Dominion vs. Service or Service ≠ Servility

We Americans are confused about service

Maybe it’s because in this land, we are what we do. Our identity is very tied up in what we do and who we do it for.

We pity the baristas making our coffee because in the American dream, being the master is to be able to buy that 4 dollar cup of coffee, "I’m not your bitch, working in the fields."
Top dog.
Alpha female. 
The one who calls the shots.
Even if I'm the one pouring the espresso shots, my secret self-preserving mantra is, "you’re not the boss of me."
In the land where capitalism is king, there's an underlying equation to our actions; service means doing "something for nothing."  There's an implicit idea that we're performing a thankless task, something no one else wants to do. We need to to suck it up and just do it, clean the toilet bowl, do the grunt work, don't look to be thanked.

It's difficult to posture service or devotion without that underlying sense of superiority. Sure honey, I’ll get you a glass of water while I'm up, but you know, I’m doing you a favor.

Service this side of the pond is so often construed as servility, on that interior psychological landscape just one town south of abasement, right before you hit debasement. 

©Moshe Arzt, 1990

The Emperor's New Clothes
To cut us Westerners some slack, the whole concept of devotion is a hard one to grasp. Especially if we recognize how difficult it is to identify deeply embedded cultural biases at work. Our DNA was baked in the Judeo-Christian sorting approach to life:  reality and non-reality; sin and virtue; worthiness and annihilation; master and servant.
We can abandon the pews, adopt new names, but when it comes to changing behavior and the thoughts that source our actions, it's hard not to just take one binary system and superimpose it on the new path that calls us. 

The teachings of yoga point out that this dilemma is just another symptom of the human condition. We're in the grips of the malas: those sneaky little shrinkings that enclose the individual soul and veil the eyes' perceptions: I am separate, I am different, I am the doer.
Slapped behind those little suckers, it's no wonder we may try to cultivate devotion (the noun) and service (the verb) as if we were putting on a set of clothes or striking a pose.
It's no wonder we may think that becoming free or masterful means excelling, clearing the obstacle course of existence with a perfect 10 from the judges on high, and in record time, no less. 

Note #3: Hanuman is a Master... or Dominion in service of the tribe
In the Hanuman stories, he figures as a master, with the biceps to match. Son of the wind, he is the supreme brahmachari. Unlike the eunuch who can keep the maidens safe because he's been stripped of the ability to act on impulse, Hanuman's choice is to direct his energies to service: he is the master of his senses and desires.

When a sacred herb is required, Hanuman goes and uproots the mountain and transports it whole to heal Ram's wounded brother. He directs his powers to the need at hand without political jockeying or second-guessing. His divine DNA already provides him with the material for dominion; his sadhana is about acting, not analyzing.
Daughter of a shrink that I am, it's challenging to drop the idea that endless analysis can provide a resolution. [Yoga 101: the mind can never make up its own mind.]
This goes back to my discussion with my scholar friend about apnaapan, which as it turns out, is a Hindi word. As he explained to me, it’s oneness -- as in a lack of differentiation between yours and mine. Apnaapan is a kind of assertion of the tribe. As my friend explained it to me, it’s like that implicit acknowledgment that yes, Lila can be a pill, but she’s our pill. Recognition without judgment: she’s my Lila. You are in my tribe. 

It's an instant antidote to doership, and passport out of the treacherous territory of the ego.

Oneness would be that state in which the cataloguing of difference and weighing of value ceases to occupy center stage. To love or serve unconditionally is to do just that: abandon conditions and judgments; drop the polarities while maneuvering (skillfully, like Hanuman, perhaps because dominion is borne of service) within them.
I have actually felt this joyous kind of state, moving with the flow: mind and body and heart in sweet and easeful harmony. Contemplating Hanuman reminds me it is possible.

Hanuman’s service or devotion to Ram –and Sita since they come as a matched set– is part of his nature. There’s no option, really, because they are his and he is theirs. There is no question to ask or attitude to cultivate or apply. 

It just is.  

but WHY?

At this point, I should probably make clear that I'm neither a scholar nor a yoga rockstar–merely someone who's been thinking about these things for a good twenty years. 


Yoga - the pretzel variety as well the practices such as meditation and God forbid, chanting – was originally on that list of things I resisted because my mother told me they'd be good for me. Hanuman, and the rest of the gallery of gods, belonged in that category of things I dismissed as "boutique shopping in the cultures of the world." Words like devotion, service and spiritual master made me squirm with discomfort, much in the same way the use of the word "discrimination" can rankle the non-yoga crowd at first blush.


