Becoming an Advanced Beginner: Advancement in Yoga Through Refinement of

Fundamentals and Assumption of a Beginner’s Mind

By Stephen Parker Psy.D. Licensed Psychologist, Northland Therapy Center, Saint Paul,

MN, U.S.A.

Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (500 hour level), Yoga Alliance, U.S.A.

A paper for the International Conference on Yoga and Ayurveda, Sulislaw Palace, Poland,

25-26 June 2016

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Abstract: There is a misconception in much of the yoga world that advancement in yoga

comes primarily through mastering complex advanced techniques and kriyas. As a result,

many practitioners create obstacles to their progress through their pursuit of strenuous

effort in their practices. Nowhere is this misconception more acute than in the

interpretation of Yoga Sutras I.34 and II.47 dealing respectively with breath and asana.

This presentation will examine the neurophysiological reasons behind this approach to

practice and illustrate with examples from a range of practices. The operative principle

from a yogic perspective is that wherever there is tension, prāṇa will not flow. This

approach opens the door to the experience of subtlety and allows the advanced practices

to occur spontaneously.

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1. Introduction

There is popular conception among modern yoga practitioners that one progresses

in yoga through the mastery of advanced practices, more and more complex postures,

breathing exercises and kriyas, and more and more esoteric meditation techniques. These

assume the need to make an effort in one’s practice in a way that often actually creates

obstacles to progress in yoga. In reality, advancement occurs through an ultimate

refinement of fundamental practices of awareness and relaxation where one allows the

advanced practices of yoga to occur spontaneously.

2. Effort Versus Refinement of Fundamentals in the Yoga-sūtra

In order to understand this approach to practice, let us first examine the

interpretation of Patañjali’s sūtras on āsana, II. 46-47. Sūtra 46 is the well known

description of āsana practice, sthira-sukham āsanam, “the āsana [should be] steady and

confortable.” Vyāsa’s commentary is simple, listing ten postures and then stating that

these should be done with a “balanced configuration (sama-sansthāna), steady of

comfort, and as it may be easeful” (Bhāratī, 2001, p. 568).1 (p. 568) In other words, though it

may require some effort to assume a posture, once in the posture one should make it

balanced, steady and comfortable. This is as far as most āsana practice goes. In many

yoga studios today, particularly in the United States, students do not reach even this

degree of relaxation. I once observed a student teaching a “vinyāsa flow” sequence where

he went through 17 postures in 90 seconds or roughly 5 seconds per posture!

More subtle is the next sutra, 47: prayatna-śaithilya-ananta-samāpattibhyām,

“[The posture is perfected, made steady and comfortable] through relaxing the effort and

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coalescence [of awareness] with the endless.” 1 (p. 576) Here Vyāsa is more cryptic: “Ensues

is implied. By desisting from effort the posture is perfected, whereby it does not cause

shaking of the limbs. Also the mindfield coalesced into the endless perfects the posture.”1
(p. 576)
One of the problems with the traditional commentators, according to Swāmī Veda

Bhāratī, is that almost none of them had practiced yoga through the whole course of the

practice (Bhāratī, 2001, pp. 789-790).1 (pp. 789-790) Aside from Vyāsa, he identified only one

commentator as having completed the entire course of yoga, the great solitary 20th

century monk Hariharānanda Āraṇya. He published two commentaries, both in Sanskrit,

the more common of the two translated by P. N. Mukerji and published by the State

University of New York Press2 and then his most experientially based commentary,

Bhāsvatī, published in 2000 by the University of Calcutta Press.3 When Vyāsa becomes

cryptic, the traditional commentators use scholarly means to interpret his intent. Āraṇya

speaks authoritatively from the depth of his practice. About this sūtra he says, “mṛtavat

sthitir eva pra-yatna-śaithilyam, relaxation of effort is but a state like the dead.” 1 (p. 579)

