Paul Reynolds

Le Guru is You!

Death and Yoga

“In the end what matters most is
How well did you live
How well did you love
How well did you learn to let go?”
--Unknown

It has been said that we die every day. Our hatha yoga practice is in essence a mirror of how we move in our everyday lives, and each time we take to the mat we experience a kind of death, a letting go.

Each posture is asking us to let go of how we think we are supposed to move. Each posture often asks us to put to rest a pattern or rut that we have been cultivating over years.

Over my years of practice and teaching I have often observed students (and myself) entering a posture with a renewed sense of energy and excitement. This is the flip side of the dying or letting go; it is the birth of the posture. Its energy is just that, a movement into a new space, maybe experienced before, maybe not.

As we work into it, when the posture feels good we feel as if we could hold onto it just a little bit longer, perhaps forever. But in the framework of the practice we will need to let go, to move on to the next asana. When it is a challenge, when it hits the edge that brings up “stuff” or challenges our limits of strength and endurance, we want to stop, let it go now. In both instances the exit is often a hurried and less than graceful attempt to get to the next place to see if it is any better. None of this is wrong; by the way, it is a natural tendency. There is an acknowledgment of the death of that moment. Our emotional/physical make up dictates how we are going to do that. But there is a loss of learning opportunity when we forget to honor that exiting. Consider getting out of the posture with as much enthusiasm, integrity and mindfulness as we had getting into it.

This tendency is revealed in other aspects of life as well. Take a look at how you enter and leave relationships or jobs, leave one home and move to another, or even how you get into and out of conversations. Each requires a letting go, an exiting, a little death.

In the posture of savasana, the corpse pose, which usually comes at the very end of a session, one can often encounter fidgeting and agitation as if this acknowledgment of death, as its name suggests, may bring discomfort. But it brings with it also a time of replenishing energy and rest, total relaxation.

The hatha practice in its entirety is based on learning to let go. That letting go leads (in terms of the asana) many times to new discoveries such as greater openness, flexibility, energy and strength. Each quality arrives as is neatly prescribed – by each of us according to our needs.

In this context it can also be observed that life is a constant exercise of acceptance and then the ultimate letting go and then an opening to…?

What a gift to be able to become comfortable with this aspect of life called death. A very powerful meditation among swamis is to sit amidst the charnel of cremating –bodies to further understand and embrace this aspect of human existence, indeed with this principle of an ever-evolving life. Death and life – not opposites. In-breath and out-breath – not opposites. Male and female – not opposites. Right and left, up and down, inner and outer – all interdependent partners, one setting up for the other.

As you move into your practice – on the mat or off, yogi or not, with whatever facilitator you have chosen – be prepared to “die” a little. Die to who you think you are, to how the practice should be, and surrender to the unlimited possibilities of the present moment.

Namaste

May we realize a peace that depends on … nothing.