And because I've always been a straddler of social landscapes, with one foot in various Latino locales, and the other in various states of the U. S. of A, translation and building bridges have always occupied me, partially born of necessity. 


It wasn't until after college, when the life script I'd been following ran out, almost as suddenly as if someone had ripped pen off paper, and my highly developed skills as a sharp-tongued cynic and mistress of the bitchier arts began to wear thin. The currency of outrage only bought an ersatz fortress for my sensitive heart and the questions began piling on. What was a source of fulfillment I could rely on? What food did I need to sustain my journey? And how did I fit with all these folks around me who in turn drove me to despair and admiration but who were also so clearly and tenderly human, just like me?


So began the itch to experience something real and true and juicy. So I came to be in an ashram surrounded by symbols and rituals foreign to me, but experiencing a sense of homecoming so unshakable that despite the Greek chorus of opinions in my head, I knew I'd found my source of sustenance.


My path is my path and I'm grateful to be walking it. It thrills me, challenges me and feeds me.  It works for me. I serve this up as your standard disclaimer of "please do not substitute for the advice of a doctor," and to make crystal clear that I'm not here to proselytize or to comment on anyone else's beliefs or practices. I write to make sense of a subject that's held so much of my attention and effort. I offer these musings up in case they may be useful, entertaining or thought-provoking for anyone who cares to stop by this space.


So why Hanuman?


Some eight years into my exploration of yoga, before I had a steady asana practice or ever thought of teaching, I had a dream.  I was in a luminous temple of white light and marble. In the hub of this space sat a being in meditation, solid and silent. It was like stepping into a dictionary and experiencing the meaning of love and that "peace which surpasses understanding." The presence of this golden being was so strong that the surrounding details took time to come into focus. First was a candle's flame at the being's feet. Next was the realization that the flame was the offering of a woman in a full pranam. The pranam, or prostration, was so complete that it had the quality of water or oil spilled upon the marble.  As I looked at the woman, I saw that her torso was actually bowed over her front leg while her back leg extended behind her in a perfect split. 


There was no posture to notice because there was hardly a form distinguishable from the gesture of surrender. There was no I: no performance, no great feat beyond that of an extension toward the light.

It was a while before I realized that the dream featured a variation of Hanumanasana. There was such a posture?! It took a while to connect the asana to what I'd seen in the temple because any time I'd seen anyone "doing the splits," it was accompanied by a sense of omigod, she's doing the splits!!! WOW! Look at him!


Ergo the root of why Hanuman and his asana are such a rich vein of inquiry. Add to that the challenge of actually doing the pose, of moving beyond flexibility into stability (yes, still working on that one!), of not collapsing or cheating by going off center... of going beyond the look at me... I have the temple dream as my North.


And far beyond being a nice pose to work toward or a party trick for my repertoire (yes, I am that vain), I'm starting to suspect that that sweet little monkey-god holds many, many keys. 

Can you split an atom?

How very ironic that the asana that takes its name from the one who makes whole (through devotion) should be the splits. Just what gets split?

Splitting hairs, splitting fruit, splitting right down the middle. 


Do I separate?  Not this, not that. Do I divide and conquer? 


Or do I gather it all up, press it into one tight kernel of energy and explode it?

It’s a most perfect dilemna. Since the invitation of Hanumanasana, or rather, experience of doing the pose (and shall we take it one step further still and say being the pose?), is precisely about remaining whole in the very act of splitting. As beings who are continually navigating between good and bad, in and out, black and white, this or that ad nauseum, we think we have to choose one or the other. Hanuman tells us we can be split but still occupy the center. 

Note #2 Hanuman is whole
The other day I was talking about Hanuman to a friend of mine. He’s a scholar with his feet firmly planted in common sense and for upwards of 30 years (long enough to grow a tree one can sit under), has stayed the course through all the comings and goings and TV sitcom/melodrama of a yogic path transplanted to American soil. When I shared the flash I’d had about Hanuman not doubting himself, he offered me up this word: apnaapan.


One of those delightful words that is difficultly translated into English, but in that sneaky way of a language based on vibration, just repeating apnaapan seems to unlock a juiciness that bypasses brain and something deep inside the cells knells recognition.

