Maturing Ashtanga Practice

What does a mature ashtanga yoga practice look like? Does one continue to build strength and flexibility without limit? Does practice become physically deeper and more advanced into middle and old age? How does one know when the physical practice has matured enough to move to more subtle practices, to let go of the physical struggle and ambition? Or does any of that matter? Did we simply start off on the wrong foot with our ambition and aspiration?

Everyone comes to these questions at some point.

In the beginning most people associate an increase in physical flexibility and the ability to progress to more challenging postures with advancement, and this is of course logical and in some way meaningful. After all, most people are attracted to yoga because they feel physical discomfort in their bodies due to stress, sickness and stiffness, and stretching and twisting the body brings some release of these physical pains.

The desire to advance in the physical practice can be a strong motivation to make certain lifestyle changes that facilitate progress, and those changes, in turn, are mostly also extremely supportive of better overall health and sense of wellbeing.

According to yoga and Ayurveda there are three primary factors for perfect health - good diet, appropriate exercise and sleep. It is said that most diseases can be cured when these three essentials are properly taken care of. Co-incidentally, these three factors also contribute to an ability to progress in yoga practice.

There are, however, several stages to yoga - the first is evidently the physical practice - this may be regarded as the foundation. In order to progress to the further stages of yoga, asana must provide a comfortable seated posture.

Subtle Yoga

According to yoga there are two other bodies beyond the physical - the second is the subtle body. This subtle body has three components or sub-bodies - the body of “prana” or vital energy, the body of “manas”, the sensory-motor mind associated with the senses, gut and nervous system, and the body of “buddhi” or intelligence or intellect associated with the heart, lungs and brain.

While asana practice is the primary means for improving physical health, one cannot simply move the body without engaging the subtle body, without the utilisation of breath, sensation and motor organs, mind or intelligence to some degree.

Yoga practice progresses the more we engage with these subtle elements, the more skilfully we breathe, move, use our minds to place our bodies into the postures.

Awareness of these subtle elements develops with time. In the beginning, new students typically do yoga the same way they have done everything else: if you are ambitious and aggressive, you will apply these factors to practice. If you are lazy or lethargic, your practice will reflect these elements. But slowly, the new student, through the desire to get more out of practice, learns to overcome this one-sidedness and find better health and balance.

But simple trial and error with the physical body will usually lead to a dead end without the introduction of subtle practices. Asana practice can provide significant relief from physical afflictions, but the effect is relatively short lived: half the benefit is lost within 12 hours and most is lost within 24 hrs, leading to a degree of stiffness and pain if practice is not immediately engaged in again.

Asana practice acts a bit like an addiction. Addictions derive from a desire to relieve suffering - we may stuff ourselves with chocolate or sugar or volume in order to overcome discomfort, we may use drugs to alleviate pain and suffering. When we use these substances, we start to feel “normal” but when we do not have their support we feel even more agony than before. It is the same with asana: once you can put your leg behind your head, it feels amazing, but when you don’t do it for a few days, your neck just craves the sensation and feels stiff and painful without the medicine.

Surely there is something wrong here? Asana practice is addictive like other drugs - but the argument is that at least it is a healthy addiction. Often the physical practice replaces other much more harmful addictions and this gives the argument still more power, but surely we want to permanently resolve these inner afflictions rather than remain dependent on medicine for their relief.

If the mind and intelligence cannot also progress and develop through practice, we remain mired in this addictive/afflictive relationship and this often leads the practitioner to develop a deep seated ambivalence and stress in relation to practice. We have to become more subtle in our approach and recognize what truly serves and supports us and what will ultimately undermine our attempts to find true health and peace.

This is where the subtle practices come in. Once a comfortable seated position has been established, the next stage is to develop a breathing practice known as pranayama. Pranayama is introduced in a rudimentary fashion through asana practice and may then be evolved as a separate practice that ultimately transcends the physical - it is more potent than asana and, as such, offers much of the relief that extensive asana practice formerly provided.

Beyond pranayama is meditation - this is a practice that builds on and develops through pranayama and which ultimately replaces both asana and pranayama, providing the benefits these other practices formerly gave.

