OS Nature;

On Yoga

OS Nature: Yoga This document is a condensed sampling of the material on yoga from a larger print book titled Operating System Nature: The Birth of The Tradition. It’s purpose is to streamline the content relevant to yoga for people who are interested but lack the time to sit and digest a 100,000 word print book.

OS Nature is a set of basic natural laws that govern the interactions of living things and the flows of energy and information between them. The Tradition is my name for a collection of ancient healing and life practices that hold in common a set of principles that likely have their origin in our ancestor’s ability to observe the natural world and apply what they have learned to make life better.

Yoga is just one of the members of The Tradition discussed in the print book. One of the goals for the book was to create a sort of Rosetta Stone for traditional healing practices that translates science into myth and vice versa, to develop fluency in both languages and help these arts to flourish for all time.

Yoga as Tradition

Bonus Chapter

Yoga and Origins

Yoga and Science

OS Nature On Yoga

Yoga as Tradition This next section on yoga will introduce yoga as a member of The Tradition. It will discuss some of the history of yoga, the variations on it, and the purpose for yoga as I have learned from the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. I make a reference to the Māori in this section that will seem out of place without having read the full print book. To briefly sum up, the Māori healing arts share some of the essential principles of yoga, and many other healing arts. They are described in much greater depth in the larger book if you are interested.

Yoga At this point in my life India is the furthest from home I have ever been, and it is the closest to home I have ever been. To touch the soil of India is to reconnect with the navel of humanity. To feel its soil and breathe its air is to feel connected to the center of all things. In India, the ancient merges with the modern and there doesn’t seem to be a conflict where they come together. In the street a man who looks like the Buddha (especially in his years as an ascetic) can be seen next to a man in a suit and tie, and it doesn’t seem strange. Out of this navel of Indo-European culture emerged the next member of the tradition: yoga. Because yoga means many things to many people it requires a bit of introduction before I describe it in terms of the tradition.

It is difficult to define Yoga. Perhaps at the center of the navel in the most ancient of times it may have been simple. There may have been only one form of yoga then, the purest form or the most embryonic, depending upon

your point of view. What we know for certain is that yoga started somewhere and spread everywhere, that yoga in one place is one thing and something entirely different elsewhere. We know that over time the concepts of yoga expanded and the body of knowledge that now exists under the umbrella of the term yoga could not be completely understood with an entire lifetime of study.

The name itself has many meanings, especially when described by the adjectives that transform one word, yoga, into several nouns, i.e. the innumerable schools of yoga. Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Kriya Yoga, Karma Yoga, Tantric Yoga, and many others, they all mean something different and have a different approach to achieving the goals implied by a single word. The word yoga can mean “To unite”, “to bring together”, “To tie together the strands of the mind”, “to achieve what was previously unattainable”, “To become one with the divine”. What is being united and what is being brought together? It is India; perhaps the answer is an ascetic and a businessman.

aspect of reality, yoga focuses on the individual and the energetic aspect of reality. Community and ancestry still play a large role, as do the remaining aspects of reality: the physical and spiritual, but the language of yoga is an individual and energetic language. Yoga’s foundation is a discipline of mind. The discipline of mind necessitates an individual action. A blessing at the start of a yoga practice might invoke the blessings of the ancestors, the great yogis of the past and present, as well as the divine, but the focus during the act of yoga is primarily internal, most often on the breath. Likewise, the practice of yoga is both a physical and spiritual practice, but its effects arise primarily from its energetic aspect.

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The purpose of yoga is to arrive at a state of freedom through accurate perception, to dissolve illusions until only the pure and true self remains. In America this purpose has been obscured by yoga’s amazing capacity for toning up backsides, but two millennia ago, when the sage Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutra, this was the purpose of yoga. When Sanjaya of the Bhagavad Gita transcribed the divine words of Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu, yoga was described as a devotion to the achievement of Dharma or Sacred Duty so that, through those actions, that same state of freedom through accurate perception, or insight, could be achieved. Through yoga the obstacles to that insight: a false identity with the ego, clinging to false wisdom, material wealth, and nihilism, are purged and the true self emerges. The value in accurate perception by the true self, according to yoga, is similar to the value of accurate perception as one of the three pillars of the communicative process. If perception is accurate, and the true self is interpreting those actions, then the adaptive actions that follow can only be correct as well.

This true self the yogi seeks is called the Purusa. It is that pure and unchangeable aspect of self, capable of accurate perception completely free of illusion. In Raja Yoga, the purusa is called the king, the divine aspect of our individual person capable of union with the ultimate divinity. This pure self is clouded by illusions sourced in the ego, desire, rejection and fear. These illusions are collectively termed avidya. Yoga dissolves these illusions by achieving health through physical discipline (what we think of in the West as yoga), knowledge, wisdom and understanding, through study, and a quality of action through loving service. The union of mind and body is only the first step and it occurs through the physical practice of yoga. The body is a tool of the spirit and the mind. It has been said that we are spiritual beings living a physical existence. We are a marriage of the two. The physical and the spiritual aspects of existence affect us equally. Their interface is the mental/emotional/energetic aspect of reality.

As with all other members of the tradition yogis are aware of a universally present force that maintains reality in

existence. In yoga this force is called Prana; it is that which is infinitely everywhere. Prana flows through channels within the body and maintains it in existence. It must be present within the body in just the right amount for us to experience health. Prana enters as we breathe in and exits as we breathe out. Ideally prana flows freely without obstruction. If it leaks out of the body health will be lost. If it encounters blockages it can stagnate and harm us. As in the Māori tradition, this energy has its source in the sound of creation. The sound AUM- is the primordial sound from which the whole universe was created, according to Hindu tradition. Another name for this sound is Pranava, which means both the controller and infuser of prana.

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The primary flow of prana within the body is through three major channels that run the length of the spine, crossing it in six places and forming what are known as chakras. There is a channel named Ha that passes through the left nostril and one named Tha that passes through the right. These two channels are opposite in character; Ha represents the cool energy of the moon and Tha the hot energy of the sun. Prana typically flows through these two side channels in varying levels of quantity and quality, depending on the level of obstruction present.

The central channel is the ideal channel. When prana flows through this central channel it readily flows throughout the entire body in perfectly balanced proportion, none of it being lost. This can only happen through the union of Ha and Tha. From this union comes the term Hatha yoga, the most commonly practiced form of yoga in The West. As with all other forms of yoga, there is an obstacle to this final goal of unity. There is a coiled serpent named kundalini resting atop the gateway to the central channel, blocking the way. The serpent is a representation of the forces of

avidya, or misperception. It is only by burning up this serpent with the fire of life residing deep within our core that the obstacle to the gateway can be removed and the flow of prana established in the central channel. Once the serpent is gone (we have burned away all illusion and become our true, accurately perceiving self) we will have achieved the purpose of yoga.

Thus we have an ancient practice of physical exercise coupled with mental disciplines designed to affect the energetic level of reality with the goal of personal evolution towards a higher ideal self. This tradition views the creation of the world as an emanation of primordial vibratory sound that is expressed as a form of energy that maintains all matter, including humanity, in existence. Within the human body this energy establishes health. Obstructions to the flow of this energy within the body lead to poor health on all levels. The source of the obstruction is in perceptual errors manifest in the energetic realm, but affecting all others simultaneously. By performing physical exercises that attempt to balance the flow of energy through the whole body

in general, but through the spine in specific, these obstructions can be removed, with divine union as the end result.

Myth Before leaving the world of history and tradition and looking into he science of yoga and movement, I want to share the origin myth of the culture that yoga was developed within. Origin myths are important for understanding the way a culture perceives reality and why they do what they do. This is true for Western Culture also, and the origin myth is the tool I used to start making my Rosetta Stone.

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In The Beginning… In the beginning…. Sabda Brahman, the embodied word, the ultimate reality, existed in the form of darkness - indiscernible, inaccessible to reason, unknowable, immersed in sleep. This self-existent lord awoke with power and dispersed the darkness. He, having meditated and desiring to bring forth various kinds of beings from within himself, began to reverberate and sent forth his voice in the form of the primordial waters. This voice was the divine feminine, called Vac, mother of the Vedas. He impregnated these waters with his seed and a golden egg was formed, as brilliant as the sun. Within that egg, he was conceived. He was enveloped within that egg for one full year. By his own meditation he divided this egg in two, forming heaven and earth, with the atmosphere in the middle. The being that would emerge from that egg, called Prajapati by some, Purusha by others, would be divided into all that surrounds us.

This threefold form would become the Vedas, the holy scriptures themselves, the threefold knowledge that comprises all: the holy verses, sacrifices and chants corresponding to form, motion and light. Prajapati, this divine Purusha born of Brahman, must be sacrificed. His mouth, arms, thighs and feet would become the four castes, or classes, of man: the priests, warriors, merchants and servants. The moon was born of his mind, the sun, Surya, from his eyes. From his mouth came fire and from his breath the winds. This sacrifice was recorded so that it might be mirrored by man in the recitation of the scripture, the perfectly performed sacrifice and the singing of the divine hymns. In this way the creative and restorative power of the sacrificial order can activate the connections between the orders of reality: the human order, the natural order, and the divine order. Through ritual comes holistic reunification. Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

Myth and Meaning Stories that explain the world and man’s experience: this is the definition of myth. A myth is not a nursery rhyme, nor is it a fable, and it is certainly not a cartoon or a comic. There is a purpose to myth. A myth transforms lessons hard won by the wise into stories that the rest of us can remember and share. They played a prominent role in a past where it was important for knowledge to be held in common to create cultural identity, and to share lessons about the world that would allow small nomadic groups to thrive in harsh environments. There was no luxury of ignorance in those days. In modern civilization, we can choose ignorance in many areas of life and still thrive so long as we can specialize in just one or two. In the past we were all generalists, or dead. Thus sharing knowledge through both myth and hands-on teaching, sometimes both together, was critical for our survival as a species.

We discount myth today, as we believe it isn’t critical for our survival or cultural identity any longer. We tend to identify through symbols now: flags, corporate logos, status items. So those myths of the past seem quaint, of little to no value beyond entertainment. Specialized science is the new mythology. It still serves the same purpose as the old mythology, just not for the average person. It’s the stuff of the elites. An expert in one area is likely incapable of interpreting the myths of an expert in another, unless those myths are translated into a common language. Myth can be translated into science and

In the beginning…. I was formless potential; a thought conceived of and echoed in the mind of two polar opposites. The opposites united and I was given form, a brilliant golden orb anchored to the earth and surrounded by water. I separated myself into three parts; that which was outside, that which was inside and that which was in-between. From this holy trinity a million fold multiplicity emerged. That multiplicity quickened itself and I became man.

That is the creation story according to modern embryological science in poetic form. A man and woman mate, an egg is fertilized, and an embryo implants into the fleshy wall of a fluid filled sac. It multiplies, divides into three germ layers and multiplies some more until a fully formed human baby is born. Truth is truth, no matter the form it appears in. When the truth is in a form that confounds us, it is tempting to shoo it away and declare it foolish or primitive. By ignoring that which confounds us, the world remains a place of black and white absolutes. I prefer to see the world in full color.

