Today's Yoga... is like a dead man's suit! (By Héctor Villavicencio)

A few days ago, our son was watching a karate class -for the first time- and he was watching closely the movements of the other kids performing their Katas (and then he got to practice some of them!). He was really enthralled and captivated by the energy and movement in the other kids' performances. At the end of practice, he asked me a thought-provoking question:

-Let's go buy a karate suit? (kimono).

-Maybe yes... sometime... later..., I replied!

Talking to him about everything he experienced I understood that his question was very pertinent, because I understood his feeling as something common in most human beings: the world of projections!

The Kimono represented mastery, perfection, technique. As if wearing it gave him a special power (like the superhero costume, so fashionable today). It was as if he was responsible for the energy, the determination, the spirit, and the poise of those boys. Our son simply saw himself reflected in the others and in their uniforms. As the popular saying goes: "to be in someone else's pants"; he put himself in the place of the others, but not through empathy, but rather through longing.

The previous similarity led me to the memory of expressions like: "the suit makes the man", or like the one that appeared in a Hollywood movie -a few years ago- where the protagonist said: "the suit is the armor of the modern knight"... but is it really like that, does the suit make the man, or vice versa, or both, and can this similarity serve to explain modern yoga and its army of Asanas? Let's see!

Yoga as a practice.

In the modern world, yoga refers or is usually seen (especially in the West) as a "particular psychophysical practice", which comes from India, which is so many thousands of years old, which generates such and such benefits, etc, etc, etc. Its maximum expression or visible reference (and even positioned powerfully as an image in our subconscious) is the "Asana" or posture (and thus its scope has been reduced and synthesized, in practice, in the minds and due to several reasons that I will not comment now).

By simplifying yoga to the execution of a posture, an image, the search for bodily perfection by imitating pre-established patterns (thousands of years ago, by masters of different traditions), we deviate from its essence and transformative potential. And here begins an absurd and growing battle among its practitioners (inward and outward) to connect with a very limited expression of spirituality and demonstrate that connection to the world, compulsively and turn it into the ideal of mass spirituality.

Physical practice has become more mechanical and perfectionist (it is common to hear of Biomechanics in modern yoga). The energy that is handled tends to be more masculine and less subtle and creative. It seeks to give scientific support and interpretation to each movement, breath or emotion. And sometimes, science begins to appropriate yoga and to expose its own image of it (questioning -many times- everything created before).

Let's see then the "Asana" as a suit!

The "Asana" is an energetic projection, which takes many forms, as energetic expressions there are. By executing an "Asana", by "getting into it", in its form, you should in theory have an effect or benefit, ranging from the physical, to the emotional, psychological, energetic, etc. However, these techniques were created under certain historical realities, in certain geographical areas, under certain religions and/or forms of spirituality reigning at the time; in different astrological and astronomical moments, by certain traditions and teachers and... for the beings of that present time!

Therefore, if you perform today an "Asana" or perform a pranayama or meditate, it is assumed that you will have an effect, but not necessarily that effect will be the same today as in someone who practiced the same thing 5000 years ago (under the conditions I mentioned before -and many others- the modern human being is very different... And he has many imbalances!)

Besides, from the moment "Asana" emerged and became established, the practice became more "static" (it lost its continuous flow, its artistic expression, coming from dance) and so part of its energy and its "soul" dissipated and it became more of a Technique (the emergence of Hinduism helped a lot to this). As a Technique it "helps to catch the spirit", but not just by reproducing the technique you will receive manna from heaven. That is seeing "Asana" as the super hero's costume!

The image of "Asana" as such is dead! It is "shunyata", a void charged with potentiality and energetic opportunity, waiting to be enlightened by the SELF. If "Asana" is like a suit, whoever wears the suit gives life to it!

Imagine that you walk through a shopping mall and you see a suit on the counter, a tuxedo, or a dress, maybe you think it is beautiful or not; maybe modern or classic, elegant or casual... but..:

1. The dress was designed with some attributes in mind that the designers wanted to give to the dress (like the masters of yesteryear to the "Asana").

