The 8 Limbs of Yoga
During a recent interview, I was asked how women can get their men into yoga (or on the mat).
Should Men Do Yoga?
Innocently, the question brings about excitement. Wanting to share something with a loved one. More male bodies in the classroom to experience the benefit that said women have experienced.
We miss important topics from the inquiry: What is yoga? Why should others do it? Are they missing the yoga bliss?
Are You Healthy?
If the byproduct of yoga is to make you healthy, shouldn’t we try to get the sick, or infirm in the classroom? And is yoga suppose to make you healthy?
The inquiry becomes alarming. With the abundant access to all modern yoga we have little notion to what it is. Sure, you know what yoga is by definition. We understand that it involves a type of bringing together of the mind — sometimes body — to conscious awareness. As we explore the subject more, consciousness can be theistic (God, Allah, Siva) or non-theistic (Spirit, Soul, Consciousness). These frameworks are expressed in yogic philosophy.
What does this have to do with getting on a mat? Or performing flow based movements, sometimes crammed into a hot room? Does this approach bring wellness and wellbeing to every being?
Conscious Energy
If we look at yoga philosophy, which, in short, borrows from Sankya, there is a quality (Purusha) which exists in everything. Everything we can sense would not exist without it; including the earth. However, nothing exists in this perfect energy because it’s perfect, beyond time and complete.
A short cut to understand conscious energy is in understanding that it is not subject to time or death. This is where we sometimes get the individual soul (microcosm) or God/consciousness (macrocosm). Therefore, anything subject to death is not this consciousness. That is to say, when you die, your energy (prana, jivatma, soul) continues.
Yes, I know we can argue that the microcosm is the macrocosm and the other way around but hear me out…
From a yogic perspective we are not arguing on the figurehead or the lack of. There is no argument that we are all headed toward consciousness (through the inner work of life, through practice, or both). The argument occurs when we talk about how we get there; or that yoga is the only route to these benefits mentioned above.
This would imply that yoga is a way in we journey or a quality we enter.
The State of Yoga
Yep, yoga is a state! It’s something we enter, not something we do. The classical paths of yoga are not based exclusively on postures but a framework of understanding in how we hold our mind. We can hold a mindset steady by contemplation, devotion, or ritual. The mind construction — physical postures — associated with modern yoga is a preliminary step of yoga system.
Asana does not even show up in classical yoga more than something you sit in/on for contemplation. Today, as we meditate, or practice breathing techniques and unconsciously respond with a No if someone asks if practiced yoga. We recall yoga as physical, on-the-mat practice and not all the other aspects that are ever as much yoga.
Off the Mat
I love seeing the old yogis practicing on large rugs, on platforms. Sitting in ice cold rivers while practicing pranayama. My first guru, who is 82, practices no-handed headstands to this day! Additionally, I am amazed at the transcendent chanting of mantram over Zoom. My other guru does not practice asana.
Yoga can be practiced in a lot of places, in a variety of ways. Some of those ways are encapsulated in the teachings within a lineage or a philosophical path like the 8-limbed-system that many of you know.
This system, complied by Sri Pantanjali is the one associated with modern yoga yet is one of many limbed systems. Additionally, there are fragments of other philosophies that we claim exist in this system that do not. This particular system pays a lot of attention to the mind and concentration with minimal focus on postures. The physical process mentioned is about gain toward steadiness and ease. Other texts suggest something similar in the physical being aimed at getting to the mind — mental mastery; or from hatha to raja. The condition of the body becomes a house; protecting the soul from entanglement with mental suggestio
The Love of Yoga
If we want to get our loved ones into yoga, the mat may be limiting. As a yoga educator of nearly two decades, I remember studio owners saying *It’s the asana that gets them in.* This suggestion is not embracing people where they are; or, at least, where the teacher may be on the path of transmitting knowledge. It is about marketing physical fitness.
Embracing what yoga is, how it natural works through the prescriptive practices will be much more enticing to those around you. There is no need for glamour or splendor to attract someone to part of system, or a limited practice.
What if these hypothetical men, partners, friends, family are in a deep contemplation practice through gardening, or caring for people at the masjid (mosque), or secretly have a life practice oriented on self purpose?
The Bhagavad Gita mentions that it is better to have your own dharma than that of another. This appears to apply to constructing another’s dharma. After all, with or without yoga, those loved ones are already on a journey toward the self.