To illuminate this world of The Tradition as fully as possible I am going to retell the stories of The Tradition in the language of modern science, from the beginning of the universe to the birth of the first man, to the first time that man became ill and the first time he was healed. While the language will be that of science, I will be telling my own version of the tale. The language of

science is the language of fact. Every published finding adds to the vocabulary and every scientific discussion adds to the grammar. Once a man is fluent in this language he can tell any story he pleases with it. So, you can internalize my story, search out a competing narrative, or become fluent and write your own. The choice is yours.

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Yoga & Science "Fire is His head, the sun and moon His eyes, space His ears, the Vedas His speech, the wind His breath, the universe His heart. From His feet the Earth has originated. Verily, He is the inner Self of all beings. (Atharva Veda, Mund.U. 2.1.4)." – on Shiva, patron deity of yoga and the arts

There is a beautiful painting of a blue God in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was painted in Rajasthan, city of kings, in the early 1800s, a blue divinity with gold trimmings, the sun in his right eye, the moon in his left, an anthropomorphic breath emerging from his nostrils, (Vishnu Vishvarupa is his name.) He is Vishnu in his manifold form, synonymous with Shiva, and Krishna too, the whole universe in one being. The sun in his right eye represents the active heat of the sun, the Nadi known as Pingala which runs from the right testicle up the right side of the spine to the right nostril. We learned about Pingala back in High School anatomy, but we called it the sympathetic branch of the autonomic

nerve system. Its duty is the very male function of fight or flight. The moon in his left eye represents Ida, the cool, inwardly focused energy which runs the same path as Pingala, but on the left side of the body. Ida corresponds to the rest and digest or parasympathetic nerve system.

Ida and Pingala - left and right, active and passive, male and female, polar opposites tracing a path upwards through the divine structure of the human nerve system. From these two eastern opposites comes a western symbol, the caduceus, twin snakes criss-crossing each other as they ascend the spine towards heaven. Their gazes meet between our eyes, and

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each intersection creates a rich energy vortex, a chakra. There are six chakras within the body. In some systems there is a seventh chakra above the crown of the head. This crown represents the pure divinity. It rises above the rest. In sacred geometry the number seven is considered to exist outside of the physical realm, as it cannot be made in perfect proportion using mechanical geometric tools.

“Try if you will, to generate a perfect seven-sided figure using a compass and square. It cannot be done. The philosophers of old, in a quest to uncover the geometry of life, failed in their efforts to do so. The end result is near perfect, hard for the eye to discern where its imperfections lie. It’s not too far off the mark, but like divinity, septenary geometric perfection is outside our reach.” An Unknown Geometer

Those traditions that consider the seventh chakra to represent the divine and exist outside of the physical body may have shared this belief that understanding geometry in nature is a

path for understanding the structure of the divine plan.

Chakras, Nadis and Marma Within our reach is an understanding of what these chakras might represent from a Western scientific perspective. Ida, the cool of the moon is the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nerve system. Pingala, the heat of the sun, represents the sympathetic division of the same. The major chakras are likely the nerve plexi where the nerves from these two divisions meet to supply each organ of our bodies in a way that allows for the balanced organization of all our biological functions. If there is any real link between the sacred anatomy of Ayurveda and modern science at all, it’s an assumed link. But it is an assumption that seems to bear out in reality. Even if the original developers of Ayurvedic thought had no real understanding or intuition about modern anatomy and physiology, it is still possible to overlay our science upon their writings and see where there is a match.

It is crucial to set a boundary for the discussion that follows. It is very easy to look back in history and project the understanding of modern times upon our ancestors, to think that “These, my ancestors, the people of the past, possessed all the secret knowledge of the universe and it has been lost.” This method of thought is an error. Our ancestors were no more or less intelligent than we are. Where we perceive our failings and their brilliance we perceive a difference in the way their intelligence was applied. Where their constructs of physiology correlate with our own, it can be tempting to think they also possessed the detailed scientific knowledge that we do now, that we are re-discovering lost knowledge.

They saw the world through different eyes. We can only infer their views from the written observations made by the hands that went along with those eyes, when any writings exist. Often we are relying upon centuries of oral tradition that have had plenty of opportunity to lose the fidelity of the original words in this telephone game of culture. Their eyes saw the world through a different cultural lens. In many respects this book

is an effort to look through the eyes of both past and present to find a new focal point. Hopefully the truths we see with this new lens transcend those that have come before.

There is no direct anatomical correlate to Ida and Pingala, the two main nadi that run along either side of the spine. Instead we have the two branches of the autonomic nerve system; the Ida like parasympathetic division and the Pingala like sympathetic division. The sympathetic division runs alongside the spine. The parasympathetic division has its source in the spine and cranium, but wanders throughout the body. These two divisions meet centrally in nerve clusters that supply organs and control biological functions. Different yogis have divvied out these nerve plexi and ascribed this or that plexi to this or that chakra. Some, like the cardiac plexus, correlate perfectly with the chakra of the same organ. Others do not, and different schools and teachers will ascribe a particular cluster of nerves to different chakras. This is of little significance practically. The two systems don’t need to match perfectly for both to be valid. One is not more right than

the other. They are simply different. What is important is that they are similar enough in general for practitioners of both systems to gain insight and new tools by understanding them. I have heard it said that being mono-lingual is a type of intellectual poverty. I believe this applies to how we derive meaning in our observations. Seeing the world through only the lens of myth, or only the lens of science is a similar type of poverty as thinking in only one language.

Ida and Pingala are not the only Nadis. The word nadi is derived from a Sankrit word which means “stream”. They are the channels through which the various energies of Ayurveda flow. There is Amrita Nadi, that nadi which connects the heart with the mind and through which flows the nectar of immortality. There is Chitta Nadi, through which flows the energy that generates our sense of self and consciousness. There are sexual nadis popularized through the practice of tantra. There are said to be 72,000 nadis in total throughout the body. They do not appear to coincide exactly with nerve pathways. Any channel through which flow occurs in the body is related to a nadi. All fluids in

the body have relationships to a nadi of one kind or another.

In addition to the nadis there are the marma points. The root word for these points is mar, from which we get the verb mar: to hurt or damage. These points were taught as part of the art of dhanurveda, the way of the bow - the martial arts as taught in the Vedas. They are areas where bones, muscles, arteries, joints and tendons intersect, areas that can be easily damaged or where damage causes the greatest devastation. Think of the corners of the eyes, the ears, nose, throat, groin, knees, ankles, elbows, that place on the thigh kids hit to give someone a Charley Horse - those are marma points. Prana flows through these points. Damage at a marma point can cause blockage or disruption to the flow of these energies. Thus the instrument of our unravelling becomes the point at which we direct a therapeutic intervention. Massage with healing aromatic oils at marma points is one method for working with marma points.

How do these chakras, nadis, and marma points of The Tradition hold up against scientific challenge? Somehow, out of all the ridicule most other members of The Tradition have received, yoga has received a free pass from the scientific community that allowed it to be taken seriously and studied. While other traditional practices have been viewed as threatening and attacked, yoga has been viewed as a piece of benign, useful, Eastern exotica that people enjoy, and is close enough to regular exercise to be worth exploring. There are numerous peer-reviewed research articles on the benefits of yoga and meditation. Yoga has found a place within the Western healing model as a tool for reducing stress, decreasing back pain, creating mindfulness, and numerous other proactive health activities. The yoga research most relevant to this book is the research on yoga’s ability to balance the energetic and emotional states of the body.

It is in measuring the ability of the yoga to dynamically balance the opposing forces of Ida and Pingala that best translates into the language of science.

The moon comes out at night while we rest and the sun comes out during the day while we are active. Likewise the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nerve system is active while we rest and repair ourselves, and the sympathetic division is active while we combat the forces of nature that would have us lie back down. Neither branch is good or evil. Both are essential. Both must be available to us in the exact moment they are needed for us to be well. Imagine life as an endless day or endless night and you will conceptualize what it is to be stuck in either division of the autonomic system. The body craves the dynamic balance between these opposing forces. Spending our lives wholly at either pole is untenable.

Yet many of us do spend more time working in the heat of Pingala than relaxing in the cool of Ida, and it shows in the rhythm of our hearts. The rhythm of the heart should have some music to it. Life is not meant to be monotonous. Variety is the spice of life. A heart rate that never varies is a heart that has stopped listening to the music, and it’s checking out. Hearts like this don’t last very long. The fractal variability in the

rhythm of the heart is an important measure of well-being. This measurement is called Heart Rate Variability, or HRV. It is the measurement of the time interval between heart beats, and the variance in that interval over time.

A healthy heart, even if it beats exactly 60 times per minute every minute, will vary significantly in the space between each beat. An unhealthy heart will beat at a steady and regular interval, often with a slightly elevated rate or a higher number of beats per minute. Low HRV typically means that the sympathetic, fight or flight division of the autonomic system is dominating and the body is in a state of exhaustion. High HRV means there is a good balance between the two systems. This marker is so powerful that cardiologists use it as a measure of cardiac risk, and professional athletes use it in training. As an athlete enters overtraining their Heart Rate Variability will decrease. If they are monitoring it they know it’s time to cool it and recover. When they are well rested and recovered the Heart Rate Variability increases and they know they can push harder again.

This used to require expensive and bulky equipment but now it can be done with a wireless chest monitor and a cell phone app. Serious athletes at all levels, or people who are serious about health in general, can measure this each and every day and get a tremendous amount of quality information about their energy state management. Are their efforts to invest energy paying dividends or simply exhausting them? Do they have undiagnosed food allergies? Does something in their work environment need to change for them to experience robust health? Charting Heart Rate Variability each morning and comparing one day to another can provide the clues needed to isolate stressful variables.

So if yoga balances out Ida and Pingala, we should see this as an increase in Heart Rate Variability after consistent yoga practice. And we do. Numerous studies demonstrate significant improvement in Heart Rate Variability after various types of yoga practice, be they breath-based, meditation-based, or physical-asana-based. Depending upon which expert you ask there may be more to the story. The EKG

measurements that Heart Rate Variability is calculated from gather a huge number of data points that can be analyzed in many different ways, each way providing an insight into different physiological processes.

For instance, there are three major frequency ranges measured for Heart rate Variability that are analyzed with Fourier Transform analysis: high, low, and very low frequency. Physiologists are fairly certain that the high frequency range measures activity of the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic system, AKA Ida. The low frequency range was once thought to measure the sympathetic system, AKA Pingala, but it appears now that it measures a mixture of functions. The very low frequency range is thought to measure kidney function and temperature regulation. In the Traditional Chinese system the kidneys are the seat of Jing, where our inborn vital energy resides. Temperature regulation would be a function of thermodynamic energy exchange. So while we have no certain and direct measure of Pingala through Heart Rate Variability, we can measure Ida reliably and confidently.

Yogis of the past knew there was a difference in the effects of various yoga practices on the systems of the body. Kapalabahti breathing, a rapid energizing breath exercise was thought to stimulate the heat of Pingala. Science demonstrates the truth of this by finding an increase in the low frequency component and low/high frequency ratios following this type of breathing. While the complexity of the low frequency component of the HRV study is no longer thought to be a hard indicator of sympathetic function, the data indicates the possibility that the yogis of the past had it right. By contrast when scientists studied a yoga program designed to reduce stress in pregnant women, they found it increased the high frequency component of HRV by 64% after 20 weeks and 150% after 36 weeks. As we are fairly certain that the high frequency component of the HRV study does measure the cooling activity of the parasympathetic nerve system, these results indicate a dramatic improvement in the balance of the energy regulating systems within the body, and a shift towards a state of healing, growth and repair.

