The Self-Organizing Map of Yoga

Tether the mind to the body.  The body is a MAP through which you can see intelligence reflected.  Yoga says that the mind is like a kite in the wind, while the body is the tether. Learn to use  the dynamic interface of mind and body, and you will fly higher with more freedom.    

INTELLIGENCE 
What is “intelligence”? It is the self-organizing force in the universe, in nature, that orders everything, from every planet to every molecule in your body. Self-organization happens in part because of dual forces that operate in balance, like positive and negative, day and night, or inhaling and exhaling. You can see the self-organizing intelligence alive in the rolling ocean waves, in a lead runner in a race, and in a baby learning to walk for the first time.

High-energy health begins when you empower dual forces to move in your body to enliven every cell with a life current, a spark and a flow.

FLOW
How do you energize the flow of this life current? In Eastern traditions, this flow (prana) becomes regulated by focusing awareness on the body in specific ways that spark the intelligence of the cells. Imagine the sun’s rays intensely streaming through a magnifying glass setting aflame a piece of paper below. The sun is your mind, the magnifying glass is your focus, and the paper is your body. The burning, fast moving rays of the sun are like your mind, and are “rajasic” – heating, moving, dynamic, even restless. The paper is like your body, and is “tamasic” – cooling, slow, solid, even lethargic.

The rajasic mind can be thought of as light, quick, driven, but overactive, while the tamasic body is heavy, solid, leisurely, but procrastinating. The job of the mind/brain is one of change, while the agenda of the body is often to NOT change. To change, or not change? Isn’t that the question? As long as these two states (known as “gunas” in yoga/Ayurveda) are in basic balance, you will experience health and forward movement in life.

To read more about concepts of flow in the East, Click Here.

SELF-ORGANIZATION
The term “self-organization” was first coined by philosopher Immanuel Kant (in 1790) to define the nature of living organisms from which spontaneous order emerges.1 Certainly the modern view is that this theory is worth full exploration as stated in Scientific American,  “… mechanisms of self-assembly and self-organization occur across physics, biology and other fields of science. A beautiful example is the behavior of large flocks of birds, such as European starlings.”2

POLARITIES
The opposite of self-organization – disorganization – occurs when the two forces no longer reciprocate.  Energy becomes polarized, as if to be stuck in the inhalation or exhalation phase of breath. Eastern traditions teach that when you experience pain, you are stuck in the state of one of the dual forces, yin or yang, which are expressed as hot/cold, wet/dry, and excess/deficient. In Western theory it’s the nervous system that is often the culprit. The sympathetic (rajas) or parasympathetic (tamas) systems are in overdrive either cause us to be racing around, or slugging it out on the couch or in bed. These systems are the basis of our fight, flight and freeze responses, and lie unconsciously at the root of many health imbalances.

Whichever hemisphere you aspire to, they both say the same thing: resistance, pain, disease, stress or conflict beg you to find your way back to the spark, the flow, the self-organizing intelligence that is you.

In the practice of yoga, fascia – because it is self-organizing – provides an Intelligence Awareness Map (IAM) that acts like a backdrop against which the teacher can guide students in balancing rajas/tamas through the body, or sympathetic/parasympathetic.  For instance in Down Dog, blanched white toes straining to press the feet down are tamasic (white, cold, underactive) while the tendons that pop out on the tops of the feet in the same pose are rajasic (excess, hot, overactive). This calls for an adjustment of alignment in the pose, in the fascia, which the yoga teacher offers to the student in exploration of finding a new point of balance.

The genius of yoga is its reflection of the I AM in you.  Yoga pioneer B.K.S. Iyengar states, ” … our individual intelligence (buddhi), though an essential rudder to guide us, is merely a puny offshoot of cosmic intelligence (mahat), which is the organizing system of the universe. This intelligence is everywhere, and, like air, we constantly bathe in it and imbibe it.”3  It shapes a path for us to move forward in our body and in life in a supported, clear, directed way.  It lights our way to freedom.

For info on YOGA Fascia 201, click here

Knowledge is power when applied with coherent sequencing found in the IAM. In part 2 of this series, we look at nature’s self-organizing laws expressed through the five seasons sequence with a potential relationship to our neurophysiological states of fight, flight, freeze. 

1 Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/self-organization
2 Jan Ambjørn, Jerzy Jurkiewicz and Renate Loll, (Scientific American, Inc, 2008), p43.
2008UniverseOriginCDTAmbjrnJurkiewiczLoll.pdf
3 B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life (USA: Rodale Inc, 2005), 149.

Gloria Gonzalez, is Founder of Eight Elements West® Integrative Wellness, and creator of I AM THE MEDICINE®, where voice, touch, movement, narrative and nutrition are therapeutic tools of the process;  self-organizing rhythms in the craniosacral, visceral, fascia, and Chinese medicine systems are the foundation. Her private practice works with healing accumulated stress and trauma with this integrative approach.