Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

power through our weaknesses. I recall an overanxious student who, regardless of all warnings and advice, zealously pushed his legs toward the Lotus posture. He would sit with his foot on his thigh, alternately bouncing each of his knees down to loosen his hips. Then he would force his legs into the posture, sitting with a winced smile on his face for the two seconds he could maintain it. Eventually he injured his knees and it was years before he healed and could do the pose again. Sometimes going slower is going faster.
    Another lesson we can learn when we begin to see yoga practices and asanas as tools is that we need to learn the proper and skillful use of these tools. It is important to understand that asana practice isn’t automatically beneficial. Yoga practices can heal, but they can also injure. Although they are predominantly benign and in most cases beneficial, it is more intelligent to be aware of potential harm and endeavor to increase our skills in the personal application of yoga.
    Asanas are tools, used to work on our bodies, to heal or to build strength, flexibility, and endurance, much more than asanas are goals. They are also great metaphors to see our nature, our character, and the ways we move through life.
The asanas are tools and their purpose is to serve our body, mind, and spirit
. They are not just goals to be attained. A story of a famous tailor in India named Hamsa-ji illustrates this point. One day Hamsa-ji was in a hurry to leave his shop when a customer, walking tall, came in to buy a suit. He said he must have thesuit right away so he could wear it for a special occasion that very evening. Hamsa-ji pulled out a suit and gave it to the man to try on. The man quickly slipped into the suit and stood before the tailor in front of a mirror. The right leg and left arm were a bit too long and the jacket seemed large, so the man asked that they be fixed, but it was late and Hamsa-ji had no time. “The problem is all in your posture!” asserted the tailor. He instructed his customer, “Please lift your chest, now drop your right shoulder a little. Good. Now, please, raise your right hip when you walk. Look in the mirror now, my dear sir. Does this suit fit or does it not?” The man smiled at his contorted figure in the mirror. The suit was a perfect fit, so he happily paid Hamsa-ji and hobbled out of the shop in his new outfit and new posture. A couple of the neighboring shopkeepers were chatting in the street as he left. One commented, “Brother, look at that poor cripple. Only Hamsa-ji, the great tailor, could fit a man like that!” We shouldn’t try to cram ourselves into asanas like Hamsa-ji did to that man; rather, we can learn how to use and adjust the asanas to our needs.
    Postures and practice should be adjusted to the needs and levels of each practitioner, not the other way around. Yet more often than not, students approach limitations in reverse and force themselves into postures. It is said that there are 840,000 asanas. In one way this mythic figure is a metaphor for a flexible approach to finding the appropriate poses for particular purposes, as it suggests there is a variation or adjustment of every pose for any body. Goals have their place. They give us energy and move us forward. They give purpose and direction and motivate us to achieve. However, focusing excessively on goals can cause aggressive practice that takes us out of the moment and out of attunement to the journey. Softening our goal orientation can help overcome aggressiveness and effort in yoga practice so we are more able to enjoy the journey. Goals are the finish line of a race, while yoga is an ongoing process throughout life. We need goals, and we need to keep them in their place.

Feedback: Learning to Listen
    External learning and observation must be balanced with awakening an internal awareness. Yoga brings our attention to both the inner and outer aspects of our being. An important part of inner attention is learning to listen to the intelligence that lives in the body. Though it may not speak in words, the body communicates loudly and clearly when we listen. It will teach correct movements and point out mistakes, singing when we work hard and asking for rest too. The body’s myriad feedback loops resonate together at higher levels of complexity. In the same way we watch how nature’s systems interrelate and affect each other, we can learn to monitor the relational effects of our body’s internal