Asana practice – part 2
Merely performing a headstand or balancing on one foot without the correct understanding will not help us to remove ignorance or to attain self realization. It is just an acrobatic movement only. Maybe we can perform some unusual acrobatic movements but we will still have unhappiness, depression, frustration, discontentment, anger, hatred, jealousy and greed if we don’t have correct understanding. And all these impurities are derived from ignorance.
Practicing yoga asana without the correct understanding is nothing wrong or bad. It will still give us some benefits such as giving us a stronger and more flexible body just like doing any other physical training. It also gives us a boost of courage, confidence and some sorts of good feeling. It will also help us to have a stronger immune system and can help to prevent many physical ailments.
But most important is that if we practice yoga asana with correct understanding, it can help us to remove ignorance as well which is the main reason why we want to practice yoga in search for enlightenment in order to attain true and lasting happiness.
Mental tension and physical tension are inter-related. If we can work on releasing physical tensions by doing the stretches in asana poses will help to release mental and emotional tension too. As the same, if we have mental and emotional tension, we will be having physical tension – the body is stiffened and all the systems in our body also get tensed up. We will be having blood pressure problem, digestion problem, breathing difficulty, irregular heartbeat, constipation or diarrhea, genital related problem, skin problem and so on.
That’s why even though some people have good nutrition intakes, enough exercise and enough rest, they still have so many health related problems or feel tired and have low energy all the time, it’s because they are having so much mental and emotional tensions. All these tensions have been accumulated for so long and continue being generated and never been released. Due to these mental and emotional tensions the physical body also tenses up (especially in the joints, shoulders, neck and facial muscles).
Merely by doing some physical stretching without working on the mental and emotional level will not help much in achieving a healthy body and a happy mind. That’s why yoga practice emphasizes on dealing with the mind to help solve all the other problems.
When we practice yoga asana in a relaxed manner, we are actually relaxing the body and the mind while performing some physical movements. After each session of asana practice, it will leave us feeling fresh, calm, relax and full of energy.
Actually the real relaxation and calming effect are not just coming from the last 10 to 20 minutes of final relaxation, but come from the whole complete session of initial relaxation, initial prayers and chanting of Om (purifying the impurities and vibrating the energy centres), breathing exercise or Pranayama before or/and after the asanas, performing a group of asanas with complete balance of warming up exercises, inverted pose, forward bending pose, backward bending pose, twisting, balancing pose, side bending pose and most important having enough rest in between each asana, and a non-rushing final relaxation and a short sitting contemplation at the end with a closing prayer that being chanted with great gratitude and humility. Prayers are to remind us about the divine qualities such as compassion and wisdom, and to pay respect and gratitude to all our teachers who had passed down this beautiful teaching from ancient time.
Everything (easy or difficult) that we do from the beginning of the session until the end of the session contribute more or less for the calming and relaxing effect of asana practice. They all are equally important for a complete and well-balanced asana practice session.
Even though sometimes we do not have enough time for a full session of practice and just doing a few poses or even just one pose, but if we do it with the right effort and attitude, we will still get the benefit of being calmed, relaxed, refreshed and re-energized.
It is the concentration of “being at the present moment” which frees us from fears and worries, unlock and release the tensions in our body and in our mind, and let us experience peacefulness and lightness after performing a certain asana, it doesn’t matter if it is forward bending or backward bending pose. No doubt that different body position will have different effect on the body and the mind, such like forward bending is soothing and calming while backward bending is energizing and stimulating, but they both render us a beneficial effect of relaxing and refreshing to the body and the mind. And so we can’t say “do more of this” and “do less of that”. All asanas are beneficial to us in different ways as long as we know how to arrange different types of poses into our regular practice so that we will get a well-balanced asana practice. We want to be calmed, fresh and energetic after asana practice, and not being dulled or being overly agitated or feeling exhausted and tired.
In all the asana poses, there is no differentiation of easy or difficult, or being indicated as beginner or advance level. The poses themselves have no standard of easy or difficult. It is our body capable of doing certain poses and incapable of doing certain poses that make us feel and think that the poses are easy or difficult. Even as a so called “beginner” comes for an asana class, or a so called “long-time practitioner” comes into the same class, they will be doing the same asanas and it depends very much on their individual’s strength, flexibility, stamina and mentality that determine how well can the person do the poses or which poses is easier or more difficult than the others. Some people are very flexible in forward bends but inflexible on backward bends while some others are the other way round (imbalanced flexibility). Some people are not flexible in both forward bends and backward bends but are very good at twisting or side bending.
And thus, we cannot have any judgment and comparison at all with anybody.
The new practitioners and the old practitioners are actually practicing the same poses (all poses should not be labeled as beginner’s poses or advance’s poses). And it is not that the one who had been practicing for a longer time will be the more advanced student and should be learning certain poses being indicated as “advanced poses” while the newly practice student is being labeled as a beginner or less advanced student and should be learning only those so called “beginner’s poses”. It is not that those who can do headstand and other complicated poses are more advanced while those who cannot do headstand and other complicated poses are less advanced. Some people can hold all the poses for a very long time but that doesn’t determine that he or she is an advance practitioner also.
It is not that people have been doing asana for a very long time, or can perform many complicated movements that require super flexibility and strength will be labeled as advance practitioner. It is their level of understanding of the philosophy, detachment and concentration that define them as advance practitioner doesn’t matter if they can or cannot perform any so called highly difficult poses.
It depends a lot on individual level of health, stamina, strength, flexibility, physical limitations, personality, and understanding of the philosophy, level of detachment and concentration for what they are able to do and whether they can do it comfortably or not. And all these are not permanent. They are changing all the time. Sometimes the pose that we used to be able to do it easily might be difficult for us now. Sometimes the pose that was difficult for us might be very easy for us now. And this will change on the next moment.
It is not the poses themselves are being easy or difficult. It is the condition of our mind and the body that is feeling easy or difficult to perform the poses at that present moment.
Like some people who have been practicing asana for a long time but due to their physical health problem they cannot perform inverted poses or find it very uncomfortable in certain poses. But this doesn’t mean that those poses are not good and are dangerous.
It is the same that the difficulty level has got nothing to do with our age, our past experiences or our fears. Some older people are more flexible and stronger than some younger people. Some people with physical injuries before still can perform some poses that even healthy and fit people can’t do. Some people can’t do or not want to do certain poses due to great fear of falling down or injuring themselves. But in fact those poses are not difficult or dangerous at all.
