a new perspective on asana
Moving the body feels good, and that’s enough.
Am I playing to ego’s vanity by maintaining an intense daily practice and plant-based diet? Any decision that requires planning and forethought is the ego exerting itself. But the new vanity is not of the obtuse sort – it’s not based on others, i.e., keeping up with the Benjamins, working on a beach body, or meeting others’ expectations of a spiritual aspirant. It’s moved to a more subtle level, which I refer to as acute vanity. Acute vanity is anything that completes the sentence, “I am _____.” Discipline, spiritual practices, dietary choices, and the entirety of the self-improvement project are manifestations of acute vanity. I digressed, I meant to write about my relationship with the physical practice of yoga, or asana.
There has been a major shift in my relationship with asana (and meditation but that’s another story). From the outside, it appears that I’ve rekindled my dedication to ashtanga yoga. I’m practicing the primary series and second series up to karandavasana, which means I’m on a yoga mat for almost two hours each day. The last time I got to this place in the practice, I took a two-year hiatus as my primary focus became seated meditation. During ashtanga yoga part one (2015-2019), I thought advancing through the series mattered. Sure, I talked about the deeper aspects, but that’s not what anyone seemed to teach in the community, just look at what workshops people are hocking on the spiritual market. There was a talk on the eight limbs or an afternoon on the yamas and niyamas, but it seemed mostly like lip service to a “deeper” spiritual path. The hierarchy is set up, for better or worse, based largely on one’s ability to move and contort their body in increasingly unnatural positions. My interests seemed to diverge from those of the ashtanga community. (To be fair, I think the ashtanga community is a lot closer to Truth than the general yoga community, but again, I digressed.)
dwi pada sirsasana 6/25/23
So why am I spending so much time practicing asana? It’s a good question, and writing about it is helping me understand the process at work. At this point, I think vigorous exercise is good for me and I like it. I tried running, hiking, and lifting weights, but that didn’t do the trick.
I used to approach asana from a dualistic, linear perspective. Master asana to a certain extent and then begin working with pranayama and then finally, begin seated meditation. The (modern) “tradition” propagates the aforementioned linearity in a variety of ways. (1) You need to complete the second series before beginning a pranayama practice. (2) Yogis move from the gross to the subtle, i.e., body (asana) to breath (pranayama) to mind (meditation). The “method” didn’t make sense if you were working on the awakening project, at least not to me. Quick side note: I don’t think awakening is the main pursuit of most spiritual/religious paths. If you want to have your “spiritual” world rocked, check out the Jed McKenna books.
Asana just feels right. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ideas of flow and obstruction, as I discussed in yesterday’s ramblings. The goal of the entire “spiritual” pursuit, for anyone who’s serious, is to kill the ego, which is just a mental process that creates the feeling that you are the subject in a world of objects. During the first few years of my ashtanga practice, asana reinforced this subject-object relationship. Thus it became an impediment to the awakening project. (Ultimately, I noticed that meditation created the same dualism or subject-object relationship as asana.)
One of the aspects that is enjoyable about asana now is captured with a single word: further. At this point in my practice, I struggle mightily on the mat at various times, and I’m able to reconcile that striving with surrendering to what’s possible. Maybe I’ll continue to advance, but there will never be an end state, nor do I want there to be. I’m not interested in teaching, becoming authorized, or any other egoic (not that these are inherently egoic achievements, though they would be to me) achievements.
Now, I can’t stand the idea of identifying as a yogi. I was out at a Fourth of July celebration this morning, and someone saw my shirt and asked, “So you’re really into yoga?” I muttered something along the lines of, “Um, yeah. I enjoy practicing yoga.” I was tempted to say that I picked up the shirt at a thrift store to avoid the inevitable conversation that would include asking where I practiced, how long I’ve practiced, and then hearing how great someone else’s yoga teacher is. Not interested.
There’s nothing inherently special about a dedicated ashtanga yoga (asana) practice, at least not from the absolute/Truth perspective.
Moving the body feels good, and that’s enough.
