Warrior Pose (58 page)

While the Vedas and the Gita have motivated and inspired me, my favorite text has become the Yoga Sutras. Written more than fifteen hundred years ago, the Sutras take a more scientific approach, codifying Vedic wisdom into 196 terse statements called aphorisms. For me, these teachings articulate the spiritual science of how to be a human being. Although many of the Sutras can be daunting to comprehend, the more I read and reread them, the more their wisdom speaks to me. But vastly more important than reading and understanding the Sutras is doing my best to apply their wisdom directly to my life, again as a central aspect of self-purification and healing.

One Sutra invites me to cultivate positive emotions to replace negative ones, much like Dr. Miller's Deep Healing techniques. I've developed my own way to practice this during my morning Yoga: I visualize that I'm breathing in compassion, gratitude, acceptance, forgiveness, and peace, and then exhaling any negative emotions that might still be lingering in my psyche. When I have a specific emotion arise, such as fear, I visualize that I am drinking in a golden, liquid nectar of courage into my heart center on the inhale, and then allowing that nectar to flood my physical and emotional bodies on the exhale. I can actually feel the shift as I become more confident, empowered, and courageous.

There is also an insightful psychology in the Sutras that explains to me how I create my own emotional suffering by forgetting the oneness of all and becoming absorbed in my ego. Looking back in my life, I see that every time I've been depressed, distraught, angry,
frustrated, or fearful, it fits into this concept. I was self-centered, caught up in my ego, clinging to my desires, and worried about things not going my way. Then I reacted, often with exaggerated emotion. I remember how dark I became when a failed back surgery ended the career I loved so much. I was a master of reacting with anger and outrage when I was drinking, drugged, and depressed. I could take umbrage at the slightest comment and go into deep aversion. This never resolved anything; it just caused me to stress out further and usually led to my speaking and acting out in ways that hurt everyone around me.

The Sutras teach me to remember that I am part of something much greater than my individual self. This gives me more humility, compassion, and understanding. It also helps me to remember that I don't control reality, and that when challenges arise I can be calm, accept what is, and then act skillfully rather than reacting. It's a real challenge to turn my thinking around this way, but I see the wisdom in it, and each time I'm able to be calmer and more accepting when someone says or does something that would have set me off before, things really do work out better. I remind myself that it's far easier to see fault in others than in myself, and it's spiritual practice to own up, take responsibility, and look at myself straight in the eyes. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you seek in the world.” When I'm able do this, the issue dissolves as time passes, I feel like I've made some progress toward becoming a better human being, and another level of inner healing takes place.

A centerpiece of the Yoga Sutras is called the Eight Limbs. These limbs offer me a formula for how to be a human being that is both scientific and spiritual. The first limb provides guidelines for cultivating a right relationship with the external world by practicing nonviolence, truthfulness, and honesty while avoiding self-indulgence and possessiveness. This is a huge shift for me. In morning meditations on these precepts, I recall how many times my words to others have been hurtful, how I haven't always been honest, and how I've often hidden my motives from others. I contemplate how deeply I overindulged myself to mask my physical and emotional pain, and how I always avoided facing who I had become.

The second limb focuses on establishing a right relationship with the internal world—with myself—by seeking physical and emotional purity, contentment, and self-discipline. It also promotes the value of self-inquiry, spiritual studies, and, most importantly, the constant cultivation of an awareness of the Divine within myself, within all living beings, and within all aspects of the world. Again, it's a huge shift, but I already realize that discipline and self-purification have been essential for sustaining my healing journey, and that contemplating my sense of higher power is the essence of spirituality.

Every morning in my cave, I ponder these teachings and set my intention to weave these new principles into my life as best as I am able. I realize that I'm nowhere near perfect. It would take me lifetimes to fully live these moral precepts, but as the Sutras also teach me, I vow to practice with devotion every day while not worrying about the outcome. In effect, just as my Yoga poses are rearranging and healing me physically, applying these precepts from the Sutras is remaking me emotionally and spiritually. And although I understand that variations on many of these precepts can be found in all major religions, this feels like something arising from deep within me rather than something demanded from an external source.

The third limb is
Asana
, the Yoga poses that most Westerners often take to be the whole practice of Yoga. Interestingly, the word
Asana
is only mentioned three times in the Sutras, and in each instance it means sitting in a cross-legged posture for meditation. All the hundreds of other Yoga poses that have developed throughout the ages are really designed to purify, balance, and strengthen us while giving us the flexibility to be able to sit comfortably for prolonged periods of time, still our minds, and go within to make contact with our Souls. I'm a long way from that right now, and I need the poses to keep me on a journey away from pain and back to a place of physical wholeness. Maybe the day will come when I can sit still for hours and feel perfectly at peace.
Maybe
.

