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What is the Yoga of Writing?
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All the writers I have ever known or read about want to write without edit, without self. That is, we desire to write without interference or distraction from the mind. If only we could enter a state of effortless concentration, where words flow and the writing is—to borrow a term from Zen Buddhism—nondual, not separate from the writer. In this state, we become one with the subconscious, with the pen, with the keyboard. It’s like a runner’s high. Time is suspended. Every moment seamlessly yields to the next without noise from the mind—no rationalizations, no doubt, no distortion—and the writer experiences at-one-ness with his or her craft. This much sought after experience of free and complete absorption is what author and University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as a “flow” state. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” Intuitively, most writers sense that a writing flow state can exist. Some have even experienced it. Unfortunately, most of us struggle to develop a rhythm. We become obsessed with the profundity of a novel idea that hasn’t been written before. So we prioritize activities, reduce commitments, restructure our schedule, clear the desk, get up early, sharpen the pencil, and in a state of complete disquiet, sit and stare at the blank page. Many books have been written on the subject of writer’s block and many more techniques developed to help artists attain free-flowing expression. And yet we still have difficulty putting ink on the page. Why? Because the space where writing happens is more than a creative space: it is the space—what the pious describe as the place of divine union with God. Some theologies express this idea as non-dualistic Oneness: we are both the witness and the observed. We are the mind having the thought and we are the thought itself. This non-duality of the mind, in which the mind is no longer divided against itself, is called samadhi, a state of profound peace. For many, writing is a ritual that helps to realign us with our higher Self. When we experience a “flow state,” and our authentic voice rolls forth without caution or self-judgment, the doer and the doing merge into one. And for a moment, maybe longer, we experience something sacred. We become quiet, we begin to feel. We remember what moves us. We find the words. The Yoga of Writing is the organic, ever-changing process of personal reintegration—a state of personal clarity when we feel a sense of love for all. It is the freedom from chronic disturbances and symptoms of stress that effect our immune system. It is bringing the mind, body, and spirit into harmony. As a focusing tool for writers, The Yoga of Writing can help flush the psyche of habituated thoughts in order to write from a space of receptivity instead of will. It can help writers cultivate internal silence, so they can look more deeply into the nature of their thoughts and emotions, void of analysis and subjectivity. The Yoga of Writing techniques are tailored and adapted to meet the individual needs of each writer so that we express ourselves with our whole body and not just the mind. The result is an unlocked, open door to the subconscious, whose power can then emerge. The Yoga of Writing is the key to accessing this place of no-thought from which creativity will leap—as if from a diving board, onto the vast white page. In this state, the writer’s job then becomes that of the scribe, putting the words on paper as they appear on the breath of consciousness, without effort, like clouds on the horizon—organic, alive and weightless. To be in the flow is to simply write, without edit, without thought. That’s it: no spiritual jargon, no religion to join, just your best stuff, readily accessible.
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