What IS Asana?

We kicked off the 1st round of MENTORSHIP yesterday -- an intimate group of 7 intrepid yogis -- and we were contemplating this question: "what is [yoga] āsana?"

Inspired by this question I want to write today about this.

I think a good place to start in our investigation is asking simply: "what is the body?"

Our body is a collection of materials that seemingly evolved out of the cosmic soup of the manifest universe. Elements such as iron and silicon; or the more obvious friends oxygen and hydrogen; or the rarer substances of gold and silver. All of these play a role in the composition of the human body, and all of these "building blocks" if you will of the human body apparently cohered together in an intelligent way, cooperating with each other for the creation of human biology.

Now, the question of how matter "has become conscious" is something of great interest. For the material scientist, human life and the manifestation of consciousness through this human suit is something that occured at some point in our evolutionary history. As in, consciousness sprung out of matter. According to the yogis, however, this is not the case. Rather, matter has sprung out of consciousness. This is seen in the metaphysical system of Samkhya. Samhkya -- the school of wisdom science that forms the underlying philosophy, cosmology, and ontology of Yoga -- asserts that Consciousness is primary, and that the material components of the Universe are evolutes of this one supreme energy. Since we are interested in yoga sādhana, this is the theory which informs our approach and methodology.

Within the context of Samkhya, we can see that Consciousness is more or less synonymous with what we might call Spirit, which in Sanskrit is known as Purusha. According to this model, Spirit descends into form via a series of steps down from its state of ultimate supremacy. Think of it a bit like the gradual crystallization of a snowflake high up in the atmosphere.

In the human, we observe this descent of Spirit in the chakra system of the subtle body. For the purposes of this essay, we will examine this "descent into form" by studying the teachings on the chakras.

TANTRA

Shortly after the emergence of Samkhya around the time of the Vedic era of ancient India, we see the advent of Tantra. Tantra was to become a major religio-spiritual movement, and one that began picking up speed around 500 AD. The early spiritual adepts from which the earliest Tantrik literature emerged asserted a precise science of energy and proposed maps of the subtle body that mirrored the maps of the cosmos. These adepts had come to the conclusion that the human body was itself a mirror of the heavens above. Perhaps the famous Hermetic principle "as above, so below" from the Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina, ~750 AD) has its roots in preceding wisdom traditions of India.

I believe that understanding the history behind these wisdom teachings helps us evolve our paradigm of thinking. Our early human ancestors were the progenitors of enormous spiritual realization and philosophies which have survived thousands of years. Whilst being technologically "inferior" to the modern humans of our contemporary age, it seems likely that they possessed spiritual technology that has to some degree remained intact, even today. This is where our story picks up.

Nowadays people come to Yoga, often with the Westernized ambitions, to lose fat, manage stress, or suddenly become perfect. The physical Yoga scene has blown up in popularity in the recent decades. Whether it be a fad or a something else, what we can observe is that Yoga is seeing a revival, of sorts. More & more people are discovering Yoga practices and, for whatever reason they may be driven to practice, I think that this generally is a good thing.

Unfortunately much of what is taught and practiced in the Western world appears to be lacking in the deeper philosophical, cosmological and ontological underpinnings that scaffolded the evolution of Yoga across many hundreds of years. We must remember that Yoga was not and is not a "cut and dry" subject; rather, the spiritual science that came to be known & systematized as Yoga Vidya was something apparently took quite a few spiritually advanced practitioners a generous amount of time to pin down. We have general statements and definitions of Yoga that span across 1000s of years. Quite a few of them differ...

So, then, what IS yoga āsana, really?

I hope my contextualization offers a chance to look deeper at the subject at hand. As opposed to coming up with any conclusions, my hope is that I myself may contemplate these questions and come up with some ideas that might beget inspiration and progression.

What we can say, based on historical evidence, as that it is extremely likely that our ancient yogic ancestors practiced various forms of body, breath & mind training. To what degree and in what order and how, this is up for debate. No scripture that I've come across has any specific prescription of practices along the lines of "step back into dog down and take a vinyasa". Rather, various scriptures tend towards the description of what you might experience along the way in your spiritual exploration.

This is how the teachings on the chakras was first delivered. We refer to one highly revered text in particular: the Goraksha Shatakam. Contributed to Goraknath, the famous disciple of Matsyendranath, this text offers teachings that became the backbone and foundation of the channel of wisdom to be known as Hatha Yoga.

Many people who have heard about Hatha Yoga seem to think that Hatha Yoga is a slower or more therapeutic approach to Yoga practice. I'm not sure how this came to be the case, as authentic Hatha Yoga is described as a fiery, dynamic process involving kriyas, mudras, bandhas and intense pranayama techniques all designed to mobilize the dormant evolutionary energy of Kundalini. I prefer the word "mobilize" here (as opposed to awaken) as I believe this gives a more accurate representation of what is happening in genuine Hatha Yoga sādhana.

