Here lies the basics of the JUNGLEYOGA Manifesto...

Nature

Jungleyoga is what i call my method of yoga practice and yogic life.. I named it Jungleyoga for a number of reasons: the simplest of which is that it was born in the jungles of Thailand (and originally in the jungles of India). It is a connection of nature and yoga, for yoga is no more powerful than when done in nature, with clean air and quiet surroundings. The jungle, after all, was the original place where yoga was done, not these clean white boxes in buildings in some mega city! I also call it Jungleyoga because, like the residents of the jungle, we can be a bit wild... yogis have traditionally been unpredictble creatures, prone to actions and thoughts which may baffle the ordinary man.

Jungle is actually a Hindi word, brought into English during the British occupation of India. It simply means 'forest', and the forest/ jungle is where the ancient yogis went to concentrate on their practices. I think it is vital to be connected to nature and its rhythms, especially if one is practicing yoga. Part of what I am trying to do is get people back into the natural temples of jungle and forest and away from the cities. We progress in yoga so much faster when we are relaxed and surrounded by rich air, water and plants! A sense of great peace comes when one is surrounded by nature; when there is peace within and peace without, the world is a better place.

The System

I feel it is essential to have clarity about what we are trying to accomplish in yoga and how we are to do it. It is not enough to simply follow along with what one is taught; one must also understand why. In this way we can be more dynamic and use the yoga intelligently, as tools for transformation, and not be blind slaves to a 'system'. Too often I see people simply follow along with what they have been taught, without understanding what their practices do or how they work. Often people outgrow their systems or their methods begin to cause them harm or injury. Instead, I want to educate people so they can use yoga and not be used by it. We must use the whole of our beings to move forward, and this includes our higher minds and intelligence as well as our bodies and breaths. In this way, the yoga can transform us quickly and completely.

I have been working for many years to refine this system of Jungleyoga; i am always discovering new things about yoga and having new insights. Thus i am constantly re-creating what it is and how it is practiced. One year i may be concentrating on the detoxification of the organs through twisting; other years i have been working with inversions like headstands; some periods i have concentrated on meditation and mental development. All of these phases have educated me about the tools of yoga and i add what i have learned into the overall system. Lately, i have noticed that people's core strength (belly and lower back) is distinctly lacking and needs development. So i have added into my classes a whole section on the strengthening of the core and the increasing of the inner heat. This is my latest obession. Core strengthening work is currently one of the essential sections of my classes, and i have had wonderful results with the work.

I think the most important aspect of Jungleyoga is the integration of the body, breath and mind through what i call Swara Cycles. These breath-based movement cycles are really the core of what Jungleyoga is, at least physically. For much of the practices, the Swara Cycles are employed in a vinyasa style approach which carefully links the rhythmic breathing with the dynamic actions of the asanas. When you add concentration and mental attention to this formula, you get a very powerful experience of yogic integration. Even beginning students can access this simple approach and feel the wonderful effects of yoga. Advanced students can always benefit from Swara Cycles because there is unlimited combinations and possibilities of movement and breath. Some of these cycles can be incredibly difficult. I have not discovered the end of the possible combinations yet!

The Yoga in Action

Every time we practice, we learn; practice is the best way to health, compassion and clarity. Philosophy is all well and good, but we must put it into action if it is going to take a place in our 'reality'. Yoga is a system where the philosophy supports the actions and the actions prove the philosophy. We learn something, a technique or an ideas, and try to prove it's truth for ourselves through practice. The philosophy, especially Tantra, gives us clues as to the nature of the universe as well as our own nature. In Jungleyoga, we embrace these ideas and then work to integrate them into our yoga experience. There is no need for 'belief' in yoga, only openness to new ideas. If we encounter a new idea through reading or learning, then we must take it into the yoga practice to see if it holds any validity. If it does not, we can discard it, becasue we have proven (at least for now) that it is not valid.

For instance, the Yoga Sutras state that the mind is constantly wavering and unsteady. When it is not, we are in a state of yoga. Now we must prove this to be true or not true. Sit down and try it and see if the mind does not wander contantly. When it does not wander, what is the state of consciousness? All of the yogic philosophy must be experienced in this way. Jungleyoga encourages the exploration of philosophy through direct experience. When the mind is satisfied, it can be a wonderful to help us along the path of yoga.

