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Finding my way to Jainism
By Allison Bergson
Jain
Allison Bergson recently completed her Masters in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University. Last summer she attended the Yoga and Jainism course at ISSJS in New Delhi and the Understanding Jainism Course at Jain Vishwa Bharti in Ladnun. Since September of 2015, Allison takes Pathshala classes at the Jain Center of Southern California and this summer, she will return to ISSJS to co-lead the Teaching for Peace Program. She currently teaches yoga at Youthbuild, a local nonprofit that helps students who have dropped out or who were kicked out of traditional high schools.
When I first learned that the masters in yoga studies course at Loyola Marymount University included travel to India, I was excited. The travel would focus on something I had never heard of called Jainism, although it is the sixth largest religion in the world. In fact, when I first heard the word Jainism itself, I immediately thought of a popular rock and roll song called "Jane Says” by the band Jane's Addiction. The song is about a girl named Jane with little emotional control and childish coping mechanisms. She has a lot of psychological and material attachments such as her wig and television. The passion and anger she has towards a boyfriend makes her react and she take a swing at him which only leaves her angrier and sadder to the point of tears. She dreams about moving far away to Spain, to start life over in a place far removed from the pain and suffering arising from her current circumstance. If only Jane knew about the Jain religion, then maybe she would have known a thing or two about Vairagya, dispassion. The first time I had ever heard the word dispassion was at the Jain Center of Southern California. Vairagya is a necessary component of spiritual life that helps one cultivate neutrality and equanimity amidst all experiences.
This portrait, of a highly emotional and insecure female lead, sums up the qualities I had acquired as a young girl without being aware of my demeanor. While studying Anthropology at UCLA, I experienced a heightened sense of emotional distress to recent traumas in my life. I was still coping with my parent's recent divorce, a friend who took his own life, a father figure in and out of the ICU and an emotionally abusive relationship. In my world, coping was more akin to suppression because I seriously lacked emotional awareness and the ability to introspect. Whereas the girl named Jane turned her violent anger and sadness outward, I directed mine inward.
On the outside, I seemed perfectly healthy and in control. I had 7 piano students, a part time job, a long distance relationship, and four upper division classes. I had excellent rapport with my professors and was invited to take courses at the master's level. To top it off, I took Muay Thai a few evenings each week. On the inside, I was sinking deeper and deeper into what I now understand as depression directed inward. I didn't have words to describe exactly what I was feeling so I just ignored it and kept busy with all my activities.
One morning, I looked in the mirror, and I didn't recognize myself. I was mortified to find the whole left side of my face swollen to the point that I could barely see out of my left eye. Horrified by my own reflection, I drove straight to the emergency room. After waiting a couple hours, I met with an amazingly observant doctor who really took the time to figure out my illness. She asked me questions about my daily life, my thoughts, and perspective on political issues at UCLA and the country at large. I don't really remember all the details of the conversation but I certainly remember how she made me feel. I felt loved and I felt cared for. By the end of the conversation, the swelling went down almost entirely. She said, "There's nothing wrong with you physically but I suggest you change, whatever you're doing daily because you aren't getting away with it." She said, “Consider this a warning." Taken aback by the bluntness of her words, I took them to heart. Although she didn't prescribe me any medicine, she wrote on the evaluation sheet that I had something called general malaise. I had never heard the word malaise before so I looked it up. The word Malaise comes from the Latin root malus and the French word ease. Malus means pain, suffering, sorrow and anxiety. Ease means to take comfort in something. The traumas buried within started to seep through and take on a palpable form of their own. All at once, I was confronted with parts of myself that I had desperately worked to avoid.
Taking the doctor's advice to change things up, I skipped martial arts and brought a book called Space Time and Medicine to a park, walking distance from my apartment. My intention was to simply be with myself and introspectwhatever that meant. Within the first few pages, I learned how every person has an internal sense of time and how