The fourth limb is the breath work of
Pranayama
, whose magic I've been experiencing since first being taught to breathe more deeply at the Pain Center.
Pranayama
means much more than deep breathing. It's the practice of expanding my energy—my life force—through
deep and controlled breathing. Every breath I take these days feels like a miracle of life and reminds me that I have the capacity to make profound physiologic and emotional changes without having to rely on medications.

The fifth limb,
Pratyahara
, means withdrawing the senses from the cacophony of life and going within, which is what I have instinctively done by spending so much time in my cave. This guides me right into the next limb,
Dharana
, which is the practice of single-pointed concentration, like when I gaze at a candle flame and keep my entire awareness focused there. This leads to the seventh limb,
Dhyana
, or meditation, with which I always end my practice, seeking to concentrate deeply and merge with the focus of my meditation. The eighth and final limb is
Samadhi
, or merging with the Divine. This is not something that can be practiced; it just arises more and more as a result of the overall spiritual practice. It's in
Samadhi
that we realize who we truly are, learn to accept life with equanimity, dwell in the present moment, and live in a state of Yoga.

I often feel what I call a beginner's state of
Samadhi
during my practice. Then it slips away as I get on with my day, which I figure is pretty normal. I'm human and will never be a sage or saint, and as Yoga teaches me, it's all about the journey, not the destination.

Covering conflict, war, and turmoil around the world taught me a great deal about the darker side of humanity. It also taught me something about human potential, although it took me years to realize it. Mahmoud, the Afghan boy who was burned over much of his body by napalm, managed to walk out of the vast Himalayas and make his way to a refugee hospital, surviving against the greatest odds. Little Adelin and Junaz, living in Manila's Smokey Mountain dump, clung to life in the most horrid conditions, surrounded by danger and disease. Even Alejandro, forced into addiction, child slavery, and prostitution in Cochabamba, Bolivia, found the strength to scratch a hole in a dry riverbed and call it home, living longer than ever could be expected.

As a journalist, I witnessed everyday citizens—men and women from all walks of life, all ages, ethnicities, political, and spiritual beliefs—face chaos, pain, suffering, and loss. There were some who rose above the maelstrom and performed heroic feats and others who cringed and fled. Either way, what people believed about themselves and their capacity to face a great crisis was turned upside down. All were compelled to completely rearrange their priorities and view the world through a new lens. What was once paramount suddenly seemed petty. What was taken for granted revealed itself as sacred.

I've learned that humility and softness are far more powerful than the sharp edges of bravado and hubris of my earlier years. That accepting what
is
takes more courage than forcing what I think
should be
. That judgments, opinions, and the need to be right can be great hindrances. That it's always better to give rather than to receive. Affirm rather than criticize. Serve rather than be served. I've also learned to be grateful for the smallest, most ordinary things. The morning light. A sip of water. A breath of fresh air. The privilege of being alive.

Yoga has taught me that a fundamental principle of life is that energy follows intention. When we create a strong intention and really believe in it, the world magically seeks to support us. People who think positively and have faith in something are vastly more likely to manifest it than those who feel doubtful and negative. It still takes great devotion and hard work, but it always starts with the mind. One of the great ancient texts of Yoga puts it well: “Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions create your habits. Your habits form your character. Your character determines your destiny.”

CHAPTER 39

A Demon Departs

O
H MY, you look like someone from a concentration camp!” Pamela's mother, Kathy, means no harm by these words. It's fall of 2001, five months since I became vegan and started the radical purifications. My weight is down to 140 pounds. This is twenty-five pounds lower than when I began my organic chemotherapy, and eighty-five pounds lower than when I was at my largest while disabled.

“It's okay, Mama Two,” I say, using my nickname for my mother-in-law. “I feel better than I ever have in my life.” I give her a hug and sneak off into my cave to look at myself in the mirror. She's right. I'm extremely gaunt, my bones are sticking out everywhere, and it looks like I'm starving myself to death. Mama Two is just the messenger I need to let me know I've done more than enough fasting. This phase of organic chemotherapy is over. It's time to rebuild my body. Eat larger meals, still pure, vegan, and organic. I love it. Gorging myself on avocados, coconuts, and bananas. Quinoa bowls overflowing with broccoli, squash, carrots, and yams. Desserts of figs, dates, pears, and pecans!

My bayside healing teacher, Rene, left the country this summer to sail the Pacific in a small sloop with her husband. For the past few months, I've been doing a weekly ritual that she inspired on the same
dock in San Diego Bay where we used to meet for our private Yoga sessions. After some gentle postures this morning, I wrap a soft cloth around my eyes and ears and lie down on a few thick Yoga blankets. I take myself into a deep meditative state and begin organic chemotherapy on my emotions. With every inhale I send golden healing light to my emotional body and deepen my sense of empowerment. On every exhale I continue to release remaining old wounds, resentments, angers, and fears. They're generalized feelings at first, but in time they become very specific. Things I was in denial about, or were masked for years by drugs, begin to take form. They well up within me, and then I release them.