:: January/February 2004 Volume 3/Number 1

Mat as Media

By Bob Belinoff

When I practice asana the connection I try to make is with a quiet part of myself. But it’s easy to forget that I do not make this connection alone. I make it in an environment of a clean hardwood floor, good lighting, the drum beat of a leader and the breathing of forty other perfect souls.

It's easy to forget this because I am so keenly focused on myself. My tendons, my muscles, my arms, my breath, my desires, my fears, my power of mind. I am unconscious of my forty neighbors – And when it's over I walk out with my new self – my small contribution to a better world. I have a proposal. Consider this.

What if we looked at each mat as an energy cell? And all the mats on the floor as hooked together in kind of energy cell network. What would happen if we applied our exploring, stretching, breathing, healing, mind energy, to something “not us” – something out there?

There is no doubt that the mind produces energy. Married to breath this mind energy creates a force powerful enough to change the mood in a room or heal a wound. Many minds working together have changed the course of human events; people who study these things call it “diffusion of innovation”. Indeed much of the catalogue of world religions started at roughly the same time in different parts of the world.
Today the collective mind is by and large a captive of the electronic media. Collective mind decides elections, votes for war or peace, gas guzzlers or Mini-Coopers - the economy fluctuates depending on a buying or selling “mood”. News, entertainment, advertising Goliaths and a corporate public relations digestion and distribution machine are hard at work. The very air we breathe has gone digital. Even the spread of Yoga is a product of a kind of soft media buzz.

An even more powerful media, I suggest, is the media of mind with breath connected to thought. And nowhere is mind media more plentiful than in a meditation hall or Yoga studio. What if we put mind media to work to compete on a revolutionary scale with a digital media that is pretty much based on fear, distraction and the selling of more and more stuff?

Where would we begin? Let's say we start by focusing on something frustratingly non-specific but with a great deal of leverage - like fear removal. Removing fear changes everything. We have no outcome in mind. No plan. We’re not looking for peace. We want total revolution. To change the way things are.

Lets begin with a slight change in the Namaste ritual. We might turn to our left and right before class and thank each other. Maybe go around after class as well and thank everyone in the room, acknowledging our connection. Our breaths have been moving roughly in synch, our brain waves together tending toward the Alpha state - creating a kind of atmospheric change far exceeding the possibilities of one body working alone on one mat. As we stretch we might instead of attempting to empty all thoughts – give them to fear removal on a global scale. We’re getting rid of them anyway. Maybe some classes are offered at a discount if you donate fear removal energy during class in lieu of paying cash.
We might tithe our thought process off the mat as well. Maybe one of every ten thoughts in our daily “to do” list goes to fear removal. Maybe every 3rd fear thought– of not having enough, being good enough, compassionate or yogic enough - just goes instead to a world with out fear. Maybe every other sexual thought becomes a fear removal thought instead. Talk about leverage!

Our minds are the most powerful media that ever was. What if we make Yoga time not a break from the way things are but a way to change the way things are?

Individually and together, our mind energy, bundled in yoga mat fuel cell networks across this metropolis, across the hemisphere – is a locally controlled endlessly renewable, fully sustainable energy source. If we really believe what we know about yoga and the powers of mind and breath, lets take it to the mat.

The electronic media is only the second most powerful force on earth. Where the mind leads – if enough minds work together, the advertising agencies, news divisions and media production companies will follow, they always do. They’ll have no idea what hit them.

Bob Belinoff is a participant in the global digital media madness machine and can be reached at bob@digitalwkshop.com.