A primary focus of yoga during asana postures is the area around the heart chakra. Asana practice is a balancing of opposites. During the initial extension phase of the Sun Salutation series the heart center expands upwards as if its greatest desire is to kiss the sun. After this momentary tryst its folds downward like a flower hiding its petals for the night or a leaf turning over in the rain. Then, during Up Dog it comes out again to greet the sun, retreats back for Down Dog and slowly finds its way back to the sun as it returns to the initial pose of the cycle. Most yoga classes are designed to be balanced in this manner. Bending forward is followed by bending backward, and vice versa. But in most cases, the overall practice is focused on an upward expansion of the heart with relaxed shoulders and steady breath.

The electrical field of the heart is much stronger than that of the brain. The heart has a strong influence on the brain when we are in good health. The electrical field of one can influence and entrain the electrical field of the other. Curiously, when the electrical field of the heart is influencing the electrical field of the brain we see an increase in heart

rate variability. In my own asana practice I have found the extension poses powerfully effect the area of my thorax where my heart resides. In times of stress I notice this area has a tendency to feel closed down. Consistent yoga practice makes restoring open posture in this area much easier.

Sometimes the process is challenging and I can feel resistance. Sometimes the heart has some harsh lessons for us once we let its influence back into our lives. Do emotions live in the heart? I don’t know the answer to that. But I do get the sense that it is certainly involved in the experience and processing of them. Sometimes opening it up means experiencing things we’ve been shrinking away from. Letting the heart run the show hurts sometimes. But the pain of allowing it back in control has always been lessened by the quality guidance it provides. You are either in the pain, or in the pain. This teaching from a chiropractic master tells a truth; you are either in the pain of stagnation or the pain of growth. The heart based perception we develop in yoga steers us toward a noble pain, the pain of growth, love, and accomplishment.

The law of love is intimately associated with these subconscious workings of the heart. Have you ever felt love in your head? I've never looked at a woman and felt a warmth, a tingling, or butterflies - in my mind. I've never viewed an expansive landscape, felt the warmth of the sun on my skin, won a race, or lost a race, and felt anything between my ears. I've felt my heart open and close, warm and cool, in response to all of these things. I've felt the butterflies in my stomach sync into an anticipatory calm while I'm balancing my bike at the starting gate waiting for the race to start. The open heart and warm embrace of a new lover puts joy in my heart, not in my head. If that heart should ever close and go cold the sinking feeling that follows will be in my guts, not my mind, which will only process the suffering rationally.

There are three major neural networks in the body: brain, gut and heart. All three produce the neuropeptides necessary for us to experience feeling at the chemical level. The heart produces oxytocin, the chemical of emotional bond formation. The gut produces the majority of the body’s serotonin,

responsible for the experience of emotional well-being. The names for the scientific disciplines associated with these neural centers are neurology, neurocardiology and nuerogastroenterology. While these neural networks are separated into specialties in the scientific and medical community they are hardly separate in the real world. We divide them into specialties because that’s how scientific progress in our culture happens. Within us, all three are networked together into a coherent whole that functions as one unit guiding us toward the path of syntropy, aligning us with the flow of energy available to us.

The Anglo-Saxon word for health is Hale, meaning "to be whole". This coherent function is not a given. It can be disrupted. Focusing too much on one function can cause it to dominate. There can be no master or commander who runs the show if we are to be whole. Each part has a role to play. We are at our best when all three: heart/head/gut - are in a state of harmonious balance, a state of coherence. In this state the rhythm of the signals emanating from each center merges

with that of the others. They sync together, work together, and grow together. We can measure this by watching the signals emerging from all the different systems of the body at once. During the coherent state the waveform of the Heart Rate Variability signal shifts from steep and craggy to a smooth sine wave. As this occurs we can observe the signals from the other systems of the body taking on the same form.

This state of coherence is not merely a state of relaxation. It is a state of synchrony between the systems of the body, a state of autonomic balance where the voices of Ida and Pingala wok together to create a song. The body becomes focused on optimization rather than survival. Psychologically, this state is experienced as a state of calm energetic balance, a state in which abilities are enhanced, a flow state. Ultimately, like all events that create wholeness, this state is essential for the optimal flow of energy through the human body. From the perspective of Operating System Nature, this is where the body becomes thermodynamically optimized. This is the state where the

transformation and degradation of solar energy into heat happens in the most organized and efficient way possible. It is the state where energetic expenditures become investments rather than expenses.

But how is that state generated and maintained? It is rather easy for even a novice to briefly enter this state through breathing exercises. It is likely that the different types of yoga meditations and breathing exercises create this psychophysiological coherence. But this state is hard to sustain for the majority of our waking lives. Perhaps this is why yoga is considered by some to be a lifestyle involving more than physical exercises. The only long term viable coherence strategy is to generate and maintain coherence through a positive emotional state. In the past few years, re-reading the words of Jesus, I believe I have discovered the most potent of his teachings. Most great truths are hidden in plain sight. They aren’t meant to be secret and you almost have to train yourself not to see them. Unless you’ve been born into a culture that has taught you how to ignore them since birth. Love, gratitude, faith and forgiveness

are mentioned in nearly all of the miracles of Christ. And, all these are qualities of the heart. Christ employed forgiveness as a healing modality. In the second chapter of Mark Jesus heals a man of palsy who had been lowered through the roof by his friends. The first thing he noticed was the faith of those around him. The first thing he said was “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” and only after did he say “Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.” and the young man was healed.

By regularly accessing this coherent state over time it becomes a familiar place, an easier to access place. With regular practice coherence can be achieved by little more than focused effort of will, even in times of stress. Biofeedback training and loving-kindness meditation are two proven ways of generating easier access to this state. Studies on these techniques, and coherence, show they shift our objective health markers toward a place of resilient vitality. As intuited culturally, this phenomenon of coherence has shown that the heart does play a role in processing emotion and has an influence on the brain. Neural

projections connect the heart to the thalamus, hypothalamus, and amygdala. As a result, the amygdala, the subconscious emotional driver of the brain, syncs to the rhythm of the heart.

Heart-based perception is reality. If the heart is influencing the emotional regions of the brain it is impacting our consciousness. This is syntropy in action. Subconscious emotional perception integrated by the autonomic nerve system works to guide us towards an energy rich future. All three neural centers: gut, heart and brain, are active in the three pillars of the communication process: perception, interpretation and adaptation. Information alone rarely leads to behavioral change. There needs to be an emotional drive to provide the motivational force necessary to generate action. Action is energetically expensive. There needs to be a reason - knowing alone is not enough. Creative action is required for us to advance the evolution of the thermodynamic processes of Operating System Nature.

How could it be any other way? How could the number one driver of our

behavior be separated from the programming of Operating System Nature? In order for us to perform our thermodynamic responsibilities we need motivation. Thus the emotions we value over all others - love, gratitude, forgiveness, connection to family and community, are necessary for us to persevere through the uphill battle towards an energy rich future that requires the reversing of the default flow of energy through the world. Pursuing these positive emotional states is what generates harmony in individual lives, families, societies and ecosystems. These actions, though challenging, are intrinsically rewarding to us because they are in alignment with the principles that further life.

Directing energy towards a life-furthering purpose, through aligning and balancing the major energy centers of the body, by devotion to meditation and physical practice, within a syntropically driven universe, is, for me, the soul of yoga. Long before digital screens and Fourier transforms could measure changes in Heart Rate Variability in response to meditation or Asanas, the practitioners of The Tradition were aware of its value.

It wasn’t an intellectual, brain based knowledge; it was heartfelt, syntropically driven. Early adopters, attuned to the flow of an energy some describe as sacred, subsequently developed and honed this art of yoga. The process continues today in studios around the world, and in the homes of lone practitioners. Energy will flow. Syntropy will elevate it to the heights of evolution. It only needs a willing vessel.

Yoga & The Physical Body What follows is actually a section from the book on chiropractic. But it applies just as much to yoga as chiropractic, because the body is the body and it works the same no matter how it is being engaged with, and yoga and chiropractic share a great deal in common.

Did you know that whales get degenerative arthritis? Think about that for a minute. Whales are mammals with spines just like humans. Try thinking of a whale as a water horse, because that's basically what it is. It seems obvious to us that horses could get arthritis. They suffer under gravity much like we do; the pull of the earth putting stress on bones, and gradually wearing them into the deformation like we see in our spines on X-Ray. Whales though, whales live in the sea, and they can be positively buoyant to 100 meters; meaning a whale will float to the surface without effort from as deep as 328 feet below the ocean surface. Their spines are not affected by gravity yet they develop arthritis, sometimes in adolescence, just like humans and horses that live on land. How curious!

Human spines develop degenerative arthritis in typical patterns. The greatest percentage of degeneration occurs around the 5th cervical and 5th lumbar vertebrae, the base of the neck and the low back. Most people notice its effects as pain, numbness, and weakness down the arms and legs. The discs in the spine dehydrate and decrease in

height, the curvatures of the spine shift. The curve of the neck straightens and the head moves forward. The curve in the upper back often increases as that in the low back decreases. Gradually, the soft tissues of the spine calcify and stiffen, restricting range of motion to greater and greater levels. As movement becomes more difficult the spine is moved less, life is experienced passively

and the strength of the bones is not challenged, so it begins to decrease. Bones will weaken in the absence of a demand for their strength. Eventually, even a powerful sneeze can cause a fracture in the body of a vertebra. Each of these small fractures in the body of the vertebra decreases its height, increasing the kyphotic forward curve of the spine. Height and confidence are

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lost. Frailty ensues.

W.H. Kirkaldy Willis, in his classic textbook on the spine, described this process as occurring in three phases: a dysfunctional phase following injury that transitions to one of instability with excessive motion, then to one of stability with joint fixation or fusion. The injury that starts the process can be something as obvious as an athletic or automobile accident, or as subtle as many accumulated traumas so small that we do not even notice them - the slow stretching of ligaments in the back of the spine as a result of forward head posture while texting for example.

In order to adapt to the damage, a select group of muscles begins to dominate the body, locking down the regions of the spine where degeneration is most common. The body does this out of wisdom. Nature doesn't program for failure. It's doing its best to spread the load to those areas less crucial for life and reproduction. It's a compromise. Your body is hoping you wise up and change. That's why your spine hurts - it’s your body telling you something needs to be done differently. Your body,

nature, the operating system that keeps it all running, is brilliant. Listen to it!

Whale skeletons degenerate in like manner. It's not gravity or age that is the problem. It is adaptations to the demands of life that create compromised states of function leading to excessive wear and tear. The whale, gifted with a long life by comparison to most living things, lives a life of struggle. A whale is an animal that needs oxygen but dines a mile under water. Whales tend to get degenerative arthritis higher in the spine than humans do. The best research I could find on the topic found arthritis primarily in the shoulder joints and the atlantooccipital joint, the one at the top of the neck and base of the head. Why this joint in whales and not in humans? I am not certain. Humans and whales, while both mammals, move through the world very differently. The muscular strategies a whale uses to adapt to the challenges of life are likely to be different from those of humans. How striking though that these elegant creatures, nearly free from the strains of gravity, can experience spinal degeneration just like a man or his horse

that walks on land in the full light of the sun.

