 The Ganges bursts out from a glacial spring high in the Himalayas, two-thirds of the way up Mt. Shivling, at an icy outcropping known to the locals as Gaumukh, or ‘the mouth of the cow.’ I had hiked for several days to pray at the source of the Holy River, near where the Yoga Sutras had been put to parchment some 2,500 years earlier by a sage named Patanjali. As I climbed, I observed the sadhus, the pilgrim yogis, sitting in stoic meditation and bathing in the frigid waters. Then, at a point nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, I took off my shoes and tested the water with my toes. I concentrated on my breath, and immersed myself.
Breath in,
breath out,
breath in.
A few moments later, I sensed myself hovering above the stream, and observed my body below me, shivering silently. I remembered what Patanjali had written about the yogi being able to leave his body at will. I felt free and unbounded, and could perceive the snow-capped mountains around me, the forest below, and the vast expanse of blue sky above that both enveloped and held me. I was perceiving all of this at once. Nature and river and sky and I were one.
Then, something drew my awareness back to my body. In a flash, I was back in my own skin and let go a yell that echoed through the mountains. I leaped out of the stream, and as the circulation returned to my limbs, my body felt as if it were being pricked by a million tiny icicles. I sprawled on a large boulder, laughing and crying, soaking up its warmth. I reminded myself that yoga is an inner practice, and that braving ice and fire is fine, but the real tests of the yogi are spiritual.
I had come to the source of the Ganges to research this book. I was also here to ask for a blessing from Devi, the Mother Goddess, to compose a version of Patanjali’s Sutras that brought forth the juicy, feminine, and non-dogmatic wisdom of this ancient tradition. I’ve spent many years practicing yoga, as well as studying with the sages of the Americas.
Shared practice and origins
In the Yoga Sutras, I found many parallels to what I’d discovered among indigenous shamans I’d met halfway around the world. Both yogis and shamans sought to master levels of consciousness that would help them break free from suffering and bring them to a direct and immediate experience of the divine. Both sought stillness and enlightenment and the expression of their fullest human potential. Both sought to heal themselves through their discipline and practice.
The more I learned about the ancient yogis who had lived thousands of years ago in the foothills of the Himalayas, the more I came to realize that these yogis were shamans. I felt encouraged to bring forth a version of the Yoga Sutras that celebrated the feminine and more direct path to Spirit; informed by and pollinated with the poetry and beauty of the indigenous wisdom of its authors.
This version of the Yoga Sutras takes us back to the source of yoga and its original teachings about the mind, it is based on the premise that yoga and shamanism are profoundly intertwined and share the same origins.
While many books on yoga have been written by yogis, very few books on shamanism have been written by shamans. Thus, until recently, scholars believed that yoga and shamanism were very different practices. Many believed that yoga shouldn’t be confused with the techniques practiced by shamans. My own field work with the high shamans of the Americas has shown me that the goals of yoga and those of shamanism are identical. Like the shamans, yogis go through a death of the ego: they cease to identify with their body and the impermanent world, and discover their true nature as Spirit. Both the yogi and the shaman do away with their past and the ties that keep them bound to their karmic and family histories. They also learn to break free of time to taste infinity, and in doing so, reach an unconditioned, natural state where they recover their ‘original Self.’
Patanjali states that when we practice yoga, we can acquire extraordinary abilities that will help us wake up from our cultural trance. We begin our journey toward samadhi, toward liberation. When we are willing to become a master of our own journey, we can regain our original nature, and the singularity of knowledge available before the visible and invisible worlds parted. Then we understand that Spirit is everywhere, that only our flawed vision prevents us from seeing this. From then on, for the yogi, every act is sacred and everything we do is a form of worship.
Samadhi, or Yogic Ecstasy
Before time
Before Space
The teachings of yoga took form.
The teachings of yoga begin now.
Yoga is vigilance, awareness,
and stillness of the mind.
Yoga frees you
from the drama
the tragedy, the saga
your mind creates,
and allows you to experience
your True Self.
Your True Self knows
reality and doesn’t confuse it
with the twisted tales your mind spins.
Some of these stories bring pleasure;
some bring pain.
All are forms of fiction that distract
you from reality and your True Self.
© 2008 by Alberto Villoldo.
This message introduces Alberto's new book Yoga, Power and Spirit: Patanjali the Shaman.
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