As the teacher signaled the end of class with a brief “Namaste” – I find myself amazed to hear the focused and measured atmosphere of the room break out into a chaotic stir of shuffling feet and anxious minds rushing off to conquer the morning.
I lay on my back catching my racing heart in Savasana, sweat dripping from my limbs, panting heavily. I can’t help but feel confused and filled with sadness as nervous minds rush away from the most precious moment: the peace of the emptiness of Savasana, the non-doing, and essential being (“thusness”) feels like the entire reward of my existence, or at least why I do anything.
An instructor I once practiced with, planted the following seed in my mind, corrupting my thoughts as all good teachers are apt to do:
What if instead of Yoga being a practice to support my endeavors outside, e.g., business, creation, meaning, purpose of life, relationships, et cetera, Yoga was the purpose – the only purpose?
Meaning: all the minor annoyances, trivialities or banal nuisances of daily living are simply opportunities to practice awareness off the mat; more too: all the economic, relational and existential striving I endure exist only to serve the continuity of deepening of the Yogic practice.
In that way, I don’t do Yoga to help me feel more “relaxed”, “focused”, <insert adjective> in building my business or work on my career or <insert desired outcome>, I build my business, work on my career, or <desired outcome> in order to do Yoga.
A strange thought, but if taken in full it turns one’s world upside down or at least several quarter turns.
The reason for this is simple: my life is devoted to the search for satisfaction, not unlike the millions of others in the same predicament here.
In some sense, it is the basis of the human condition:
“You suffer because you desire”
Says the 5th century monk.
Desire, craving, yearning, covetous of being, it’s all the same.
The First Layer
The shuffling feet marshal their way out of the room in haste, I let out an audible sigh: the first layer.
The first layer is a light release from the battlefield of the mat – the subtle observation of heart pounding, limited breath and most obviously the end of striving and tension in the asanas.
The onset of relaxation, but with writhe tension and burgeoning anxiety. This is typically the layer that most practitioners end the practice with.
The mind says:
I will lay here a moment, but I have to do X, Y and oh I can’t forget about Z. I will be late for Z, I’ve laid here enough, let me roll up the mat and exit the class
If we fall into the trap of the monkey mind, we will forever be its slave – the mind and intellect are a gift but a prison; a good servant, a bad master. Formal meditation teaches us how to observe and bring awareness so that we may cultivate non-association and indifference to this process.
If the practitioner can dig into their meditative contemplation they continue to the next layer.
The Second Layer
I observe a subtle release of my upper traps and shoulders on the mat, but can still sense an enormous adrenaline and tension throughout the body. With a second vocalized sigh, the body (and mind) drift millimeters deeper into submission of the posture.
The practitioner may at this point choose to scan the body for clues and sensations – there is always some formal itch or alarming nuisance of body sensation demanding cessation of the pose:
“Oh my arm is so itchy”
“Oh I must wipe that sweat”
“Oh I am not comfortable”
On and on the monkey mind yells and screams, but discipline must be observed: awareness and non-reaction. Can I sit with this, seemingly insurmountable, inner drive to scratch my arm – what will happen if I don’t?
Will I explode? Will I implode? Will I go mad? Will it become insufferable? Will I die?
No. None of the above. In curious attention without reaction: the practitioner decreases the radius of the illusion of insufferability into the realm of the trivial.
The Third Layer
With a third vocal sigh, my shoulders weigh heavier into the mat – I observe my heart rate slowing and body releasing into the inward.
The third layer is demarcated with a level of relaxation that does away with the above stupidities of the mind with respect to physical sensation, as the mind drifts slowly out of frame and there is unification of mind and body again.
This is the halfway point to the climactic portion of the pose.
The Fourth Layer
At this point, the practitioner yields to yet another vocal sigh and falls deeper into the body.
The mind gears down and there is superficial surrender to non-being and non-doing.
The body ceases its accumulated tension and melts effortlessly into the mat.
The mind is still some burdened with resistance to nutrients of love, essence, and being and these blockages must but observed and surrendered into total vulnerability to achieve the finale.
It’s not uncommon to break out into sobs or emotional reactions as the deeper layers of resistance of peeled apart; why did I start remembering all those belly aching laughs with my childhood friend only to begin sobbing uncontrollable at the thought that I will never experience that again ? In short: total vulnerability and openness to the wide expanse that is the inner world (the “soul”).
The Fifth Layer
With a final vocalized release, the body and mind fall into its deepest point of surrender.
At this point, the practitioner can visualize a channel of love, light and life energy pouring down upon the body nourishing it from the inside out. Feeling the essence of life rewiring the physical and mental planes of existence and a total surrender into the possibility of nothingness forever – to “die inwardly”. To live as the purpose of receiving endless bountiful love without shoving it away.
Sitting here for as long as is necessary to, like a tree or small plant, soak up all nourishment. To be re-written in the eyes of love and cease the insufferable inner “me” for but a few moments. Yet at the same time, bind with great passion to that inner me – seeing it in its nakedness, a handful of common problems and questions we all face boiled down to just two: Am I ok? Will I be Ok?
In this moment, I remind myself that, perhaps, the whole point of my existence is to come to this place again and again – hence the practice.