Bhāratī goes on to explain,

This can be understood only by those who have passed through nearly thirty

different and progressively complex mental practices performed in the corpse

posture (śavāsana). These include the beginning levels of relaxation to the highest

levels of yoga-nidrā (yoga-sleep), and finally the experience of near death,

whereby death becomes volitional. 1 (p. 579)

This degree of relaxation is much deeper than the usual reader may realize. We

once attached an electromyograph (an electronic instrument that measures muscle tension

via electrical resistance) to Swāmī Veda while he was giving a lecture on biofeedback. As

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he walked back and forth lecturing, a physician on the faculty of our teacher training

program was monitoring the instrument. He began to chuckle. Swāmījiī then asked him

what was so funny. He said, “Well, Swāmijī, this is actually not possible. According to

this, you don’t have enough tension in your body to be standing up. These are the

readings we get from a corpse!” Swāmī Veda later confirmed that most of the time his

body is without any muscular tension even when he is moving! Obviously it is not

muscles but subtle energy, prāṇa, that is moving his body in this condition. And that is

the perfection of śavāsana! So the goal in āsana practice is not mere comfort but a total

absence of muscular effort to hold the posture. It is not holding still but rather becoming

stillness itself.

This stillness is necessary for the next aspect of the sūtra, ananta- (or ānantya-)

samāpatti, “coalescence with infinity or with infinitude.” 1 (p. 579) Bhāratī again refers to

Āraṇya:

Coalescing of the mind in space (ākāśa), or endlessness (ānantya), that is,

ultimate magnitude (parama-mahattva) leads to accomplishment of the posture.

When the mindfield is coalesced into endlessness . . . such as that of space, and

reaches uninterrupted identification, then, its identity . . . with the body

configuration ceasing, the posture no longer causes discomfort.1 (p. 580)

He goes on to say,

As āsana is being taught here as a constituent of samādhi, the oral tradition tells

us that an āsana maintained for three hours and thirty-six minutes in absolute

stillness, without the minutest tremble anywhere, and such a frame of awareness

as has been described above, will guide one effortlessly into samādhi.1 (p. 586)

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 This approach to the practice of yoga is elaborated from the perspective of

working with breath in sūtra I.34: pracchārdana-vidhāraṇābhyām vā prāṇasya, “Or, by

exhalation and restraint of breath and prāṇa [mind’s stability is established].” 4 (p. 346) Here

again Vyāsa is brief and cryptic. “A careful expulsion of the visceral air through the

nostrils is pracchārdana. Vidhāraṇa is the expansion of breath and prāṇa. Also through

these one should effect stability of the mind.”4 (p. 346) The traditional commentators argue

that Patañjali is referring to familiar practices of prāṇāyāma involving forceful breathing

and (sahita-)kumbhaka, intentional retention of breath. Here, they fail to take into

account an important exegetical principle of reading Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra. Swāmī Veda

points out that commentators have failed to notice that the terms pracchārdana and

vidhāraṇā are not used in any other text on prāṇāyāma.4 (p. 347), 5 (p. 489) Furthermore,

Patañjali, the consummate grammarian, is very careful in his choice of words. If he uses a

different word for something he is always referring to a different concept.

Speaking from the perspective of the experiential-initiatory oral tradition, Swāmī

Veda explains that the refinement of the breath being taught here is the exact equivalent

of the breath awareness called in Pāli anāpāna-sati by the Buddhists and prāṇa-apāna-

smṛti, “mindfulness of inhalation and exhalation,” in the yoga tradition:

The slow exhalation is pracchārdana, and the careful, slow inhalation is

vidhāraṇā. The term vidhāraṇā not only means controlling the flow of breath but

also suggests the sixth aṅga of yoga, called dhāraṇā. . . The mind should be

attentive to the flow of breath and observe it. . . The verb root meaning of

vidhāraṇā, “to hold or restrain,” here does not indicate the well known practice of

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 retention of breath but refers to holding a steady flow, restraining it to prevent the

sudden and jerky intake that often occurs. This practice is the antidote to śvāsa

and pra-śvāsa, uncontrolled inhalation and exhalation, which are two correlates of

the vikṣepas (YS I.31).4 (p. 348)

