Alignment Beyond the Body
Tags: Meditation, Yoga, Body Positive, Wellness, Health

I watch myself constantly during the day. I try to feel when I sag, slouch, cross my arms in front of my chest or cross my legs while sitting. During yoga practice, I am monitoring my breath and body alignment. I remind myself to change legs during transitions and with time, these little self-adjustments have become subtler and almost intuitive.

This process of self-regulation requires attention and sensitivity. The same goes for other habits that demand our presence and awareness to control them no matter how long we’ve had them. Oh well, I may not be able to reset the asymmetry of my body that much, but I can still align myself in а way that will make my movements easier, more gracious and the whole body more stable and light. The Yoga sutras say that this is one of the drops that will alleviate my suffering and make my life happier.

If you are like the 9 out of 10 beginners in yoga, you maybe suck at meditation. Or you may really enjoy it on rare occasions when daily chores do not seem to overwhelm you. You may even feel guilty that you are a “bad” meditator or are simply different and do not like meditation at all.

Whatever it is, don’t. Don’t think. Don’t think anything. If you do your physical practice (of yoga) you may be well enough into turning your gaze inwards which is a prerequisite for meditation. Actually, done with awareness, the physical practice is a moving meditation. If you still do not feel anything like more focus or — you guessed it, awareness — rest assured, your practice will take you there sooner or later.

But not all practice can be a moving meditation. If you stick with the easy things and always choose what naturally comes to you without any effort you may just as well miss the opportunity to tap into a meditative state. Practice without focus is not going to teach you to meditate. Practice done occasionally won’t do the job either.

Patanjali says about asana:

He who establishes himself in asana is free from the pair of opposites (duality) (Yoga sutra 2.48)

It is, in fact, amazing how focusing on your body can do what Patanjali promises…

The body is really the starting point for most yoga beginners and the place they actually land when attention is brought into play. And this is perfectly fine as any spiritual practice would be quite dangerous without some cultural and mental context as well as a serious and intense physical preparation.

This may sound controversial — I just said your physical practice is a moving meditation and now I say we need to prepare ourselves for meditation with serious physical practice.

But “serious” here is the keyword. By that, I do not mean you should get obsessed by practicing or look like Margaret Thatcher during practice. Serious in the yoga sense means continuous, uninterrupted and focused. Practice every day for a few months with all the awareness you are capable of and you will see for yourself.

Most techniques in yoga that you use during asana practice are meant to give you focus. Breath control is one of them. Bodily control — another. Whether and how you practice go there, too. All in all, the very process of learning yoga help change our archetypal patterns of thinking, feeling, reacting and acting. Take all the likes and dislikes you have or all the “conditions” to …let say do yoga.

Confess — yoga has made you feel uncomfortable at least once, hasn’t it? What if I tell you that yoga should take you out of your comfort zone one way or another daily? Whether it is a more complex asana, a longer practice or simply the need to practice TODAY (when you have so much other stuff to do or it’s raining, snowing, is cold, is hot….) — without any challenge, you will never get over yourself, you will remain in your own box filled with your own biases.

It is the difficulties in yoga that drive us forward and awareness cannot be planned or predicted. But you can start by building more sensations in your body, getting to know them and eventually modify them if they don’t serve you good. Are you slouched in your Samasthiti? Are you slouched behind your desk or while washing the dishes? How do you stand while waiting at the queue in your local supermarket?

With time, believe me, you will find awareness about how you stand in life, too.