A NONVIOLENT APPROACH TO EXTENDING YOUR LIMITS

By Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D. From Living Yoga: A Comprehensive Guide for Daily Life
Edited by Georg Feuerstein and Stephan Bodian

The yoga perspective recognises that each of us is made up of a great many forces, feelings, limits, possibilities, and passions. These aspects exist within my body and my mind and collectively define the boundaries that I usually identify as "me". Physically, these limits are experienced as muscle tension, restricted movement, and pain. Psychologically, limits are experienced as dogma, ignorance, and fear. Most limits have the potential to continually change and restructure themselves.

Now, if I sit on the floor and try to reach over to touch my toes, I might notice that I can only stretch to about five inches away from my toes before I experience tension and slight pain. At this point, the muscles in my lower back and the muscles in the back of my legs are just too tight to allow me any further stretch. At this point I am experiencing one of my boundaries.

This point, this "edge", is a highly important place, for within the yogic philosophy, this edge is considered to be my creative teacher from whom I can learn about myself. If I approach this teacher/edge with love, sensitivity, and awareness, I will discover that my teacher/edge will move and allow me a greater range of motion. If I shy away from approaching my teacher/edge, I will learn nothing new, and in time my own dogma/tightness will contract upon itself and I will grow even tighter.

If I try to blast past my edge, I might fool myself into thinking that I have learned and expanded, but in fact what usually happens is that I am only impressing myself with a temporary surge of ambition and that this feeling will probably contractupon itself with fear and subsequent tightening, forcing me into greater coofusion or potentially dangerous misunderstandings. Physically, when I approach my edge gently and consciously, my body responds by focusing energy and attention on this spot, encouraging the blood and energy to bathe the related muscles and organs with vitality and life, thus allowing me the experience of true growth and self-nourishment. But if I do not try to reach my edge, my body, having no point of focus, will find it difficult to isolate the place and nourish it, and little growth and improvement will follow.

To state the extremes: If I never explore my limits, my bodymind will gradually tighten and become unconscious. If I regularly explore my limits UN a caring and adventuresome fashion, I will expand and grow in a vital fashion. But if I try to push myself past where I am honestly able to go, I will no longer be practising "yoga" but instead will be practising "greed", and I will probably be met by pain and disease. Stated simply, it is the difference between ignoring your self, making love to yourself, and raping yourself.

The other fascinating aspect is that the teacher/edge, in addition to defining the limits of expansion and contraction, also distinguishes the fine line that exists between self-destruction and self-improvement. Thus, the artist continually strives to reach deeper past his own abilities and limits in order to experience a new idea, a creative insight, or an illuminating vision. But if he pushes himself past his own limits too fast or too hard, he might experience tension, pain, and suffering. And so will the athlete or yogi who does the same. When psychological or physical growth are pushed too hard, the movement toward expansion and growth is often forced to take a side turn into the domain of pain, stress, and discomfort.

Now, what does all of this have to do with health, dis-ease, and personal growth? Well, the implication of this yogic perspective is that health, dis-ease, and personal growth are all aspects of the way in which you deal with yourself. When you are being loving to yourself and are without chronically painful conflicts, your bodymind will manifest a state of health. Similarly, when you are being unconscious and unloving toward yourself, you run the risk of moving your bodymind into a state of dis-ease and stress, which could undermine your health and hamper your growth.

This perspective also suggests that the most effective and efficient way to develop yourself is to be as mindful and as aware as possible, all the while being respectful of self-limits and appreciative of continually regenerating expansiveness.

This perspective reflects the yogic nonviolent, noncompetitive, holistic approach to growth, education, and health, in contrast to our Western philosophy and health practices, which are often competitive, aggressive, and self-insensitive

About the Author and Editors, as at 1993:

Ken Dychtwald is a leading figure in the holistic health field and president of Age Wave, Inc, an education and communications firm. He is the author of several books, including Bodymind and Age Wave.

Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., is an internationally known yoga scholar who is also a practitioner. He has authored over twenty books, including Yoga: The technology of Ecstasy; Sacred Paths; Encyclopedic Dictionary of Yoga; Holy Madness; The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali; Sacred Sexuality; Wholeness or Transcendence?; and The Mystery of Light. He also is a contributing editor of several magazines, including Yoga Journal.

Stephan Bodian, M.A., has been editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal since 1984. He has practised yoga and various forms of meditation for nearly twenty-five years, including ten years as a Zen Buddhist monk and teacher. In addition to his work as editor, he has a private practice as a psychotherapist in San Rafael, California, specialising in spiritual and psychological integration. He is also the author of a book of interviews, Timeless Visions, Healing Voices.

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