So it is clear that in the meditative practice of yoga, where it is not primarily a

physical exercise but is oriented toward the ability to practice samādhi, our goal is

attained not so much through effort and the mastery of advanced technique as it is

through a continual refinement of fundamental relaxation and awareness to a very high

level, beginning with the breath and the body. Under these conditions, as one’s meditation

deepens the so-called “advanced” phenomena occur spontaneously.6

3. Dissolving Effortful Self-identification Through Awareness

This is not a rationale for making no efforts at all. We need to invest some initial

effort in changing the habit of body, breath and mind once we observe its conditionings.

At some point, however, we must relax and let go of those efforts in order to enter the

depths of meditation. It is an argument for the central role of mindful awareness in

making all the practices of yoga effective.

When we make an effort we are invested in the self-identification with that effort.

It is always “I” that is trying. We are practicing from the level of ahaṁkāra, the function

of mind in yoga that is literally the “I-maker.” When breath awareness is employed and

we become mindful of the practice, that mindful awareness occurs at the much subtler

level of buddhi which is the cause of ahaṁkāra.4 (p. 33) So mindfulness automatically shifts

the frame of our self-observation in a way that dissolves our self-identification.

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 This is easily demonstrated in the practice of āsana. Stretching your arm upwards

and extending into a side bend we begin with an awareness that, “I am stretching.” When

you become aware of your breath, immediately there is a shift in the frame of observation

along the lines of, “Oh, the fingers want to stretch towards the ceiling.” As this new

relationship to the body continues, you can often stretch beyond what you thought

possible without pushing to stretch further. And when we practice in this way, there is a

coincident feeling of joy, especially when we exceed what we thought to be our limits.

4. Effort as Stress and the Neurobiology of Relaxation Through Awareness

Effort also stimulates the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system,

the medium for communication of the stress response from the limbic system in the mid-

brain to the rest of the body. These stress responses are antithetical to the attainment of a

mindfield which has both the clarity and pleasantness (citta-prasādana, YSI.334 (pp. 340-345))

and the stability and stillness (sthiti, YS I.35) to enter samādhi. They fall within the

domain of mental disturbances (vikṣepa, kleṣa YS I.30) and their accompaniments

(antarāya, YS I.31): suffering (duḥkha), “bad-mindedness”—anxiety and depression

(daurmanasya), unconscious exhalation and inhalation (śvāsa and pra-śvāsa) and

trembling of the limbs (aṅgamejayatva).4 (pp. 329-332)

There are good neurological reasons that support this yogic theory. Whenever you

become aware of your breath two important neural systems are set in motion. First, you

automatically initiate a relaxation response by stimulating the parasympathetic branch of

the autonomic nervous system through your attention to the exhaling cycle of the breath.7

This system counters the sympathetically mediated stress response and moves the

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mind/body towards the kind of stillness that is required for entry into samādhi. The

second process involves how awareness of the breath stimulates the middle pre-frontal

cortex, at the front of your brain, just behind your forehead, in the traditional location of

the ājñā-cakra, the “command center” of the cakra system. (This is not meant to identify

structures in the physical body with cakras or nāḍīs. They are parallel, not identical.

From a yogic perspective we might say that the physical structures are condensed around

the energy pattern of the subtle body, much like iron filings sprinkled on a flat surface

assume the shape of the lines of force in the magnetic field of a proximal magnet.)

The middle prefrontal cortex is the most human part of the brain, the most recent

to evolve.8 (pp. 26-1 to 26-7) Its principal overall function is to direct the integration of the brain

and central nervous system. This process of integration occurs across many different

domains. Vertical integration refers to the integration of the different evolutionary layers

of the nervous system from the so called “reptilian brain” (brain stem, pons, medulla and

cerebellum) to the “early mammal brain” in the limbic system (amygdala, thalamus,

hypothalamus, hippocampus) to the “later mammal brain” in the neo-cortex which

contain the centers for sensory and motor functions and language. Horizontal integration

refers to coordination of the relationship between the right and left cerebral hemispheres.

