Five Element Series Part 6: Fire Element

The fire element brings heat to the body-mind-spirit.  The sensations of fire range from feelings of warmth to heat of desire to lust.  This is the element of aggression, anger, tension, hostility, and rage.  It also puts us in touch with burning passion and intensity, the testosterone-driven urge to "f-ck it or kill it" and many lesser extremes, too.  In its milder forms, it shows up as the warmth and generosity we bring to our relationships.

The Horny Celibate

Some yoga and spiritual teachers, especially those that focus on transcendence from the temporal and mundane, tend to have an awkward relationship with the fire element. They discourage their students from feeding the fire element. Much of the teaching is centered around overcoming passion through suppression rather than transformation.  When anger gets suppressed, we tend to see aspirants pretending to be blissed out when, in fact, they’re really angry.  We also see people pretending to have transcended sexuality but are, in fact, what Ram Dass  calls "the horny celibate."

Part of the issue is that fiery emotions can be extremely destructive.  We all have had the experience in which someone close to us has said something to us or someone else in a moment of rage that destroyed that relationship.  Oftentimes people who kill will say, "I was in a fit of rage.  I wasn't in my right mind."  Playing with fire requires great skill, both literally and figuratively.  We tell children not to touch the fire, but we train firefighters to develop a a healthy respect for it.  Suffice to say, the fire element is scary for us all, but if we don't learn how to wield and use it, we miss out on a whole side of life, one filled with expression, warmth, passion, aliveness, sexual expression and adventure.

Saying, "Yes" but meaning, "No"

Another expression of the fire element that can be extremely useful to harness is our capacity to say, “no.”  Many of us just have the hardest time expressing anger in a clean way.  Anger is really the emotional experience that a boundary has been crossed, the boundary that marks and protects something we cherish or love deeply, whether a value, someone we love, or ourselves.  And if we learn how to handle the fire element with a degree of proficiency, we don't end up feeling ripped off or used by others.  We simply have the capacity to say, "No" and mean, "No," rather than saying, "Yes" but meaning, "No."

Present moment, firey responses that come from the ground of our being and through our center tend to be clear, succinct, and powerful.  When the energy of the fire element is sourced in the mind and is past oriented and based in resentment or future oriented and based in anticipatory fear, however, the expression tends to create more chaos. This is a sort of top down expression rather than the first, which is bottom up.  This is the kind of anger or lust sourced in fantasy, the kind we replay over and over again in our heads.  Actions that are sourced from this place often end us in a heap of trouble.  I am not suggesting that we suppress the fire element that arises like this.  Instead of reacting from a place of rumination, it can be helpful to learn to channel the energy until clarity and insight arise.  When we can learn to move the energies, they shift and awaken insight in us.

Fire in the Belly

From the yogic perspective, the fire element that is centered in the navel is called agni.  It is situated there in order to metabolize the food we eat and the experiences we have into energy and insight.  The metabolism is fueled by fire, and it's not just any fire.  It's the fire of transformation.  Our systems alchemically transform other life forms, whether in animal or vegetal forms, into the life force we use to survive.  Similarly, the fire element is the source of the various faculties we use to transform our inner experience through, staying.  In other words, we experience plenty of situations in life when we want to run, when we’re freaked out, but when we continuously observe our experiences without labeling or running, we’re harnessing an inner fire that in Sanskrit is called tapas.  Tapas is our capacity to stay with discomfort in order to see clearly into things.

Fire is also an incredibly useful tool for clearing blockages and debris in the system, called apana.  The grandfather of modern yoga, Sri T. Krishnamacharya used to teach that we can use the breath to direct the cleansing nature of agni: "On inhalation the breath moves toward the belly, causing a draft that directs the flame downward, just like a fireplace: during exhalation the draft moves the flame in the opposite direction, brining with it the just burned waste matter." (Desikachar, T.K.V., The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice.  Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1995. Print).  Similarly, inverted postures, like sirsasana (headstand) and sarvangasana (shoulder stand) help direct the agni deeper into the lower abdomen and pelvic floor.  In the inversion, the inner flame is said to be pointed upward into the lower chakras, burning away our preoccupation with fear (first chakra) and sex (second chakra).  Ultimately, all of these cleaning techniques are aimed at transmuting the lower nature of the mind so that we can experience higher states of consciousness, like love, compassion, wisdom, and insight.

