I was sitting quietly outside the yoga studio, waiting for the class before mine to finish. A keen, newish student engaged me in conversation. “So, do you do yoga every day?” she asked, with an awed emphasis on the word “every”. My answer – “I hope so” – was, until I explained it, perhaps not quite what she was expecting…..
A more experienced student might have phrased the question ““So, do you do asana every day?”…… and would have received the same answer, though with a slightly different explanation. If either of them had asked what they were really thinking – which was no doubt something along the lines of “So, do you get on your yoga mat and do a two hour workout every day?” I would have been able to answer simply, and honestly, “no”…..
But the exchange was interesting and set me thinking about all the times I had – metaphorically at least – beaten myself up for not getting on my mat and doing an asana practice each day. After all, I am a yoga teacher. Isn’t that what I should be doing?
Of course, the reality is that I do get on my mat and do some sort of asana practice several times a week, but there are days when the pattern of my life (and the needs of my body) tell me that I should take a day away from the mat. But does that mean I am not doing yoga on those “off” days? Or am I in some way doing yoga, but not doing asana? What exactly do we really mean by doing yoga or doing asana?
Let’s look at asana first. We all immediately associate the Sanskrit word asana with any one of a multitude of physical shapes into which we try to contort our body. Our ultra-competitive western minds find it difficult to conceive of an asana practice in which we don’t stretch our hamstrings (sometimes to extremes), twist our torsos, and try (usually in vain) to insert our big toe in our ear. Yet all of us know that tadasana (mountain posture) and savasana (corpse posture) are just as much asanas as dwi pada sirsasana (both legs behind the head posture).
The Sanskrit word asana literally, and simply, means “seat”. (The Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon gives as one meaning “sitting in a peculiar posture according to the custom of devotees”. Hmmm……). The 196 verses of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – written somewhere around 2,000 years ago – contain just 3 verses specifically about asana:
II, 46: “Asana should be steady (sthira) and comfortable (sukha).”
II, 47: “Asana is mastered by relaxing effort and identifying oneself with the infinite”
II, 48: “Then the pairs of opposites cease to have any effect”
That’s it. Nothing about inwardly rotating the thighs, grounding the big toes or even breathing through the nose. Just find steadiness and comfort by relaxing the effort and then the “pairs of opposites” (in particular the idea that we are something other than part of the infinite consciousness) stop bugging us and we can achieve that state of calm bliss which we all think we are chasing by trying to stay longer and longer in headstand. Simple, huh?! (Though how many of us remember the “relax the effort” bit when we are struggling to wrap our body into yet another pretzel like shape?)
The thing is, Patanjali was most likely not thinking about trikonasana, pascimottanasana or even savasana when he wrote this. We have no real evidence of the existence of the wide range of physical postures we know today until many centuries after Patanjali. That’s not to say that they didn’t exist and weren’t practised….. but we don’t know. (The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which is probably the oldest extant text to give instructions for some of the postures we know and use today, dates back to around 1350.) What is much more likely is that Patanjali was thinking about the literal meaning of asana – in other words, he was thinking about sitting and, specifically, sitting for meditation.
So, do I do asana every day? Well, I do sit in a meditation posture every day, breathing and mentally repeating the mantra my teacher gave me. I try to do that in a way which is steady and comfortable – after all, how can I make my mind steady and comfortable if my body isn’t? I try to let go of effort (if trying to let go of effort isn’t a contradiction in terms….). And maybe, just maybe, there are times when the “opposites” do stop bugging me for a while. So, on that level, yes, I do asana every day.
But not everyone has a seated meditation practice. Maybe there is more to asana than just sitting on my backside…. Let’s give asana its broader meaning of “posture” rather than “seat”. Why do I have to be on a yoga mat or a meditation cushion for my posture to be steady yet comfortable? To relax some of the effort? To identify myself with the infinite? Maybe it is easier to remember these ideas on a yoga mat…. but how about trying to remember them off the mat? As I sit at my computer writing this, am I steady and comfortable, or am I hunching my shoulders or straining my back? As I walk to the yoga centre, am I walking with lightness or am I tensing my body? As I stand at the bus stop, have I let go of some of the effort in my facial muscles? In other words, do I take Patanjali’s description of asana away from my mat and cushion so that I can say that I am “doing” asana for enough of my life that I no longer have to think about “doing” at all – so that, whether or not I am on a yoga mat, the qualities of asana which Patanjali identifies become second nature….. whatever I do with my body, I am combining steadiness with comfort, letting go of some of the effort and maybe, just maybe, finding that place where, in the words of BKS Iyengar, the effort becomes effortless? Perhaps only then can I say that I do asana every day – on or off my mat.
What about the original question…. do I “do yoga” every day? As many of us know, Patanjali’s classic description of yoga is right up there at the beginning of the Yoga Sutras:
I, 2: “Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of consciousness”
I, 3: “Then the Seer (or soul) abides in its true nature”
I, 4 “At other times, the Seer identifies with the fluctuations of consciousness”.
So, if we quieten the stuff that buzzes around our heads, our soul comes home, as it were, rather than spending its time on the “stuff” instead of on the real us. Hmmm. Good theory. But how do we do it? Do we get there automatically by mastering the third series of Ashtanga Vinyasa? Or by getting on a yoga mat for an hour a day? Or by “doing” asana every day? Or is there more?
