Los Angeles Jewish Home

by Lee Rothman, M.Ed., M.A.

The health benefits of yoga for a growing senior population are too numerous to mention. We could almost say that yoga and meditation provide a foundation for the high quality of life we all seek in our elder years.

Through the regular breathwork and purposeful movement of yoga, we improve flexibility, joint health, muscle tone, and balance. And the list doesn’t stop there. Lower blood pressure, improved circulation, and better sleep all contribute to our well-being. The most recent research also points to multiple psychological and cognitive benefits, including a decrease in anxiety and depression, a greater sense of well-being, and improvements in attention, concentration, and memory.

These benefits have long been recognized by seniors at the Jewish Home, where yoga continues to be one of our most popular fitness programs. But yoga and meditation have equally important spiritual benefits which form an important part of the most rewarding practice.

From its origins in the second century, B.C.E, yoga and spirituality were considered inseparable. The Sanskrit word yoga has the literal meaning of ‘yoke’ or ‘union,’ suggesting the important connections of its physical, mental, and spiritual components.

Our Western perspective has largely emphasized the asanas, or physical postures, and pranayama, or breathing exercises. When appreciated as a comprehensive system through the practice of meditation, yoga expands to encompass the spiritual.

Spirituality, from a yogic perspective, embodies a relationship with something greater than we are — a source of being that we have come from. As such, the spirituality presented through yogic teachings easily complements our religious beliefs, whether we identify ourselves as Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, etc.

In yoga, we experience the spiritual by activating our awareness. That awareness comes with a practice that involves asanas, pranayama, and meditation. Asanas are the various postures one goes through in a yoga session, like the cobra pose, downward dog, and tree pose, to name a few. Asanas are designed to stretch muscle groups in your body and improve blood flow throughout the body. Joints and ligaments are lubricated, cholesterol is lowered, respiration improves, and your immune system is strengthened.

However, there is also a spiritual aspect of the asanas. Asanas are designed to take us through a range of experiences in the course of one yoga session. Since effort is required and stress may occur, practicing the asana teaches us how to maintain mindfulness in times of stress.

Mindfulness is a practice that enables one to live fully in the present moment. Your awareness is completely centered on the here and now. You are not worrying about the future or thinking about the past. If you are concentrating on these words, the present moment is all that exists and you are living where life is happening.

The meditation that is part of a comprehensive yoga practice may be as simple as sitting silently with eyes closed, focusing on the breath. Or it might involve chanting a mantra out loud with accompanying hand movements.

By cultivating mindfulness through meditation, you begin to enjoy your life just the way it is, not for how you want it to be in the future or for what it was in the past. This heightened acceptance of the present moment leads to a spiritual awareness, and with it, a greater enjoyment of your life.

A regular meditation practice enables one to pause and observe the ‘reactive’ aspects of our mind without taking action. It is as if we become a proverbial fly on the wall inside ourselves. Suddenly, we can observe our world and our responses to it, then decide how we want to act upon them. Meditation tends to foster more purposeful and thoughtful action, and less reaction. Some schools of yoga (notably Kundalini) take the view that the regular practice of asanas and pranayama prepares one to meditate.

So, how do we combine the physical aspects of yoga with those that foster spiritual development? And how does this marriage manifest itself in our behavior on a daily basis? (Many yogis refer to this as taking it “off the mat.”)

With a regular yoga and meditation practice, we learn to live our life with greater integrity, honesty and respect for ourselves and others. We understand that our words have power and affect others, so we choose them more carefully. We learn to treat ourselves and others with greater kindness and compassion.

We still feel angry, impatient, frustrated and hurt. However, with the regular practice of pranayama, we learn to take a breath or two before we respond. Yogic breathing helps to calm our mind and thoughts. We abandon damaging habits, and our thinking becomes more positive. We cease judging others so negatively, with the realization that we are no better than they are. As we develop a more extensive practice, we understand deeply the concept of the oneness of all life, and glimpse the highest attainment of our spiritual existence.

Labels: Asanas, Feature Articles, For the Spirit, Kundalini, Lee Rothman, Meditation, Pranayama, Staff, Yoga

The thoughts for this letter came to me while walking in a beautiful rainforest in Costa Rica. There are so many different kinds of trees in the forest, trees of all heights and kinds, and vines and creepers. And beneath those trees and vines and creepers, the ground is covered with fallen leaves, twigs, branches, whole tree-trunks … all part of the rich life of the forest.

In the midst of the towering trees and the fallen logs, it struck me that there is no clear distinction between what is alive and what is dead. Rather, there is an astonishingly complex pattern of interdependence and regeneration. The creatures and the plant life need each other, and the so-called “dead” branches and leaves are part of that pattern. They are far from useless: they provide home and nourishment to insects and small animals and other organisms, and gradually they break down to fertilize the soil, giving new growth, new life. In fact they are essential to the life and health of the new trees.

In that way, what is fallen seems as alive as the tall majestic trees. Certainly in the grand scheme of nature, the fallen, the “dead”, seem just as valuable. How odd that we human beings don't regard our dead as alive and valuable and nourishing! But that's exactly what they are.

In the Jewish tradition, we place great value on life: this life. It is not, as in some cultures, merely a preparation for a future life after death. This life, what we do in it, how we behave towards others, what we do to help bring about a better world – these are what count.

So once we die, do we become irrelevant to the rich pattern of life? Do we lose all value? That is how many people think about death, but I believe they are wrong. Just like those fallen trees and branches in the forest, what we have been in our lives will continue to affect those we leave behind, contributing to their lives.

Let me give an example. I continue to be inspired by the man I still regard as "my rabbi", several years after his death. He was a deeply spiritual man, who would speak and sing to God with all his heart and soul, but he combined that with a passion for changing the world for the good. His example taught me that spirituality – our relationship with God – has little value unless it is reflected in how we try to bring good unto the world. Like a great fallen tree in the forest, my rabbi continues to affect the lives of so many people who knew him or studied with him.

It is not just the “big” people in our lives (like parents and significant teachers) who make a lasting difference. Don’t you find that when someone shows trust in you, it adds to your confidence? Or when someone laughs at you, or treats you badly, it makes you feel smaller and less confident in the world? Just think back on the love your parents gave you, or some act of kindness or nobility shown by a friend – how that made you a better person. Whatever we do in our lifetimes affects others, and that effect remains after we have gone.

Where do these reflections lead me? On the one hand, I feel I must try to live up to the good bequeathed to me by so many who have gone before. After all, my life has been enriched enormously by countless people who are no longer alive – not just people I knew, but also people who died even before I was born, like all those men and women over the centuries who contributed to Jewish life and culture.

On the other hand, I think it’s important for me to be aware that every act of mine, for good or for bad – like a leaf on the floor of the rainforest – will continue to do its good or its bad long after my physical death.

I have come to realize that I want to leave behind a real (even if invisible) legacy for good in the lives of others. When my earthly life comes to an end, my hidden influence will continue. And I want that continuing influence to be for the good.

Don’t you feel the same way?

Rabbi Anthony Elman is the Skirball Director of Spiritual Life at the Jewish Home and also serves as Rabbi of the Home's Grancell Village campus. His professional background is multifaceted, encompassing the fields of law, social work, and psychotherapy. Rabbi Elman has been with the Home since his ordination and graduation from the Academy for Jewish Religion-California in May 2007

Labels: Costa Rica, Death, Ecosystem, Elman, Influence, Jewish, Judaism, Life, Rainforest