Cycling and Yoga

Some years ago I became seriously interested in Hinduism, a religion that differs in many important ways from the Western Judaeo-Christian tradition. That tradition is dominated by the concept of a personal God as creator and ruler of the universe, and of mankind’s destiny as unfolding under the power and authority of God, who is believed to act in history, to intervene directly in human life. The imperfections and sufferings of humanity are explained as arising from mankind’s sinful nature, which can be healed only by following the divine example of a saviour-god, Jesus Christ, as interpreted by the Churches. Hinduism by contrast identifies a cosmic power, Brahman, which is impersonal, which permeates the entire universe, but which can be approached by the solitary human mind and spirit.To be one with Brahman is to gain release from the sufferings of this life – this is the great goal of Hinduism.This religion has developed without the authoritarian power of churches or priests, and it has focussed above all on analysing the workings of the human spirit and personality as they interact with the dharma, the laws of good and evil, life and death. To study

Hinduism is a form of deep psychological therapy which encourages us to look beyond the mechanisms of materialism and daily life to the fundamental realities of our existence.To achieve that perspective, that insight, is to find peace in being at one with the cosmos. Hinduism is a pantheistic religion, seeing God as Brahman all around us and potentially within us, God without a complex historical apparatus of religious doctrines. It has a strongly mystical element: the conviction that a transcendent dimension of spirit or being can be realised in the inner life of the individual.

Hinduism has always been non-authoritarian and non-doctrinaire, and many Indian schools of philosophy and thought have developed over the centuries to express the sense of the unity between God, Man and the Universe. Some of these schools made vital contributions to Hinduism, while still retaining their own unique message and identity. Among these, the two I wish to discuss are Sankhya and Yoga, which are technically separate from each other but very closely related. The earliest known texts of Sankhya (sometimes written Samkhya) date from the second century AD, but it undoubtedly had roots older than that. The essence of Sankhya philosophy is that the human mind is constantly in bondage to the material world, to the desire to gain wealth, power, possessions and achievements, in other words, success in all its forms. In this desire we are in constant competition with our fellow-creatures, and consequently conflict and unhappiness fill much of our lives. Our minds and energies are turned outwards, intent on mastering the material world, and we lose sight of any higher ideals of living at peace with the world and with ourselves, indeed we lose sight of our true selves as part of the miraculous world of nature in its beauty and harmony.Above we lose any sense of trying to approach transcendent concepts such as Brahman. Sankhya was a system of thought and action which offered release from the bondage of material ambition, and a way into freedom and peace of mind. Its core doctrine was discrimination between ephemeral life-experiences and the eternal realities which lay behind them. It aimed to dispel the dark clouds from our life to reveal the hidden life of the true self, mind and spirit, just as a wind might arise and dispel the dark clouds which were hiding a clear blue sky. The Sankhya ideal was called kaivalya, which means isolation, concentration and perfection; it meant withdrawing from the distractions of everyday life, in order to calm and set free the mind to search for deep spiritual truth. Sankhya offered a lengthy course in deepening consciousness, to understand the self and the place of the human mind and spirit within the world of nature. It was of course highly speculative, but it was quasi-scientific too, for it contained a theory of evolution to explain how the forms of physical and mental life could have emerged from the raw materials of nature.

The really interesting thing is that Sankhya philosophy had a counterpart, a twin brother, in Yoga, which offered a pathway of physical discipline to lead to the same intellectual and spiritual goal. We all know the physical aspect of Yoga – the strange exotic postures – but it is essential to realise that these are a controlling discipline to calm mind and body, withdrawing the senses from the physical surroundings through meditation and concentration on the pure being of one object or concept or ideal, including the Yoga postures and breathing. The conceptual, psychological training of Sankhya compliments and overlaps with the physical training of Yoga. Both disciplines also emphasise moral training: the practice of calmness, non-violence, honesty, simplicity of life, selflessness, and non-attachment to material things. There is evidence that Yoga was practised in India more than three thousand years ago, and, although not originally associated with mainstream Brahmanism, it steadily became so, because it shared the Hindu concern to explore the relationship between the human spirit and the cosmic spirit.Yoga became almost universally practised by the numerous religious groups in India, and it is a form of spiritual and physical self-purification that was unique to India, at least until around one hundred years ago when it began to reach the West.

While I was tentatively learning about Hinduism, Sankhya and Yoga, I was gradually finding links, connections, points of contact, between this ancient system of spiritual belief and my own life. In particular there came a moment when I realised that I already possessed an equivalent to Yoga in my life: it was cycling, which had for so many years been for me the dominant form of exercise, outdoor relaxation, sport and pleasure, and which now, with the onset of old age, seemed to be more important than ever to me. I accept that the comparison between Yoga and cycling sounds a very unlikely one, in fact at first glance it sounds almost nonsensical, because weare confronted by the obvious problem that Yoga is all about stillness and isolation in one restricted space, while cycling is about energetic movement through open spaces. I accept this completely, but I am not claiming that cycling is a form of Yoga, rather that it can be in some ways an equivalent to Yoga. Let me try to explain what I mean by this.