There are also domains that integrate our sense of self, our sense of time and mortality,

the narrative that is our long-term memory, our interpersonal relationships and much

more.8

It is the part of our brain that facilitates our growth and development.

Interestingly, the functioning of this part of the brain under the influence of mindful

awareness (Siegel, 2012, 6-1 to 7) produces an experience of joy that is our intrinsic

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reward system for moments when we succeed in our growth in every way.8 (pp. 6-1 to 6-7) Just

remember watching your two year old child making the effort to learn to stand and walk.

After thousands of failures, and many tears, one day a leg comes forward and balances,

and then the next one moves and balances. In the next moment there is usually an

explosion of joy from both parents and child. This joy grows with us in every way,

physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Along with our other biological drives, we

seek the joy of growth and development in everything we do. This joy is the source of

many of our positive drives, e.g. love and compassion, peace.9

This mindful awareness of which we speak is the thing that makes everything in

yoga work. The word yoga has two principal meanings, explored by Vyāsa in his

commentary on Yoga-sūtra I.1.5 (pp. 147-148) The principal meaning of the root yuj in that

sūtra is samādhi. A secondary meaning is “join.” We often explain the meaning of the

word yoga to students as “yoking” or “joining.” Joining what to what?—Increasingly this

author’s answer to the question is joining awareness to every activity in life. In this

regard the harmony between yogic and Buddhist notions of mindfulness and

contemporary neuroscience are truly astounding.

Mindfulness is what allows us to modify the structure and function of our brain

and nervous system and its connection with the body. When we act with awareness the

middle prefrontal cortex directs how neurons which fire together connect and, as the

saying goes in neuroscience, “wire together”.10 This is very important since it has become

clear in recent years that we produce new neurons until we die. When this author was

trained, the theory was that one obtained all the neurons we would ever have by age 18 or

so and from that point onward it was a matter of re-organization in the face of a continual

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loss of neurons. Paying mindful attention to our action wires these new neurons into our

existing neural networks and, of course, modifies the existing networks. This means that

if we pay intentional attention to our action, our old habits, emotional as well as physical,

can be “re-wired” as it were.10

5. Impact of Mindfulness At The Level of Body, Breath, Mind and Emotion

5.1 Body. Let us illustrate these principles at each level of practice. At the level of

āsana, we initially make an effort to assume the posture, hopefully with mindfulness of

the breath. Once stabilized in the initial expression of an āsana, we then focus primarily

on breath awareness and as soon as our self-identification begins to dissolve, as described

above, the relaxation response begins to release tension and counter the initial stress

response initiated by our efforts. As we continue to breath mindfully in the posture, we

note further release of tension in the muscles which allows us to adjust the expression of

the āsana, further refining the alignment of the posture in the specific body that we have

(rather than according to Mr. Iyengar’s photograph, for example). After several minutes,

the fascia begin to release and realign and it is at this point that the long term habit of the

body begins to be rewired through our mindful attention. We go through layer after layer

of release and readjustment until we finally some closer to the absolute stillness of

body/mind that allows us to go into meditation.

To illustrate this principle to beginning students experientially, this author used to

teach a haṭha-yoga class where all we did was use the entire 90 minute class (after some

limbering) to work through this process to enter into a deep expression of

paścimottānāsana, the “Western stretch” or seated forward folding posture. It is simply a

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matter of how much time and attention one wants to spend working through this process.

My student who taught 17 postures in 90 seconds in the yoga studio would do two

postures in two hours at home!

Gradually, as the habit of intentional mindfulness grows and begins to generalize

beyond the special time we reserve for āsana practice, the practitioner begins to keep the

same sense of observation of the body moving through the activities of their daily life.

