Asana as Worship
Friday, March 5, 2010 at 4:01PM Sthira Sukham Asanam. I am asana.
With the question coming up lately, "Where am I supposed to be in this pose?" and "What is the goal of this pose?" I thought I would offer the consideration of alignment in asana as a reflection of our alignment in life. Consider the shift of the question to LIFE. "Where am I supposed to be in life?" and "What is the goal of Life?" Might seem a little dramatic, yet the asana practice at some level is directly related to how we show up in life. Your favorite class becomes a closed campus for direct personal study of breath, emotion, thought, intelligence. All of which reveal how we be when we are stretched, squeezed, and challenged in life. I have reflected on my most repetitive questions during my years of yoga asana. "How can I just get by in this pose, or how can I look more flexible than I really am?" Better yet, "How can I look like I have it all together, when I am really not sure of anything in this moment?"
I understand the desire to get the alignment and flexibility of asana right. Loaded with expectation and a bit of an inner rebel, (yes that's right I do have a skillfully hidden yet very stubborn inner rebel), it has required discipline and a whole lotta patience to experience the physical practice as authentic, organic, and in alignment with my body temple and life.
BKS Iyengar speaks about asana as worship. It must be experienced by the student. "You have to observe and get absorbed." I call it Being Available. Available to direct the senses inward and focus attention on the life of each asana. At this stage, efforts end, and awareness begins to spread all over, the way water spreads evenly across the floor. To witness all the mini break downs and break throughs of the mental and physical posture. When the mind is willing to humbly enter the posture through the wings of breath, the body is observed and cared for as a sacred temple housing the Soul.
One of my most favorite Mantras for entering the holiness of any posture in any moment: My Soul is as close to me in this moment as my breath. Once there is a personal connection I drop the "my", and expand into Soul as the one, universal, ever present every where. Soul is as close to me in this moment as breath.
BKS Iyengar states, "The feeling in the spiritual heart must be, I am not separate from asana, asana is not separate from me." This is Yoga. Union, yoking, communion.
During your asana practice this week, witness. Observe the flow of intelligence through your body. Adjust your alignment from this awareness study. Rather the question of "Where should I be?" Notice where and why and even how you have come to be. This being state will enhance the stream of awareness through all of you. Even the small nooks and folds of flesh will bow to the presence of Soul. This becomes the worship. To align in any moment, any posture (folding the laundry or deep forward fold).
I love Eric Ashford's words:
Nothing is worth saving
until you polish it into transparency.
The clarity becomes your vision.
What you refine in the fire of the Spirit
remains a truth worth becoming.
Let your practice be just that. A refining in the fire of the spirit. Polish the asana, polish your life into transparency. Until there is there is no curtain of expectation or separation. Until you see directly into what is.
Soul, as close to you in this moment as breath.
Happy spring,
Jami Larson
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Reader Comments (4)
Jami, yes!! There was a time when you said, "BE the asana. Let your mind take on the shape of the asana." And I have been doing it ever since. For some reason, my mind particularly molds to trikonasana- I think because this is where I was when you first said it (strange how we work!). Truly entering into every pose is all we need to do. We are always available to let the holiness in to any pose, no matter how sore or fiery it is; in fact that intensity, that edge brings us closer to the bliss, the light, the beauty pouring in & bursting out. Thank you for being this & sharing this every day.
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