Exercise

Click here to listen to Fire Element Music 1

Click here to listen to Fire Element Music 2

Diagnosing the Fire Element in Ourselves and Our Practice

Fire is the element representative of the fiery nature of the body, mind, and spirit.  We feel the fire element in our bodies when we sense heat or lack there of, from fevers, to frenzies, erotic feelings to rage.  Heat has the tendency to rise up, and so it does in our bodies manifesting in burning eyes, headaches, and hypertension.   Fire element is present when we describe the things of life as: "intense," "hot," and even, "scary."

The Personality of the Fire Element

People with a lot of fire element in their personality exude the following positive attributes:

• Sexy
• Passionate
• Direct
• Enthusiastic
• Warm
• Expressive
• Active
• Stimulating
• Generous
• Daring
• Inspiring

They can also exude the following attributes that can be both challenging to themselves and others:

• Scary
• Reckless
• Angry
• Edgy
• Domineering
• Egotistical
• Need to be recognized and admired

Examples of people who exude the positive qualities of the fire element include: Madonna, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Courtney Love, Joan of Arc, Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Basinger, Jack Nicholson,  and Vincent Cassel

What Fire Element Feels Like in the Body

Excess fire element can be subtle and so we feel:

• fidgety
• uneasy
• vague anxiety
• slightly dizzy
• ringing in the ears
• low grade fevers
• night sweats
• difficulty staying asleep

When the fire element is in full force, we can feel:

• rage
• throbbing headaches
• rashes, acne and skin sores
• high fevers and other burning sensations in the body

Deficiency of fire is the same thing as fatigue. There's no energy present for transformation of life into life.  Prana or life force is a rarefied form of fire.  Without prana life expires.  So an extreme case of deficiency of fire element is death, but, then that's true of all of the elements.  Loss of life is the extreme separation of the elements, while life is the coalescence of the elements.  Yoga is a path that teaches us how to harmonize and balancing the elements such that we live in true-bliss-consciousness (Sat-Chit-Ananda).  Nevertheless, when fire element is deficient, we feel

• cold
• fatigued
• lifeless
• unmotivated
• disinterested
• weak

Antidote for Excess Fire Element:

1. Observe the fire element
2. Express the fire element
3. Increase water

 1. Observe the fire element.

• The Ashtanga practice has all sorts of ways to express the fire element (see below), but just observing it can be very powerful.  By applying observation to the sensations of heat, irritability, fluster, and excitement, we simply begin a relationship with the fire element that is not based on reacting to it.  Most of us have a difficult relationship with the fire element.  Either we like to keep a lid on it, or where all about expressing it.  Very few of us have the capacity not to become bothered when we're hot.  Somehow the two go together.  All societies ask us to curb our fire element.  If we didn't we'd probably want to fuck or kill lots of people.  So, that's probably a good thing.  It helps keep societies just, safe, and sustainable.  But when the fire element is repressed, we have a tendency to go into all sorts of vices.  Examples of hot vices include internet pornography, alcoholic spirits, cocaine, coffee, cigarettes, and methamphetamine.  In a way, our addictions give us space to express our fiery nature.  The only problem with most of the vices listed above is that they burn not only us, but those around us who we effect.  And they don't transform our transmute into compassion, wisdom, or insight.  Rather, they tend to perpetuate ignorance (moha).

2.  Expressing the fire element.  If we cannot be with the fire element, it can be extremely powerful to express it.  On the other side of expression is often both grounding (earth element) and clarity (air element).  That's what catharsis is about.  In Greek, catharsis means to purify and purge.  In yoga, we say that tapas is the fire needed to burn away the impurities of the mind.  So we build tapas all sorts of ways in the practice.