Cycling fundamentally is a liberating experience, whether in attractive open countryside or even in a busy city. In the first case you can explore natural landscapes of hills, valleys, woodlands, country roads and small villages, and in the second case you can travel through an urban landscape quickly and freely, moving exactly from point to point without the delays or costs of motor transport. Country cycling sounds more like fun of course, and yet cycling through a city also gives a great sense of freedom, because you go directly wherever you want to, without being trapped in a transport system, and much faster than walking. In both cases, country and city, you become absorbed by your environment, your instincts of sight, sound, space and direction form a kind of map in your mind, upon which you must concentrate.The interesting thing is that this means that you cannot be absorbed in anything else: the other things which normally fill and perhaps trouble your mind, are calmed, stilled and put aside. This effect is increased by the physical effort that cycling demands: if you ride at any speed and at a reasonable level of effort, it becomes impossible to think in any detail or at any depth.You cannot ponder the problems of philosophy, or the problems of your personal finances, or a difficult relationship at home or at work, or form a plan to escape on a foreign holiday, or rehearse a speech from Shakespeare, while you are cycling.These things simply aren’t possible because large areas of your mind are switched off, and this is why cycling has a calming and therapeutic effect.

This effect is intensified when you ride through beautiful countryside on a fine day, as you breathe clean air and find yourself reconnecting with nature. It is intensified further if you ride hard, not necessarily flat-out at racing speed, but hard enough to stress your breathing and your leg muscles, because this level of effort creates a sensation of being linked to nature, linked to the earth, especially the hills, and the air itself, because it is from the air that you draw your strength. Being out in the sunlight, or even in the rain, brings you strongly back in touch with nature, whereas most people most of the time are insulated from it. And when you have finished your ride, and are tired, even close to exhaustion, that too is beneficial, because your body and mind will be relaxed and filled with a sense of well-being, a feeling which leads many people into the condition known as exercise-addiction. It is now known that this arises because exercise stimulates the brain’s production of endorphins, the so-called feel-good chemicals which inhibit pain and distress. One final point: these calming, healing effects of cycling are more noticeable if one cycles alone; social cycling entailing even intermittent conversation, is very well in its place, but it obviously rules out solitude, which is a rare thing in modern life, and another of cycling’s great gifts.

Given that these are some of the mental and physical effects of cycling, it will become clear how cycling may be thought of as in some ways an equivalent to yoga. The all-important link is the calming effect on the mind: mental stress and anxiety, so endemic in modern life, are smoothed away as the mind effectively isolates itself from these negative thoughts and, switches into a different mode. That mode is a strange blend of concentration and relaxation, resulting from the physical exercise of the body. The great point of difference is that the Yoga practitioner is still, as nearly as possible motionless, usually in a confined space, while the cyclist is definitely moving through an extended open space, typically for two or three hours. But if that space is an attractive one, this results in a further level of mind- and mood-calming, re-connecting the rider with the elements of nature. This effect can still work, even if the elements happen to be wind and rain rather than sun and blue skies, because like Yoga, cycling becomes part of a life-structure and a discipline, built up day by day as its value makes itself felt, not abandoned on a whim because the weather happens to be unfavourable. One specific and obvious link between cycling and Yoga is the importance of air, for breathing fills the being with nature’s great but tenuous breath of life – as it was called in the ancient world – which give strength and control to the body.

This sense of wellbeing will often prompt the cyclist to probe deeper into the core values of his or her life, and to develop a saner perspective on the norms of contemporary society, many of which are actually life-destroying rather than lifeenhancing. That perspective will bring the balance between mind and body to the forefront, and highlight the way physical discipline and activity can offer deep psychological benefits. Whether a rider goes on to explore systems of thought, such as Sankhya and disciplines such as Yoga, is entirely a matter of personal choice; but I was very struck by the way in which my reading about those subjects seemed to illuminate the pattern of my life – the philosophy giving meaning to the experience of cycling, and the cycling making sense of the philosophy. In a word perhaps, one could say that both cycling and Yoga loosen the bonds of the ego, the personality with which we face the outside world, interact with it, and perhaps try to dominate it. Cycling and Yoga to some extent dissolve the less attractive aspects of the ego, and take us back to a more innocent relationship with ourselves and our environment. Most of us learn to cycle in our childhood, and I have said many times that the cyclist is like a person who has never really grown up, never given himself entirely to the adult world, but has retained the sense of freedom and innocence which a child finds in play, and which cycling makes possible still for the adult. I do not claim that cycling is the only activity to achieve this, on the contrary, pursuits such as running, swimming, mountaineering and dancing, and no doubt others too, all function by harmonising mind and body. It is interesting to notice that the stillness of the Yoga devotee seems to reflect something basic in the oriental mind, while the Western character seeks and finds that precious mind-body harmony through physical activity.