2. You are going to give them other attributes or maybe you will see different ones, based on your experience and your needs.

3. If you like the dress you are going to try it on and no matter how modern and beautiful it is, it may not look good on you, "because you do not look the way you imagined you would look" (because you are projecting your longings for spirituality through the practice of "Asana", which sometimes you get frustrated for not achieving).

4. Or maybe it aligns with your image, but you do not fit, that is to say, maybe it fits you bigger or smaller. If there is no other size, you will have to: either downsize and adapt to the suit... or adapt the suit in some way to you (but do you think it would fit the same? and so you start fighting, comparing yourself, getting frustrated!)

Apply these analogies to how you perform your "Asanas" and how you experience yoga and draw your own conclusions.

From these analogies there is one that I want to highlight: does the outfit really make the person? Does the outer appearance determine the BEING?

In our modern world it would seem so, at least that is often said. But for a suit to show its attributes it needs to be worn. If a suit remains displayed forever on the counter, it will deteriorate, go out of fashion, eventually be removed. Whether or not you are the right person to bring out the attributes of a suit, your presence alone fulfills the purpose of the suit... to be worn (not displayed). Therefore, the human being gives life to the suit, as the BEING gives life to the "Asana".

Therefore, does your doing a complex "Asana" make you a better person, more spiritual or an expression of the state of YOGA? NO, not at all, if there is no connection with your BEING and its expressions of love, light, compassion, sincerity, etc. (I know many yogis who leave much to be desired in their behaviors and attitudes, despite being excellent performers and "contortionists") The "Asana" must be filled, enlightened, from within. It is an expression of your BEING in the present moment.

The "Asana" could be like a keyboard, which when played properly plays the notes that align you - energetically - with the stars and the material and immaterial universe, taking you one step further into that unknown world of enlightenment and glory. It is like a chemical formula, precise, that when reproduced generates a product....

But does everyone who plays a keyboard, even if they are the same notes, play well? Does everyone who takes a formula and reproduces it, even a recipe for a cake, get it right? What differentiates a chemist from an alchemist, or an excellent musician from an apprentice, is it just practice or is there something else?

YOGA as a state.

As I commented a few lines ago, the "Asana" -by becoming static- lost part of its energy and became a technique, which could take you somewhere, "if you touch the right keys". But that happens when you add something to it... when you reconnect with your BEING, when you flow, "when your spirit catches the technique", "when you give life to the suit".

Beyond the practice of Yoga as it is usually understood today, the word as such refers to a state of fusion or mystical union, where YOGA is synonymous with LIFE. But not what we understand or live thinking it is life. LIFE is awakening, that is YOGA.

Therefore, YOGA as a state or as a reconnection with LIFE, cannot be summarized only in the "Asana", since this is only one more tool in the process of reconnection of the BEING. And a tool whose soul is being extracted more and more every day. Where science materializes and reifies more its art. Where BEINGS stop adding light, grace and faith (because they have been losing it) and only bring robotic alignment, pirouettes and forced and constipated smiles.

YOGA and LIFE, infinitely beyond the "Asana", could also be seen as a luxury suit, with which we have always been dressed, in which we fit, but we do not know it, we do not remember it (where the suit and the one who wears it are united, fused, like Shiva and Shakti).

The "Asana", as a tool, technique, cosmic keyboard, whatever you want to call it, could support us in this process of remembering, of reconnecting with the higher, with the divine, inside and outside of us. In aligning our BEING or primordial energetic representation with "our original suit".

But as long as we insist on living in this theater of shadows, in which we are immersed as humanity (where yogis have a greater responsibility than just doing pirouettes); where fear, falsehood, manipulation, injustice, hopelessness and anger spread rapidly, there seems to be no space for LIFE, nor for YOGA. Although there is room for illusion, appearance, "life, yoga and being" (with lower case).

If this is the case, unfortunately now and in the future yoga will be like the beautiful suit that people usually choose to cover the dead in their coffins. As the great singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat said: ... "when a flower is opened, the smell of the flower forgets the flower"....