The more this happens, the more āsana practice becomes perpetual, maintaining the

relaxation of the body at all times, because the person now feels their body from within

most of the time. After many years of this kind of practice, in addition to a better

relationship to one’s body in terms of posture, the continual relaxation helps the student

modulate their blood pressure and pulse with obvious health benefits. This author’s

normal resting pulse is around 50 beats per minute after 45 years and has been measured

as low as 28 b.p.m. with deeply intentional practice.

5.2 Breath and Prāṇa. In the practice of prāṇāyāma, the same principle holds with

respect to the breath. Over the years, we have found in teaching breathing that when we

encourage people to breathe diaphragmatically, they usually begin to make an effort to

breathe correctly that ends up being unnatural and productive of tension. In one recent

class, an experienced practitioner of Vipassana meditation who was also a physician tried

this effortful form of diaphragmatic breathing and ended up with a panic attack! Again,

effort stimulates a stress response that distorts both the form and the effect of breath. We

have changed our approach in recent years to simply apply mindful awareness to the

breath. When one begins to simply observe the breath from the depth of buddhi, self-

identification begins to dissolve and the breath naturally begins to become longer, deeper,

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smoother and more diaphragmatic, returning to the way that one breathed as an infant. I

refer to this as returning to one’s “baby breath.” The natural flow of breath is long,

smooth, and deep, abdominal and diaphragmatic, and also allows in the depth of the

practice for natural occurrence of the complete yogic breath where floating ribs,

intercostal muscles and the upper chest are also engaged. The combination of mindful

awareness and relaxation brings the breathe to subtlety and stillness.

When one is practicing a vigorous exercise like bhastrikā, maintaining mindful

awareness similarly changes the quality of the movement of the breath. The forehead and

facial muscles, nostrils and shoulders remain relaxed, and the motion of the diaphragm is

smooth while at the same time producing reliably even exhalation and inhalation of a full

tidal volume of breath, which maximizes the physiological benefit of the exercise. The

focus of the exercise and the movement of air is more physical and primarily through the

nostrils. Done in this relaxed way, the experienced practitioner can do hundreds of

repetitions with no risk of dizziness or lightheadedness and with a distinct feeling of

activation of prāṇa.11

Maintaining a more internal focus and an ujjayi breath, keeping the neck long and

the chin drawn inwards, the exercise becomes more subtle with each exhalation

producing a column of air beating against the upper soft palate and very little air flow

through the nostrils. This more internal exercise is a subtler form that is oriented more

towards feeling the flow of prāṇa in the major energy channels which terminate in the

right and left nostrils and merge into the suṣumnā channel.

In the well-known nāḍī-śodhana (“channel purification”) exercise, this relaxed

and natural breath continues as the practitioner alternately opens and closes his/her

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nostrils during exhalation and inhalation with their fingers. The exercise is helpful done

with effort; when done slowly and with relaxed subtlety it can bring the practitioner to a

state of such utter stillness that the mind entirely loses its desire to move. It can even

proceed to such a subtlety and stillness that the physical breath ceases altogether with no

desire to take another breath (kevala-kumbhaka) (YS II.51).1 (pp. 619-625)

Mindful attention to the alternating breath alternately stimulates the contralateral

cerebral hemispheres, gradually equalizing the flow of breath in the nostrils until both

nostrils are equally open. This is the same alternation of hemispheric stimulation that is

thought to be the healing factor in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

(EMDR),12 a therapy used extensively with trauma. (In fact, I have found clinically as a

psychotherapist that alternate nostril breathing can be more effective as a long term, low

impact intervention for those clients with trauma histories who are multiply traumatized

and who tend to become emotionally overwhelmed in conventional EMDR therapy.)

