The Value of Vayu, the Air Element: Enjoy the Go!

Ashaya Yoga is based on the Five Elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Sky) condensed into the bodymind via The Four Essentials™ (Open, Engage, Align, Expand). When applied to the body, the Essentials therapeutically restore balance, create homeostasis, and heal what hurts. When applied emotionally and spiritually, the Essentials provide a framework for creating a deeper sense of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment in every aspect of being.

The fourth Essential, Expand, is related to the Air Element, or Vayu. Vayu’s nature is to expand and grow. Air is related to the breath. But not just the oxygen. It’s the prana, life-force, and has a mystical influence. The breath is the medium between your heart’s deepest desires and intentions on the inside and manifesting them on the outside in the world. Vayu supports us to literally breathe our dreams into reality.

The Air Element also represents our agency – our ability to co-participate with grace. Fate is what’s given to us. Destiny is what we do with it. In Tantra, agency plays a vital role.

The winds of grace are always blowing but we have to set the sails.

We are co-participators with grace and we seek to have a balance of our own individual effort and ability to surrender to the flow of grace. Too much individual and we tend to overeffort. Too much grace and we tend to get spacey and step back from our responsibilities.

Although we’re not ultimately in control of the life wave, we have a part to play. 

Basically, you can have, do, and be anything you want. But you have to know what you want, know what you desire, and what to do about it.

We fulfill our desires through taking action, whether that be physical action or communicating – speaking, writing, influencing, creating art, music, or other. The point is that the Air Element always goes from point A to point B. It has an origin and destination. Air is similar to Sky except that the Sky Element is about being. There’s no going, only holding space for all of the other four elements to exist and manifest. Whereas Air is about doing.

Kriya means action and comes from the same Sanskrit root as the word Karma: Kr, which means doing or making something happen. Kriya is often described as spontaneous action or purification. I like to think that Kriya is what happens when you practice sadhana. Especially mantra meditation which is so powerful. During the practice of silent mantra meditation, when you’re able to surrender and really let go, the seed power of the mantra is released.

Think of the phonemes or sound of the mantra as its outer shell. Through the powerful practice of meditation, the shell begins to dissolve, releasing the powerful vibration of the mantra into your subtle body. The effect this has on the bodymind is that of purification, like taking out the trash. The mantra stirs and releases what no longer serves you. The negative samskaras (habits or imprints of the mind) are composted back into the sky of consciousness such that patterns of attachment, clinging, fear, or doubt dissolve.

We’re not in charge of the purification. The cleansing process happens by itself. It’s done by the Shakti, life-force, herself. It’s a spontaneous action, or Kriya.

In the Air Element, it’s easy to get focused on the goal or result of any given action we might take. Focusing on the goal is important in completing any desired outcome. However, when we’re focused only on the goal, we forget to pay attention to the journey, the “go”. In the Tantra, life happens in the place in between the beginning and ending. It happens in the middle. There’s as much emphasis on enjoying the journey as there is in getting to the goal. This idea is expressed beautifully in the writing by Allen Saunders 1957 Reader's Digest quote "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

I used to be so goal oriented. I would almost always achieve my goal, but at what cost?

I missed all of the space in between. I stopped noticing the beauty of life along the way. I’ll never forget what my dad told me before he passed away several years ago, “Don’t forget to smell the roses.” In retrospect, he was telling me to enjoy the go.

I remember rehearsing with the Shakti Fusion Band, my jazz/rock/fusion/chanting band that I created while living at Kripalu Center. We became the “Kripalu House Band.” We played at all of the major yoga teacher conferences for a good 5-6 years. Our concerts tended to be very spontaneous in spite of all of the rehearsals we did. I used to be very strict in running the rehearsals, probably due to my being a jazz major in college. But the members of the band didn’t really take the rehearsal that seriously. They often would show up late or never arrive. I wanted to have everything planned out in advance of a concert.

But then the concert would arrive, and I remember feeling the Shakti energy of the audience. They just wanted to dance and groove to our music. They could care less about how our rehearsals went. Then I’d begin the concert with a piano solo. Not knowing what I was going to play, I just sat down and let the music come out of me. The musicians would pick up on my musical ideas and begin adding in their accompaniment. We loved to improvise together as a band. It was so powerful and fun.

Then we’d start the song. I’ll never forget the feeling of joy hearing how beautifully different and creative the concert would come out compared to the rehearsals. We never did play according to what we rehearsed. It was as if the rehearsal happened just to calm my nerves. But when it was time to play live in the concert, we all just showed up. Being absorbed in the moment, the music would come out way better.

So many amazing unplanned musical events would happen every concert. I’ll never forget one concert with over 500 teachers in the audience. The energy was so high you could feel it in your heart. We played an up-tempo song and in the middle of it, started a spontaneous groove that was so hypnotic that the whole room formed a Conga line that snaked its way all around the Main Hall at Kripalu. Then it serpentined out into the hallway, around the dining hall, and back into the Main Hall.

People were mesmerized and totally in their hearts, totally in the flow of creation with the sounds, rhythms, and harmonies. Then during the sax solo, the saxophonist, Charlie, put two saxes up to his mouth and played them both at the same time. The crowd went wild. Then he put down the horns and did laps across the front of the stage back and forth trailing one of those kid’s musical xylophones. It was amplified and made these amazing rhythmic sounds in all of the keys all at once. It was so hilarious to see a grown man playing with this toy and making music out of it. His delight was infectious and the whole band almost lost it with laughter and excitement. Anything goes. I turned up my piano synthesizer and took a rip-roaring solo with all kinds of interesting sounds.

This was such a fun experience. By the end of the concert, I felt completely transformed. We received a standing ovation for 5 minutes at the end. There was such a feeling of connection in community sourced from the raw creativity and spontaneity of the event. This was a musical kriya – spontaneous act of joy!

What I’ve come to understand is that the “go” is everything. 

When I’m present in my in-between moments, my moving toward the goal moments, the result is always better than I had expected. But when I try to control the results and over plan an activity, I get lost in achieving the result and I miss the going. This creates anxiety, stress, and unnecessary tension.

The Tantric yogi seeks to be fully present in the going. In that way we don’t miss life. Life then doesn’t pass us by. Then we have no regrets.

This Spring, may you tap into the Kriya of life and enjoy the journey along the way!

Namaste,

Todd

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