For Patanjali, asana was only one part of an eight limbed path (in Sanskrit ashtanga means eight limbs). To achieve the state of yoga, we are asked not just to “do” asana – however we define that – but also to work with passion (yet detachment) at seven other practices. Only then do “the impurities dwindle away and wisdom’s radiant light shine forth with discriminative knowledge” (Yoga Sutra II, 28 as interpreted by Mukunda Stiles). What are those other practices? Patanjali’s eight limbed path of yoga consists of:
Yama – “external” disciplines
Niyama – “internal” disciplines
Asana
Pranayama – regulation of the breath
Pratyahara – withdrawal of the senses
Dharana – concentration
Dhyana – meditation
Samadhi – absorption of the individual self into the universal Self
We could spend a whole article on each of these limbs, but for now let us just look briefly at the first two – the so called “disciplines”, external and internal.
In a nutshell, the five yamas represent a code of conduct which the yoga practitioner is exhorted to observe towards others and the five niyamas represent a code of conduct which the yoga practitioner is exhorted to observe towards himself or herself. They have often been called yoga’s ten commandments. Sounds daunting? Well, maybe…… but take a look at them and ask yourself how you measure up. Because the chances are that, if you are drawn to a committed yoga practice you are observing many (maybe most) of them already……and the magic of yoga is such that, if you are falling short on a couple, a regular practice will probably help the others fall into place.
The five yamas - external disciplines - can be summed up as non-violence, truthfulness, not stealing, right use of energy (especially sexual energy – but no, not total celibacy!), and non-grasping. The five niyamas – internal disciplines – are personal cleanliness, contentment, self-discipline, self-study and devotion to an infinite power. Not too bad, maybe? A yogi is not called to abstain from the world and become a hermit – although many renowned yogis have historically followed a renunciate path, nowhere does Patanjali suggest it is a necessity. Despite sometimes intense provocation, it is generally not too difficult to absorb the yamas and niyamas into daily life.
Of course, there are questions…. what exactly is non-violence? If someone attacks me in the street do I resist with violence of my own? Does the yama of truthfulness allow me not to say something to you which may be true but which would hurt you and which I don’t need to say? These moral dilemmas themselves justify an article of their own. The point is, if I am “doing” asana (as we define that above), I am “doing” yoga. But I am only invoking a small part of the yoga spectrum. It is like painting a picture and only having red paint on my palette. The other colours can only come onto the canvas and create a finished image when I begin to observe the other elements of the eight limbed path. So, in my daily life, I should do my best to practise the yamas and niyamas. I should do my asana. When I have accomplished the techniques of asana, I can (with appropriate instruction) begin work on regulating my breath and the energetic flows of life force (prana) within my system. Then, “the veil lifts from the mind’s luminosity and the mind is now fit for concentration” (Yoga Sutras II, 52 and 53, translated by Chip Hartranft). In other words, the senses draw away from the mind, from attachment and aversion to the objects of the senses (remember the “pairs of opposites?”), pratyahara (limb 5 – sense withdrawal) occurs, leading ultimately to the final three limbs of dharana, dhyana and samadhi.
So, do I “do yoga” every day? My answer remains the same – “I hope so”. I hope that, whether or not I spend time on my yoga mat, my physical posture, whether sitting in meditation, working at my desk or standing in line at the supermarket, meets the Patanjali asana criteria, at least some of the time. I hope that my everyday life routinely incorporates at least some of the yamas and niyamas. Thanks to my teacher, I am able with confidence and safety to work with my breath and prana…… whether I have the colours of the other, more “internal”, limbs on my palette is more a matter of conjecture, but I would like to think that occasionally I have a glimpse of at least pratyahara and dharana. So, yes, I hope that I “do yoga” every day, however much or little time I spend on a yoga mat.
The important message for any new student is not to be put off. Patanjali himself, in Yoga Sutra I, 12, tells us that, in order to get anywhere towards the yogic aim of stilling the fluctuations of consciousness, we need to combine the two qualities of practice (abhyasa) and detachment (vairagya). There will be days when observing the yamas and niyamas and finding the qualities of asana are particularly hard. The important thing is that we keep trying – but that we temper our efforts with the niyama of contentment – santosha – with who we are and where we are on our individual journey. For from the practice of santosha, it is said, comes anuttamah sukha or unexcelled pleasure, and that sounds like a pretty good plan to me.
One of my most influential yoga teachers used to end class by exhorting us to “practise continually”. The first time I heard that I thought he was telling us to go to lots of yoga classes. Now (with all due respect and reverence to him) I think I have a better idea of what he meant….. after all, on the path of yoga, practice makes…… practice.
Graham Burns
February 2006
Graham Burns is a London based yoga teacher who has studied intensively in the USA and the UK with many of the west's top teachers, most notably his current principal teachers Rod Stryker and Richard Freeman. A keen student of yoga history and philosophy, he is known for his humorous and light hearted approach to teaching, while still preserving the best elements of the yoga tradition. Graham teaches at London’s top yoga centres as well as teaching and mentoring students on one of the UK’s leading yoga teacher training programmes.
© Graham Burns 2006
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