From a yogic perspective, the important aspect here is the opening of the suṣumnā

channel as it becomes a gate way into spiritual awakening and to the deeper states of

meditative concentration. The suṣumnā channel is a channel of subtle energy (prāṇa)

paralleling the spine which becomes active when the alternation of nostril activity,

corresponding to activity of the cerebral hemispheres, ceases and both nostrils flow

equally. This only occurs when the activity of the hemispheres is equalized and both

hemispheres become equally active. (I am not sure whether this phenomenon, though it

was well known to Sigmund Freud and was the subject of his first researches in

neurology13 (p. 178), has ever been measured empirically. If not, it presents a clear

hypothesis for researchers.) In yogic tradition, this science of rhythms in prāṇa is

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explored in the Svara-vidyā, a very esoteric discipline with few texts maintained

primarily in the oral tradition of yogic teaching.14

5.3 Mind and Emotion. The impact of mindful awareness on our thought

processes and emotions is similarly profound. For most of us, an emotional momentum

arises in our minds at each moment and flows into our behavior without mediation. We

“act out” what we feel. In this way, our minds form waves of thought (vṛtti) from the

arising of the subtle mental impressions (saṁskāra) of thought we all carry in our

personal unconscious which determine our action and we then form an identical

impression that is stored again in the depths of our unconscious. In an unmindful life, a

life unexamined, these impressions are continually recycled, act after act, year after year,

life after life.

Application of mindful awareness allows us to see the emotional momentum

arising in us and gives us an extra moment to assess whether acting on this momentum

would be skillful in a given situation. If not, our self-identification with the saṁskāra is

thereby dissolved and we are free to act differently and more constructively if we so

choose. An impression of that greater skillfulness and of the mindfulness of emotion is

then deposited in our unconscious to the benefit of our future action.

5.4 A Proposed Theory of Emotion. This process also allows us to understand the

nature of our emotions more clearly. We can examine the components of emotion in the

form of sensation, cognition, motivation and we have already discussed saṁskāra. This

construction of emotion is explained in greater detail in the forthcoming book by this

author.15 All emotion has some sensation, although not all sensation is emotion. We feel

angry, but we also feel cold. In addition, most emotions have a cognitive process

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involved with them based on our beliefs and values. Examining the beliefs and values

underlying our emotions allows us to assess whether they are realistic. If not, we can

often re-direct the energy of an emotion by changing the thought process. In yoga this

process is called prati-pakṣa-bhāvanā (YS II.331 (p. 505ff)); in psychology we call it

cognitive behavioral therapy.

We can also understand the motivations behind our emotions. These are provided

by the four primary fountains of instinctive desire, food, sleep, sex and self-preservation,

which we share with the animal kingdom.15 (pp. 54-66) These are our libidos, our instinctive

desires. Freud focused his attention only on sexual libido while ignoring the other three.

We cannot do without these things; they support our embodied life. But a mindful

experience of them can help us to depend less on them through enjoying them with

concentration. Thereby an experience of pleasure, the satisfaction of desire, is supplanted

by an experience of joy, of aesthetic rapture, in the process of tapas.

In this way we come full circle to joy, which this author argues in his forthcoming

book15 is a fifth fountain of motivation in humans, the drive to growth and development

which terminates in Self-realization. Recall (above) that joy is what we experience

whenever our middle prefrontal cortex succeeds in helping us to become more fully

integrated. This fact of the functioning of the brain and nervous system goes well beyond

the physical organs into the depths of our meditation. And we can understand samādhi as

an ultimate integration of the human being. This would even be a fairly literal translation

of the term samādhi.

6. Spontaneous Nature of Advanced Practices

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 When we use mindful awareness to follow the path of subtlety into our

meditation, the so-called “advanced practices” of yoga come naturally to us. We may in

our early years of practice have helped to prepare the way for them, but it is our

meditation reaching a certain point of subtlety that brings these phenomena to us

spontaneously.6 You can practice mudrā and bandha with effort, but if you relax

sufficiently so that prāṇa can flow freely, they will occur by themselves. Most of us first

experience this in deep relaxation in śavāsana. As we let go of our physical body we can

often feel a subtle pull between our thumbs and forefingers that eventually becomes cin-

mudrā. Some practitioners turn their tongue back into the hard palate (jihva-mudrā) and

