The practice of yoga is an ever-changing process. It can be likened to a traveler’s walk through the forest. Looking ahead, vines, tree limbs, and leaves block the view, but as each step forward is taken, what lies beyond begins to come into sight. At the same time, new foliage is revealed and obscures the path ahead. With the practice of yoga, as new or unseen aspects become clearer, a more expansive universe opens up, and the practitioner realizes that even more can be felt, experienced, and integrated. This description might seem daunting because a final destination is never reached—only a series of intermittent destinations comprise this never-ending process. For those with perseverance, true integration lies with continual engagement and participation in the journey.
The meaning of yoga is somewhat elusive and tends to have as many different meanings as there are practitioners. Even then, as individuals’ practices evolve, their meanings and understandings of yoga evolve with them. One common definition is “union”; the beauty of this definition lies in its simplicity. This definition of yoga says a great deal and at the same time leaves unanswered questions. What does this union look and feel like? Exactly what is the practitioner becoming unified with? And how will the practitioner know when union is being realized? Unfortunately, this union is not something that can be understood solely through the explanation of one to another. It is something that takes form internally and becomes clearer through practice. Furthermore, it is not something that is ever achieved in some sort of finality, but rather the continual revelation of a greater unity with this existence that develops over time. To describe yoga or “union” in my own words and as my current experience has revealed, yoga is the continual practice and expression of becoming ever more integrated with this existence.
On an everyday practical level, this existence is largely a physical one that can be observed through the senses. As humans we can see a certain light spectrum, hear a range of vibrations we call sound, smell scents when enough particles are floating in the air, taste fresh fruit, and receive tactile sensations when we press against other matter. Through technology we can enhance and refine these senses, but the experiences we receive through our sense organs are the same and remain our primary method for daily practical navigation of the physical world.
On a physical level, yoga pertains to the practice of integrating the interactions of the physical self (the body) with other physical aspects of this existence. An example that many people are familiar with is the practice of postures called asana. During asana, the practitioner uses a combination of muscular contraction, muscular relaxation, and breath control to position the bones and structures of the body in ways that create an awareness of and more optimal interactions with the physical objects in which they are in contact. Looking at mountain pose (tadasana) we can see the interactions at an infinite number of points. Starting from the bottom, we can take a look at the interactions of the feet with the ground. The soles of the feet are pulled by gravity into contact with the ground at varying pressures at various points depending on the alignment of the bones and engagement of the muscles. Then according to the position of the feet, the ankles, knees, and hips interact with one another. In this example, each interaction was between different parts of the physical existence in which we find ourselves, regardless if it was between two physical body parts or between a body part and an external object. As physicality has a major role in this existence, it remains an intrinsic part of yoga.
What is spirituality and how does it apply to yoga? In my own words, spirituality is recognizing a connection to the aspects of this existence that are not physical in nature. For instance, I am a physical entity. I have a body that is comprised of cells that are all working together to create my body as a living observable being. The building blocks that make up the cells are observable, the cells themselves are observable, and on up the chain until you have me, a human being that can be observed through the senses.
What about my conscience, my thoughts, my soul? Whether or not you believe all these aspects of a human truly exist, they are clearly not easily perceived or even perceived at all. Yet, somehow, many people feel that these and other incorporeal aspects exist in themselves. This feeling of a connection to these non-physical aspects of existence is spirituality in action.
Turning our attention back to yoga and the practice of integration, you can begin to see that there are both physical and spiritual aspects of existence with which to become integrated. The practitioner can work to integrate with the observable universe (the physical body and its interactions with other physical manifestations) and the intangible universe (the ethereal aspects of the body including the mind and soul, and its interactions with other ethereal concepts including energy, chi, and god). However, while I have presented the physical and spiritual as separate and distinct parts of existence, and therefore separate paths to practice in yoga, I believe that they can be much more closely related and virtually indistinguishable.
As we live in and experience physical existence through our senses, we also use these senses in ourselves and in others to express and communicate our thoughts and experiences. For the most part it is easy enough to communicate experiences that can be perceived in similar ways from one to another. An individual can express to another what an apple is via sight, smell, taste, and touch with relatively little difficulty through shared experiences—but what about experiences and ideas that cannot be so easily perceived by the senses or perceived in similar ways? How does an individual communicate spirituality?