Men, whales and horses, develop dysfunction because they are tensegrity structures. Tensegrity structures are a stable three-dimensional structure consisting of members under tension that are contiguous, and members under compression that are not. In simple terms, we are like living moving suspension bridges. A suspension bridge uses rigid towers and beams that are held in place, i.e. compressed, by wires that are held under very high levels of tension. This balance allows for the bridge to be flexible and strong at the same time. Our bodies use the same elements. We have bones for the compressive struts, and muscles, tendons, and ligaments for the tension elements. Bones are the bridge towers. Muscles are the bridge wires. This is the basic architecture for nearly every living thing on Planet Earth.

What happens when a large vehicle strikes a bridge and snaps a few wires, or bends a tower? The remainder of the bridge has to take on extra strain to support the structure. It will likely do this

successfully for a limited period of time before failing. The same is true of our bodies, of horse bodies, and of whale bodies. The difference between a bridge and a whale is that a whale can adapt because it is alive. Spinal degeneration in all these animals is the result of adaptations in the tensegrity structure that allow it to function after damage. Extra strain focused on one spot means wear and tear, and extra bracing to strengthen that area so it doesn’t fail. Extra support in the body means chronic muscle tension, fibrosis, calcification, bony fusion. In other words, all those nasty things chiropractors see on X-ray are the brilliant adaptations of the body to injuries it has sustained. As stated earlier, this happens in three phases: dysfunction, instability and fixation or fusion.

Why Chiropractic Here? Something most people don’t consider is that chiropractic is not a method, it is a full profession, complete with a variety of practitioner approaches, philosophies, and methods. Much as in the yoga world there are differing views on what yoga is and how it should be done, there are purists and progressives, those who wish to go back to the past, or abandon it, or integrate it. My approach is to integrate the past with the future, to maintain the core of what was, but build upon it continuously.

The following sections were written to create a framework for chiropractors to better identify their focus and streamline their practices to improve their level of service. I am including them here so you can learn more about how the body works, which is very relevant to the practice of yoga.

Structural Correction The interruption of these three phases of degeneration as described in medical texts is where chiropractic is applied on the physical level of reality. For the better part of a century we knew almost nothing about how this happened through the chiropractic adjustment. Chiropractors can be likened to Cowboys. Many of them see the world like the Wild West, they always pushing new frontiers and looking for new ways to do things. There are over two hundred different techniques in chiropractic, which means that there are over two hundred different explanations for how what we do works.

Before the turn of the new millennium there was precious little research to explain any of it at a physiological level. I would like to blame my predecessors for being too dogmatic and not scientific enough, but how can I? Medicine as a whole still hasn't figured out exactly how and why spines degenerate, though a great deal of the quality medical research in that area has come out recently. The state of our knowledge has

transcended the old models of bones out of place pushing on nerves. But we are a young profession and we are like Cowboys. Cowboys are good at making things happen, but they have a hard time admitting they don't know it all.

Structural chiropractic is not about getting bones to stack up in proper alignment like Legos or Lincoln Logs. Structural chiropractic is about reversing the spinal degenerative process through the restoration of function. Because the precipitating event that creates this cascade of spinal degeneration is muscle dysfunction that comes from the body's attempt to brace an injury, chiropractic must have an effect on muscle function at the physical level. Vladimir Janda, a neurologist from the Czech Republic, classified the patterns of muscular adaptations the body makes in response to damage, and outlined a step-by-step therapeutic process of reversing them. Elegantly simple, many physiotherapists and chiropractors have adopted these steps into their practice. Each stage has many different possible therapies that may be effective, but the first step, normalizing

the periphery, is done brilliantly through the chiropractic adjustment.

The four step corrective process

To perform the first step in Janda’s four step protocol, normalizing the periphery, proper motion and position signals from the arms, legs and core must be able to make their way to the spinal cord and brain, and must be processed properly when they arrive. Research from the 2010 Australian Chiropractic Journal by Heidi Haavik D.C. describes how this occurs. She found that chiropractic adjustments improved joint position sense, aka mechanoreception, its processing inside the brain, and enhanced real world muscle performance. For example, she looked at the delay between brain activity and activation of the most important abdominal core muscle in 90 healthy, young, men. Of those 90, 17 had a delay in feed forward activation between the brain and that muscle on a single side. Their brains were having a hard time responding quickly to the things happening around them. Six months later she checked this again to be certain it was a consistent, long term,

problem for these 17 guys. All 17 still had the delay. They also had dysfunction in the sacral region of the spine on the same side as the delay. One specific, scientific, chiropractic adjustment improved the reaction time of the muscles in these guys by an average of 38%.

Let's break that down a little further - these were healthy, athletic young men, and almost twenty percent of them had measurable dysfunction in their spines. They had no pain. They had no degeneration. But the chiropractic adjustment measurably improved the function of the muscles that are used to stabilize the spine and prevent injury. That same study also showed how individuals with this type of dysfunction are at greater risk for low back pain. Dr. Haavik has been the pioneer in this area of chiropractic research and has published several studies showing how chiropractic adjustments impact the neurology of joint function and muscle performance. In fact, as I wrote the fourth draft of this book, she won a research award for a 2015 paper that shows the chiropractic adjustment can increase muscle strength in an athlete

by 16%, for at least half an hour - by improving the efficiency of brain body communication.The clinical results of quality chiropractic care have spoken for themselves for over a century. To have good quality research describing some mechanisms for how this happens has been a delight, and I look forward to learning more about how chiropractic works so well.

Chiropractic gets Janda’s process started, but it doesn’t finish it. At the physical level, chiropractic should not be a stand alone therapy. Nor should any of the others mentioned in this book. Yoga alone has its limits, as do the Māori healing methods. You, the individual, in accordance with Operating System Nature, will be required to put some effort in. You, the individual, will also

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require the assistance of others to fully heal. Humans are social apes, and social apes engage in social grooming behavior. All of the healing methods of The Tradition could be viewed as social grooming behavior. Chiropractic and Māori healing methods do a great job with step one. Yoga does a great job with step two.

Step two is restoring muscle balance. When the body is injured, muscles, like some wires in a damaged suspension bridge, take on duties that are not theirs. They become extra tight, and in the case of mammals, begin to shorten. Before the bridge can be repaired, before your spine can get back to health, those tension elements will need to be lengthened and their proper level of tension restored. This can be done through physical therapy methods such as post isometric relaxation stretches or through a well designed yoga or functional movement practice. At a certain point a chiropractor or therapist can only guide you, they cannot do the work for you.

Step three is increasing input from the body to the brain to increase the

strength of its stabilization reflexes. This is done to a certain degree by chiropractic adjustments, but specific training activity is required for this to be as impactful as it can be. This is where incremental challenges to the brains ability to balance the body start to matter. Things like balancing on one leg, then balancing on one leg with your eyes closed, then balancing on one leg and playing catch - these kinds of challenges. Activities that take us through functional movement patterns with progressively greater levels of challenge and complexity are required to

teach the brain how to control the body in a way that makes it anti-fragile. Chiropractic care through this process will make your efforts more effective.

Step four is building endurance into these movement patterns developed in step three. Endurance is more important than strength here, because fatigued muscles will act like injured muscles and the suspension bridge that is the body will begin to act as though it is damaged and move back into dysfunction. Step four is something you must actively engage with your entire life. It is the way

we maintain the level of function we have achieved in the face of the gradual thermodynamic decay that all living things experience. Harmony and order require focused effort.

Three Approaches to Transformation

I take joy in this new knowledge about how chiropractic works to enhance the function of spinal stability through enhancing the biological communication process, because it helps me to better serve my patients. For example, I do very little with the later steps of the correction process in my practice. There are some chiropractors who incorporate activities for these stages into theirs but make no mistake, these activities are not chiropractic. Things such as myofascial release, PNF and PIR stretching, functional movement pattern and balance training, are all amazing physiotherapy procedures that can play a role in this process, but they are not chiropractic. Just because something is done by a chiropractor does not make it chiropractic.

I prefer to be exceptional at chiropractic and allow therapists and teachers or

coaches who are excellent at those remaining steps to shine in their arenas. Quality care requires a team. Nobody can master everything. If someone says they have, they are fooling themselves. So how does one choose a chiropractor amongst these 60,000+ practitioners of 200+ techniques? Fortunately there are really only three major groups of chiropractic techniques and each of

these three groups tends to focus on primarily one of the three aspects of reality. This means to is possible to choose a practitioner based upon your values as an individual. Because all three groups are still chiropractic, they are still inclusive of all three aspects - so you will still receive benefit in all three realms of existence regardless of who you choose.

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Postural Transformation Postural techniques focus on the physical arrangement of the spines entire structure in space. The curvature from front to back and the side are assessed relative to ideal norms. Various braces, traction, and exercises are employed to change the structure of the spine until it shifts closer to the ideal.

This is a process that does not happen in one visit. We know from research into the healing and remodeling process of the body’s fascial system that it takes, on average, anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to remodel the physical structures of the body depending on age and how much change is required.

Obviously, postural techniques focus quite heavily on the physical level of reality, but it is important to note that they still have an impact on the other two. As posture improves, energy usage becomes more efficient, and emotions shift towards feelings of empowerment. The individual has more strength and effectiveness in all that they do.

The verbal focus of most postural practitioners is on the physical level of reality. This is a method that employs geometric X-ray analysis of the spine, postural photographs, bilateral weight distribution, etc. A friend of mine who began his career as a postural practitioner once remarked that he was proud that he lacked the ability to feel someones spine with his hands and

locate an individual dysfunctional vertebra to “pop”. It’s an engineering type of approach, extremely linear, and algorithm-based. The culture of a practice like this is focused on those things that are easily measurable via mechanical tools.

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Segmental Transformation Segmental chiropractic is the most common chiropractic approach. Physical and energetic assessments are often employed in these techniques as the segmental approach is a mixture of the two, though with a clear bias towards the physical. X-Ray, feeling for lack of motion in the spine and scanners that measure nerve function through temperature change and muscle activity are often used together to find one to five bones in the spine that are focal areas of dysfunction.

Ideally the chiropractor can isolate the source of the dysfunction to just a few bones of the spine. A short, quick, thrust is used to restore motion to the bone. Often this is accompanied by a “cavitation" or “popping” sound as gasses within the joint between the bones of the spine are pulled out of solution by the vacuum created while gapping the joint during a segmental adjustment. It is most common for this type of technique to be used for the relief of episodic back pain or

headaches, though it is capable of much much more.

This approach in the past was viewed as similar to a Lego or Lincoln Log puzzle. The bone would show up misaligned on X-ray and the chiropractor would “push” the Lego or Lincoln Log back into the proper position where it would “hold” until it

“went out” again. I’m not sure if chiropractors ever really believed this is what was actually occurring or if it was just a convenient explanation that made sense at the time. Either way this understanding couldn’t be farther from the truth. Each vertebrae is surrounded by muscles wired into the brain that assess the vertebra’s position and motion and act as guides for that

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movement. They can allow movement or restrict movement.

