April 21, 2015

As I scroll through the Instagram feed or check out the latest Facebook posts, I am flooded with images of yoga asana. The pictures are beautiful. They are great angles of adept yogis with coordinated outfits, often in beautiful outdoor settings or with curtains blowing. And this is not a description, not a judgment. After all, some of those photos are mine. And these photos are inspiring. Because of this feed, I try poses I had forgot to include in my practice motivated by pictures of even ordinary poses made beautiful. I get to my mat and that is great.

At times, though, I also look at the feed and wonder what I am doing in this yoga world. The pictures make the poses look effortless. Even I have captured poses I struggle with, hold just for the length of time it takes for the camera to click and fall out immediately after. The photo, however, doesn’t show the struggle, the hours of practice, the failed attempts and the awkward dismount. Only the image of the moment suspended in space and time is immortalized.

I recently read somewhere that the degree of effortless in an action is proportional to the amount of practice. When we see effortless action, we must see the hours behind this act. All the hours of practice leading to the moment of grace and beauty …. and those hours of practice are rarely beautiful or graceful. My practice is messy. I scramble, I fall, and I pant. Those are not the moments captured in the still photo.

The point, however, is not the end photo but rather that we are practicing to make things effortless. We are cultivating the ability to move with beauty and grace so that our actions appear effortless.

Throughout my life, I am looked for models along the life path to guide me in the process of living. A common denominator for all those who I chose as life mentors was a gracefulness of being. I thought their seemingly effortless ability to move through life was a gift from God, innate, and uncultivated. I didn’t see their practice and yet now I recognize that they were practiced at living. They were actively building an ability to move with life’s currents and not against them.

One of my first yoga teachers was asked about how to develop a more regular home practice. She responded to the query in a surprising way. She did not offer tips on when and what to practice and how to unroll the mat. She said that it is important to recognize that if we are not doing our yoga practice, what we are choosing to do instead is being given priority. If I am not practicing because my loved one is not well and I am immersed in his care that is my priority. If I am surfing the internet and it eats up my time for practice, on some level I have decided that is more important. Scrolling through Facebook is easy, effortless because we have dedicated time to doing it.

In my early Iyengar yoga classes, I have distinct memories of the teacher consistently reminding us to breathe without gasping, with as little strain as possible. I found those instructions harsh, impossible and unnecessary. I was here to work hard, to do the asana practice and more intense breathing was part of it. And now I understand that by working with my breath, I was being asked to be effortless in my effort. I was being asked to cultivate an ability to work without adding unnecessary strain. I was being asked to be with the greater forces of the breath without trying to shift them to my will.

So, what are we practicing?

As yogis, we are asked to practice asana, pranayama, and meditation, engage in active reflection and contemplation and develop the ethical and moral constraints (the yama and niyama). It is a big commitment. Ultimately, this package we call yoga is the practice of living. We are attempting to move through life in time with the waves that guide the life force.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says, “The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do it set our sails.” When we work to be effortless in our actions, we are setting our sails and letting the winds of Grace blow us on our course.