Yoga is More Than Exercise. So. Much. More.
What do you visualize when you read the word yoga? Maybe some fit-looking person in some impossible looking flexi pose? I mean, if you google the word yoga (which I just did!), that is basically what you see. Mostly thin. Muscular. Various poses. Some seemingly impossible for the mere mortal. A few showing an overly peaceful meditative posture. And, many, from a yoga teacher's perspective, with poor pose alignment. Neck crunched back, arms overextended. Looks dramatic, but the form is sloppy. Perhaps that optic sells more classes?
The original philosophy of yoga often gets lost in the capitalistic drive to profit off of yoga as exercise. Yoga is much easier to sell to people as a way to get fit, lose weight and ease stress, and it most definitely can provide someone with all of those benefits. Try selling yoga as a method to know yourself and connect back into universal Consciousness. I can almost picture Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson giving me the raised eyebrow side eye…like, “WTF are you talking about?! That sounds like some woo-woo bulls*$!” And, I get it. I come from a long line of rational thinkers with little connection to spirituality and zero understanding of the body as a sacred vessel for exploring our Divine origins.
I started with yoga as exercise, and I loved it. Yoga felt like dancing, and so, I continued to study it. First, as exercise, and later, as something much more profound.
Yoga is part of the Shad Darshan, six philosophies of life from an Indian perspective. These six visions of life are ways of orienting to reality. Yoga means union, or the joining together of man and God, and is a method to go beyond thought and expand one’s individual consciousness to the universal Consciousness. Yogic philosophy was codified by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras so long ago that scholars give a range of dates from 2nd century BCE to 4th century CE. An exact date is hard to pinpoint. Regardless of the actual time frame, many translations and interpretations of the Yoga Sutras exist today. I recommend Inside the Yoga Sutras by Reverend Jaganath Carrera as a starting point.
Patantjali’s Yoga Sutras give eight methods to attain enlightenment: yama (five restraints), niyama (five observances), asana (postures), pranayama (breathwork), pratyahara (withdrawal of senses), Dharana (one-pointed awareness), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (spiritual Bliss). Western yoga focuses mostly on asana with a little pranayama and some mix of meditation sprinkled in for good measure.
The beauty of yoga is that through asana one can bring awareness into a particular position - focusing on posture, the feeling in the posture, and minute details that bring one into alignment in the posture. According to Vasant Lad, “when in cobra pose, one becomes like a cobra.” Asana focuses the mind and prepares the body for meditation, bringing attention back to the Self and facilitating the process of connecting back into universal Consciousness. So, as you can see, there really is so much more to yoga as a system.
I challenge you to take a moment and consider your perspective and understanding of yoga. What does it mean to you? What comes to mind when you think about how you’ve experienced yoga in the past? Would you like to experience yoga as a deeper spiritual practice? As a starting point, check out this week’s recording of my weekly virtual yoga class, Sanctuary from the Storm, and consider joining us live one Tuesday from 11:15 AM - 12:45 PM ET, where I bring together Western styles of yoga with more traditional perspectives to encourage self-exploration and openness to spiritual connection.
