Meditating in Asanas

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Meditating in asana practice

N.B. Names of postures, or asanas, are as given by Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Shivananda tradition in the north of India and vary from those used by Mr Iyengar of the Krishnamacharya tradition in the south of India. My reference is 'Asana, Pranayama, Mudra, Bandha', available from the links to Satyananda Yoga Academy or from myself.

This is a great way to be your own therapist for your body. There are many physical meditations. Here I describe working with the balance of right and left. This is significant and subtle. We present ourselves to the world usually with one side of the body leading. It indicates something about ourselves. It continually re-inforces that side of the brain hemisphere which controls it.

Yoga has a lot to say about this. We call the right side of the body 'pingala', the sun energy. It is controlled by the nerves in the left side of the brain. It is about logic and constant physical energy. It is as reliable as the sun which is always shining. The left side of the body relates to the right hemisphere of the brain. It is called 'ida', the moon energy. It is the creative, emotional, inward looking side of ourselves - like the moon which waxes and wanes. There are channels of energy throughout the body which distribute the energy, called nadis. There are ancient pictures of them, and texts, which say there are 72,000 of them.

The feet and the foundation philosophy of the soul (sole).

The philosophy makes more sense in connection with the experience of the body than just as words, Try these full bodied explorations:

Start in tadasana (step 1, standing arms by the sides) and feel the weight on the feet. Feel them as if they had four corners - at the inner and outer edges of the ball and heel of the foot. Bring the weight evenly onto those corners. By doing that you will have evened the pressure on the joints of the legs...ankles, knees and hips. You may have a sense of freshness, of standing square. It will use muscles and nerves rarely used. Our uneven standing leads to uneven wear of our joints, maybe to arthritis. People in my workshops have often have the delightful experience of finding ways of standing and moving which are pain free after some niggles have become chronic. They are now literally using some unworn joint surfaces. You can look at the soles of your shoes to see the wear pattern. This will give you irrefuteable evidence of your standing and walking pattern. Try putting your weight into the pressure shape your shoes suggest. Walk around like this for a while, till you really feel the characteristics of your stance.

You might like to consider the psychology of your body. If you saw yourself walking, what does this body say? If you were a sculpture, what would you call yourself? Be kind with whatever you find. We have grown as we have in response to every stimulation, like a tree which can grow it's most expressive twists and turns in response to the land moving under it and the plants around it, and to fire or drought. The expression of our body is unique. It is our gift to the world. It is part of what we learn and what we teach, both how to be like us and the troubles of being like us. Our sankalpa, (see article specifically on this), our true vision, comes from this seed. Like a rich compost taking all ingredients as food, all our lives, our pains and pleasures, form us into a rich tapestry of many colours. You might consider how you can use this information positively for yourself and others, including it in the ground or foundation of your life and your expression of yourself.

This is how yoga weaves the experience of body, mind and heart together. Inseparable, as every cell is wise and speaking.

Back to the body: It is useful to stretch the feet themselves, as they are the suspension system of the body. they have a quarter of the bones of the body in them and have evolved over millenia three curved arches which spring with every step. Try:

- toe bending, legs outstretched (lying or sitting), foot vertical, bending the toes forward and backward. Then try scrunching the foot into a fist and stretching the toes as wide as possible. (Pawanmuktasana part 1)

- sitting on your heels (vajrasana) with the toes tucked under. Hold as long as comfortable. Then stretch the toes back, sit on your heels again, and lift your knees off the floor to more fully stretch the top of the foot.

- from lying on your stomach (prone) or standing on your knees, stretch back evenly to big and little toe. Come onto the top of the foot and shin. This will feel delicate, getting the nerves and muscles on each side of the foot to work evenly. You may feel the nuances of control into the thigh, as the foot cannot lie evenly if it is twisted. I feel this like opening channels of circulation, like irrigating the rice paddies ready for new growth. Our joints, nerves and muscles dry when they are not used. Sometimes it is blood that flows into these places, energy (prana) carried within.

Every cell contains a microcosm of our entire being in it's DNA. The further you look into a cell, and then a molecule or atom, the more it can be related to the macrocosm of our planetary system circling around the sun. If we leave part of our body unaware. the part of the brain which innervates it (sends nervous signals) is less used. The word yoga means union, or connection. Our nervous system and even beyond the sum of our parts is capable of experiences of bliss. Irrigate this tremendous capacity with touching every part of our body and our brain with the wet fluids of circulation and of awareness. This is the magic and intelligence of yoga practice.

