Sun Square Moon writings on yoga and writing

by Inez Baranay

15. Tadasana: Four

  Stand in Tadasana.

  Observe the adjustments you have learnt to make. There is never an endpoint of achievement of the pose; the pose is a never-ending project of creation.

  Observe the breath, as you do in Savangasana, the pose of the corpse done at the end of every practice, lying with complete release throughout the body, the only movement the breath. In Tadasana, though there is no motion, there is the constant action of adjustment, and the mind is occupied with that action. But without losing the pose, observe the breath, the unconstrained and even inhalation and exhalation, the flow to each part of the body, conveying consciousness, connecting with the many aspects of Tadasana you recognise, placing yourself in each present moment with each new breath.

  This simple, preliminary pose reveals new aspects as your ability to penetrate the pose increases.

  What has not ever been shown is what it is to do the pose exactly here, exactly now, by you.

  You have studied, investigated, described, and performed Tadasana innumerable times.

  And you have studied, investigated, described and performed your self innumerable times, a self of which a part is the study of Tadasana.

  Complete absorption in the pose is meditation; and mediation and yoga are said to offer a kind of complete answer to life's anguish, anxiety and pointlessness, creating instead the happiness, or contentment, of quietness. You do not wish to kill your instinctual drives nor your questing nature; the meaning you create from the pose is still in the process of formation.

  The value and meaning of the pose is sometimes experienced in the doing, sometimes in the effect, sometimes in the consideration, sometimes in the teaching, sometimes in other poses or in walking or in sitting, sometimes it is forgotten or neglected. But to do this pose, and to aim for perfection in the pose, has become part of your being, a mix of habit, and discipline.

  Interrogate and penetrate every aspect of the pose, every component of the pose, as far as every cell of the body.

  As your awareness enters every aspect of the pose, it dissolves in the pose.

  Be Tadasana.

  16. Tradition and Authority