Your brain subconsciously monitors the smallest of details. These muscles are part of that suspension bridge structure mentioned earlier. They will lock down to protect the spine when it is being damaged, which in turn decreases the amount of motion available to that area of the spine. Motion is what runs the cerebellum, the area of the brain known as The Tree of Life. In the complete absence of motion and position sense, the brain will enter a state similar to a coma. The early stages of spinal degeneration cause a reduction in this motion and position sense, which in turn initiates a cascade of stress physiology below the level of conscious awareness.

The changes that result from the early stages of spinal degeneration shift the way the brain allocates energy. When signals of vibrant healthy movement are lacking in the cerebellum, the subconscious begins to shift energy towards the fight, flight, or freeze division of the autonomic nerve system. The cortisol produced contributes to the breakdown of bone, muscle, tendons,

ligaments and skin. REM sleep decreases, blood sugar levels increase, and the body stashes fat on the abdomen and face. There are even links between disturbed cerebellar function and mental illness. The beautiful thing about chiropractic is that the same neurons in the spinal cord that are stimulated by the adjustment can, in turn, improve and increase the output of

the cerebellum. The adjustment can be the tipping point that shifts the energy distribution of the body back towards healing growth and repair.

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Tonal Transformation Tonal methods of chiropractic are where things start to shift towards the energetic and spiritual levels of reality, though the physical still very much plays a role. These techniques assess the tension held within the nerve system, often sourced in distortion of the dura, the protective covering that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, suspending them from the cranium and the vertebrae of the spine. This covering protects the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves from damage caused by concussion or stretching. The dura is the core of the fascial system. Fascia is a very unique structure within the body with all kinds of fascinating properties at the energetic level, which will be discussed in the chapters to follow. But here, at the physical level, the story is simple. Fascia must be properly aligned and at the right level of tension in order to function properly.

Since tonal practitioners are few and far between, and tonal methods work on structural concerns that are not readily visible through assessing posture or

range of motion, elucidation is required. The dura is separated from the brain and spinal cord by a circulating fluid that provides them with support, nutrition and waste removal. Neural tissue is mostly made of cholesterol. It's consistency is very much like gelatin, and it is extremely susceptible to damage. But the brain and spinal cord float because of the matter they are made of, so the pocket of fluid created by the dura allows them to be safely suspended like a baby in the womb, protected in a bath of cerebrospinal fluid. The peripheral nerves that supply life to each and every cell in the body from heart to fingers to toes, are covered by an extension of this dura. Dura, the root for "durable" is, by weight, stronger than steel.

The dura must be properly arranged around the spinal cord to preserve the proper flow of the cerebrospinal fluid, and to maintain the correct amount of slack in the system. As it does not stretch, shortening for any reason will reduce the motion potential of the body before nerve damaging tension occurs. To ensure the dura is properly aligned, tiny ligaments attach it to the vertebra in

a few specific areas of the spine. There are a number of these ligaments inside the cranium, cervical, and sacral spinal regions. They are at the top and bottom of the spine. It is a brilliant system, but one prone to dysfunction when the spine is required to adapt to external stressors in order to protect itself.

It only requires a 6% stretch to decrease neural activity by 70%. Considering that forward head posture, or "text neck" alone can stretch the spinal cord 3% by itself, it is easy to see how the function of the nerve system can be impaired by the adaptations the spine makes in response to environmental stresses such as long term seated posture or violent trauma. Often these adaptations are additive. A compensation here leads to another there and so on. The body will seek to disperse this tension throughout its entire structure to minimize its neurological impact, meaning tension that originates in one small area of the spine can impact any part of the body as a whole.

Remember the suspension bridge - when one area becomes damaged, the tension in that area must shift. The

remainder of the bridge must redistribute the load in a new tension pattern that is not ideal and, while allowing the bridge to stay upright and survive, also means a reduced lifespan for the bridge as a whole. It is the same in the body. Tension on one part of the spinal cord will be distributed throughout the entire structure of the body. We survive the neurological insult, but we’re not thriving at the level we once were. If this happened during birth, that may be the way we have lived out our entire lives. A Tonal Chiropractic adjustment will find the source of the tension and remove it, allowing the body to shift its tensegrity pattern back towards ideal.

The Principle of Time Operating System Nature tends to make some changes rapidly, and some changes slowly. Once injured, the body responds very rapidly with a patch to keep things operating out of necessity. Remodeling that patch can take a very long time. The research on fascia shows that the process takes between 6 months and two years, with bi-weekly

interventions for that entire period of time. Healing well is an active process. The body requires movement to remodel itself in a functional manner. The default is for it to lock down and stop moving. Progressively increasing the demands on the body through the healing process will yield results.

While this may seem frustrating it’s actually kind of beautiful. Just as it takes time to correct the body, it takes time to destroy it. This insulates us from the damage of essential tasks at certain times in life and affords us the ability to repair later. But wait too long and you will suffer. Daily discipline is our greatest ally in the principle of time.

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Bonus Chapter

The 5 Gifts of The Spine

The 5 Gifts of The Spine “The spine and  the brain are the altars of God. That’s where the electricity of God flows down into the nervous system, into the world. The searchlights of your senses are turned outward.  But when you will reverse the searchlights through kriya yoga, and be concentrated in the spine, you will behold the maker.” - Yogananda

“An ash I know there stands,Yggdrasill is its name,a tall tree,showered with shining loam.From there come the dews that drop in the valleys. It stands forever green over Urðr’s well.” - Völuspá

"Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” - Genesis 3:22

"In the beginning before the world was light, Rangi the sky-father and Papa the earth-mother were bound together, their offspring caught in the darkness between them. Their strongest son, Tane Mahuta, put his shoulder to Papa and thrust upwards with his powerful legs, creating life and light.” Māori creation myth

In the Waipoua Forest of New Zealand there is a 2,500 year old Kauri tree named Tāne Mahuta. Named for the god of the forest who separated heaven and earth, the progenitor of all living beings, this tree has been preserved as sacred. In the sacred garden of Eden between the rivers Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates, there were two sacred trees. One gave life eternal, the other caused men to become as gods. Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi tree. Odin hung himself for nine days and nights from the branches of Yggdrasil, the axis mundi of Norse mythology. Yggdrasil connects the nine worlds. Its roots contain Hel - the underworld - its trunk supports Midgard - the realm of men, and its crown expands out to Asgard, the realm of gods.

The tree spans the distance between heaven and earth. Its roots are set deep in the earth and its branches reach far into heaven. In the myths the tree becomes a metaphor for ascension, a method of travel from that which is below to that which is above, from that which is base to that which is ennobled. The crown is always highest. The journey of kundalini from root to crown

is the meaning of yoga. Odin rode his steed, Sleipnir, up and down Yggdrasil through the nine worlds, the same way the Eurasian shamans that preceded him rode their spiritual steeds. There is no mistake that trees and kings both have crowns. Treow is the Old English word for both truth and tree.

Most of these trees have a serpent associated with them. There is a wise but evil serpent in Christianity. Mucalinda was the name of the serpent that coiled himself around the Buddha while he sat under the Bodhi tree, protecting him from the rain. Níðhǫggr, coiled at the bottom of Yggdrasil, gnaws upon its roots, and is contained by them. The snake almost always represents

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ascension or knowledge of some kind in the myths. In Native American tradition, the serpent symbolizes the energy of the spine. They too have a World Tree, represented by the pole the Sun Dancers suspend from, pulled up towards the higher realms by the talons of eagles.

“The wisdom serpent and the World Tree/Tree of Life are commonly identified as partners on the journey of initiation… Kundalini Yoga focuses on the energy centered in the spine, an internalized version of the Axis Mundi, the World Tree or central pole of the world… In the earliest Buddhist texts,the Bodhi tree itself is, remarkably, referred to as the ‘Great Awakener,’ not the Buddha” - Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers - Kevin Turner

For our ancestors this World Tree was more than a model of the cosmos, it was a model for the process of ascension and evolution. “As above so below” is the phrase that describes how the cosmos is arranged in self similar levels. The World Tree is not just a metaphor for the cosmic axis, but a metaphor for the human axis, the spine. From root chakra to crown chakra, Kundalini must ascend to awaken the divinity in man. The three levels of Yggdrasil could be seen as metaphors for the three major nerve centers of the body, or the three major divisions of the autonomic system, and the path upwards or downwards could represent the application of energy towards growth and ascension or defense and descent.

While the Yogis have the chakras and Kundalini to describe how the spine becomes a ladder for ascension, chiropractic has the five gifts of the spine. These five gifts are those aspects

of human nature that emerge from a healthy spine, and cannot be expressed at a high level if the spine becomes dysfunctional. This process of ascension is not a purely spiritual or esoteric pursuit. The foundation of the five gifts is in physicality. As the physical needs of the body are met, the upper levels of the path towards spiritual ascension become accessible. Nobody needs to go down that path if they do not wish to, but exploring this realm of consciousness is what makes us human. Conscious exploration is our unique gift in the world. Humans are far from the only conscious beings on this planet, but we are unique in our capacity to expand, explore, and fine tune our consciousness. Historically, the tool for exploring consciousness has been the spine. These five gifts are what create that possibility.

The concept of the five gifts themselves are not a part of my unique contribution to the world. They were developed by one of my teachers, Dr. Donny Epstein, the developer of Network Spinal Analysis and Epienergetics. Donny has described these gifts differently than I have on all the occasions I have heard him speak on them. I don’t want to disrespect his work by claiming the concept of the five gifts of the spine is my own, because it isn’t. Nor do I want to give the impression that my description of the five gifts is Donny’s description, because that’s also untrue. I will recommend anyone interested read the written works of Donny: The 12 Stages of Healing: A Network Approach to Wholeness, and Healing Myths, Healing Magic, Breaking the Spell of Old Illusions, Reclaiming Our Power to Heal.

What is the spine? The common perception of the spine is 33 bones stacked on top of each other like legos that can shift in and out of proper position. Actually, to say that most people think of the spine at all may be a false assumption. The spine is physically at the back of the mind. There isn’t much thought given to what it is or how it works by the people who have one. At least not until something goes wrong with it.

We have already discussed that it has three stability subsystems: active, passive and neural. In many ways the spine behaves like an organ system. Anatomists separate the bones and muscles of the spine from its neural components and describe them as parts of two separate systems. This is convenient for illustrations, but the reality is that these parts are so functionally and anatomically integrated, that they aren’t really separate. Coming from the automotive world before becoming a chiropractor, I see the spine as something more like an automobile assembly module. It has hardware, software and wiring that all come together as a unit that interacts with a number of other systems.

The spine is a functional unit comprised of the brain, spinal cord, the vertebrae, spinal nerve roots, ligaments, and the intrinsic spinal muscles. All of these features are essential for each other to function. They all receive information from, and provide direction to, all of the bodies structures, allowing the human organism to function in a state of dynamic balance. The neurology of the spine provides feedback that fine tunes the

activities of the brain. This neuro-musculo-skeletal functional unit is truly inseparable, and we cannot understand how it works until we realize it is one system with the job of assessing and interpreting the environment and directing energy towards appropriate adaptation. So when I say spine, know that I am referring to this complete functional unit and not just the bones.

