The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:de]The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:fr]The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:es]The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:ja]The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:it]The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:pb]The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large is a consciousness of separation. It is also a very disembodied consciousness. Fittingly, the word yoga means “to yoke” or “to join together” and suggests a path of practices that can put the pieces back together through healing the sense of estranged separation (self and other, mind and body, inner and outer, body and world) and the pervasive sense of disembodiment that accompanies it.

One of the most important things that yoga (specifically hatha yoga) can do is to help initiate this shift from a place where we’re literally out of touch with the sensations of our body to a place where we can actually feel the tingly, sparkly, alive, active, vibratory free dance of sensations that’s going on at all times in every cell of the body. Rekindle a felt awareness of the body as a unified field of shimmering tactile sensations, and you start entering a very different world, one in which the straitjacket of separation comes flying off and you’re released into a birthright feeling state and consciousness that the Sufis call the “condition of union”. And as we become more proficient in feeling sensations, the claustrophobic feeling tone of separation starts melting away, our conventional sense of personal boundaries expands exponentially, and we suddenly start experiencing ourselves as merged and connected with everything that is. It’s a wonderfully comforting, natural, and relaxed condition. It’s also filled with grace.

The individual sessions of Rolfing can also powerfully stimulate the awareness of sensations in the part of the body that is being touched, but where the goals of Rolfing and yoga truly begin to interact is through the conscious exploration of balance: the playful embodiment of what Dr. Rolf always referred to as “the Line”. Elemental Rolfing theory tells us that, through playing with balance, the body learns how to let gravity provide it with its source of support. This allows us to keep on relaxing unnecessary myofascial tension because, if gravity is providing us with our support, then we don’t need to provide it ourselves. We also know that the best strategy to not feel something is to tense the body. Therefore, relaxation allows us to feel the sensations of the body that formerly we were unable to feel, and true relaxation is only possible in a condition of balance.

If you want to come out of what spiritual teachers refer to as the “nightmare of separation” ” and enter into the embrace of union, you need to feel the body from head to foot as unbroken, shimmery, tactile presence. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working with the words and practices of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, and what I’m suggesting here accords directly with what Rumi’s father taught him as “ma’iyya”: God (or whatever word works for you) cannot be found in the mind alone, it cannot even be found in the heart alone, but needs to be felt as distinct physical sensation in each and every small part of the body.

From the point of view of physiotherapy, the sessions of Rolfing are ends in themselves. But from the point of view of yoga, the initial Rolfing sessions are like a preliminary practice that prepares someone to start consciously exploring the yoga of the Line. And for this exploration to succeed in shifting our awareness of self from the consciousness of separation to the consciousness of union, it needs to be actively explored, just like hatha yoga, on a daily basis. I believe this exploration is best carried out within the context of all four primary postures of the body: sitting, standing, moving, and lying down.

Sitting meditation practice, of any tradition, is most powerfully explored through surrendering to the Line. Sit every day with the awareness of alignment and relaxation. Feel how the most surrendered breath can cause subtle, resilient movement throughout the entire body. Open to the feeling awareness of the entire body. Watch what happens to the mind when you do this. Sitting can be a very stable posture in which to explore the Line, just remember that the entire body is always subtly moving on the breath or relaxation is lost.

Standing invites more expressive movement, and the exploration of the Line in a standing posture takes us right back to Shiva who, as legend has it, brought the body-oriented practices of yoga and dance to the planet. The “Sudaba” (Surrendered Dance of Balance) practices that I speak of in my book Yoga of the Mahamudra: The Mystical Way of Balance are lessons on how to play with the Line in a standing posture, thus allowing spontaneous movements to occur wherever and however they want (the body does not naturally want to stand still). [Editor’s note: Yoga of the Mahamudra is reviewed later in this issue.] The following suggestions are also vital for fully experiencing Sudaba: Open as much as possible to an awareness of sensations and feeling presence throughout every single cell of the body, surrender to a breath that wants to breathe the entire body, watch the mind and let go of the thoughts (and the physical tension that forms with them) whenever they arise, and remember to see what’s here to be seen and hear what’s here to be heard (in addition, of course, to feeling what’s here to be felt!). It’s a wild and wonderful practice. Shiva’s dance is a dance of the Line.

When I lie down on my back, I can best explore the Line through consciously moving my awareness through my body and making sure that subtle, resilient movement can be felt at each and every joint of my body. I learned this simple practice from movement teacher Judith Aston, and it’s developed into a very revealing path of inquiry. If a part of the body has stopped moving in response to the breath, unpleasant sensation is bound to accumulate, no relaxation is possible, the shimmery presence of the body will be blanketed over, and I will very likely be off somewhere lodged in a thought (the second yoga sutra of Pantanjali tells us that the purpose of yoga is to calm the thought waves in the mind) – which, by its very nature, speaks from the perspective of separation. Ah, resilient breath!

I’m pretty much a stickler for doing regular practices. If I want the blessings that come from a moment of effortless, “Lined” consciousness, then I need to do intentional practices that keep supporting me to be in touch with this condition. I remember once hearing an interview with Rudolf Nureyev. This world-class dancer was asked why he religiously attended daily workouts and classes for the youngest members of the company. He said something to the effect that, if he misses a day, he begins to feel his muscles losing their tone; and if he misses two days, he can feel his spine begin to atrophy.

Balance feels good, and it is of course constantly changing from one breath to the next. Our challenge is to open to the radically different quality of consciousness that surrendering to the yoga of the Line naturally stimulates. Then we can come out of separation.

The interesting question for me, when it comes to the topic of Rolfing and yoga, is do we want Rolfing to be only about alleviating painful symptoms, or do we want Rolling also to be “yoga,” a path of evolutionary practices based on the felt exploration of the embodiment of the Line?

Let me leave you with a Rumi poem that’s going to appear in a new collection of translations that will be published this fall: Rubais of Rumi: Invitations to Ecstasy (Nevit Ergin and Will Johnson, available from Inner Traditions in Sept. 2007). You could say that it’s his ode to Rolfing:

look at your body as a whole
it looks like a sprawl of drunks
who’ve fallen asleep on top of each other
if you want them to be your friends
then wake each of them up
don’t just step on them and go on your way[:]Rolfing and Yoga