My 17-year-old wants a Tesla.
He shows me different models and their latest features. He talks about how it can pick me up at the grocery store curb. He tells me about the computer, the self-driving, the automatic updates, the parking sensors. He talks about the shape, the style, the motor, how it doesn’t use a combustion engine.
in a last-ditch sales pitch effort: it’s good for the environment!
Luckily, he’s also a realistic kid. He doesn’t mind driving our 2014 Honda Civic and enjoys the moon roof and the sunglass compartment. And, to be clear, I don’t mind that he wants a Tesla. It’s not gonna happen of course 😁, but it’s also a developmentally appropriate desire.
When I think about Tesla cars, I also think about the big personality and genius of Elon Musk – his wealth, his ambition, and all the material things his success affords him – like cars, rockets, an apocalypse bunker in New Zealand, whatever else he wants.
He’s got luxury.
I used to think about luxury as exclusively expensive. Once basic needs are met, the next logical step, according to our culture, is luxury.
But the idea that wealth brings luxury and luxury is the apex of civilization is a capitalist ruse.
Research shows that once income levels get to the point that basic needs are met comfortably (around US$70,000 per person, per year), life satisfaction does not increase.
At this point, I could skip down the path of exploring the mental illness that lies at the heart of excessive wealth accumulation and its accompanying lack of concern for human suffering, but that’s been well detailed elsewhere. I think there’s something else to discuss.
Yoga practice has the potential to unveil a deeper, endogenous kind of luxury. All humans need and deserve love, safety, food, clothing, shelter and health care. Beyond that, we need individual stuff – material things that satisfy who we are individually – Lulu’s, a Tesla, a swimming pool, or whatever.
But what’s after that?
You can search everywhere and acquire every sparkly thing that captures your attention – but there will always be some new, upgraded Tesla, iPhone, or yoga mat. Material luxuries are by their very nature transient and the dopaminergic pleasure they afford is, by its very nature, fleeting.
When I roll out my mat, lie down on my back, close my eyes, start to focus on my breath and move slowly, I encounter a luxury that I can only access endogenously.
Luxurious is the best word I can use to describe the neurochemistry (plus a sprinkle of pixie dust) of the experience.
With slow, mindful asanas I can activate (at various times, in various ways, for various reasons) serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, and GABA. I can reduce cortisol and sympathetic nervous system activation.
I can luxuriate in the sensations of movement and feed soothing interoceptive messages to my brain that tune my whole cortical mantle towards a luxurious parasympathetic response. I can get to know and like my body and myself better, I can activate gratitude, self-compassion, and self-acceptance.
With pranayama practice, I can leverage the interneuronal messenger nitric oxide and feed that into my olfactory bulb to dampen down the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (stress) response. I can luxuriate in the sensations of my breath stroking the inside of my nose and throat and giving a massage (that I could never get at a spa) to my organs from the inside out. I can ride the waves of prana towards their source in my higher power or inner divinity, I can imagine I’m breathing with the universe and connecting to the source of the lifeforce.
With chanting and kirtan I can stimulate my vagus nerve and feel expansive, unconditional love. With satsanga I can activate my social engagement system and find mutually satisfying relationship and meaning.
With meditation, I can kick all these benefits up a notch, and I can sit in the awareness of my integral existence as a part of the limitless whole. I can enter a liminal space, deepen my personal spiritual connection and experience awe.
Yoga is more precious than gold, it’s an endogenous luxury.
There’s no shame in wanting a luxury car or a luxurious life. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go to beautiful places or to take a joy ride in outer space. Adventure is fun.
But practice offers something different.
It offers luxury that is uniquely yours, always available at your finger (or toe) tips. In these uncertain times of great upheaval and inequity, it makes me feel better to know that luxury is always available to me, and to everyone who’s ready to learn how to luxuriate from within.
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W O W ….. all of this! You truly have a gift of expression that can resonate so deep. Thanks for this – May I share (I’ll give credit of course!!)
yes of course. thank you!
Thank you for providing that link with your own experience and expertise that is shared with this group.
My near 16 year old wants a Tesla too – the power and the environment are his motivators. He’ll have to settle for our much smaller, less fancy EV. And hopefully he too can gain from some of your sharing of subtle yoga from you through me. Namaste
The shear luxury of Yoga!!! Thank you – I too would love to share this with my lovely Yogis – who will knowingly nod their heads and smile!
