Reflections
The Grace of Yoga
“Many of you may say that performing an asana is a physical discipline, but if you speak in this way without knowing the depth of asana, you have already fallen from the grace of yoga”. B.K.S. Iyengar, The Tree of Life
So, what is it that we expect to gain from asana practice? Perhaps an even more appropriate question is what does one do in a yoga class? That answer, on the surface, is pretty obvious. We stretch, we balance and sometimes we chant. But are we just stretching, balancing or chanting? Is that the depth, or reach of it? No. Those of us who who understand that asana is more than just a physical practice, understand or at least accept the definition of yoga as union - union of body, mind and spirit and of the individual soul with the Universal Soul. But what does that even mean, and how does asana practice get us there, to that union?
What I have come to experience and profoundly sense in my very core is that when asana (and pranayama) are practiced with total release from expectation (as in with a "beginners mind"), I fully experience the grace of yoga. Granted, that is no small feat - to practice with no expectation towards a given outcome. And to discover without the expectation of discovery is a profoundly enriching moment. Yet when I practice I hear all my teacher’s voices in my head, reminding me of all the technical points for any given pose - I know they are necessary, but where is the divinity if I am still just following orders? Of course one has to learn the fundamentals and train the body to receive the benefits. That is of primary importance. How else can one progress if the groundwork is not laid out? How can I/we release ourselves from expectation and still retain those important fundamentals? This is the conundrum!
There is something that happens when you get good or even proficient at something. You feel good. And you want more of those feelings of accomplishment, of doing something that gets you somewhere - perhaps to the final stage of an asana, for example? But if that is the ultimate goal, once accomplished, then what? Admittedly I have often asked myself “now what”? What’s next? But here’s the thing: yoga practice, and nature (prakriti) for that matter, is not a straight line trajectory. It is much more an ebb and flow like the changing tides of the ocean. What is constant and unchanging is Purusa (the Self). Once that is understood, perhaps we can let go of expecting forward motion in our practices and transform some of that intention to an inner reach towards stillness. For what is the point of all this alignment if my intention is misaligned? If I overdo or overstretch on my “good” side and underdo or escape from working on the bad side, what am I cultivating but more attachment, more reliance on external validation and moving further away from equanimity.
Asana is a laboratory for transformation but we can’t expect transformation to arrive when we will it to. It will come through (and by) the grace of yoga. And what is that? I can’t say with 100% certainty, but I believe when one is able to approach an asana practice as a “pointless” practice (even in a class), where one surrenders to Self discovery in every moment, exploring the vastness of the body, mind and breath, without attachment to the fruit of that work, then we exist in the present. And for me, being present IS a deeply profound expression of the grace of yoga. What I aim to do, as our Guruji has stated, “I do yoga from the Self towards the body, not the other way around”.
The Inward Journey
In the very first paragraph in Chapter 1 of Mr Iyengar’s seminal book Light on Life, he states, “Spiritual realization is the aim in each one of us to seek our divine core. That core, though never absent from anyone, remains latent within us. It is not an outward quest for a Holy Grail that lies beyond, but an Inward Journey to allow the inner core to reveal itself.”
That statement can take some unpacking but the part that jumped out at me was what he refers to as the “Inward Journey”. Journey - an act of traveling from one place to another or a long and often difficult process of personal change and development. Yogasana (asana practice) is but one limb of the eight limbs of Yoga. However, those of us who partake in such rituals understand that to become fully embodied (that is to inhabit your own embodiment fully), asana is more than just a physical practice. It journeys us, if you will, from the periphery to the core.
Life takes us, in fact sweeps us up, sometimes randomly, on all sorts of journeys but those journeys, as important, as necessary, or even as tough or as welcome as they may be, are external. They may take us from one place to another or make us feel one way or another, but the journey that allows the inner core to reveal itself is another matter.
Asana, as we know, means posture but the literal translation is “seat”. Life moves - our own lives will propel us here and there; it is an inevitable facet of being in the world, of nature, of prakriti. In contrast, purusa, or cosmic consciousnessis un-changing. It has no beginning and no end to it. That is true of our own divine core; there is no end nor beginning to it - it just is, there, waiting to be revealed.
Ultimately what the practice of yoga, and asana specifically, brings me is this: in all of life’s journeys, the instabilities, the upheavals, the difficult times we collectively encounter and even some glorious moments too - asana IS that inward journey. By its very nature, asana creates the stability to remain seated in mySelf, and that is a truly divine thing.