• We don't hold poses for long periods of time.  Instead, we stay moving fairly rapidly from one pose to the next, creating heat.  Maybe we stay in poses for 3-4 breaths instead of 5-10.  Active practice (as opposed to static postures), like Surya Namaskar tends to increase agni; so it can be useful to do a full-vinyasa practice rather than a half-vinyasa practice to increase the internal cleansing fires and to increase the amount of Surya Namaskar A and B that you do in the beginning of practice.
• Both primary and intermediate series are designed as an arc of transformation:  Suryanamaskar A and B build the fire, the standing poses and most of the sitting poses keep building it up.  The intensity of the sequence peaks somewhere around navasana in primary series.  In intermediate series we experience a few peaks.  Kapotasana is the first one. Next comes titbasana. Finally, comes karandavasana.  After these peaks, the rest is a downhill arc.  By maintaining the intensity up to the peaks of the arc and coming back down on the other side, we move some of the chaotic energy of the fire element through.  In a way, we can create a cathartic experience just by following the sequence.  By the time we jump into savasana we can ground ourselves--earth element--and return to a state of clarity--air element.
• Keeping the dristi allows us to be less reactive, less volatile.  In a lot of ways, the dristi is a form of pratyahara. Pratyahara is the fifth limb of Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga.  Pratyahara is all about drawing the senses inward.  Guruji used to say that pratyahara means, "Sense control, anywhere you look, any thought that you have, any perception, it is all Atma (the Self or Soul)...When you exercise sense control you are no longer deceived by outward appearances, but perceive only Atma."  When we direct our attention to the inner fire rather than seeking retribution outside of ourselves, we start to rewire the habit patterns of mind, the samskaras.  
• Certain asanas build a lot of heat.  About a year ago, I was involved in a research put on by Yoga Journal about the effects of yoga practice on heart rate.  We were given heart rate monitors to wear while we practiced.  As my heart rate increased, I tended to get hotter.  I found that those postures that asked me to engage my lower abdominal and pelvic muscles more intensely, increased my heart rate:  forward bends and inversions, especially.  As an experiment, try staying in paschimottanasana, sarvangasana, and sirsasana for a good 20-30 breaths.
• Bhastrika pranayama is one of the pranayamas that Guruji historically taught in the Ashtanga Pranayama Sequence.  In bhastrika pranayama we take a vigorous exhalation and a reflexive inhalation through our nostrils.  When we exhale, we pull the lower abdomen back strongly, using both uddiyana and mula bandhas.  We do this quickly about 100 times; take a slow inhale and retain the breath somewhere between 20 and 100 seconds.  And then exhale the breath.  We repeat this process three times.   
• Listen to hard rock, heavy metal, or rock n' roll while you practice.  This music can help really get the fires moving, excite, and enliven a dead practice.  Let the rhythm carry the movement.
• Another way to increase the fire element is to make the ujjayi sound louder and emphasize the sound of the exhale so it sounds a bit forced.  The restriction in the back of the throat causes the lower abdominal muscles to work harder, thus stoking the internal fires.  As the exhale comes to completion, pull the lower abdomen int tightly and draw in on the whole pelvic floor, the anus, the perineum, and the genitals.  For men, an advanced form of this is to develop the capacity to draw the testicles up and into the pelvic floor and for women to develop the capacity to tone the ovaries, which is an advanced  Taoist practice, as well.

3. Increase the Water Element. Water balances fire.  If you put too much water on a fire, it stanches it out.  But if you put just the right amount, it creates warm vapors.  In other words, water and fire are constantly in a balancing act.  If our practices are all fire, we end up burning away too much.  We see this in people who've had a kundalini rising situation, in which their nervous systems got burned or fried through too much fiery practice.  The water element is all about emotions, deep, soulful emotions.  When we're in the land of the water element, tears naturally pour forth.

• Staying in touch with our feeling nature, especially feelings of sadness, longing, and mystery can balance our fiery, hot emotions, like rage, anger or addictive sexual tendencies.  Something else that can be immensely useful is to find self compassion with mantras like those found in the Buddhist Lovingkindness (Metta) Meditations, words like the following:May I be filled with peace.May I be filled with love and compassion.

  May I be safe and protected.