The practitioner of Hatha Yoga utilizes these various tools to cultivate life-force within the container of the body and furthermore channels this life-force skillfully and intentionally. More specifically, the practitioner learns how to circulate this life-force in and through various energetic centers of the body, eventually allowing it to arrive at its highest vibrational level. This is described as a movement from denser substance to the most refined & rarefied substance; it is the withdrawal of the life-force energy from its ordinarily outward flowing channels, and bringing it inward to enliven & empower the central nervous system of the spinal column and brain. We could consider this something like "involution, for evolution".

This idea of an involution process is a unique perspective that I haven't seen anywhere, but it makes sense to me; perhaps it makes sense to you, too. Let me explain. The normally outward flowing energies of life are the energies that flow out of our sense organs to enliven the world around us. Energy is required to perceive our environment, is it not? This is the essence of being alive. Some kind of "light" or "spirit", if you will, is flowing into us to animate our life, and that energy is continuing outward into the world. When we sleep, the lights turn off for a time, so that recharge can happen. And, when we die, the light in the body leaves once and for all. But where did that light come from, and where does it go after death?

This question should get you thinking; it brings us back to the top of this essay when we introduced the philosophy of Samkhya and the descent of Spirit into matter.

IF we accept that this is true -- light is entering our body from somewhere and is animating us for a time -- then we can begin to pay attention to this light. How does it work? There must be some intelligence, some pattern behind the processes that we take for granted, such as sense perception.

For a moment contemplate on the miracle of how sense impressions enter through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth (taste), the skin and that raw data is categorized, synthesized and organized inside of the brain core to become ... something. Something that makes sense, is it not?

Yet, who is it that makes sense of all the stuff? Am I getting to you yet?

This line of contemplation and reflection brings me closer to what I might call "the Soul". That ineffable, indescribable Light within, right?

If we're on the same page, then it makes sense to look at the yogic concept of prana. Prana is said to be the life-force energy that makes everything work, right? From the adi shakti, the primordial life-force energy of the Universe, everything emerges and is given life; but more specificallym in the human body, everything that we can perceive or experience is emerging due to the prana shakti. This concept is how we can wrap our puny little minds around the idea that energy flows through us and animates everything. This idea appears in a multitude of ways across culture, time, and belief and yet it is the same. Spirit animates matter. Everything we see, touch or can otherwise experience is alive in the sense that it contains spirit within it.

In Tantra, there is a teaching that asserts: "every particle of existence contains the totality of the Divine." This is all just one big hologram! The Whole is made up of the Whole. om purnamidah purnimidam purnāt purnam-udacyate ...

But... wait... why is it that there is this appearance of separation? If everything is made up of everything else, how come we can operate in this apparent field of duality?

The teaching here, continuing along the line of Samkhya, is that as Spirit descends, it distinguishes itself from the previous stage based on its identity and what job it is doing. In the perfect scheme of the cosmos, we must admit that there various natural principles, or Laws, which govern this material existence. In Newtonian Physics these are things like gravity or spacetime, which explain the relativity of things. That is, how things relate to each other in the bigger picture. What may be of interest here is that, as we descend down further to more "fundamental" levels of existence, these "Laws" begin to break apart and are no longer unified or coherent in the context of everything else. We're talking about the quantum realm. Possibly this is the realm of Spirit, or at the very least, the realm of pure energy and pure potential. For the yogis out there, I think this "realm of pure energy" is definitely of interest to us.

What sets Samkhya apart from other lines of reasoning is that Samkhya literally categorizes Reality. You see, we are used to measuring things with instruments like microscopes or telescopes or measuring tapes or scales or whatever, and all these measurement devices do is extend or refine the perception of the senses. They don't actually measure the what behind the senses. We can quantify so many things. But... what is their quality?

This is where we get into ancient science. Gnosis means "to know directly, by experience". The gnostics are famous "ancient scientists". Instead of using scientific devices to measure things, a gnostic goes into deep contemplation around the essential nature of something, in an attempt to experience it directly. There is a correlate between gnosis and the Sanskrit word jñana that I think is relevant here. Jñana Yoga is said to be one of four primary margas or pathways to the Divine. That we can come to know the Divine directly. Not through information but through relationship and embodiment. In the context of our discussion, we must think about the early proponents of Samkhya and how they may have intended their philosophies to be interpreted.

continuing with Samkhya... Let's look at the Earth Element for example. Earth is considered the final evolute of Spirit on its descent down into form. What distinguishes Samkhya here from more modern science is that, when they thought of the Earth ELEMENT, it wasn't something like we see in the periodic table. While the periodic table measures the "atomic number" of the various universal substances and therefore their chemical behavior, Samkhya categorizes the different states of matter into general principles. To simplify this -- and this is my interpretation -- we can think of solid state matter as relating to the Earth Element, liquid state of matter with the Water Element, the transformation of one state of matter into another as Fire, the gaseous form as Air, and the matrix in which it exists as Space. I write more about this is my book the Five Elements of Tantrik Hatha Yoga. When we look at our material existence in this way, we can see that our ancient Samkhyan scientists were onto something.

