What is yoga?
First… a few words about my own journey with the question ‘what is yoga?’
I hated my first ever session of yoga. I was 21. I entered the inner-city studio feeling quietly confident that my years as a dancer and my general fitness would make it an easeful practice for me. Instead I found the whole thing awkward, uncomfortable, and at times, painful. I couldn’t wait to get out of there, though admittedly I enjoyed the final relaxation.
A year or so later a couple of friends convinced me to try another yoga class in Bondi. While sitting outside the studio waiting to go in, explaining my nerves, I said “I’m really bad at yoga”. An older woman sitting close by spoke to me with a smile, “there’s no such thing as being bad at yoga”.
I didn’t think much of that simple statement. I thought she was just trying to make me feel better. It didn’t make any sense to me, given, at the time, my only introduction to yoga had been that it’s a physical practice, involving the performance of yoga poses, and thus one is either able to perform such yoga poses well, or not.
For reasons that I can’t quite put my finger on, I ended up signing up to a one month unlimited trial at my local yoga studio, and my body began to settle into the movements. I signed up for another month, and another. I began to find enjoyment, ease, and sometimes even glimpses of peace in the practice. I remember walking home from my favourite yoga class on a Sunday nights through the busy streets of Bondi, looking at all the smiling, noisy people spilling out of restaurants and bars and feeling like I was untouchable, and deeply at ease, contained within a bubble of peace. At least temporarily.
Still, I had no idea just quite how deep and comprehensive the practice of yoga really is. Even after going to hundreds of yoga classes with different teachers, as well as a couple of lovely yoga retreats, one in Cambodia, and one in India, I was yet to have a teacher provide me with an answer to the question: ‘what is yoga’?
Fast-forward another few years and I signed up to a one-month yoga intensive course at Hridaya Yoga, Mexico. This was supposed to kick off several months of travel throughout Central and South America. After completing the yoga course at Hridaya, followed immediately by my very first 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat, it was clear that my travel dream would have to wait. And I remained at Hridaya Yoga for the next three years, until COVID-19 brought me unexpectedly home to Oz.
The depth, joy, and simplicity contained within yoga and self-inquiry as taught at Hridaya Yoga shook me to the core. Not because these teachings seemed particularly radical or new. But because they brought an articulation to that which I already intuitively knew, in moments of silence, moments when I felt truly connected to myself.
So, what is yoga?
There is growing awareness that yoga is more than just a physical practice. More and more of us understand that the asana practices (physical postures) are just one component of yoga. There is general understanding that yoga is supposed be good for the body, mind and soul.
It also is more and more widely known that ‘yoga’ comes from the Sanskrit root ‘yuj’, which means to yoke or bind together, sometimes translated as ‘union’, or ‘oneness’. Still, the true depths of yoga cannot be touched through this definition alone.
According to Patanjali, the ‘father’ of yoga,
“yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the Seer’s true nature”.
Let’s unpack this.
Often, in yoga teacher trainings or other discourses on yoga, the focus is on the first part of the definition only - the “cessation of the movements of the mind”. So some teachers, when asked what is the purpose of yoga, might therefore refer to the calming or quietening of the mind. But why calm the mind? Without the second part of Patanjali’s definition, we are left with answers that keep yoga very much constrained to our existing, limiting thoughts about the world and life’s purpose, e.g. we calm the mind so that we can feel better, think clearer, be more productive, be more successful, be a better person etc.
But this was not the primary intention of yoga. While these may very well side-effects of the practice of yoga, the purpose of yoga is to reveal who we truly are, to enable an abiding in our true nature. To allow the witness consciousness, that which has always been with us, that which is aware of all that we do, to shine forth.
In fact, yoga is an incredibly comprehensive system that teaches us how to live in harmony, and recognise our oneness with nature, and each other. It shows us how to peel back the layers of falsity and identification that cloud our hearts and our minds, in order to reveal our deepest authenticity, that which is innately loving, joyful and at peace within us.
The 8 Limbs of Yoga
Yoga has 8 components. These are not to be understood in a linear sense, rather all eight components are inextricably linked. A mastery of the asana practice will only go so far without the development of personal attributes and qualities outlined in the yamas and niyamas, for example.
Limb 1: Yamas (moral disciplines concerning the world around us).
Limb 2: Niyamas (attitudes concering our own inner world).
Limb 3: Asanas (physical postures).
Limb 4: Pratyahara (Interiorisation).
Limb 5: Pranayama (Breathing practices).
Limb 6: Dharana (Concentration).
Limb 7: Dhyana (Meditation).
Limb 8: Samadhi (Cosmic Consciousness).
At a later date, I will write more in depth about these limbs, and some of the other elements of yoga. For now, it is my hope that in all of my classes and retreats that I bring an understanding of yoga beyond just the physical practice. In yoga classes with me, the most important thing is our awareness. A yoga class spent thinking up the shopping list or planning your weekend is not a practice of yoga. You might as well be doing a gym class or pilates. In yoga, we are training the mind to come back, again and again, to presence, and find rest and relaxation, even amidst strong and challenging postures.