Road Rage, SUV's, Yogaand the Mind
by Patricia Burke
Director of Earthsong Yoga Center
In the epic Indian tale of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna the warrior faces a terrible conflict in which his friends, former teachers, and relatives are divided in battle. Casting away his bow and arrows, Arjuna sinks down on the chariot, his mind overborne by grief. Kripalu yoga teacher Christopher Baxter, providing commentary on Chapter One: The Despair of Arjuna explains, �Arjuna finds himself on the battlefield, preparing for a conflict between all his relations, all of whom are parts of himself. The soul finds itself on the battlefield of the body, preparing for a conflict between the life of spirit and the domination of materialism, held in place by the polarities of fear and desire."�1
Modern philosophers echo these same ancient teachings through many contemporary interpretations. According to Pamela Eakins in her book Tarot of the Spirit, the challenge represented by the major arcana card, The Chariot, is to allow the potential of the universe to manifest through us. The human personality is a vehicle of expression, and the human body is a vehicle of spirit.2
Approximately 2,500 years after the Bhagavad Gita was written, the despair of Arjuna serves as a metaphor for the American driving experience. What would the ancient Hindu philosophers tell us about vehicles the size of armored tanks and road rage?
According to Dr. Roy Matthews in The True Path: Western Science and the Quest for Yoga, yogic philosophy acknowledges the existence of both prakriti (manifest life) and purusa (life giving force) in considering all things.3 Consider the difference between the brain and the mind. The brain, as prakriti, or manifest matter, is essentially lifeless. For the brain to function, it needs something to bring it to life. The mind, or purusa, is transcendent and non-material � the life giving force. It is the interplay of purusa and prakriti, the seen and the unseen, which fascinated the ancient Indian philosophers. Hatha yoga poses were practiced to balance and harmonize the brain so that it could serve as a vehicle, or chariot, for the divine. This was accomplished by harnessing purusa, in part by harmonizing the 2 brain hemispheres.
Disconnected Thinking: Homolateral Brain Patterns
Paul and Gail Dennison of Edu-Kinesthetics have compiled extensive research on the way movement in the physical body helps integrate the intelligence of the mind.4 These potentials have been compiled into a curriculum known as Brain Gym. Laterality is the relationship between the right and left hemisphere. Under stress, the human brain shuts down one hemisphere.
The person who is not laterally integrated is homolateral. Examples of homolateral processing include dyslexia, stuttering and seeing a person's face but not being able to remember their name. Controlling and fearful personalities are often homolateral. Challenges attributed to aging such as lack of balance are homolateral conditions.
Dr. Dennison explains, "The homolateral person is limited to one-sided thinking because he has access to only one side of the brain at a time. He can become adept at parallel processing, but will always have a coordination problem at some level. He can't use two sides of the brain together. Walking, swimming, running and jogging all require increased conscious effort and control and cause him to switch off part of his brain. Instead of relaxing and energizing him, these activities bring frustration. The individual will either avoid large muscle activity or place high demands on his body through competition or goal setting, as opposed to experiencing the pure intrinsic joy of these activities."
Dennison continues, "The homolateral person moves in space so that the spine, cranial bones, and sacrum do not move together. This results in blockage of cerebrospinal fluid which should nourish and cool the whole brain from back to front." Therefore, lack of integration between the right and left side of the brain also affects the energetic relationship between the front and back of the brain, further inhibiting purusa. Bilateral integration is considered to be the foundation of whole brain learning.
We know that some humans are right and some are left-handed. We also have a dominant eye, ear, foot and side of the brain. Additionally, the left brain controls the right side of the body and the right brain controls the left side of the body. Carla Hanneford PhD. of the Brain Gym organization has identified a myriad of dominance profiles in her book "The Dominance Factor", with strengths and weaknesses of each combination. For example, a person can be left brain dominant, left eye dominant, right ear dominant, right handed, and right footed. If this driver has taken their right hand off the wheel to hold a cell phone to their preferred ear, their response in the case of an accident will be similar to that of a drunk driver. The brain will not be able to direct the left hand properly, which has been left holding the wheel.
Lack of lateral integration is a state of the energetic flow in the body, not a disease. It is sourced in energy and not in matter, and can be corrected by guiding the direction and flow of energy through movement.
Bilateral integration begins when we start to crawl, and is supported by activities such as walking and swimming the crawl stroke, where the right arm and left leg function in opposition, as they were designed. Games such as pat-a-cake and alternate nostril breathing practiced in yogic pranayama improve laterality.