Function - The 1st Gift Movement masters, such as martial artists or dancers, know that all movement and power radiates outwards from a central core. The spine is the core of the core, it is the essential framework of the body. The limbs attach to it, the organs are supported by it, and all forces we generate have their source in its dynamic stability. All forces we experience find their way back to the spine, which absorbs them. The strength and flexibility of the spine is the measure of our capacity to adapt to mechanical stressors, and also it is the limiting factor. I can tell you from both personal experience and years of clinical observation that even the strongest are quickly brought to their knees by just one acutely inflamed spinal joint.

The spine is the organ of perception and interpretation. All incoming data finds its way to the central nerve system through the spine. That same spine then chooses which lens it will look through to interpret that data. I believe there to be three major lenses, the three divisions of the autonomic nerve system from polyvagal theory. The most dominant lens will be determined while the spine is developing its form in the first few years after birth. We are all born with a C-shaped spine. As we learn to

crawl and walk the mature S or J-shape is developed. The environmental cues of safety and danger interact with the spine to create the form most adaptable to the early childhood environment. A form closed down in defense may be the form best adapted to a physically challenging environment. A form open to social interaction will be the form most adaptable to an environment of safety.

These forms are not set in stone, they can change, because we can shift our lens. But this takes a tremendous amount of consciously directed effort coupled with strategies for effectively interrupting the programming from early childhood development. This highlights another function of the spine: adaptability. The spine can shift and transform itself according to demands over time. So much of this ability is dependent upon the spine’s perception and awareness. The peripheral nerve system must be able to receive and transmit information about its internal and external state to the brain, and the brain must be able to transmit instructions for adaptation to the body in return. The spine is the mediator of this process. The function of the spine modulates the processes of the brain, and vice versa.

If this is starting to sound like a chicken and egg kind of thing, you are getting the idea. There is a constant loop of feedbacks involving the spine, the environment, the brain, and the body. One will impact another and so on. It’s not that one is the complete master and commander, they all have an impact. The key to shifting outcomes from undesirable to desirable is to find an entry point into the system. The brain is terribly complex, poorly understood and very well-protected, leaving the

environment and the spine as access points for adaptive intervention. The function of the spine is the most logical access point to focus effort, as it has the greatest ability to shift both the function of the brain and our perception of the environment. Shifting the environment will be only as successful as the ability of our nerve system to perceive that environment as safe, and that depends upon which lens we are looking through. That lens is determined by the function of the spine.

In Yoga, the skewed perception of the world is called avidya, meaning “unable to see” or “without knowledge.” Its Latin cognate is where we get the word video, which means “to see or know”. This set of false perceptions clouds reality and blocks the achievement of our full potential. Kriya Yoga is the path to the dissolution of avidya, and the achievement of the perception of truth. The path of Kriya Yoga is threefold. One path, Tapas, includes the physical discipline of Hatha Yoga, as described in the chapter in this book on yoga. Hatha Yoga focuses on the spine as one method of attainting perception unclouded by the deception of avidya. In Tonal Chiropractic, the development of accurate awareness and perception is considered a highly desirable outcome of the chiropractic adjustment. Accurate perception and interpretation is the keystone for right action in life, and effective adaptation from an evolutionary and survival perspective.

Accurate perception and interpretation within the brain allow for appropriate control signals to be sent to all the organs and systems within the body, and the perfect chemical mix for the tasks at hand is the end result. Western medicine is based upon measuring these chemicals and creating ingestible or

injectable potions that will shift that chemistry towards the values the doctor believes are desirable. This dampens this first gift of the spine, creating a double insult. The chemistry is off, in most cases, because the perception and interpretation of the environment is inaccurate. There is a breakdown in the proper communication between brain and body that is preventing proper adaptation. Chiropractors call this breakdown subluxation. It’s an odd word since it gets defined a number of ways. But at its simplest it is nothing more or less than a breakdown somewhere in the three pillars of communication.

Emotion - The 2nd Gift Emotion is energy in motion. It is the chemical state of being that creates the energetic match between the internal and external environment. Emotion is the means in the process of adaptation. And it is intimately tied to the first gift of function. Our physical posture and movement are tied to our emotional state. There is even a grouping of brain regions that, linked together, create an emotional motor system. This system is split into two divisions. One division influences respiration - the heart, urination and defecation, vocalization, laughter and tears, and sexual behaviors. The other division controls the gain setting for the motor system in general. It is an amplitude modulator of sorts, influencing the excitability of the overall musculoskeletal system.

This emotional motor system conditions the body for an appropriate state of readiness. I am imagining a Samurai warrior, asleep, deep in the heart of a Japanese forest. Next to

him are two hundred of his best friends and fellow warriors. Two miles away there are four hundred of his worst enemies, all lying next to each other, all asleep. It is peaceful, for now, except for the mental state of the warriors with the expectation of what will come in the morning. An owl takes off from a weak branch in a nearby tree, snapping the crisp, dead, branch in two. Instantly, three hundred samurai awaken simultaneously, swords ring as they are drawn. They listen for a moment and the leader signals “all clear”. Swords go back in their holders, and the warriors go back to sleep. Next week, back home next to their lovers, they will sleep through a thunderstorm into late morning after celebrating their victory. They can thank a highly functioning emotional motor system for this ability to match their level of alertness to the environment at hand.

This emotional motor system also creates a link between our conscious experience of life and the physical body. Laughter, tears, and sexuality are obviously tied to our emotional experience and expression. But so is the tension and tone of our musculoskeletal system. This is easily seen in posture. We all sense that posture is closely tied to emotional experience. What few of us realize is how important a complete functional range of motion is to experiencing and expressing a complete range of emotion. In order to fully experience the environment we must be able to fully embody our response to it. You can see this at sporting events. The people who are standing up shouting and waving when their team scores are having a complete and embodied experience of sharing in the thrill of victory. The people sitting down hunched over in that same moment are physically incapable of feeling that victory to the same degree as the people jumping up and shouting with their

hands in the air. Our range of motion is practically analogous to our range of emotion.

The shape, position and tone of your spine determines the shape position and tone of your life. - Donny Epstein - Chiropractor

It is possible that this emotional motor system is the system responsible for the emotional release that sometimes happens with bodywork that we spoke of earlier. As the body adapts and learns it develops background patterns of muscle tension that hold it in the position most likely to place it in a position of resourcefulness. It will create these patterns from the dominant perceptual lens it is viewing the world through at that time. In the tonal chiropractic system I practice, it has been found that there are five basic tension patterns that most people adopt as adaptive strategies to the current cultural environment we find ourselves in. Developing internal awareness of these strategies, and energy efficiency within them, allows for their interpretation and integration. It allows us to shift through these lenses fluidly in

response to environmental demands rather than being stuck using just one or two. New understandings of past experiences, new strategies for adaptation, the creation of more appropriate emotional states, and the physical ability to dynamically match those emotional states with posture and motion, emerge from this work almost spontaneously.

The spine itself is a potent generator of emotional chemistry. The spinal cord is like Mother Nature’s built in drugstore. Full of endogenous opiates like endorphin, dynorphin, enkephalin, dopamine, and a complete spectrum of endocannabinoids, your spine can make anything a dope fiend could ever want. You could accurately say that the desire to consume drugs is the desire to

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consume drugs is the desire to generate an intense, unearned, chemical reward. Your body can get you high on its own. The high might not be as intense as what external chemistry can generate, but it also won’t kill you. Relying on outside chemistry creates bad habits. The behaviors that generate the most pleasant internal chemical states also tend to be behaviors that are in alignment with Operating System Nature.

Being a chiropractor I see the effects of spinal function shifting chemistry in the body on a regular basis. Chiropractors for over a century have heard patients describe a sense of euphoria after adjustments. But it wasn’t until Colorado legalized recreational marijuana and cultural attitudes about cannabis began to shift that I became truly curious about the phenomenon. Within that year there must have been a dozen patients that got up off the table and said something like “You know doc, this feels like a really good body high”, or “There you go getting me high again, Dr. Fox”. So I began to comb the literature on the endocannabinoid system to see how I was “getting people high” with my adjustments, so I could explain it to them. What I discovered was that chiropractic adjustments are known to change the activity in the brain regions that control opiate chemistry, and osteopathic manual therapy, related in physiological impact to chiropractic adjustments, has been known to more than double the body’s production of anandamide, the chemical present in cannabis that is thought to increase creativity and create a euphoric feeling of bliss.

Sense of Self - The 3rd Gift

An embodied sense of self is essential to fully experiencing and engaging with life. We take for granted that we are both conscious and self-aware, but these are two separate gifts. One does not automatically mean we will experience the other. Come close to death, step near the veil between the worlds - close enough to feel self-aware but still forget about being conscious - and you will know what I’m talking about. That was my experience after coming close to death in a childhood accident. Others have shared with me their experiences of hallucinogen powered journeys into pure consciousness, far beyond the bounds of self and form. Both of these experiences are wholly disembodied, yet feel absolutely real, as real as the world you come back to when consciousness returns to the body, or the 5-MeO-DMT wears off.

But you wouldn’t want to live there. You cannot live there, at least not for long. You have to come back, for biological housekeeping, to perform your thermodynamic sacrifice and transform energy towards furthering the abundance of life on Planet Earth. And to do that you need motivation. Experiencing what existence might be like in the world beyond can make you eager to go back. It’s frightening to think of a permanent transition there. My experience while laying on the hard ground, without breathing, was the most peaceful of my entire life. The hallucinogen-induced experiences of those I have spoken to exist on a spectrum from the pure bliss of merging with Christ to the terror of sheets transforming into a blanket of serpents. The snakes we could all do without, but the experience of disembodied consciousness often leads to an interest in the afterlife, and what comes next.

The embodied sense of self, self-agency, the ability to direct action and influence the world around us, coupled with the rewards of the gift of emotion, provide us with motivation to keep on fulfilling our role in life instead of sitting around high all the time. And this embodied sense of self-agency is a gift of the spine. Neurology embedded in the intrinsic musculature of the active spinal stability subsystem (the tiny muscles that wrap all around the vertebrae of the spine) contributes to creating this felt experience of self determination and embodiment. Position sensors are embedded in all of our muscles, commonly in numbers hovering around in the low single digits, typically 2-5 per gram of muscle tissue. Except; in the small intrinsic muscles that link one vertebra to the next, these muscles have as many as 250 sensors per gram of tissue.

The reason is because these muscles are not designed to generate force. They are present to provide a small amount of guidance for larger movements and to provide feedback about the shape, position, motion, and tone of the spine while it is performing its basic functional tasks. These muscles have activities that span across the various gifts. They provide a base of function, send signals to the brain that modulate the gift of emotion, and also contribute to the embodied sense of self-agency essential for us to experience this gift of a sense of self.

We know this because this gift is impaired in a few rare people on earth. And we have studied them in an attempt to help them recover. In one instance, a young butcher cut himself at work, fell ill, and woke up in the hospital with no ability to sense where his body was. His muscles were just fine, he was able to

use them. He wasn't paralyzed, he simply lacked the ability to feel where his body was. Most of the people this happens to never learn to walk or control their movements again. But this guy was stubborn and learned to control his movements somehow, which made him the perfect test subject to explore how self-agency is generated in humans.