• Some food and fluids can increase fire too much, foods like sugars and sweets, alcohol, coffee, stimulants and dry, pungent, warm, and acrid spices, like chillies, ginger, garlic, and cinnamon.  Soups and stews, lots of cooked vegetables and grains, and a bit of animal protein tend to add moisture where there's too much dryness and heat.  
• Connect to the fluidity of the vinyasa.  (See Water Element)
• Emphasize smooth, fluid transitions between the inhale and exhale and the exhale and inhale.  (See Water Element)
• Develop a stillness practice.  (See Water Element)

Sat: The Sanskrit Term for "The Real Deal"

In the last two blogs I've written, I have been discussing Sat-Chit-Ananda, an ancient yogic compound that describes the experience of yoga.  Each of the three Sanskrit words, sat, chit, and ananda, all speak of different aspects of the one, unitive experience called yoga.  It's almost like a description of the Holy Trinity, which connotes the three various qualities and aspects of the one God.  The same is true of Sat-Chit-Ananda.  While each word is a world unto itself, the experience of yoga occurs when all three of these worlds take form at the very same moment.

Non-Doing

In this blog, I intend to write about the Sanskrit root, sat.  Sat is really the part of the compound of Sat-Chit-Ananda that has less doing or action than chit.  Chit is the active part that we play with our minds.  It's how we direct it.  And, specifically, we direct the mind on 'what is,' as opposed to the way we think it is; the way it might be; or the way think it ought to be.  Chit is a direct form of seeing without interpretation. Sat, on the other hand is not active.  It's just who we are, essentially, when we’re not trying.

It is an interesting word because it can mean two different things when we translate it from Sanskrit to English.  On one end of the spectrum, it can be used to describe something that is either true, right, and/or good.  On the other end of the spectrum, it can mean being, existing, or abiding in.  So we have these two very different usages of the word, and yet when we join both together, we have something along the lines of "true being" or "abiding in the truth."   So the term, sat, is pointing to a sort of presence or quality of being that is right good, and true.

Authentic Self

So when we put it together sat is really who we are at the very core of ourselves, namely the authentic self.  Given the intensity of change and the fast-paced times we're in, it isn't always easy to connect to or even know who we truly are.  We're so hyper-stimulated that to look for and discover what this is seems only for the elite, for those few monks and yogis who live in monasteries and caves somewhere in the Himalayas. The problem is that if we don’t start to look to see who we authentically are, we run the risk of flitting about life, never feeling truly anchored to a sense of the sacredness of who we truly are.

Initiation

So where do we start?  How do we uncover our authentic selves?  In yoga we start from where we are.   It doesn’t matter whether we’re coming from a bright place or a dark one. I personally started practicing Ashtanga from a place of tragedy. My journey began more than 20 years ago when my brother committed suicide.  Why is suffering such a powerful initiator?  Because the experience of suffering wakes us up to our vulnerability. It’s often from this place that we go looking for answers. Some of us, like my wife, was initiated into her journey into Ashtanga Yoga in order to “ get a six-pack abs.”  It doesn’t matter where we start.  The journey toward the heart of who we are on the level of being, our authentic self, starts where we start.

Asmita

We all start the journey with an identity that you and I call, “me.” Patanjali’s Sutras call an excessive sense of me, asmita.  Asmita is often translated as “ego” but is, in fact, more like that part of us that overly identifies with our opinions, our beliefs, our moods, and, in general, the way we think things are.  When we’re locked in our fixed ideas, we may feel superficially safe, but if given even half-a-scare, a loss, or physical pain, we immediately come face-to-face with our fragility, our aloneness in the world, and sometimes, even, the meaninglessness of life.  And it’s worse when what we thought we knew or understood is, all of a sudden, pulled away from us.

When I lost my brother, everything I thought I knew about life, got mangled.  In one moment, nothing made sense anymore.  I’m not just speaking about the horrible grief of losing a brother, which is heartbreaking in and of itself.  I’m also noting the sense of having the rug pulled out from the identity of who I thought I was.  My asmita wasn’t able to cope with the stark reality that my brother could end his life so tragically.

