Finding the balance

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 15th May 2017

Workplace Yoga
Inside Yoga 203 (15/5/2017)

It is not an exercise regime yet we do exercises! It is about the mind yet we stop our thinking? It appears to be a good stretch yet it is not about flexibility! These are just a few of the contradictory impressions yoga has among the general public, including many of those who attend classes: so why the confusion?

The mixed messages and misunderstanding about what yoga actually is teaching us can be seen in the way our modern exercise-obsessed world (I am clearly not speaking for the whole population!?) has taken to yoga because it is a good workout – see my blog written last year “Yoga is not a workout”, https://www.yogabristol.co.uk/2016/05/16/yoga-is-not-a-workout/

As the blog points out yoga is not workout. It does have exercises in its practice but the reason for this is so that we can bring our bodies to a level of health which then means we can live without the body stopping us living our life fully and happily. Sounds like a fitness argument? But not exactly because the more esoteric reasons for yoga asana (posture) practice is that the yogi (yoga practitioner) practices yoga asanas so that he or she can meditate freely without the body getting in the way with for example, restlessness, aches or pains. The yogis go beyond the body.

This is the yoga practice that teaches us how to go beyond the body into higher realms of consciousness, to understand what our true nature is, what the nature of existence is all about and other such profound and philosophical answers.

On a more mundane level, the practice helps us to live more comfortably with ourselves both physically and emotionally. There is great saying which sums this process up: “Before enlightenment, I chopped wood; after enlightenment, I chopped wood.”

There is another way of explain why we do so much exercise if it’s not about stretching. Every exercise is a meditation, in fact, it is a meditation on the body, breath and mind… and whatever the posture, we aim to hold it with “sthira and sukha” which translates as holding a posture with steadiness and a sense of ease or contentment.

See blog, written earlier this year, Yoga is meditation https://www.yogabristol.co.uk/2017/03/13/yoga-is-meditation/

This is why it does not matter if you are not flexible, what I look for is improved levels of focus/concentration when practising, because in many ways yoga teaches us to concentrate… nothing to do with a good stretch but if we are stretching we must maintain our focus on the stretch for the whole exercise, this is the harder challenge than the wish to make a muscle more flexible.

The yoga sutras written by Patanjali, which are at the heart of yoga teachings, states in the second verse: “Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” There are translations of this verse that word it differently, for example, instead of cessation the word controlling, but they all point to the same message: that in yoga we learn to guide our mind so that it is focussed and calm, maximising clarity. If you picture sound waves or sea waves, when things are tough and we are struggling, a crisis for example, our mind will be jumping up and down, like sea waves during a storm or sound waves showing erratic and massive fluctuations from nothing to deafening. Very few of us can operate or even survive in these conditions, we always aim to calm the situation to deal with and solve the cause of this metaphorical storm we have encountered.

The practices of yoga asanas (exercises), pranayamas (breathing), and meditation and the other parts of yoga are guidelines and exercises designed to find the balance we seek. The physical and meditational exercises help us to strengthen our physical and emotional bodies so that we can ride these waves of life, perhaps make them calmer or at least like an expert surfer ride them without falling off until the waves have gone and the sea is calm again.

Yoga is not just a preparation for life it is there to maintain and understand our life too.

Blog on yoga sutra mentioned: https://www.yogabristol.co.uk/2011/03/15/inside-yoga-29/

Blog on concentration, read https://www.yogabristol.co.uk/2016/02/15/are-you-watching/

Any questions or comments contact me via the blog reply panel below or email gary@yogabristol.co.uk
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(1) Comment

Liz
7 years ago · Reply

a good read, thanks Gary

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