02.24.20 Asana is a tiny little piece of yoga
Yoga is big. I find that the hardest part of teaching yoga is the way it is both so vast and so intuitive. I have been studying yoga for just under 20 years and in that time I have had dozens of teachers and read dozens of books and had hundreds of conversations with teachers, peers, and students.
I find it can take me a very long time to read yogic literature. I think this is because of it’s earnest nature, but also because I find it so exciting I can’t really settle into it. Some of these texts are so beautifully written that they make my heart flutter right out of the room. It is so exciting to read something that is so absolute in its description of the spiritual-human experience within the phenomenal world, that I just can’t focus. I have absolutely been found laying in supta baddha konasana covered in sand bags and an eye pillow listening to The Bhagavad Gita and anything else I can get in audio book format.
What I mean to say is as soon as I take in this information it’s truth is felt so fully and it lights me up so bigtime. When I think of the Yoga Sutras of Master Patanjali (multiple translations), and The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, ancient yogic mythology, Light on Yoga, The Journey Home, Paths to God, or other books on yoga, I feel so hopeful about humanity that I cant even even. The ideas laid out in these texts are so complete and so connected that reading them requires a huge amount of attention and capacity for taking it all in at once. It is not “snackable content”.
So, as a teacher when I want to create a dharma talk before class, I have to synthesize a tiny peace of a philosophy that is by nature vast and connected. It is heartbreaking to break off a small piece of yoga to talk about and hope it brings my students to the rest of yoga while they engage in their asana practice.
Once my teacher offered to my cohorts in YTT something to the effect of “when people show up for exercise and fitness, we give them yoga”. That stuck with me. I think that statement assumes two important things:
1. Not everyone in a yoga class has decided to take in the vastness of the yogic experience - which is fine.
2. Trust that yoga is so connected and effective that a person could jump into yoga at any point in its continuum and the observer would have access to everything yoga has to offer.
When yogis practice only asana, I feel like they are doing real, work that is important and healing. A healthy asana practice can offer so much in the way of balancing energy and pulling our attention out of the mind for a bit. While it feels like the tip of the iceberg, It is important to remember that the tip of the iceberg rests on a profoundly deep foundation.
I made that graphic (above) about the 8 limbs of yoga and I realized immediately that the 8 limbs of yoga falls short of describing all of yoga. That entire graphic is just a small piece of yoga.
Did you know that there are different paths to observe yoga? These explanations are perhaps oversimplified, but will work for our purposes.
Raja yoga- a path focused on meditation and adherence to the 8-limbs (shown in the above graphic).
Karma Yoga - a path focused on service and selfless action.
Bhakti Yoga - a path focused on devotion to the divine and all of the expressions of the divine.
Jnana Yoga - a path focused on scholarship and wisdom.
Tantra Yoga - a path focused on sacred ceremony.
And that isn’t all of it either! There are hundreds of stories of deities. There are parables. There are poses and stories about poses and purposes for poses. There are sutras and mantras and mudras that all mean something. There is pranayama and chakras and the koshas.
I truly love leading people through an asana practice, but we are leaving a lot on the table in terms of our modern western yoga practice.
If any of this is interesting to you, ask your teachers about this stuff. Talk to other students about these deeper concepts, form a yogic study group, read the books. Ask me or other yoga nerds questions.
Always, as a westerner, think about honoring this information and it’s origins. Consider the philosophy in its totality and how you should engage with it. I am not here to give anybody answers to questions about that. How we each engage with yoga is very personal.
For me as a westerner, US-er, white, woman - I tread lightly. I consider my own culture, and roots in this lifetime. I consider my human right and responsibility to seek union and wholeness with my complete self. I consider the karmic obligation to reject racism and racist appropriation. I do the best I can do the next right thing in front of me. I pray for grace, empathy, strength and the ability to listen.
I practice liberation and peace by practicing yoga. To me, this is a bigger picture of yoga. I would love to know more about your path. Drop me a line and tell me about what parts of yoga resonate with you.