The Path We Walk Along

Life is nothing if not change and movement, and the yoga must embrace this fact. We must be constantly adjusting ourselves, our attitudes to life and our yoga if we are going to stay in the 'stream' of life. Jungleyoga is constantly changing as I change and as my experiences change me. I try to pass on this dynamic approach to my students and through my classes. People need different kinds of yoga to bring them into balance. One static kind of yoga can never serve a person in the long run. Every day that we live, we change, and the yoga must change with us. Our challenge is to adjust the yoga so that it suits us, in our time and place in life.

Would you want to do practices which sadhus do if you are living with a partner and two kids? Is it appropriate to hold your arm over your head for 12 years if you have to change diapers? No way. There are millions of different techniques that we can use to develop ourselves, but we must use the right ones! No technique is perfect in itself. A posture or practice that would heal one person might kill another (really). Each has their own path and each has their own yoga. Jungleyoga teaches 'right yoga, right time, right person'. There are three critical words in Jungleyoga. One is 'appropriate', the appropriate yoga for you is essential. The other is 'it depends'; our situation must dictate the practice and that too will change day to day or even hour to hour.

Our intelligence can be our guide if we engage it properly and this takes effort, just like everything in life. Thus, i constantly create more clarity within myself about what Jungleyoga is and how it is done, so that i can be more effective and clear in my teachings. I feel it is working in its way, but there is always more to do! If we can all be more clear as to what we want from life and from yoga, we can be more assured of getting there. There is no time to waste.

The Ever-present Unfolding

Something inside us drives us forward, to explore and experience, but what is it? Is there a 'why' behind it all? Fundamentally, we practice because it feels good; you feel better for having done it than not having done it. Beyond that, however, what are we doing? We must work towards a more complete goal. Yoga is a life, and it gives as we live, changing as we change. Yesterday's yoga is not as it is today: we have grown. Through discovering the many paths of yoga, we discover the many pathways of life and thereby live more fully. Yoga is simply an aid for uncovering the beauty of life in its many forms.

One of the most fascinating parts of this life is to watch and see how things unfold over time. When we understand the deeper movements within us, which is our dharma (our purpose in life), everything clarifies and crystalizes. Then our heart's true desires come to reality and manifest themselves. Perhaps you love plants, but only get as close as raking leaves or chopping veg. When the yoga takes hold and we are truly connected with our dharma, the positive changes manifest. Eventually we may become the zen gardener, where the spiritual lives in harmony with the many other parts of life. Consciousness in action leads to 'santosa' (contentment, happiness).

Somewhere behind it all is a philosophy and a love for nature and the beautiful in life. Living is just a play within the Krishna Lila, it is full of tricks and games, and nothing is as it first seems! We do our best for ourselves and those around us, trying to destroy less than we create, and make the things we touch perhaps more beautiful that we found them. If the means to such a life is colorful and varied, all the better; if our methods change as our perception widens, do we stand accused? Rules are made to be broken, and that's why we haven't made any! Life is too full of creativity to live within the confines of dogma and morality: we seek the beautiful!

Thus, this Jungleyoga can be a hard thing to define in words; like yoga itself, it should be experienced to be understood. Perhaps it is best put in the Jamaican proverb: " Who feels it, knows it." The forms of expression can change and transform, as life does. Most important is the end result of the work, not the exact forms used to get there. We can travel by foot or by magic carpet or ramshackle bus, but we arrive in the end, don't we? The true test of any spiritual work is simple: has it brought life and love onto a higher plane or not? I read once about a Swami in South India who would take a daily walk through the local village. As he progressed along his way, we was always joined by birds, animals and children, who felt happy and safe in his presence. They gathered to him to share in his joy, which was due to the Swami's spiritual practice.

Sri Aurobindo's Influence

I have been deeply influenced by Sri Aurobindo's vision of yoga and life. I will let him speak for himself, and for me in the following quote which I feel sums up the Jungleyoga vision nicely:

“There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialized methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra  or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.

  Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organized by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential examples all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-present experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some element or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.

  Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact  with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognize in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous an miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and tin the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and self-conscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.”

-P.41-42 The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo, 1996

The river of joy flows towards the ocean of bliss...