by Inez Baranay
5. Asana and the spiritual
From time to time since I began studying the Iyengar method, I've come across the criticism that it is 'not spiritual enough'. 'I want to do a more spiritual form of yoga' I've been told. It is interesting, and not exactly clear, to work out quite what people mean when they say this. Most likely the sentiment arises from the puritanical idea, common in most traditions in both the West and India, that the body is an impediment to spiritual awareness and growth, and too much attention to the body puts you in jeopardy. Mortification or neglect of the flesh are meant to enhance, even be necessary for, a spiritual progress. It's an attitude difficult to reconcile with the idea of 'union' so basic to yoga.
Those who say they seek a yoga that immediately takes them into a 'spiritual' practice, a 'less physical' one, are, for instance, sometimes attracted to forms of yoga that ask them to pay close attention to the breath from the very start of their practice. In the Iyengar method, and in my experience, this distracts the beginner from the close attention one needs to the many aspects of asana – alignment , balance and so on – that, once taken care of, will create an essentially correct way to breathe in the pose.
Sometimes what people mean by a 'more spiritual' yoga is that is they'd rather do chanting, or rather do yoga where the idea is poses are meant to be easy and not challenging, or rather be allowed to drift off into dreams of white light, or rather not do yoga at all.
And for some, the path to the spiritual is, perhaps, Bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, and asana is not essential for, or even a distraction from, this; nor is it seen as essential for devout yogis involved in Jnana yoga, the yoga path of knowledge, or Karma yoga, the path of action.
The practice of asana can be carried out simply for the sake of its physical benefits. Arguably even this kind of practice, after sufficient time and done with sufficient integrity, will be experienced as, again, not 'merely physical'. Certainly the effect of the reduction of stress, and a better ability to relax, endure and concentrate, are hard to quantify as 'merely physical'.
A serious student does not only perform asana but studies their meaning and effects, reads yoga texts, and works on an increase in awareness and understanding. Thus the practice of asana becomes also a form of Jnana Yoga. Jnana, considered by, for example, the influential Swami Vivekananda, the 'highest form' is a path that can take you through whatever field your endeavours in the world happen to be located.
When I say I practice yoga I mean Iyengar yoga, the practice based on the work of B.K.S. Iyengar, the most influential teacher and writer of yoga – especially the yoga of asana, or physical posture – in our time. B.K.S. Iyengar's method and writings are based in turn on the yoga sutras of Patanjali – BKSI insists that the yoga he teaches is 'Patanjali yoga'.
Patanjali yoga is known as Asthanga, that is, eight limbs. The eight limbs are: Yama (ethical disciplines); Niyama (rules of conduct); Asana (posture); Pranayama (extension of breath and its control); Pratyahara (control of the senses); Dharana (stillness of mind); Dhyana (integration into object of contemplation) and Samadhi (the end of all duality.
By the way, 'Astanga Yoga' is a term commonly used for the yoga taught by Patabi Jois (like Iyengar a past student of Krishnamacariar, and based in Mysore). As in most of the popular forms of yoga, however, the emphasis is on asana, and Patabi Jois yoga is known for, and practiced as, a series of asana linked by continuous movement. Students learn a series – primary, intermediate, advanced – and practice them in the set order each time.
In Iyengar yoga, the practice of linking asana in a continuous form of movement is known as 'Vinyasa' (in a practice session these are informally called 'jumpings') and is only one of a range of ways of practicing and sequencing asana. This doesn't seem to be very widely practiced these days, in spite of its alleged superiority as a form of aerobic exercise with benefits equivalent to those claimed by popular yet 'merely physical' exercise such as jogging and various gym classes.
Asana implies, is based on, and leads to the other limbs. A diligent asana practice certainly will naturally lead to a practice of Pranayama and Dharana. Dhyana might follow, but even BKSI says he has not attained Samadhi. As for Yama and Niyama, the ethical practices, one might simply say that a diligent practice of asana ensures a prolonged association with an environment in which good behaviour and attitude are valued, and this will have its effects. Get to specific interpretations, and everyone's a theologian. I've seen Brahmacharya translated as both 'abstinence from sex' and 'honesty in personal relationships'. In the larger world, there is no consensus on the nature of the ethical sense, but a pretty widespread agreement that we need one. We do; you decide whether it's to please God or make the world beautiful or to make the world work. Etcetera.
To examine all this is outside the scope of what I'm doing here, but I will say that the implication of these other limbs in asana lead you right up against areas of belief, philosophy, how you think, how you live, the heavy concepts. They make you look at your beliefs in the realm of the spiritual or religious even if you are adamantly not religious and suspicious of the word 'spiritual'.
In my novel Neem Dreams three of the four main characters discuss this tricky concept:
'So wasn't Varanasi spiritual?' Pandora asked.
'It was all about death,' Andy said, 'if that's spiritual.'
'If anything has anything to do with what is spiritual,' Jade pointed out, 'it would be death.'
[...] 'If anything is spiritual,' said Jade, 'it's good food.'
It wasn't the same as emotional or mental. It wasn't religion, but religion had something to do with it. It wasn't believing in god because Buddhists had spiritual beliefs but no god. It was meditation and becoming ego-less. It was a social thing. It was the connectedness of everything, it was universal ecology. It was another oppression.
And later the authorial voice remarks:
If you knew what a person prayed to – rather than for – you would know something more secret than their carnal fantasies.
It is possible to consider writing as a kind of yoga, as an Indian writer Sesanarine Persaud tells us:
A short story has a life of its own. It is Yoga. It has different forms at different times, the same as the lives it brings to life. At one point in one's life the Yoga of meditation (Jnana Yoga) is more suitable than, say, Hatha Yoga (physical postures); at another time neither Jnana Yoga nor Hatha Yoga is suitable, but Karma Yoga (the yoga of selfless action) is. For me, all writing is Yoga. Art as Yoga is nothing new to Indians. (Persaud 2000:532)
Yoga, from the Sanskrit word 'yog', meaning 'to yoke', or 'union', can be defined as the union between the various aspects of self. Various aspects and meanings of the self emerge in the inquiry into the writing self too. Writing more apparently engages the mental and intellectual aspects of self, yoga the physical and perhaps spiritual. Maybe there is, after all, a use for that word, 'spiritual', one that expresses the sublime moments in each practice, as B.K.S. Iyengar says:
To live spiritually is to live in the present moment. When you are practicing, as long as no other thoughts come to you, for that much time you are spiritual. (Iyengar 1988:159)