#14: Yoga and liberation
So, last time, I mentioned that Yoga isn’t only about love and light. Or something to that effect.
And here is my attempt at explaining that a little more.
*I hope you know that these letters are always just an offering, and that they are written for me to learn as much as I share. So, here goes; here’s to (I hope) a deeper understanding.
Firstly, yoga is a practice of liberation.
In a nutshell, we practice yoga to get free.
To be free.
We practice to free ourselves and others.
It is, above all, a practice of service, and so no one person can be liberated unless everybody is.
I will talk a bit more about this in a minute, but can I just say there has never been a greater time to reflect upon our personal practice (sadhana), and how it potentially impacts upon others.
Yoga is, in my opinion, an incredible practice! It literally blows my mind.
I know it’s not a balm that will fix all of the ills in this world, but I believe its core concepts are key to easing so much of the suffering that exists - on the personal level - and that this will enable us to ease the suffering on a global and political level.
For the liberation of all beings!
Because it’s only by becoming in-tune with ourselves that we can hope to have empathy for others. And it’s empathy and compassion that is the seed of whatever is going to save us from the cycles of destruction that we humans have created through our disconnection.
Yoga grants us the space to reflect on our experiences, and to uncover the truth of the matter. And, sometimes, the truth is hard to hear. Excruciatingly painful to acknowledge. But it’s what we need to do, each and everyone of us, so that we can fully embrace ourselves, and then one another.
It has been suggested, by the likes of teacher Jivana Heyman, that for too long now the personal and the political has been overlooked in yoga communities. It is what is known as “spiritual bypassing”, and it basically means that, too often in westernised yoga, there’s a tendency to focus only on love and light. It’s a ‘Good vibes only’ and an ‘anything-else-is-just-toxic’, sort of thing.
Whereas the traditional teachings do not have such a focus, and other teachers such as Susanna Barkataki are working (serving) to readdress the miseducation caused by the dominant colonialist version of yoga that is causing harm to so many, and instead promotes the ancient power of yoga to not only heal ourselves of this mindset, but to heal the world around us too.
(Think here about the Lululemon issue, as an example of the exploitation of yoga by consumer culture.)
Far removed from luxury leggings, Yoga is an ancient embodied practice. Which means that when we are practicing ‘properly’, we are within our bodies. Not concerned with what we are wearing. We are occupying our bodies, taking up space and connecting with our entire being.
In this space, we are able to listen to the wisdom of our bodies, but also we are able to realise that the Self is so much more than just the body in which we occupy, and certainly more than the clothes we are wearing.
If we’re paying attention, we get a sense of the mystery of life and our intrinsic part within it all. Within everything.
And it’s from this golden space - yoga - that we gain the insight that nothing separates us.
That we are all connected.
That we are one.
So, what affects one, affects all; the entire whole.
And, right now, in certain pockets of our world, with disconnection and inequality increasing, the climate crisis is only one of the symptoms.
I am sorry if this is challenging, but I’m not sure anyone can profess to practice yoga and look the other way. There are things that deserve our attention and there are people who need our help.
The trick is - and this is another ancient yogic concept, not mine: is that it’s about being able to look and being moved to action, but without letting what you see destroy you.
Self-destruction doesn’t serve anybody.
If this happens - and it does to many of us - then we could be too attached to an idea of the way things are ‘supposed’ to be (aparigraha) and we could be clinging to fear (abhinivesa). Both ideas taken from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
When we recognise these feelings, what we need to do is to try and come back to our practice and tend to ourselves even more. So that, next time, we can respond to suffering from a place of balance.
No, it’s not easy. But with practice, things become clearer and a lot less scary.
Ram Dass (one of my favourite yoga teachers), in the book Paths to God, describes how, when we are willing to reflect on ourselves in this way (sadhana), and realise our misguided western obsession with personality; how we describe our selves with our roles, our likes and dislikes, means that we focus on difference, and the perception of difference is what separates us.
And what is at the root of all social injustice? A sense of difference. Or othering.
Difference is what also leads to judgment and comparison. To believing that we are superior and/or that we lack in some way.
So, you can see how this leads to personal suffering and then social injustice. And yoga literally is able to heal these things. Like I said, it is incredible.
But, in order for that to happen, we have to acknowledge this potential and be willing to engage with it.
Not always, no.
Not in every class or practice, no.
There is room to have fun and relax and absolutely tend to our own needs without it always needing to feel heavy.
We are allowed to be joyful.
We are allowed to feel love and light.
But to miss this other aspect of yoga, or worse, to deny it, is wasting the opportunity that yoga offers.
I think I will leave it there. There’s a lot in what I’ve just said and it’s good to give things the air and space to sink in.
Please check out the teachers that I’ve mentioned. They will be able to elaborate more effectively on their own ideas. And, if you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to get hold of a copy of The Yoga Sutras. One of the first translations that I read was by Desikachar, and it is still one of my favourite yoga books.
Next week, I will have a short practice for us all to deepen a sense of self-connection, and it will also aim to encourage us to consider our place within our communities, as well as explore this idea of yoga for social justice; for liberation.
Peace, love and kindness,
Louisa
x
It must begin with you and me. All great things start on a small scale, all great movements begin with individuals; and if we wait for collective action, such action, if it takes place at all, is destructive and conducive to further misery. So revolution must begin with you and me.
J. Krishnamurti