?? That's Not Yoga! ??

Hello, my friends!

Today I wanted to share with you a bit about yoga.

I recently read an article about yoga that left me a bit frustrated.

It was an excellent article, describing different styles of yoga.

Ideal for those unfamiliar with yoga who would like to know what to expect when attending a particular yoga class.

This article described: hot yoga, hatha yoga, ashtanga yoga, power yoga, vinyasa flow, yin yoga, and restorative yoga.

And it was a terrible article.

Because every single style mentioned was describing asana, and not a single word touched upon what yoga really is.

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I absolutely love that the Western world is beginning to open up to yoga a bit more.

Beginning to cast off the chains of superstition and misunderstanding that these practices evoke in some.

That’s an excellent beginning. But just a beginning.

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When most people hear the word yoga, it often conjures in their minds images of mats and stretches, sweaty exercises in a studio. Maybe LuluLemon pants.

We often hear yoga, and think asana.

Asana is a Sanskrit word for posture, and it is the word used to describe the exercises we often associate with yoga.

But, asana is not yoga.

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Now, don’t get me wrong.

I love asana, and a regular practice of the postures offers incredible benefits, from increasing strength and flexibility to boosting vitality and immunity, and so much more.

I would absolutely recommend the physical practice of asana to anyone who is willing to put the time and effort in to explore these benefits on a personal level.

But you can do yoga without ever stepping onto a mat, and without ever learning a single posture.

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So, if yoga is not asana, then what is it?

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root: yuj.

The meaning of this word is complex, and includes the ideas of binding, yoking, attaching, joining, and uniting.

It also means to direct or concentrate one’s attention on something. To use and apply.

And finally, it means union or communion.

In simple terms, yoga is a practice of layered expansion of consciousness, and the goal of this practice is to align the little “I” of personal consciousness with the big “I” of the Divine.

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That’s massive! And it’s a huge journey.

Yoga is a practice designed to lead anyone to enlightenment, regardless of their starting point.

The science of yoga lays out the constitution of the human being and the archetypal path of human development.

The various styles of yoga are the arts, the constructed practices which support the deepest journey of the soul.

Many different approaches to the Union of the little “I” and the big “I”. And only one of those styles makes use of asana.

In other words, there are many different roads to illumination, each of which approaches the journey from its own unique angle.

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Yoga is a practice of inner alignment that flowers into outer embodiment, actualization, and service.

It can take as many forms as you can imagine, and more.

Bhakti yoga is the practice of devotion, recognizing every moment as a sacred prayer to the One.

Karma yoga is a path of clearing all that keeps us stuck and moves us to unconscious emotional response.

Jnana yoga (one of my favorites) is a path of gnosis, diving into knowledge and transcending it to enter the space of direct experience.

Raja yoga (which is the parent of hatha yoga) is a science of awareness which refines our understanding of our own mind and consciousness, and the relationship between them.

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Asana is the third limb of the eight limbs of hatha yoga.

With each limb, we cultivate consciousness on deeper and wider levels.

We begin with yamas, five commandments that we use to refine and workshop our misaligned energies:

Non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, non-hoarding, and right use of energy.

This grows awareness around the unconscious and misaligned application of energy and attention in our lives.

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Next, we dedicate the energy that we reclaim from these misaligned expressions to aligned expressions with the niyamas, the five daily observances:

Contentment, purity, continual self-refinement, the study of symbol, and cultivating an awareness of the Soul, throughout every moment and every endeavor.

These first two limbs help us to see where our energy has been going.

And they help us to grow consciousness, moment-to-moment, around how we meet the world.

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When we come to asana, we extend this refinement of consciousness into the movement and structure of the physical body.

The asanas are an outward expression of the refinement of awareness into physical movement.

So, to put this another way, if you are doing asanas as sweaty exercise, this is not yoga.

But, if you are doing mindful walking, or mindful dishwashing even, then you are practicing asana.

If you are going through the motions of the exercise without refining consciousness, then you’re just exercising.

Asana becomes yoga when it is used as a practice to refine and embody consciousness.

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And this is still just the preliminary work of illumination.

From asana, we refine consciousness into the breath and the flow of living energy.

From there, we learn to withdraw the senses from the outer world to engage more directly with the inner world.

Then we learn concentration, stilling the turbulence of the mind by teaching it to rest upon a desired focal point.

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After all of this, we can begin extending consciousness into our subjective forays, journeying inward in contemplation and, later, moving into the wordless center of Being.

We call this meditation, and until we have done the preliminary work, sitting there trying to still the mind is fruitless.

Finally, we move into samadhi, a state of stillness in the personal unconscious which allows a more complete reflection of both the Knower and the entire field of knowledge.

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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, in which these eight limbs were first streamlined and codified into written form, offer a roadmap to Union.

They show the challenges for the human Being to enter into Union with fundamental consciousness, and, step-by-step, the means to overcoming these challenges.

Which means that the practice of yoga is designed to be a foolproof path to illumination regardless of where you are on your journey.

But you don’t get this out of asana practice. You have to go deeper.

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If you’re interested in learning more about this, I will be sharing a lecture series on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

I’ll go through the roots of yoga, breaking it down for the Western mind, and sharing it in terms of the science of human development.

And, once you understand this archetypal journey of actualization, you can walk that path in your own way, without being stuck to fixed forms and borrowed practices.

You become unbound from the traditions as you engage directly with the experience.

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This is more phenomenal than can be put into words.

The path to Union is a path of actualization, individuation, and service.

It's a path to our authentic expression, to the superpowers that come with being human, and far beyond even this.

This lecture series will kick off next month.

If you’re interested in joining the lecture or you’d like to know more about this, drop a line in the comments.

Thanks and blessings, beautiful beings!