Interconnectedness
The yoga of being vs. doing
Yoga is the union of body, mind and soul. On a grander scale, yoga is the union with the superconsciousness through samadhi, in order to achieve eternal bliss. Reading Michael Stone’s Awake in the World: Teachings from Yoga and Buddhism for Living an Engaged Life, I was reminded that in yogasana, the poses are hugely derived from nature and our surroundings—from animals (downward-facing dog, cat, cobra), plants (tree, lotus), landscape (mountain), and even inanimate objects (chair, bridge, wheel).
In kids’ yoga, we constantly pique our kids’ interest and imagination by telling them to imagine these objects when they are in the poses. We emphasise the similarity of each pose to the actual animal or thing we are trying to emulate (“roar like a lion,” “hiss like a cobra,” “stretch like a downward-facing dog”). We refrain from telling them to “feel connected” or “be grounded” because it’s hard enough to make adults understand what that means, let alone getting the kids to relate to that.
Yet, for all the talk among the adult yoga practitioners of the need to feel connected, to ground ourselves in our environment, most of us ironically practise these poses without thinking twice about these living and non-living things that the poses are supposed to emulate. We seem to have lost that imagination and awareness that bring us closer to nature in each pose. We become more focused on the alignment of muscles and joints (“am I doing this pose perfectly?”) than being in the moment, savouring the sensations the poses bring us, the connection to the environment that we inhabit.
I guess, we all need to learn to “be” the pose and not “do” the pose, to value more that interconnectedness than that perfect alignment.