Roughly translated, it means "oneness," or as an adjective “belongingness.” My friend was suggesting that doubt has no place at the Hanuman party - it’s like that state of wholeness that has never been torn asunder.

For Hanuman there is no split. He is not a self divided, someone lost and then found. 

Spiritual masters whisper this truth to us in so many ways: what we seek is already within; there is nothing to gain, it already IS. 


And rather than take his comment in the “wrong” way -  meaning, rather than getting depressed (as I might have another day, thinking damn, I misunderstood) -  I was greatly encouraged. 

Even in the midst of the turbulence of opposites, opinions and confusion of directions, there is oneness. So perhaps devotion is merely remembering this state of original Oneness, not original sin.

Inside the beat of recognition is resonance. Pulsation. 


Like a light switch turned on, with a passing brush stroke, in the beam of attention each mote of matter sparkles. 


In happens simultaneously with out. Immanence meets transcendence and there’s the form: a snapshot in impermanence, flow arrested. 

The monkey steps into the mirror and emerges as me. One wave rolls into the ocean and another one rolls out. Are they the same wave? They appear to be different, occupying different slots on the time-space continuum of first this happened, then that happened. 


Separations exist. Dualities polarize. But in holding the center, remembering apnaapan, I can straddle what appears to divide me.

...not just a monkey-god doing the splits

Even the most casual drop-in student to a yoga class can tell you a little about Hanuman.

Cause-celebre to yogis on our colorful eco-mats on bamboo floors, Hanuman, the monkey-god, has become a trope, a commonplace for classes and teachers: working toward that split while cultivating devotion and service. The posture of Hanuman, or Hanumanasana, is what’s considered an “apex” pose: the cherry pose that crowns your preparations, and for most of us these days - without proper preparation will pop the ghost of your cherry.

So why should we care? Yogi or yoga-phobe, willing or not: what relevance or guidance might an Indian god with a funny name* have for our straining lives today, on or off the mat? 

Hanuman requires some translation. 

And so this middle-aged erst-while yoga practitioner and teacher, having lost some flexibility and intent on rebuilding strength and deeper virtues of commitment (staying-power), re-kindled devotion (another strange word, and devotion to what?) and let’s face it, the soul-restoring sweetness of being lost in Love ... so with me, myself and I as a guide, I’m undertaking a journey into the territory of Hanuman to see what I might learn. 

I’m after wisdom (vs. accumulating post-its of knowledge): not facts or tidbits, but the kind of groundedness that comes from letting information soak into the cellular tissues, seeping right down into organ and bone, and then integrating into posture, then movement, then actions. 

Wisdom. That’s what I’m after.

I don’t know about you, but I sure could use some superhero powers to make it through the day. And ambitious woman that I am, “making it” means facing my life and choices with joy, lightness and a marked absence of taking myself so damned seriously.

Note #1: Hanuman never suffers from self-doubt

When I was still a girl-child, living out my curiosity without shame and delighting in my body, wrapped in the security and safety of a sun-splashed middle class upbringing, self-doubt never seemed like an inevitable career choice.

Completely ignorant of even Lilias Folan cheerily introducing yoga into countless living rooms, I pretzeled my body into contortions just for the fun of it. My favorite reading posture was virasana, I did shoulderstand variations while watching TV, and if there was a flat space to lie on, I’d arch back and creep my toes toward my eyebrows.

There wasn’t a public to impress, no flexibility to strain for or worry about holding a pose and suffering. Like a little monkey I rolled and unrolled myself as the whim struck me.

It was fun. I wasn’t bored or even in the shoulderstand, endlessly examining my belly button. I didn’t question who I was or why I was doing gymnastics on the carpet. I just did it. For the joy of it, like a monkey, because I could and it felt good. 

Nowhere in my readings or accounts I’ve heard of Hanuman is there a moment when he stops and thinks: wait, can I do this? Who am I to think I might leap a sea or fly through the air or rescue Sita? Impetuous, yes. Monkey-minded, yes. Ghastly table-manners? Check.

But Hanuman never questions who he is.  I’d hazard a guess that there would be no service or movement if he was questioning his worthiness or ability or the likelihood of success.

*he of the cleft chin, parted by a lightning bolt from the Lord of the Heavens to stop the young, insanely strong monkey-god toddler from swallowing the sun.