Earth behaves like Earth; it remains solid, in its structure, with very little change over time. Water flows, it adapts, it assumes the form that it is contained in. Fire breaks apart bonds so that matter can change between states, allowing denser substances to be converted into lighter substances. Air is the movement of molecules in their gaseous state, like the wind. Space holds it all and is the place in which things can exist. No wonder Space is considered the first Element (bhūta) in the descent down into form!

So these are the identities of things, right? Categories. The word Samkhya actually means "to count". We are measuring the Universe in a different way, using the instrument of our awareness.

Back to the topic at hand. What IS yoga āsana?

Well, the original Hatha yogis claimed that āsana was a way to direct the flow of energy in the body and to eventually gain mastery over the elements. One might wonder what they meant by this. "Mastery over the elements". That's a pretty big statement, no? If we bring this all down to "earth" (pun intended), let's look at what we're actually doing in our posture training.

A yoga āsana is seen as a posture that we place the body in. As the body arrives into the position, we are breathing, and we continue breathing as we remain in the posture. The breath is connected to the Air Element and to some degree the Fire Element. When we take breath into the body, there is an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the alveoli of the lungs. Excess carbon dioxide is passed out with the exhalation whilst the fresh oxygen received is transported along the blood stream. This oxygen circulates the body via the blood. Important to note is that this circulation of blood is happening via the heart, which is sending pulsing waves of pressure through the body to create the circulatory system. So the heart plays an important role here in what we might consider the circulation of the breath, is it not?

To increase the circulation of the breath, and therefore the transport of fresh oxygen to tissues of the body, are we to increase our breathing? Possibly. Perhaps also it is possible to increase the circulation of the breath by increasing the capacity of the circulatory system, yes? Or optimizing it in some way.

If we look at the body and see that blood circulates in the veins and arteries via a complex series of pumps and valves which regulate the pressure system in the entire network, then we may start to understand that this is a deeper conversation we are having. We're talking about the relationship between the breath, the heart, and the entire body.

When one enters into an āsana and breathes, the āsana is opening certain parts of the body while closing or squeezing other parts of the body. Therefore the breath more easily circulates into or through the various parts being variably squeezed and released.

Traditional yoga sādhana is meant to bring one into a state of deep meditation so that the sādhaka can become aware of (& furthermore, experience) the ever-present & yet dynamic Consciousness behind all form. If this is the ultimate objective in one's practice, where does āsana fit into this?

Patañjali asserted that the yoga āsana must be both sthira (steady) and sukham (easy). I believe he was referring moreso to a state of mind than anything else. If we practice a body position with a mind that is tense, the body will subsequently be tense. Our body mirrors to us our state of mind, and vice versa. A mind that is agitated is a mind in which the prana beneath it is scattered or disorganized. A mind that is calm and steady and clear is a mind in which the prana is well-balanced. When I am craving for something, my mind is exerting my senses out into the world to grasp after that thing. Prana, or life-force, is therefore "leaking" out of my senses. This is general statement but can be applied in broad brushstrokes to understand this concept.

In āsana training, I am learning how to maintain my body in different expressions or possibilities of the body, while keeping the breath calm and regulated. The mind must make its return to the body as opposed to being cast out through the gateways of the senses. Eventually, the mind reaches equilibrium as it merges with the body. This might be seen as a state of Yoga, wherein the body and mind are in complete harmony with one another, and one is absorbed into this state of completion. Now this might be either a state of deep meditation in a seated āsana, or this might be a state of absolute concentration in the holding of a more difficult pose, yes?

I believe that what one finds in their posture practice is a way to access the different expressions of one's self through the various positions that we can train our body into. In other words, we gain the ability to observe our behavior and observe how energy is flowing in the body (or not flowing in the body) by experimenting with different positions and holding said positions. The holding of the position is the important part. We maintain a state of mind that is both easy and firm and we mirror that in the body, while observing the inner environment of the psyche. In so doing, we get to "see" how we are, or what we are. This takes time and practice and repetition, but I believe that this is what we are doing in the development of the āsana.

I hope that you have found something here that may inspire your practice. May we all discover more about who we are, where we came from, and where we're going. Perhaps then we can make meaningful progress forward in life and stop chasing our own tails.

GI