Are Those YOGA Signs Lying To You?

Holy guacamole batyogis. No wonder newbs are confused.

...yoga is to yoke

        ...yoga is union

               ...yoga is breath control

                        ...yoga is meditation

                                 ...yoga is love

                                         ...yada yada

Yoga sutra number 2:

YOGA IS THE STILLING OF THE MIND

So the act of stilling the mind is yoga.

Now this is easier said than done. People practice their whole life trying to do this.

Asana is moving your body into a certain position. Is this yoga? Nope. It's just moving your body into a pose. The act of stilling the mind is yoga.

Now you can still your mind by concentrating on your breath. So is concentrating on your breath yoga? Nope.

If your mind happens to still as a result of concentrating on the breath, then the stilling of the mind bit is yoga. The concentration on the breath is just concentrating on the breath.

Talk about splitting hairs!

So where does asana fit into this? It must be somewhere or else all those signs saying "Yoga" are wrong.

Remember how we said that stilling the mind is easier said than done?

And remember how concentrating on your breath can lead to yoga? (Notice how we carefully said 'lead to' not 'is'). Whatever.

Well, it turns out that diligently applying yourself to a practice (this is any discipline) improves concentration. Let's face it.

If you don't concentrate on your discipline, you'll never get better. Anyway.

So, if you happen to diligently apply yourself to moving your body into certain shapes, let's call this asana, then you are helping improve your concentration.

So let join all the dots together...

Asana is a discipline that you can concentrate on and get better at.

Let's reword: By concentrating on asana, you get better at asana and you get better at concentrating.

What does it take to still the mind? Concentration on one thing .i.e. the mind not jumping around or being still.

Notice how the stillness isn't a sleepy stillness? It's a razor sharp focus, that takes a lot of energy (concentration) to maintain.

So is concentrating the mind on one thing yoga? I'll leave this for you to answer (please don't say 'yes').

So what about asana?

...Asana is never yoga. Asana is always not yoga.

THOSE "YOGA" SIGNS ARE LYING TO YOU.

Peace, J