at a certain depth of meditation, as the prāṇa begins to flow upward along the suṣumnā

channel, this flow spontaneously lengthens the physical tongue and changes its shape so

that it can assume khecari-mudrā without the need to artificially sever the frenulum under

the tongue as many haṭha-yoga practitioners do. We may sit in a deep meditation and

feel the energy at the end of a deep exhalation begin to draw our perineum, our genitals

and then our abdominal muscles upward into mahābandha. Or we may notice our breath

reaching a point of subtlety where physical breath ceases with no impulse to ever breathe

again. At this point the life of the body can be sustained by prāṇa alone. It is in these very

deep and subtle states that the advanced practices of prāṇāyāma become possible, with

kumbhaka often lasting for many hours.17 (pp. 38, 76-79)

From a neurophysiological perspective, using mindful awareness and relaxation to

open the path to the subtle, meditative experience of yoga allows the deeper practices to

become spontaneous because the sympathetically mediated stress response initiated by

conscious effort is eliminated. Thus eliminated, prāṇa can flow unobstructed and the

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gateway to the deeper practices of yoga opens. This is the principal difference between

the dhyāna-yoga approach of the Himalayan Tradition, and the more effortful and

physical approach of the haṭha-yoga tradition. This difference persuaded us to adopt

prāṇa-vidyā (wisdom of prāṇa) as the label for our method of practice.

This gradual deepening of mindful awareness enables the practitioner over time to

render the mindfield (citta) clear and pleasant, steady and still, making the flow of prāṇa

long and subtle, preparing the way for pratyāhāra (YS.II.54-551 (pp. 636-654), and initiating

the process of saṁyama, a continuous progression as a singular process through the

stages of concentration (dhāraṇā), meditation (dhyāna) and superconscious meditation

(samādhi)18 (pp. 40-43). These developments bring to fruition the development of many

qualities (vibhuti) in the personality of the practitioner, chief among them the brahma-

vihāras: maitri (friendliness), karuṇā (compassion), muditā (joyful mindedness) and

upekṣā (overlooking shortcomings in oneself and others) (YS III.24)18 (pp. 24-25).

The so-called miraculous powers of yoga, often designated by the word siddhi,

are usually thought of as special accomplishments as a result of much effort. Once again,

however, Patañjali does not use this word in the title of the chapter of the Yoga-sūtra that

describes them, the Vibhūti-pāda. This term vibhūtī is an interesting choice of words.

From the verb root bhū, ‘become,’ the term means literally “varieties of being.”18 (pp. 534-529),
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As varieties of being, developments of human potential, the grammatical and yogic

argument here is that these abilities exist in every human being and are simply cultivated

and developed through the practices of mindfulness and meditation.

This has actually been demonstrated empirically in a striking book by Dr. Dean

Radin of the Institute for Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, CA, USA.20 Radin did a meta-

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analysis of all the extant studies on psychic phenomena corresponding to the vibhūtīs

described by Patañjali and demonstrated their presence in ordinary people with no yoga

or meditation practice. Needless to say, the effect sizes in these populations were very

small, but the number of subjects was so large—in the thousands—that there is no

credible chance that these effect sizes were random. He was also able to demonstrate that

these effect sizes grew in subject populations with more meditative experience. This

result provides a very solid foundation for the argument that the abilities, which seem

miraculous to us ordinary people, are normal developments at the far end of the process

of the cultivation of mindful awareness. And as we pursue this ultimate refinement of the

fundamental practice of yoga, mindful awareness facilitating the relaxation of all effort at

all levels of the mind/body, clarifying and stabilizing the mindfield to be able to enter

samādhi, and finally, watching as the advanced phenomena of yoga simply occur in us,

we grow into a truly innocent and natural beginner’s mind, to borrow term from the Zen

tradition. We become, as it were, Adama, the original and truly natural human being to

whom ultimate knowledge and joy is given as a gift of grace rather than as the result of a

grasping, desirous self-identification.

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