Yoga: don’t twist yourself into a pretzel

Bottle the mysticism of the East, add in the flavor-of-the-day, wrap it in a snazzy packet, stamp an expiry date, & voila! You have a marketing bonanza: rock your asana and shake your chakra.

But if you are not comfortable with new age trends, and your body has lost some elasticity, don’t worry.

You do not need a fancy instructor, or fancy mats and costumes. You do not need to twist your body into a pretzel. Yoga is a state of being. It is a recipe for health: physical, mental and spiritual

Physical health requires mental health. Both require balance.

Yoga is defined stunningly in the Bhagawad Gita, the holy book of the Hindus. Lord Krishna, an incarnation of the great God Vishnu, tells his disciple Arjun: Yogasthah kuru karmani, sangam tyaktva Dhananjay; Siddhahah asiddhayoh  samo bhutva, samatvam yoga ucchyate. (2.48)

“O Arjun, perform all your actions, steadfast in yoga, abandoning external attachments, remaining even-minded in success as well as failure; even-mindedness  is yoga.”

Yoga has been used to mean different things in different contexts.

  1. A technique to control the mind.
  2. A system of exercises and postures.
  3. A set of routes or practices to obtain oneness with God: action, knowledge or devotion. Namely, Karma Yoga, Gyana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga.
  4. Discipline, balance, even-mindedness.
  5. A system of controlled breathing.

Balance

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More than anything else, yoga is about balance. Take care of your actions, your duty, your job. Take deep breaths. De-clutter your mind. Strengthen your body. Keep things in balance.

Karma Yoga

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The word karma has been distorted in popular use: good karma, bad karma, the use or misuse of karma to mean fate or destiny. In Sanskrit, karma simply means an action, or a set of actions.

The basic principle of Karma Yoga is to perform your actions, to the best of your ability, without focusing on the results of those actions.

This may sound bizarre, but truly speaking, worrying about results or rewards only serves to distract us from the performance of the action.

And the only thing under our control is the performance of our actions. The results are often beyond our control. Results can depend on a lot of factors. Action depends on us. So let us do what needs to be done, and try to do it well.

After all, we depend on others to do their jobs well. Every time we board a plane, we assume that the pilot will do his job of flying the airplane well.

So let us do our jobs well, too. Let the results take care of themselves.

This yoga frees up our minds, and allows us to focus entirely on the job at hand. On our duty.

Imagine a world where everyone thought and acted like that.

Shavasana

kitty shavasana

This is a very simple yoga posture. Shava means a corpse and asana is a posture.

This combines a simple posture with deep breathing, and is a highly relaxing asana.

You need to lie on your back, on a comfortable surface. Yoga does not mean torturing yourself. The arms and legs should be spread about 45 degrees, palms upward. Then focus on taking a slow, deep breath in.

As you breathe in, concentrate on the breath. Imagine your belly expanding (think about your stomach pushing an imaginary belt outward). Then visualize your chest expanding with the breath, and then your collar bone rising.

Once you have breathed in as much air as you can, slowly let the breath out. Again, focus on the sensation of your breath slowly leaving your body. In normal adults, breathing out takes two to three times as long as breathing in.

Throughout, focus only on the breath.

Do this for five minutes initially. Slowly, increase the duration.

You will find this asana incredibly relaxing. And there are multiple benefits of deep breathing.

Yoga for life

Yoga is and should be a life-long discipline. There are lots of layers, lots of asanas. At heart, though, it is fairly simple. And Karma Yoga plus Shavasana  are excellent places to start.

6 thoughts on “Yoga: don’t twist yourself into a pretzel”

  1. Simple, yet perfect understanding of karma and its relevance in keeping balance in our daily lives.

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