When the asmita is particularly strong in us, we feel a sense of separateness from our world.  We feel a sort of disconnect.  That can show up as malaise, frustration, low-grade anxiety, bouts of rage, and the sense that something just doesn’t feel right. We often regard these feelings, as “bad news,” but, in yoga, we regard them as, in fact, “good news.”  The reason why is that if we apply consciousness or chit to them for any sustained amount of time, we begin to develop deeper insight into who we are.

If we do not face what’s right in front of us, these feelings can give us the sense that the world has no luster.  This is what in Hindu philosophy is called maya, the illusion of our separateness.  But illusion and insight are two sides of the same coin.  Through the application of chit, the veil of illusion opens up to a sense of greater unity or harmony with the world we live in and the relationships we have, both to ourselves and others.

A coaching client has been struggling with low-grade anxiety for the last three days.  His wife and he are in a disagreement.  His employee just can’t seem to get things done the way he’s requested.  His boss is acting like a ‘bull in a china shop.’  He’s been trying to get a product ready for market by traveling back and forth from San Francisco to Southern California every week for the last six months.  He feels anchorless and reports feeling like “a ship out to sea.”  As we sat in conversation, I asked him, “What are you feeling?”

“Anxiety.”

“Where?”

“In my chest and belly.”

“What does it feel like in there?”

“It feels hollow in my belly, and at the base is this heavy stone.”

“How heavy?”

“Like one big brick.”

“Great.  Just notice that.”

After a few minutes… “What are you noticing, now?”

“The heaviness is gone.”

“What’s here, now?”

“Sadness and fear.”

“What does that feel like in the body?”

And so the conversation went on like this for about 20 minutes.  We just kept applying chit to the body, checking in every once in awhile to report on what he was experiencing.  After a period of time, the intensity of feeling shifted from anxiety, fear, and sadness to clarity, insight, and wisdom.  At that point, he realized that he needed to reestablish trust with the people around him, that he’d been so unmoored by trying to get the product to market, that he hadn’t really given his relationships the time and energy they deserved.  “I’ve always prided myself as a ‘relationship guy,’ and I’ve been stuck on just getting it done.  Boy have I been missing the boat.”

In the case of my client, anxiety, which is normally regarded as something that needs to be overcome, was, in fact, a great teacher.  Because he had the courage to apply chit to the discomfort in his body, he was able to wake up to see how his overemphasis on accomplishment rather than relationship was affecting not just others but mainly himself because he wasn’t being congruent with his essential self.  That’s sat.  It’s often through pain and discomfort that we wake up or our reminded of who we fundamentally are and what’s truly important to us.

Gratitude, Chutzpah and The Long Slog

But it’s not just suffering that puts us in touch with sat.  It also shows up when we’re connected to the practice of gratitude.  I feel a deep sense of gratitude that I have the space and time to write about topics that mean a lot to me.  Writing is my gratitude practice.  I feel more truly who I am when I can slow down enough to distill my thoughts and feelings into something that can be read by others.

For many of us, passion is a doorway into Sat.  It takes incredible passion to be willing to face ourselves on the mat the way we do.  Even though Guruji used to say that Ashtanga is universal, that it’s for everyone, I’ve always been clear that it isn’t for the faint of heart.  You need the fire of passion burning in you to face the things we face on the mat.  Sometimes we show up and feel a llittle broken, sometimes we face limitlessness, but we’re always face-to-face with ourselves.  The practice becomes the mirror expression of how we are each day. And it takes incredible chutzpah to look each day.  It’s this passion for practice that uncovers an aspect of our sat.

One of our relatively new yoga students is in the stage of her practice that I call “The Long Slog.”  It’s the point where she’s experienced the initial thrill of learning a portion of the primary series, but now she needs to practice what she’s learned in a continuous manner to both develop some mastery and, more importantly, to really extract the deeper learning that the sequence has to offer her.  This is the point in the practice where we unpeel the layers of holding, old injury, childhood wounding, and boredom, lots of boredom.  During “The Long Slog” many new students give up because they see the work that’s in front of them, and it appears daunting.  Others recognize it and see the value.

During ‘The Long Slog” we’re doing the same thing over and over and over again, but each day it’s different than yesterday’s practice, last weeks practice, or the practice we had a year ago.  We start to see what it is that is constantly changing.  Behind all the change, we cannot help but notice a part of ourselves that always remains the same. That’s sat, the one self, the eternal part of us, the one that never changes.