Classical hatha yoga, kundalini yoga and Breathwalk technology, recently synthesized by Yogi Bhajan and Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, are examples of integrative exercise practices.5 We can increase our energy, control our moods, refine our mental quality, and experience connectedness in our lives using very simple breathing techniques combined with focus and gazing exercises for the eyes, lateral movement, and sound. Because these movements recruit all the quadrants of the brain, they are integrative systems.
The Human Aura and SUVs
In addition to looking at brain function and body movement as they relate to intelligence, the yogis had a very sophisticated way of understanding an emotional component of purusa through the study of the aura. The aura is a field of energy that surrounds and protects the physical body. It has been scientifically verified by measuring electromyograph wave patterns and can be photographed. The aura of a person's body can be compared to a yard that surrounds a house. Like a yard, an aura can be in a state of grace or in a state of disrepair. Whether a yard has a fence or a garden is indicative of the energetic field. A person's aura may be welcoming or inhibiting. The health of one�s aura affects all aspects of living, including driving behavior and car purchasing habits.
When a person's aura is chronically collapsed, it traps energy and prevents a person's life force from connecting with the world. Because the person's energetic body does not feel protected, the person feels vulnerable, fearful and adopts a rigid stance. Armoring the body only contributes to further alienation, separation and risk of injury due to lack of flexibility.
Curtis Rist, in the April 2001 issue of Discover Magazine summarized some of the leading research regarding the safety statistics of SUV's6.
1. SUVs are three times as likely to roll over as passenger cars and accounted for over 10,000 deaths in 1999.
2. When two vehicles of about the same size collide head on at the same speed, their momentum cancels out and the cars stop. When a larger vehicle hits a smaller vehicle, the smaller car will be pushed backwards, producing a severe change in velocity and greater risk of injury.
3. SUVs have been designed with a ladder frame that acts as a battering ram. Instead of crumpling and absorbing shock they slide over other bumpers and punch into the other vehicle's passenger compartments.
4. University of Texas engineer Kara Kockelman and her students determined that passenger cars took 1.73 seconds from the moment they entered an intersection until the next vehicle entered. SUVs took 2.44 seconds, in part because the vehicle is slower and more sluggish, but also because the second car would hang back, presumably because the driver�s vision is obscured. If a driver's time is worth $10 an hour, Kockelman calculates, than an SUV driven one hour a day in congested traffic will cost an additional $4,000 to $7,000 in delays over the life of the vehicle compared with a passenger vehicle.
5. Hundreds of thousands of guardrails along the nations highways will not help an SUV. The vehicle will most likely either go over the guardrail or flip.
6. Because SUVs are square rather than rounded and because of their weight, they land with a very hard thump rather than rolling. This results in much more serious injuries to passengers and property.
A common reason why drivers purchase larger vehicles such as SUVs is that they want to feel safe. We live on a planet that is subject to certain physical laws pertaining to gravity and momentum. Physicists tell us that SUVs would have to be twice as wide as they are now in order to balance their mass and height to prevent roll overs. A person who "feels safe" in a vehicle that is inherently unstable may be challenged by an unhealthy aura and a desire for armor.
Having compassion for other drivers on the road also requires whole brain thinking. The drivers of larger vehicles may experience a feeling of invincibility, but the individual driving behind that person is visually impaired. Because of our level of fine motor skills, human brains have evolved to support focused awareness at the center of our field of vision. Fish have eyes on the sides of their heads, humans do not.
As the back end of vehicles such as SUVs and minivans has become higher, larger, and in some cases darker with tinted glass, a person driving behind cannot integrate their field of vision from both eyes.
When that driver cannot overlap data from both the left and right eyes at the midline, the fight or flight response is triggered due to its association with peripheral vision. The flow of purusa is restricted and we are not able to serve as vehicles of the divine. Road rage results when the forebrain disconnects from the autonomic nervous system. An individual does not have access to the reasoning or sympathetic part of the brain during this disconnect, because the body's energies have shifted into a defensive alarm mode. Purusa again loses its pathway.
A similar mechanism occurs when one driver tailgates another, blocking much of the field of vision, especially in a larger vehicle. The driver in front does not have sufficient visual perception to be able to see if there is room to change lanes, while at the same time the trailing vehicle is bearing down and exerting a demand for the driver to move. The Fight or Flight response is associated with primitive reflexes associated with territoriality.
