Years ago, I was going fairly regularly to Yasodhara Ashram in Kootenay Bay, which was founded by Swami Sivananda Radha. They held daily asana classes which were very different from my Iyengar training, and yet, both BKS Iyengar and Swami Radha spoke of a “hidden language” in hatha yoga practice. BKS Iyengar wrote a letter that was included as an introduction to Swami Radha’s book, “Hatha Yoga: The Hidden Language”.
He wrote :
“I am glad that you have given thought as to how the Yoga sadhakas can do the asanas by beginning with connective action and ending with reflection, contemplation, and absorption. I hope your work will help to build the bridge between body, mind, and soul, so that later these three compartmental attentions can transform into a single attention for the transfiguration of the true self.”1
Swami Radha would pose questions in each asana to reflect on, similar to how the Iyengars (BKS, Geeta and Prashant) have often started with the connective actions in the body, to then point us toward greater aspirations.
As an example, for salamba sirsasana, Swami Radha writes:
“In this posture, familiar surroundings are seen upside down. This may cause some unpleasantness, different emotions – even fear. Rebellion may emerge powerfully in a struggle to defend views and cherished beliefs. Everything is at the opposite end from what used to be the best and only “right” way. Comfort and security are challenged. This is difficult to accept. You may find yourself thinking, what would happen if my life were turned upside down? I am standing on my head – how do my strong convictions look now? In this position like an upside down tree, I can’t move. Do I know where I am rooted?”2
Our asana practice challenges not only our bodies, but also our views on our bodies and life in general. I recall as a young “fit” person watching a “senior” teacher, (in both senses of the word) do a pose I could not even approach — it was one of those “don’t judge the book by its cover” moments. Yoga practice has helped me to change the relationship I have my own stretch marks, wrinkles and injuries. When we move into uncomfortable positions, or inverted poses, something else can open up for us. We can turn our “dearly held beliefs” on their head, and we may find some of them to be baseless or out-dated. In any asana (or moment in life) we might pause to assess how our body, mind and soul are being attended to. Is there care, attention and intention being applied? Where are we rooted physically, mentally and spiritually? Can we unify these three “compartmental attentions”? What is yoga after all, but a union — a singular attention.
“When you place your mat on the floor, there is no duality. When you lower your head into position on the mat, there is no duality. But the moment your raise your feet from the floor, you experience the identity of “I”; take out that and retain the oneness, that total awareness which must remain throughout the posture.”3
~BKS Iyengar
Yoga practice trains us to have total awareness in everything we do. Having just moved house, our lives were turned upside down. The attentive awareness came in moving from room to room with a box, or cleaning the kitchen cupboards, or in establishing a rapport with the guys on the moving team. Of course, there are times when our awareness is lacking! At a time of great disruption like this, it felt like that moment of lifting your feet from the floor in headstand. Some instability, insecurity, and fear did arise! At times the “I” did become inflated and that sense of oneness or “flow” was lost.
This move has been a great shake-up and has caused me to reflect a lot on this question: where am I rooted? It is not really in the place where I am living, though the nesting is taking place. I know that if we are rooted in our views, this can be a real problem! Where else can we root ourselves? In the heart? In the Supreme Reality or in the Divine? Where do you “root” to stand the best chance of growth and fruition of your heart’s desire?
1.Hatha Yoga: The Hidden language, Swami Sivananda Radha. 1987 Timeless Books. xiii, xiv
2.ibid 43
3.ibid 42
[note: Swami Radha had a lovely relationship of mutual respect with BKS Iyengar and Geeta Iyengar. They met in Pune, India in 1982, and reunited when BKS and Geeta travelled to Canada in later years. Geeta taught at the Yasodhara Ashram in 2008.]
