety or frustration or fear or doubt or jealousy. You don't have that. Aren't you just so good.
Jeanne Heileman (35:09):
If we start to do all of that, if we are able to do all of that inner work, the challenges and the problems are more supple and that's where the loneliness can be because we're working on them. If we're not dealing with the outer noise, the harder, more subtle stuff is to deal with the inner noise. And it's in, it's hard.
Monica Phillips (35:30):
So what about this last one? Disregard toward the wicked.
Jeanne Heileman (35:33):
And you're reading a translation from Satchidananda and I love that translation and still the last line tricks, people. Satchidananda is this amazing Yogi who speaks, I don't know what languages and he's worked, Sanskrit isn't a general spoken language. Some people speak it, but it's not spoken that much anymore. It's more through scripture in India. There are so many different languages that are spoken. So he speaks three languages. And here he is learning English because Britain ruled India for awhile. And he was around during that time. So he's taking Sanskrit and he's trying to translate for English speaking people and he's taking this line. How do I, with his limited awareness of the word disregard. He says, I think this will work. And I don't mean to be simple. He probably put much more thought than what I'm exemplifying, but disregard for most Westerners tricks us because now we're like, Oh, you mean I'm supposed to let, when I see that person harm their child, I'm supposed to walk by and say, all right, never mind.
Jeanne Heileman (36:44):
But what it means is don't react to wickedness. Oh, so Jeanne you mean when I see stuff happen out there, I'm not supposed to do anything - pause - because if we react quickly, what we're seeing is a negative vibration happening. And the vibration is manifesting itself through the behavior of someone's actions and then their speech.
Monica Phillips (37:09):
I hear you saying stop and breathe. And I also hear this discern versus judge.
Jeanne Heileman (37:16):
Yes.
Monica Phillips (37:16):
So that you can act with kindness,
Jeanne Heileman (37:19):
With clarity and with truth. Because if we react to what we see that negative vibration that's going on, we're engaging in it. And then we're going to spread it wider. But if we pause and we see this person and a student said this to me, she saw, I was teaching in Spain and she shared a story. She saw a man harming his child and she walked up and she yelled at him. And because she was very strong woman and very opinionated, and she realized he's going to go home. And because of the shame that she publicly shamed him, he's going to be meaner and more abusive to the child at home. It's when we see - perfect example is someone harming their child or their animal in ways, harming the animals, even more gut punch - if we see that my meddling may create bigger meddling because now the parent is like, who are you to tell me what to do?
Jeanne Heileman (38:20):
How dare you. And we could create a fist fight and somebody could be really hurt. So that's that negative energy multiplying to a bigger negative problem. But what I could do is pull back and say, this does not look right. I am provoked. I got to clarify who's me and what's actually right. I could be provoked because I've been abused as a child. So my provocation is not clean. Can I get a neutral thing? Can I report this person to the authorities? And can I go to facts. Fact is you harmed a child. The child has a huge bruise. This is not appropriate. Even if you're the parent, authorities need to be notified, people need to monitor your parenting skills and truth is maybe underneath it you just need some help. But if we just look at the outside and react to the outside, we're spreading the problem bigger.
Jeanne Heileman (39:11):
So when it says, what is the term? What is the disregard? Not necessarily disregard. It's more about monitor your response because your response can create bigger problems. And we're seeing that all over social media, we're seeing that all over the news with how people respond to a politician, to anything instead of checking, calming and making an action from, you know, is this even really true? Do a little due diligence, do a little extra research and then checking within myself. Am I reacting based on my history? Because I had a dog, that's my dog. It's not my dog. It could be my dog. So now I'm actually personifying the situation.
Monica Phillips (40:00):
It sounds like critical thinking skills.
Jeanne Heileman (40:02):
And discernment is a good word because discerning means pausing, pulling back and separating all the marbles and saying, am I really looking at things? There's another term in that book in Sanskrit, it's called Avidya. I liked the translation from another writer, misperception. We're only looking at something from one perspective. And when we can pull back, there's always in every situation more than one perspective. And when we naturally respond to say, Oh, I'm sorry, you don't know. This is the only way lovingly. It's not true.
Monica Phillips (40:35):
There is a lot of that going on in the world, we can learn a lot from this, this exploration.
Jeanne Heileman (40:42):
People don't want to change because that affects our identity and our self-esteem.
Monica Phillips (40:45):
Well, we've created a narrative around this space, here, this safety. This has been such a pleasure. And I'm sorry to have to end the episode because it's so wonderful to talk to you and thank you for sharing all that wisdom. Do you offer classes on the Bhagavad Gita outside of the teacher trainings?
Jeanne Heileman (41:02):
I have a number of recorded classes when I did two different courses. We recorded them. They are available on my website and you can subscribe to the whole bit or rent or purchase just one. They're about an hour long, each Chewy, great discussions, where we dive into all of the different verses. And you can easily go to that site. We could put it up if you want. It's on my website. My website's in the process of being changed right now. But if you find recorded classes, something of that ilk, you will find it.
Monica Phillips (41:34):
In the show notes, we'll have all the links, Jeanne Heileman, and you're on YogaWorks and Yoga International. Are there other places you teach also?
Jeanne Heileman (41:41):
I also am teaching with Den Meditation. I teach a meditation class with them and I have my own weekly class through my own zoom. And it's a tantra flow class where we blend Asana, Pranayama. We work with all the five koshas, the different five layers. It's more working with the subtle body, weaving that with the Asana ending with a lovely meditation.
Monica Phillips (42:04):
I want to take that class. That sounds perfect.
Jeanne Heileman (42:06):
Well, if you can't take the class, everything is available so you can rent or buy one.
Monica Phillips (42:11):
Live or recorded. Thank you so much, Jeanne. It's been such a pleasure.
Jeanne Heileman (42:16):
Thank you. Honored. Blessings to all of you who have listened.