Sat and Chit, Being and Doing

Recently, I’ve been watching old Ashtanga video footage on Youtube.  One of the videos that I recently became reacquainted with and that has always particularly moved me is the 1993 Yoga Works footage of Guruji leading a class with Tim Miller, Chuck Miller, Maty Ezraty, Richard Freeman, Eddie Stern, and Karen Haberman.  I saw this video a few years after I started practicing Ashtanga.  This was a time when all-things-Ashtanga absolutely thrilled me, and I remember being totally enthralled by those ‘masters’ on the screen.  It must’ve been a bit like what it was to see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or Led Zeppelin at the Greek Theater.   What I most loved--and still love--about that video was that even though they were practicing the same sequence, each was approaching the practice from a very different place.  To me, Tim was all heart.  Chuck was depth.  Eddie was laser intensity.  Richard was pure grace.  Maty was fiery passion.  Karen was herculean strength.  I could not help but see a portion of their authentic selves shine through in the footage.  What I saw and still see in those yogis and yoginis was the merging of doing and being.  This is the same thing as sat and chit being one.

It isn’t yoga to me when I see yogis practicing the way pianists practice scales, without connection to their essence. It’s a lot like those people who go to the gym, turn the Stair Master on high, and look up at the Today’s Show to see what Ann Curry is wearing today.  It’s vapid.  It’s like saying, “I have a body somewhere below me that needs to be exercise, but I am somewhere else. And, hey, at least it’s yoga.”  When I see this 1993 footage, I am reminded that when sat and chit are one, something beautiful and graceful emerges that is both pleasing to the eye and puts us in touch with our sense of aliveness, ananda, and our essence, sat.

When the Walls Come Tumblin’ Down

Ashtanga is physically very hard.  There’s a ton to do and remember.  From the moment we arrive on the mat until the moment we leave, we are in an incredibly detailed choreographed set of movements, breath cycles, internal contractions, and endorphins, lots of endorphins.  By the time we complete the practice, a defensive part of the psyche is sometimes so pooped out that our authentic selves just magically appear.  In other words, the practice exhausts us in such a way that a lot of walls we put up that keep us away from ourselves and the world around us fall down.  Many of us experience this in savasana.  Sometimes we experience it for 30 minutes after practice.  Sometimes it lasts for a whole day.

One of our new students clearly had it for seconds last Monday.  As I was leaving the studio, I noticed him looking at the sky in a meditative way for about 5 seconds.  Most of us just glance up to notice whether it’s sunny, cloudy, or rainy.  We don’t often really look.  Something about this students practice allowed a part of his automatic responses to not take root in that moment.  It was actually breathtaking for me to watch him appreciate the simple beauty of the blue sky.

Remember...Forget...Remember...Forget...Remember...Forget

In those rare moments when sat, chit, and ananda appear simultaneously together, the moment is sublime.  Once we’ve experienced this union, we can’t help but keep looking for it.  Why?  Because it feels both expanded and natural, transcendental and normal, and deeply and profoundly true, good, and right.  We often label ourselves by what we do, and we describe ourselves by the lives we’ve previously lived.  When sat coexists with chit and ananda, we know who we truly are.

And the game of sat is really a game of remembering and forgetting.  Remembering who we essentially are and forgetting who we are, remembering and forgetting.  Once we think we’ve understood it, we haven’t.  In order to continue to remember, it can help a lot to make choices from this place, to follow the thread of resonance that sat presents.  When we do, we cannot help but create lives for ourselves that are true, good, and authentic.  In the next blog, I will speak more about how to choose sat as a way to remember more than we forget.

Sat-Chit-Ananda Series

This is the third part of a four-part series that explores the experience of yoga. Be sure to check out the other posts

• Part 1—Choosing the Yum: Sat-Chit-Ananda
• Part 2—Chit: Noticing What is
• Part 3 Sat: The Sankrit Term for "The Real Deal"
• Part 4: Isvara Pranidhana: Sticking With What We Truly Know