It can give the mind tremendous peace to concentrate on our physical vehicle. It is something only we can experience, a unique exploration. It is the place where we can have control, if we can anywhere. It is the place where conscious awareness can make contact with unconscious expression. We express, they say, 80% of communication non-verbally. Noticing it for yourself is getting to know yourself maybe as never before. It certainly is an effective way to release tension as we actually take the time to notice it is there. Soaking the body with our awareness, like water into dry soil, brings renewed life.

- Back to the body, now standing. Heels as wide as the balls of the feet so then inner, outer, front and back of the legs are evenly used. Stretch your big toes to the centre and your other toes to the sides. Then lift your heels just a centimetre and stretch back from the balls to the heels. Replace your heels to the floor. Now let the stretch, the expansiveness of the foot come with the liquidity of the breath expanding the chest. Not from a tight, dry tension in the foot, rather by opening the channels of the foot (nadis) so blood can flow. Like going from a tight feeling of concentration in the mind to a relaxed, spontaneous mind which readily finds connections.

The hips

The joint of the femur (thigh bone) and the pelvis is often a good example of uneven joint wear. In the western world we spend lots of time sitting on chairs and little time cross legged on the floor. This frequently leads to a thick coating of cartilage at some points of the joints of the bones, in the straight forward and backward direction, and a thinner layer at the sides which are rarely used. The ball and socket of the hip has a lovely rounded ball and a beautiful free motion when we let it move loosely.

Try:

- standing with one foot on a brick, one hand on the wall, letting the other leg dangle to feel it's loose movement.

-lying on your back (supine) and cycling with one leg moving in big circles like bicycle would take, the other leg bent foot to the floor. Try each leg in turn. Notice if the knee and foot stay in a straight line, or if the 'bicycle wheel' is buckled. Exagerate the buckle to feel what is your tendency. Then take it to move straight, truing the wheel. It may give you an openness and stretching in the pelvic floor which is the yogic storehouse of kundalini energy and a physical storehouse of rich nerve supply.

Then try leg rotations taking one leg round left, head, right, out straight and keep going. Try the other leg. Then bend both knees to the chest, legs bent, and move your feet from left to right. Your knees will move the other way and you can experience a weightless oiling of the ball and socket joint.

The pelvis

Rotation, meaning one side more forward than the other, of the pelvis is a condition which leads to uneven pressure on the sacro-iliac area and lumbar spine. Probably 80% of people have this.

You can often diagnose your rotation by lying on your stomach (prone, in advasana) and feel the crease at the front of the hip bones. One is almost always higher than the other. When you bend your legs to prepare for dhanurasana, bow pose, you can feel this continue, and can use your intelligence to push the tighter side to the floor.

You can work with the abdominal side in sphinx, lying on your elbows, or cobra up on your arms. It is a good idea to start from the pelvis, pushing the pubic bone into the floor. This opens the front of the hip bone and draws the stiffer side down. In standing positions rotation occurs as well. While standing it is an engaging meditation to feel which hip is closer to the front. You can explore this standing a few inches from the wall, facing it, and use it a reference as to which hip is closer. You can also do this with your back to the wall, heels just a few inches away from the wall, and sway back to the wall. Often you will find one buttock touches before the other. The same occurs with the shoulder blades.

You can use this information in keeping an even rotation of the pelvis in squatting, uttanasana. Hands on the hips and make this a light, easy movement to warm and oil the joints (we actually do have synovial oil in the joints, you know). A movement you can continue for some time. Feel the weight on the four corners of the feet to feel which parts of the feet and legs are being over-used or underused. Keep going and bring the heels as wide as the balls of the feet, feet hip width apart. If you started with your toes wide, then you will now feel a spreading of the back of the pelvic floor. As you descend and raise you can also feel the pelvic floor being part of the movement. Experiment with inhaling as you bend the knees, exhaling as you straighten. Take the next step and as you inhale expand the pelvic floor, as the breath expands in all directions. As you exhale lift the pelvic floor up towards the navel. This gives full support to the internal organs. It gives a dynamic, relaxed, well toned support for the organs to bounce off and rely on. Yogis are not tight arsed!

The pelvic floor is the base for the pelvic organs and the abdominal organs in turn. It is the yogic chakra, or energy centre, called mooladhara or root chakra. Satyananda Yoga Academy sells an excellent book on the chakras, 'Kundalini Tantra', written by Swami Satyananda Saraswati.