Renegade Yogi

Yoga and the alchemy of self-transformation

It’s amazing how quickly we forget our purpose. The other day I had a very transformative yoga class. As those following the blog may know, I have been regularly attending yoga classes for the better part of a year. I’ve done yoga off and on for a little over ten years. My practice has changed a lot in all of that time.

In fact, it may have come full circle. I first started yoga with the idea of attaining altered states of perceptions and thus deeper insights into the nature of reality. Yoga was a way to fulfill my philosophical curiosities with direct experiences.

I distinctly remember the first class I took. I began once per week then quickly increased it to twice per week. I was quickly reaching my edge–the place where I was stretching and learning under conscious control. It was a great amazing feeling to be so in touch with my body that I felt like a jedi master in training.

I quit quite suddenly when I moved to Paris. As my classes receded into the past, normal, everyday tensions and pain retook the corporeal territory they had once occupied. My memory of yoga, then, became a nostalgia for a relaxed body. That was nine years ago, now.

Recently, as I restarted yoga, I reconquered that ground and regained a relaxed body and mind. But something had been lost in the skirmish. Asanas had become challenges to be vanquished and I sliced through them like cannon fodder. Yoga was nothing more than a very effective exercise system.

But the other day, in class, while going slowly and deliberately, I remembered, from somewhere deep in my body, what yoga meant for me.

Yoga is the conscious transformation of the self through the application of will.

Yoga is an alchemy made to turn the lead of the body into gold, to transmute dull thought-substance into brilliant material fit for an emperor, and to distill the essence of the soul into a pure elixir.

Asanas can be faced in a number of ways. We have a choice. An asana can be seen as a physical challenge to be overcome or it can be seen as an opportunity to transmute the body into something better. I cannot explain the difference, but their effects are as different as lead and gold.

When I face the asanas as a challenge, a class becomes a test of endurance. I ask myself “can I make it?” and “can I push myself?”. But when I explore the possibilities for transformation stored inside each asana, the questions I ask myself become much less drill sergeant and much more Dalai Lama. “How can this pose make me more accepting?”, “what can I do to further my development?”, “where am I stuck?”, “what in my life needs me right now?”.

I think my diversion was necessary and unavoidable. I needed to explore that detour to realize that physical challenge is indeed useful. Some things need to be done quickly and with strenuous effort. I’m glad I learned how to do that. It was unavoidable because I wasn’t ready to face teachers critiquing and adjusting my form. Pushing myself past my limits has let me achieve positions with a depth I couldn’t have reached before.

While achieving a position is important, it is only a step in a journey. If you’re focused on only that step, you might get there, but you’ll trip and wander off the trail. It is much more important to take each step in time, and make it the best step it can be. Each step then becomes practice to get better at stepping. Focus on each asana, each moment as an opportunity to live better and you will direct your own transformation.