Ian Waterman is the name of this fellow, and he was asked, along with six healthy individuals, to determine if the movement of a cursor on a computer screen was self generated or a random movement generated by a computer. The six individuals with normal position sense were able to perform this task with perfect accuracy. Ian had a great deal of trouble with it. That difficulty, coupled with several versions of the experiment which controlled for other variables, tells us that position sense is an essential factor in the experience of self-agency. If we cannot feel where we are in space, our experience of being the person responsible for the actions of our body, i.e. self-agency, is dramatically impaired.

This sense of self-agency doesn’t arise from the muscles of the vertebral column alone. There is a region in the brain called the extra-striate-body-area that receives information from these spinal position sensors and processes it, helping to generate the sense of self-agency within the brain. It also receives visual information about faces, and body parts in general. It helps us know the difference between self and other. And that is where the sense of agency comes in. It processes information about the body and movement, of the self and others, and helps distinguish the difference between the two, establishing a sense of self.

Modulating Sense of Self There are times when a strong sense of an individual self is undesirable. When situations are really intense, when you’re surfing a giant wave, running from a bear in challenging terrain, tracking an animal across the desert, making love with the most important person in the world, or driving a race car, you don’t want to feel separate from the experience. You need to be there, completely immersed, 100%. These situations can trigger a physical state known as deep flow. Deep flow is where the world’s best athletes live for their entire careers. It’s that intense state where everything works, you feel energized, hyper-focused, godlike almost. You are focused completely on the task at hand. Creative improvisation happens in this state as a rule rather than the exception.

It’s where every writer strives to get when they sit down to write. You sit focused, keyboard at hand, and everything sucks. You can’t put five words together, and then the struggle breaks and it all flows out. And the

writer forgets he exists, and that food needs to happen, that there is a beautiful distraction sitting a few chairs away. The conscious self gets out of the way, and the creative self merges with the task at hand, and performs. A strong independent sense of self is useless here. Operating System Nature has taken this need to modulate sense

of self into account and provided a means to achieve it.

The process involves transient hypofrontality. The pre-frontal cortex is the most evolutionary modern portion of the brain. Having an enormous prefrontal cortex is what we believe creates the conscious human experience and allows us to generate

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complex abstract thoughts. It’s the part of the brain that we use for future planning and appropriate social behavior. It is very expensive metabolically, and processes events rather slowly compared to the primitive subconscious mind. In situations when you need to be in flow, you need to be making decisions quickly. It was once thought that when we are in flow we use more of the brain. But it is completely the opposite. By diminishing the activity of the pre-frontal cortex we take the brakes off the rest of the brain. We focus all of our processing into areas that move quickly and get things done. This allows us to act, and drop our programmed inhibitions. In the flow state we simply perform, on automatic.

The other bizarre thing that can occur during this state of transient hypofrontality is a merging of our consciousness with that of another. There was a story in a book called The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler, about a base Jumper named Dean Potter. Potter was base jumping into a cave in Mexico when his parachute didn’t open. Being in a state of deep flow, he noticed a flash of orange near him and grabbed it. It was the rope the cameraman had used to lower his gear down. Potter somehow grabbed this rope and slowed his descent enough to crash land at the base of the cave and only break a few bones, plus some extreme bruising. Deep in the state of flow, completely overwhelmed by his body’s chemistry, with his dorso-lateral pre-frontal cortex shut down, he picked up a dying swallow with a broken wing at the bottom of the cave and had this to say.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” says Potter, “but the experience was so powerful, the connection so true. I just sat there with

that bird, holding it while it died. When it died I died with it. And I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean I became that dying bird.” Dean Potter - The Rise of Superman page 55

What Potter experienced has been happening to human beings for millennia. It may very well be the basis for religion itself. The convergence of transient hypofrontality with the function of a group of neurons called mirror neurons, (that will be discussed in greater detail in the 5th gift of the spine), allows us to merge with the object of our focus and gain experiential knowledge from it. We can merge with whatever the object of our focus is while in the deep flow state. That can be a swallow, a lover, or even God. Monks and Nuns, in deep meditative prayer, focused on the divine, can merge with that archetype. Because of the phenomenon associated with mirror neurons, it doesn’t even matter if the object of focus is real. We can even create an object of focus to merge with, an ability harnessed by Chaos Magick practitioners to generate entities with the qualities they wish to embody. By creating a being that has qualities they desire to have, and entering a state of deep flow, they can merge their consciousness with a creation of their own mind, with the end goal being taking on some of the attributes of this creation that they desire to embody.

By no means am I saying that God is a part of your creative imagination. With concepts this abstract, science meets its limitations to either prove or disprove, and faith must take over. But one thing I will say, is that this phenomenon works and can be harnessed to do a great deal of good. Even if you are an atheist, you would be wise to put this knowledge to use. If you don’t have a God, create an entity of your own with the

qualities you wish to embody and meditate upon it while generating a state of deep flow. You don’t even have to believe it is real. As you focus upon the qualities of the creation, merging with them in meditation, you will begin to mirror them neurologically. You will come to embody the qualities you desire over time and repetition. This technique can be very powerful.

This experience is universal. After learning about the flow state I began to see it happening all around me. I looked back on some unusual experiences in my own life and recognized its signature. Like Dean Potter, I once felt a strong connection with an animal that I couldn’t explain at the time. I had been fishing for five hours in a canoe with my grandfather. We were fishing in a river. He was paddling and I was standing in the bow of the canoe and making casts to visible structures in the river hoping to catch smallmouth bass. This type of fishing is very active - I was making several casts a minute, while balancing in the canoe, placing the casts within inches of logs and weed beds, all the while planning the angle of the casts so the retrieve would place my lure in the active feeding range of as many fish as possible, without getting it stuck on the logs in the water. All of these elements contribute to entering a flow state.

And I caught a fish! It was a beautiful copper colored smallmouth bass with red eyes and a dark starburst pattern on its gill plate. I put the fish on the stringer and immediately felt terrible. I kept fishing anyway, but found myself looking down at the fish with a great deal of empathy. “This fish fought so hard to escape, it must have a strong desire to live.” These were the kinds of thoughts running through my head for the next five minutes. Then I had the hard task of telling my grandfather I

wanted to let this fish go, but to my surprise, he was happy about it. Both of us had killed and eaten thousands of fish in our lifetimes. Fishing for food was something he had done his entire life, and I had learned from him. But this fish got to benefit from the empathy generated by my mirror neuron network through meeting me within a deep flow state.

The ability to recognize other objects around us as alive and autonomous is essential for us to see them as actors in life with motives and means just like us. This enriches our experience of life and increases our capacity for empathy, but from a purely practical perspective it also adds a significant amount of adaptive survival value. Being able to sense that other beings are autonomous selves, with emotional motives for their behaviors, allows us to consider what the emotional state of those we encounter might mean for us. Are they feeling threatened? Are they hostile? Are they friendly? How are they responding to my behavior? Can I safely eat in their presence? Are they trustworthy? These are important questions we need answered not just for other humans, but for other animals as well.

Sense of Other An extended property of this third gift could be thought of as a sense of other. This extension emerges from the function of the mirror neuron system, a collection of neurons distributed throughout the brain that mirror the object of our focus in our environment. This system allows us to project into the mind of the other. It is what allows us to learn things at faster rates and

and to “read the minds” of others by observing facial expressions and postures. When we observe someone performing a movement, our brains mirror their activity to a small degree. We get a little taste, and we learn from it. When we interact with another human we can get a sense of how they are feeling because of these neurons. Our brain activity mirrors theirs just enough to get a little taste of what their experience of life is. As we interact with the non human environment we can even anthropomorphize features of it and project meaning onto it, which is something I will discuss in greater detail for the fifth gift of the spine.

Another way to see this gift is as an emergent property of the gifts of function and emotion. Function determines the physical range of our available postures which influences our chemical/emotional state. The gift of emotion provides the energetic state that determines what that posture should be, how we should move, and what kind of information the parts of the brain responsible for sense of self will receive. Without these two gifts there would be no information reaching the brain to create a sense of self, no emotional charge to generate a state of being for that self to experience. When the spine is healthy we have the tools to perceive and interpret the environment, coupled with the emotional range to optimally meet it, which generates a state of being that creates our self image in that instant.

There are more brain regions that are associated with creating this sense of self than I have described above. There are many functions that must all integrate seamlessly together for us to express this gift optimally. Some of the regions responsible for

creating our sense of self knowledge, reflection, and embodiment are: the medial prefrontal cortex, medial posterior parietal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, the temporoparietal junction and the insular cortex. Earlier in this book I described how chiropractic adjustments are known to create functional changes in the prefrontal cortex, the cingulate cortex and the insular cortex. If chiropractic adjustments can create change in these regions, then logic follows that the musculoskeletal components of the spine, outside of the brain, are functionally integrated with it as a unit.

The way the spine orients itself in space, both statically and kinesthetically, determines our self construct. As the spine moves into a posture of power and openness, our self construct will match, and we will see ourselves as powerful and capable. As the spine moves into a rigid position of defense or slumps through a lack of energy, our self percept shifts to match. The spine must be capable of moving through a complete range of physical and emotional expression for us to meet the demands of the environment.

That includes those moments when the dissolution of the self and merging with the other is our desired outcome. When we want to connect. To mirror the self construct of another human at the deepest levels requires a flexible body and mind. This ability to mirror another physically aids in the mental/emotional gymnastics necessary to transcend the boundary of self and merge with someone we want to connect with, to the degree desired - and return back to self, whole, when the time for a moment of connection has passed and we need to step back inside and set up that boundary of self once again.

Behavior - The 4th Gift When we have a functional structure, with the energy to mobilize it, and the sense of self essential for motivating it, we generate behaviors. The degree to which we experience the first three gifts will determine the quality of this fourth gift. A functional spine, capable of expressing who we are as individuals, will lead to behaviors that are appropriate in all situations, as we show up powerfully in the world. Limitations or aberrant activity in any of the first three gifts will limit the range of behavior available to us. Those same limitations can result in a mismatch of behavior with environment, leading to maladaptive behaviors that damage us and others.

Think about it. How does someone behave who does not see themselves as responsible for their actions, with a limited emotional vocabulary, who is physically locked down and guarded, unable to either give or receive love? We have created names for the conditions those people experience in the DSMV manual: narcissism, major depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder etc. Now imagine someone who is able to hold themselves in an open position, who understands that they are responsible for their every word and deed, who has complete grasp on the full range of human emotion, and looks for every opportunity to share the beauty they see. How does this person behave? We all wish we knew more of these people. When we talk about these people we say things like “They have such a beautiful soul”.

Here’s the scary truth. They are both beautiful souls, but one of those souls is stuck in a perspective, lacking the physical range to embody openness, which is emotionally blunting them from expressing anything really positive. They are, most likely, unaware that they are experiencing and expressing less than their potential, or always seeing the worst in even the best of situations. They are not aware of the ugliness they’re sharing with the world.

That can be changed. The ugly behavior, most often, is simply the result of that person being stuck in a negative perspective or frame of reference because they lack the dynamic functional range required to express anything different. The blunted sense of self that comes along with this, prevents an embodied experience of this state and they are unaware that they might need to change, or that anything different is possible. These souls are salvageable. They can express more, feel more, as the gifts of the spine are rebuilt, fine tuned, enhanced and reprogrammed. Does this require chiropractic? Maybe, for some of them. But it may not. Does it require yoga? I can’t say for certain. Do they need a shaman? Perhaps. Or it may require chiropractic, yoga, a shaman, and a whole lot more.