Another difficult concept to express that is found throughout the world is god, typically a spirit that transcends our understanding of this perceived existence. God is not similarly perceived by the senses from one individual to the next, yet myriad people claim knowledge of god. They practice to know god ever better through prayer, ceremonies, rituals and many other means involving postures (kneeling, hand gesturing, processing) and sound (reading, chanting, singing). But isn’t religion a spiritual practice? My answer to that would be “yes, it can and should be”, but it is also a physical practice involving the body to grow, express, and communicate more abstract underlying spiritual concepts in oneself and to others. In other words, when performed with an internal awareness to their spiritual counterparts, the sensual aspects of a spiritual practice are the physical manifestations of the spirituality.
When many people think of asana, one of the first connotations that come to mind is “physical exercise”. While this is an accurate description of a significant aspect of asana, it fails to address what asana can and should be for the yoga practitioner—a physical, spiritual, and expressive practice of integration.
At the outermost level, the practice of asana as exercise strengthens the body and brings numerous health benefits. It revitalizes the body, gives it energy, heals weakness or injury, and strengthens it to weather the daily tolls of life. All of these benefits are reason enough to practice asana, but the practice of asana without the intent and internal practice of creating awareness and integration is merely the performance of acrobatics.
The yoga of asana is the use of physical postures to become ever more integrated with this existence. A yoga practitioner can use asana in several ways including, aligning the body in harmony with gravity, using the body to create both internal and external awareness, and using the created experience to practice subduing the fluctuations of the mind, thereby allowing the mind to act as a sense organ to perceive and experience spiritual aspects of this existence. Very quickly the practice of asana changes from a focus on the body, to a focus of using the physical body as a tool in a spiritual practice.
Aligning the body so that it is in harmony with gravity is a practice of awareness, acceptance, and efficiency of interactions, and therefore an aspect of integration. Throughout their lives, many individuals constantly fight gravity with their muscles and sadly always lose the struggle. Heads slump while necks crane forward, upper backs become hunched, lower backs give out, and legs lose range of motion all because of the dis-integration of bodily interactions and their interactions with gravity. If we look at the spine, we can see that every vertebra can be integrated with the other bodily structures they are in contact with by having an optimal amount of space between them, an optimal alignment in relationship to one another, and an optimal amount of ligament, muscle, and tendon stability to ultimately counteract the pull of gravity. Asana helps the individual to become aware of the interactions with gravity through guided exploration and experience, to accept that both the individual and gravity are a part of this existence, and to learn to align oneself in harmony and efficiency with this ever-present force.
The body is also used in asana to create internal and external awareness. Internal awareness starts by noticing simple cause and effect pairings within the body as it moves from a posture of disorder to one of structural stability. For instance, a simple example is noticing the effects of the quadriceps on the knees. When the quads are relaxed, the kneecaps are quite mobile, yet when the quads are flexed, the kneecaps are drawn up and fixed in position creating stability. A slightly more complicated example is the weight distribution upon the soles of the feet and its impact on the legs, hips, and upper body. Very soon, the practitioner becomes aware that all bodily parts and functions are interconnected, and that the action of one part has reverberations throughout the rest of the body. Taking this example of the cultivation of awareness even further, the practitioner begins to develop an external awareness of interconnectedness. The actions taken at your job affect your co-workers, your co-workers’ actions affect their family and friends, and the chain continues. Asana helps the practitioner to realize that the body is a model of a much larger picture, and that every one and every thing is interconnected.
The experience that arises from harmonizing the physical body and developing heightened awareness then creates a conducive environment to practice subduing the constant stream of thought threads racing in and out of the mind’s focus. The resulting quietness of the mind during asana allows it to be used as a sense organ for the practice of spiritual integration through observing, adjusting, and optimizing the interactions among ethereal aspects such as energy, the conscience, the self, ego, the soul, and god. Just as a particle can exist in two places at the same time, the practice of yoga can exist as a physical and spiritual practice simultaneously.
Finally, asana becomes an expression of yoga. When an individual is practicing asana and mentally correlating every bodily action (the alignment of the hips, the engagement of the quadriceps, the attention to the breath) with building greater awareness and subduing the mind with the intention and focus of building the relationship of integration, he is engaging in the spiritual practice of union through the physical. In addition, the spiritual state of union of the practitioner is being directly expressed back through the asana. Asana becomes not only a physical and spiritual practice but a concrete way to express yoga.