Most of us tend to spend much of our life drifting on autopilot - unwittingly drawn into thoughts of past or future, and at the mercy of our samskaras: psychological ‘imprints’ that influence how we think, what we feel and how we engage with the world around us.
Yoga presents an opportunity to intentionally redirect our attention from the external to the internal. To pay attention to the body and how it moves, to become more aware of the mind’s wandering qualities and to shine a light on our habitual patterns of behaviour. This in turn loosens the control that our samskaras have over us, allowing us to rechannel those energies more consciously in order to live our lives with greater freedom.
The paradox of practice is that, whilst we become more embodied through cultivating this skill of presence, we also come to understand that we are not in fact just the body, but something far more expansive.
Through our experiences of practice we begin to expand our notion of ‘me’ or ‘I’ beyond the narrow definition that we have been conditioned to accept; we come to understand through these experiences that our true identity is not temporary and material, but something spiritual and eternal.
This is the truth that sits at the heart of the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and indeed all of the scriptures and teachings of yoga (though how this truth is interpreted and presented differs according to the various philosophical viewpoints within the yoga tradition).
And though we often tend to associate ’yoga’ with the practices and techniques - the postures, breathing practices, chanting, meditation practices and so on - we must understand that these are all simply tools to help us realise and connect to our truest sense of Self (or universal consciousness, nature, God...whatever you want to call it).
As the Mundaka Upanishad teaches:
“The individual self, deluded by forgetfulness of its identity with the divine Self, bewildered by its ego, grieves and is sad. But when it recognises the worshipful Lord as its own true Self, and beholds its glory, it grieves no more.”
This is an understanding we can hold in awareness as we come to our practice, an understanding that will help us to deepen our experience of practice beyond something that is purely physical, to something that is ultimately more profound and rewarding.