Transcendental Practice

The transcendental state is the target of yoga. The body and mind constitute the field of suffering. They are interrelated - when there is stress, distress, anguish, there is also pain in the body. When there is pain in the body, the mind is also afflicted and limited in its capacity.

These two bodies go through continuous change, but through meditation one may discover that there is another factor - what is known as consciousness, that is unchanging, that is simply a witness to the changes that take place. Although one may feel oneself to be a body or a mind, the fact that they are both in constant flux gives us no sense of centre, permanence, continuity. The more we associate with these changeable factors, the less confidence, sense of self, true identity we feel.

However, what we call consciousness is obscure because it is always conscious of something pertaining to the mind and body, it is always full of content and just as when you watch a movie, you become totally absorbed in it, you become identified with the characters and narrative and lose all sense of yourself.

So yoga practices are designed to reduce and eliminate the physical and mental content that fills awareness, so that we may become simply aware, self aware. The process of reducing the mental and physical distractions is at the same time a healing action that leaves the practitioner in a state of perfect health and harmony. While the target is the transcendental state, the process is what leads to healing.

As in asana practice, the postures do not provide the ultimate relief - the change in diet and lifestyle the practitioner engages in are what makes him feel better in the long run. In the same way, even though the target is true self knowledge or self realization, what brings the practitioner to that state are asana, pranayama and meditation.

Three Stages are Related to and Dependent on Each Other

These three stages are interrelated, depend on each other and evolve out of each other. Asana practice is mainly physical but it does depend on a degree of pranayama or breathing, concentration or meditative absorption and an accessing of the transcendental state. In asana practice pranayama is a lesser factor and the transcendental is still less accessible. In pranayama, there is a dependence on the posture and a closer association with the transcendental, while the ultimate stages of yoga are all dependent on the condition of the physical and subtle bodies, though by definition, awareness transcends these lower bodies.

The path of yoga, especially through asana, is fraught with blind alleys, dangers and distractions. It is very easy to remain mired in the first stage of practice either because of an obsession with the physical body that is so prevalent today or through lack of proper guidance which is generally also sadly lacking.

Each stage requires some time to mature - in most cases, at least a decade, though that does not mean you have to wait until asana is perfect to start pranayama, or for pranayama to be mastered before developing a meditation practice. However, maturity in the more advanced stages cannot be perfected until there is good physical and mental health that develops through asana and pranayama (of course, there are other ways to heal the body and mind that can lead to the transcendental state)

Breathing is the Key!

Breath is life. It is a factor in every moment, at birth, in asana, in pranayama, in meditation, in reaching the transcendental state and in death. There are four stages of pranayama - the ultimate stage is called kevala kumbhaka. When you enter deep stages of meditation the breath totally stops because the mind and breath are connected. When the mind stops, the breath stops.

Breathing is first trained through asana, then refined through pranayama, made subtle through meditation and then stops at the highest stage. This is not death, though it may look like death from the outside. Absorption in the transcendental state is temporary. It results in the realization of self, in the total merging in consciousness, the realization of truth and because it results from the release of mental and physical affliction the practitioner returns to normal consciousness with a residual feeling of bliss.

This bliss is transformational - it suffuses the body and mind with energy and positivity and provides the confidence that one has connected to one’s true identity - beyond mind and body - beyond the necessity for false identification.

Three Phases of Practice

Phase One - Concrete - Gross - Healing the Physical Body

Phase Two - Subtle - Pranayama - The Transformation of Mind

Phase Three - Transcendental - the Development of Self Knowledge - Realizing the Self

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Four Workshops

In Person

The Internal and External Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga - May 13
Ashtanga Yoga Ein Karem‎ (Jerusalem)
https://facebook.com/events/s/ashtanga-yoga-workshop-with-gu/1980159408842601/

Ashtanga Yoga – From Asana through Pranayama to Meditation – June 11th
Yoga Levontin (Tel Aviv)
https://www.yogalev.com/workshop/ashtanga-yoga-from-asana-through-pranayama-to-meditation-june-11th

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Online

The Art of Breathing II - The Energetics of Breath - Pranayama - Sunday May 15 

The Art of Breathing III - Breathing, Mind and Meditation - Sunday May 29
https://www.integralashtanga.com/