Today’s Practice

“A paradox is only the truth standing on its head to attract attention.”

– – – G.K. Chesterton

“The known is limited, but the unknown is vast.

Go to the unknown more and more.”

– – – B.K.S. Iyengar

“I don’t bring yesterday’s poses to today’s practice. I know yesterday’s poses, but when I practice today I become a beginner. I don’t want yesterday’s experience. I want to see what new understanding may come in addition to what I felt up to now.”

– – – B.K.S. Iyengar

It is daunting to think of going to the unknown and often frightening, and sometimes exciting and always challenging. It is easy to always do the same thing, grab the same prop and do the pose in the same way. It is easy to make an excuse; my body has a limitation: I have a knee that…., my neck always gets sore after I …., I had a bad experience in class once…, I don’t understand how to…., my teacher told me to use…., this is more comfortable…, I have stiff…., I am too loose in the shoulders to….

I know this about myself and I watch students month after month do it. We start most classes with virasana and most people begin by taking the same props week after week, assuming that is what they need rather than trying first to see. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone lower the prop after they begin.

Even while we are in a pose that is more fluid, such as a standing pose, how much are we searching for new understanding? How often do we begin the pose in a new way? How often do we look for some new position or new angle from which to attack it? How often do we go to Light on Yoga and look at the poses that are rarely taught and try to learn them?

Why should we? Because a yoga practice should help us understand ourselves and in doing so make changes. Change won’t come without introspection and understanding. And then we have to do something with that understanding. We have to move differently, we have to organize ourselves differently. This requires discomfort and effort, moving from the known to the unknown. Moving from comfortable limited confines of the knowable to the vast unlimited possibilities of an unknowable future. It can seem easier to stay within the safe confines of the knowable, but once you have tasted the freedom you get from the vastness, the joy of the exploration it is hard to go back to being confined. If you try you are apt to find your body and your mind complaining.