The physical body has an ancient emergency response system. When activated, it is preparing to save the life of the organism using muscular strength, speed, and large motor movement. Under stress, the body shuts down certain non-essential functions such as digestion and immune system functioning. Our bodies have not adapted to the point where they can compensate for the fact that all we have to do is steer or hit the brakes. When the fight or flight response is triggered, powerful chemicals flood the bloodstream. The forebrain is depleted of blood flow, and the instinctual primitive parts of the brain take over. We become hard wired for aggression � and the stage for road rage is set. In addition, these stress chemicals eventually create wear and tear on the organ systems of the body. Repeated triggering of the fight or flight response and ongoing stress result in digestive difficulties, lower back pain and tension headaches, already so prevalent in this culture. These chronic conditions eventually manifest as disease.
We have the capacity to both think and to feel. When we develop the capacity to notice how and why we move from one brain state to the next, we have greater mastery over our minds. When we are able to engage the full potential of all our emotion range with our capacity to reason, we begin to experience the potential that is our birthright.
We live in a time of opportunity. We have chosen to be born in a time when the battles are being waged within the psyche of each individual. The current political administration, by not protecting the environment, has created a context for many individuals to accumulate good karma through their own individual actions.
The type of vehicle we drive and the body we inhabit does matter. The yogis recorded these words 2,500 years ago in the sacred text of the Bhagavad Gita: "The soul finds itself on the battlefield of the body, preparing for a conflict between the life of spirit and the domination of materialism, held in place by the polarities of fear and desire."
May the warriors find peace within, so the healing of the earth can begin. Namaste.
Energy Testing for Cross-over Patterning
Have a friend test your cross-over patterning, based on this protocol provided by Donna Eden in her book Energy Medicine7. You should test strong for one of these indicators and weak for the other.
1. Stand and face your friend.
2. Extend one arm out to your side, parallel with the ground and slightly forward toward your friend.
3. Have your friend hold up a piece of paper with two parallel lines on it. Look at the two lines.
4. Have your friend push down on your arm, near your wrist, using just two fingers. (Touch for Health technology recommends two fingers, two pounds of pressure, push for two seconds, down for two inches). Try to resist the push with your energy but do not lock your muscles or stance to resist. The tester is looking to see if your arm has a slight bounce or if your arm drops readily.
5. Next have your friend hold a piece of paper in front of you with the large X on it. Look at the X.
6. Let your friend test you again by trying to push down on your arm while you hold it up.
If your resistance response is strongest (slight bounce to arm instead of dropping) when you look at the parallel lines, you are homolateral. If your resistance is strongest when you look at the X, you are crossing over, or switching between hemispheres. If you get similar results for both tests, you may be stuck somewhere in the middle. If you test very strong for both tests, you may not be successfully measuring your body's subtle energies, but utilizing brute muscular strength.
Footnotes
1. Ken Baxter, Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. AtmaYoga Educational Services
2. Pamela Eakins, Tarot of the Spirit. Samuel Weiser, Inc.,1992
3. Dr. Roy Matthews, The True Path: Western Science and the Quest for Yoga. Perseus Books, 2001
4. Paul Gail Dennison, Personalized Whole Brain Integration and Switching On and Brain Gym. Edu-Kinesthetics, Inc., 1998-1999
5. Gurucharan Singh Khalsa Ph.D. and Yoga Bhajan, Breathwalk. Broadway Books, 2000.
6. Curtis Rist, "Roll Over Newton," Discover, April, 2001.
7. Donna Eden with David Feinstein, Energy Medicine. Putnam Books, 1998. Donna's work is credited in part to the book Touch for Health by Dr. John F. Thie, D.C. Please note: Energy testing is a bio-feedback technique that can be used to answer a number of questions about your own health. Test results can vary based on whether you are dehydrated, whether or not your muscles are working properly, whether or not your polarity is balanced, and other variables. For more information or to learn how to remedy the conditions described look for a practitioner in your area who teaches the testing technique. Energy Medicine also contains protocols for testing the aura and the chakras.
Pat Burke, a dyslexic, has trained as a Kripalu, Svaroopa and Kundalini Yoga teacher and is a student of the medical intuitive Donna Eden. She directs Earthsong Yoga in Marlboro, MA. As a dyslexic she has been on a lifelong quest to connect the right and left sides of her brain. Visit the website at www.earthsongyoga.com or call 508-480-8884.