🙏NOW we begin the practice of Yoga…
Kristine, dear Kristine, thank you for these words of truth and inspiration. I will be feeling this more and more deeply with every breath I take and every yoga posture that I practice. Further more I will feel the luxury of taking it with me into every moment of my life.
I will be sharing these truths little by little with my students as we practice ‘slow yoga’.
Thank you again and blessings to you.
Joanne. x
Amazing writing – I feel grateful (and indulgent) for the luxury of yoga in my life.
I love your description, it definitely feels luxurious and tempting to even the most awkward and inflexible among us.
I was very interested in your opening passage about your son and the Tesla. My son too and then his Mum and Dad thought that’d be a great idea too. I recently listened to a very interesting interview on Australian National radio….The Rare Metals War . Here’s the link if he or others are interested in how new technologies aren’t as ‘green’ as we thought. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-rare-metals-war/13364050 . It’s a real eye-opener.
Love your work BTW Christine
Ah yes, I’ve heard this Janine and I will check out the article. Thank you!
🙏I agreed with Beth, you always express your truth so beautifully, it speaks to my heart and moves me. Blessings to you Kristine ❤️
Love the messages you so eloquently send. You inspire me 💕
What a wonderful reading to wake up to this morning. Thank you. I want to share with permission and give credit as well. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Kristine. I do still question how luxury at the level of Mr. Musk relates to the Yamas. Perhaps his level of luxury spawns invention? I am a dual Canadian/American citizen. Canadians do tend to have a little more of a socialist view. However, that is not a judgment just a reflection of my discomfort with the imbalance of wealth distribution. What if Elon studied with a yogi for a year? For me, he represents the global tyranny of exteroception.
I almost went there with the blog Deitre, but I wanted to highlight something different this time, because the egregious display of wealth is deeply problematic and has been well analyzed elsewhere. Nevertheless, I agree wtih your Canadian democratic socialist leanings. The idea that external resources are unlimited is grossly unfair and deeply delusional. I think your description of him (and I would include Bezos and the other oligarchs) as representing the “global tyranny of exteroception” is spot on. The lack of a wealth tax is also unconscionable. And, I would argue that pointing this stuff out is not at all judgmental – it’s simply practical.
By the way… my 15 year old son also loves Tesla cars! Ha. And, I really appreciated you highlighting inner luxury. I taught yoga and Pilates in Los Angeles in the early 2000’s to some very, famous and wealthy people. Many of them were terribly stressed, lonely and disillusioned. One man in particular suffered serious chronic pain. I took a risk and taught a very slow, gentle class with him (after asking if he would be willing to try it). Even his facial expressions began to change. A few classes later, he started to meet me each morning outside on his front lawn with a big smile and a renewed enthusiasm. We parted ways when he had to leave for a movie shoot in China but he told me he would really miss our sessions.
That’s sweet Deitre thanks for sharing. While animosity towards the ultra rich and famous is understandable in many ways, particularly with the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, I think helping the ultra-wealthy wake up may be one of the only ways to address the issue meaningfully. Regardless of your wealth, fame or power, everyone has challenges and issues.
Right on, (as usual), Kaoverii !!
thanks Sue! xo
thanks Kristine, that is a wonderful piece. I love the word luxury associated with Yoga, its so true. The most important thing of all is the connection to the Power/ universal life force.
yes I agree. And it’s a subversive luxury (which makes my inner rebel even happier!)
Love this!!! This resonates 🙂 Thank you!
Thank you!
Wow, wonderfully written… I feel so proud to be part of the Subtle Yoga Resilience Society and to be able to continue learning more with Kristine Weber… thank you!
This is perfect and exactly what I am looking for as a reason to do yoga! Brilliant. Thank you!
Thank you! Beautifully written and said. Looking forward to learning more about yoga and sharing it. It is a beautiful, freely given luxury that also reminds us of how incredibly we are designed! XxO
I love this so much! For me the ultimate luxury is TIME. When I set aside time for myself to ground, move, breathe and BE I feel like the richest person in the world. That’s why mindful/subtle yoga and meditation is both a necessity AND a luxury for me.