Surfing and yoga have been two things central to my life for decades now. I can't imagine life without one or the other. Saltwater is in my bloodstream, the rise and fall of the waves like the rise and fall of my breath. Yoga constantly connects me to the divine and the eternal field of consciousness where all else falls away and I can find blissfulness and peace.

In many ways, surfing is the same meditative tool for me and in these steemposts, I'm going to explain why the two are interconnected - both as meditative tools that are ways of deeply connecting to the Earth, bringing a sense of joy through conscious awareness.

The Progressive Quieting of the Fluctuations of the Mind

In Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutras’, he describves yoga as the ‘progressive quieting of the fluctuations of the mind’. Through practicing yoga and cultivating detachment, we start to stop identifying with the thoughts, feelings and sensations that can bring us pain and grief. When that happens, we open to an experience of our true self. Yoga assists us to go deeeeep into our being and find that place that’s beyond all the things we identify with – mother, brother, boss, teacher – to go beyond these temporary things that anchor us. This is where all energy and creativity comes from in life.

We thus move from individuality to universality.

When our minds are busy, we’re rarely in the present moment. We’re always desiring or worrying about a future, or churning over an event in the past. Our mind is in the constant circuit – desire, take action, gain an impression (samskara) which gives way to a desire, to action and so on. The mind churns, and churns, and churns. This is what catches us in habits of mind, and we believe we’re stuck in a situation because we can’t imagine it otherwise. Through yoga (and meditation must be thought of as part of yoga) helps you break free of this cycle. We focus our attention (dharana) whilst watching the thoughts come and go, and in between an unbound awareness or consciousness (Samadhi).

When our mind is freed in this expanded awarenss of self, we are able to awaken to our own infinite potential. We become immersed in an expanded state of being. This feeling of expansion might occur in meditation or in moving meditation practices such as surfing or asana practice.

Resonant Sound That Quiets Mental Activity

In yoga, sounds can temporary interrupt the unceasing chatter and busyness of the mind. By focussing on sound, we can start to see the silent space between thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves which bind us. Aum or Om is the best known sound – the sound the universe makes, and can take us into the field of awareness beyond our individual experience of life.

Think about standing on the shore, deep in the cycle of our breath. As we watch the waves we might notice that the inhalation and the exhalation mirror the waves as they rise and fall. This rhythm sings to us of our origins in the Earth and our place on the planet, the cosmos, and existence itself.

Listening to the ebbs and flows of the tides, we remember the sound of Om, and aspects of our life that are beyond control. We become closer to the earth that holds us rather than aspects of our limiting selves.

Surfers as Environmentalists: A Deep Connection to Nature

When we are so deeply connected to the patterns of the tides and the rhythms of the Earth, we become more deeply sensitive to environmental issues. Rising tides and climate change are immediate threats, and thus the first sound – the sound of Om – (whether we are interpret this as The Universal Sound or are just intuitively aware of its hum) can cause us to want to do something to prevent any harm. We can't harm anything that is essentially us.

Larson, Usher & Chapmon (2017) in their research "Surfers as Environmental Stewards: Understanding Place-protecting Behavior at Cape Hatteras National Seashore" found that surfers:

"reported significantly higher levels of place attachment. When controlling for other variables, surfers were also more likely than other recreationists to engage in both high-effort (e.g., participating in environmental groups) and low-effort (e.g., picking up litter on the beach) forms of place-protecting, pro-environmental behavior"

This place protecting behaviour is what keeps Bells Beach from being subdivided and shops and highrises being built there. It's why nearly every surfer in Torquay has a SeaShepard sticker on their car. Whether they consciously practice asana or meditation or not, the constant meditations on the sea, breath tuned to tides and an awareness of the environment bigger than the individual self has made so many surfers become environmental stewards.

Local Artist Mural of The Rainbow Serpent On Bells Beach Amenities

In that way, too, yogis and surfers will try their best to practice ahimsa, causing as little harm as possible to the world that they feel such a deep connection to.

I am so lucky to be able to access this deep awareness of a consciousness behind the self through both surfing and yoga. As I practiced both today, I am totally wiped... I am off to listen to ocean oms as I fall into sleep. I will talk more about the relationship between surfing and yoga in Part 2.

Are you a surfer or a water nymph? Does this ring true to you? Or is there another environment that connects you to a deeper conciousness? I would love to hear your thoughts!

I'm also totally honoured to be a passenger on the #ecotrain - check out this hashtag for some pretty amazing posts permaculture to meditation, environmental issues to food forests - I highly recommend checking out this tag as you're guaranteed of sweeeetness!