We are all living in the spiral of growth or the spiral of decay. When functioning well we accurately perceive the environment and have the physical capacity to respond optimally. This allows us to perfectly match our emotional state to the demands of the environment and meet or exceed them. This is how we transform challenge into opportunity. The perfect level of embodied sense of self provides both the motivation and the correct level of focus to act. We use no more energy than we

Succession Success: from Latin successus "an advance, a coming up; a good result, happy outcome," noun use of past participle of succedere "come after, follow after; go near to; come under; take the place of," also "go from under, mount up, ascend," hence "get on well, prosper, be victorious,” - Online Etymology Dictionary

Succession is the ecological term for the maturation of a thriving ecosystem as it adapts to change in ways that allow it to grow from the challenge. Humans do the same when they are able to successfully adapt to their environment, becoming physically, emotionally, socially, and financially more resource-full. Cycles of successful adaptation lead to an energy rich experience of life. We grow, and our capacities to weather the storms of life increase. Our vital adaptive capacity - our chi, prana, manna, innate intelligence, syntropy, whatever term you use to describe it, will grow.

People caught in the spiral of decay do not thrive. They do not succeed. They make a sacrifice today that doesn’t yield more opportunity tomorrow. Often this occurs after an error in perception or interpretation. When the environment isn’t perceived or interpreted correctly, we do not make the correct adaptive choice. In this spiral an opportunity presents itself and instead of mobilizing energy in a way that allows us to thrive, we perceive it as a challenge and expend energy in way that reduces the amount available in the future. When perceptual errors occur, we waste energy and, like any ecosystem, wasted

energy results in a reversion to lower successional levels. We devolve instead of evolve.

Errors in perception occur for an almost infinite number of reasons. They may even be the result of a previously successful adaptation. Because our nerve system is primed to recognize patterns, we learn from each successful adaptation we make. If we have been adapting successfully to one type of situation for a very long time, and that situation changes, we might attempt to use our old strategy and fail. The key is not having one powerful strategy that works in all situations. It is being able to shift strategy with changing demands. This means being able to cycle through perceptual lenses in a way that allows us to see what is, not what we expect based on the past.

These lenses are the autonomic nerve system states that we respond to the world through and you have a number of them available to you at any one time. You should be able to select from among them to choose the lens most appropriate for the environment. The perceptual errors are most likely to arise when we are stuck viewing the world from one particular lens that has become our default. Our lens gets stuck for any number of reasons. Our nerve system may have been primed from birth to view the world as a place full of danger due to multi-generational epigenetic inheritance. Our parents, or us ourselves, may have grown up in a war zone like Syria or Iraq, or a crime ridden inner city neighborhood. Or we may have grown up in a sleepy, safe, small town in Minnesota and be stuck viewing the whole world as looking out for us.

If you stay in that environment, whichever situation it is, and it does not change, you will never be aware you are viewing the world from a stuck perspective, with a limited capacity for adaptation. I noticed this for the first time nine years ago on a mission trip to India. It was the first time many of the people I was traveling with had seen poverty, and probably the first time they were ever in real physical danger if they failed to be alert and keep their eyes open. We were very fortunate on that trip because the only persons that encountered any truly dangerous situations were those with a strong ability to shift lenses and act appropriately.

Three students on that trip had an interesting encounter with a drug dealer in the desert on the outskirts of town after being briefly waylaid by a rickshaw driver. It went exceptionally well because the students recognized the danger and made excellent choices. I’m proud of those guys for their composure and quick ability to recognize the danger and make the best choices available to them. On there other hand, there was another student who consistently elevated the level of risk we all experienced though their poor decision making. As a result of their inability to perceive the environment appropriately, and their subsequent behavior, outings that should have been pleasant tourist experiences became very risky, and disasters were only narrowly avoided almost everywhere we went.

The shape, position, and tone of the spine, and the dynamic ability to shift it, is how we transition between lenses, how we generate appropriate behaviors. The fully energized expression of each of the five gifts is essential for living the way humans were meant to live, for transforming the challenges of life into

opportunities for enhancing the energetic expression of the life force we have been gifted.

Humans are social animals, we need each other. The path towards the optimization of these five gifts is a social path. It involves others. We might need to ask for help to climb up out of the spiral of decay. The restoration of the first four gifts in the individual is historically the domain of The Tradition. The methods have already been described. Where we go next is to the fifth gift of the spine - consciousness - to discover how The Tradition interacts with Operating System Nature to create the potential for us to generate something like a heaven on earth, if humanity makes that choice collectively.

Consciousness - The 5th Gift Out of all the lines of code that comprise Operating System Nature, the bits encoding artistic ability and appreciation are the most uniquely human. Humans love to project meaning onto inanimate objects. The most highly valued members of any society have been often been artists. Even though American culture on the whole likes to joke about the value of art and artists.

“What did the arts major say to the business major? - Would you like an extra shot of espresso and whip on top?”

The reality is artists who can find a niche are some of the most financially rewarded people in our society. I’m not even talking about the rare example of a Dali or Warhol. Automotive styling,

Consciousness, like life, and art, is hard to define. Awareness is an obvious element of consciousness. But it’s something more than that. Consciousness has an abstract element to it. It’s interpretive, but in a metaphoric way. What is a metaphor but an abstract, integrated, expression of the second pillar of communication - interpretation? All the other animals perceive a risk in the environment, interpret it as danger and flee. Yet Picasso paints Guernica, after the bombing of the town by the same name during the Spanish Civil War - and it’s recognized as a beloved masterpiece. Humans express abstract awareness on a level unparalleled in the natural world. Our lives are completely saturated with art in its purest definition. All of human designed civilization and culture is art.

Art: something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings

Etymology of Art: Old English Eart - human workmanship (as opposed to nature) - Sense of Cunning and trickery (See the artful dodger in Oliver Twist)

Artifice - Latin: ars facere - art - to make

Artificial - from Latin artificialis "of or belonging to art," from artificium (see artifice). Meaning "made by man" (opposite of natural)

To make a city, is to create art. To garden or farm, to arrange nature, is to create art. To generate culture is to create art. We are creators. We get to decide what kind of world we live in. And the quality of the expression of this fifth gift determines the

quality of the world we will create. The gift of consciousness is almost a purely emergent phenomenon. Its arises from the interaction of the first four gifts, with the addition of something a little extra, something hard to quantify, something with a source that is supreme in its mystery. We may never know how it really works. Perhaps it is one of the last treasures in a Pandora’s Box of knowledge that keeps us searching for more.

How creativity happens We know that there are different brain waves associated with different states of consciousness, Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma. Each of these states has different characteristics and abilities.We shift and transition through these patterns of brain waves from moment to moment as we dynamically interact with the world. Perhaps the most rapid transition between these states occurs during our journey into and out of the flow state. Flow is that magic place where everything we do feels effortless and seems to work out perfectly. It’s the place where ultimate performance comes from. Flow is split into four stages. Each stage of flow has a characteristic brain wave pattern and chemical state. I’m going to describe them here because I believe it is important for us to recognize the manner in which people become creative. Creativity isn’t like the magic in Harry Potter, where you are either Magic, Muggle, or Mixed. In real life we can all access the magic of creativity. Even though some of us are better at it, anyone can learn. Accessing flow is accessing the wellspring of creative potential, meeting the muse, and what follows is the science of how we meet that muse.

Struggle - the first phase of flow Flow isn’t meant to be the baseline state of waking consciousness. It is simultaneously the reward and method for creative action and problem solving. This means something needs to push us into it. We need to be challenged to access flow. We need to struggle for the brain to decide it’s time to let loose the feel good chemistry. Struggle in the brain is associated with Beta waves. There are two divergent paths out of the struggle stage: Relaxation into flow, or panic into fight and flight or burnout.

Cortisol and adrenaline are the dominant chemistry in this stage. This increases our focus, our neural efficiency, and our emotional control. We are locked on target. In this state, under just the right conditions, we are primed to switch from conscious, slow, low capacity neural processing to subconscious, fast, high capacity neural processing. We can also artificially induce this chemical state through consuming stimulants such as caffeine.

Relaxation - the second phase of flow Relaxation is that stage where the subconscious whispers in the ear of the conscious, “Hey, don’t quit, I’ve got this!”. Then it takes control. Your breathing changes, and Nitric Oxide is released to flush away the cortisol and adrenaline of the struggle stage. Dopamine, Anandamide, and Endorphins surge. We are engaged, and more creative, with an increased ability to think laterally, to make connections between things we

were not aware of before. These chemicals make us feel good, block pain, bliss us out. Our brainwaves switch to Alpha, a state of focused meditation.

This artificial method for inducing this state is most commonly cannabis consumption. Cannabis contains analogues to anandamide, which is the chemical responsible for increasing our lateral processing capabilities while in the flow state. Adventure sport athletes have figured some of this out and developed a chemical combo that helps induce phase one and two together: the hippie speedball. This is slamming a shot of espresso followed by a puff or two of cannabis. This increases cortisol, adrenaline and anandamide at the same time - priming the body for a flow state experience once they get out on the water or up in the mountain.

Flow - The third phase of flow Here the brain switches over to Theta waves and all the chemistry of the relaxation phase is actively modulated by the nerve system. We are intensely focused on the present moment, our actions and awareness merge, we lose reflective self consciousness while still retaining a sense of personal agency over our activity. And everything feels good. We are living in the now. The ego has dissolved. Our experience of time expands and contracts as the situation demands.

As this state intensifies, it becomes possible to transition to Gamma waves in the brain. This is a state of massive lateral integration, where leaps in human evolution occur. This is

where scientists make breakthrough discoveries, where athletes have career defining performances, where lovers express their mutual truths in ways that transcend the meaning words can deliver. The most rewarding experiences in life happen here.

Recovery - The fourth phase of flow What goes up must come down. Flow is metabolically expensive. We need time to recover, get back to baseline, allow the chemical substrates for the flow state to recover. This is where the things we learned during the experience transfer from short to long term memory. We can’t live in flow forever, but we can get a taste, which is enough. It motivates us to keep on going, to find our way back.

This stage can be rough. It has been dubbed “the dark night of the flow” by some of the folks who study the flow state. We can experience depression, meaninglessness, and all manner of mental and emotional discomfort while recovering from an intense flow experience. When you aren’t aware of what is happening you can think you're going crazy, that something is wrong with you. But once you are aware that it is part of a process you can learn to work with it, to recognize it and rest and recover instead of trying to drug your way back through it.

To be clear, this is not the only cause for emotional discomfort. But for an athlete or performer of some kind, (and many of us are high end performers in our respective fields) the regular occurrence of mild depression after an event, or even the

completion of a really intense project, could very well be the body signaling the need to rest and replenish after the intensity of the flow experience.

Thank You Thank you for reading this introduction to yoga and Operating System Nature. I can be reached at foxpeter@gmail.com if you have interest in working with me as a chiropractor, movement coach, or for workshops on any of these topics or those found in Operating System Nature: The Birth of The Tradition.

Copyright

Dr. Peter J Fox 2018 - foxpeter@gmail.com