What is yoga? The answers vary. According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra:
• “It is a series of exercises that promotes neuro-muscular integration.”
• “It is a system of healing that complements Ayurveda perfectly, having originated at the same time, in the same place, with the same goals.”
• “It is a time-tested regimen that balances all three doshas, vata, pitta, and kapha.”
More simply, yoga is a workout that has more than 15 million Americans hooked.
Of course, yoga stretches make great exercises; they’re gentle, they’re artistic, and they help you live better in your body. But more than that, I would say yoga works on the joints of the mind-body machine, lubricating them with the balm of consciousness.
The truth of this grandiose-sounding statement shines forth when you try the most primary of yoga poses. For instance, this one:
• Sit on the floor and cross your legs.
• Keep your spine straight.
• Now bring your palms to chest level and gently press them together, fingers pointing up.
• Close your eyes and breathe in, then breathe out. Breathe slowly in, breathe out again. Breathe in, breathe out.
At this moment, you are aware of your breathing. You are aware, too, of your body — your legs folded, your back straight, your palms pressed together. And you are conscious of the thoughts coursing through your mind.
This is what yoga does. It yokes your body, mind, and spirit together. In fact, the very origin of the word “yoga” is yuj, a Sanskrit word that means “to bind or unite.” The English work yoke, which means to “tie together,” is probably derived from this, too. Sage Patanjali, who codified the basic principles of yoga into his immortal Yoga Sutras, saw in yoga a deeper meaning. He saw it as a means to unite the Self with the Divine.
But can you really think of things like unity and harmony when trying to squeeze in a yoga class between a bath and a business meeting? No sweat. Yoga will reward you with harmony anyway — whether you search for it or not. My friend Bob Rose, a longtime yoga instructor, has had the pleasure of seeing hundreds of people discover deeper bliss in their lives through yoga. That experience of bliss can be so pure, so profound, that it often inspires poetic praise. For some people, yoga turns out to be “a joyful workout that untangles the mind.” Others find in it “dynamic nirvana.” And still others realize that it helps them “navigate the landscape of the self.”
The truth is, yoga works because it works on every level of your being. Physically, it helps you touch your toes and sit straight. It unjumbles knotted-up joints, creating a sense of openness and fluidity in the body. It stimulates digestion and improves blood flow. It is a wonderful aid to any weight-loss program. It helps you breathe more consciously. In Ayurvedic terms, yoga is an excellent way to exercise because it does not put strain on any one part of the physiology. Besides, it heals and calms all three doshas.
On the mental level, yoga brings together two diametrically opposed energies: it makes you feel relaxed and easy of mind, and at the same time it teaches you discipline. It makes you more aware of your body, your thoughts, and emotions. It connects you with your very spirit.
What’s more, yoga yields even richer rewards if you have some knowledge of its sister science: Ayurveda.
As we saw, a vaidya’s prescription is a holistic one. In addition to diet, it tells you to regulate your work routine, your quota of sleep, and your pattern of exercise. Yoga comes under that important heading of exercise.
Basically, the yoga exercises you choose to do should complement the diet and lifestyle recommendations that a vaidya charts out for you. If you are a vata type of person, for instance, backward bends are beneficial for you; they are believed to offset the coolness of vata. Pitta type of people will like postures that involve bending forward, for they cool down the system. And kapha will enjoy poses that involve twisting the body, for such poses kick-start digestion.
Along with matching your yoga exercises to your body type, you can also match them to your daily routine.
1. One of the primary benefits of yoga is that it starts to push toxic ama from your system. Now, while your body is flushing out toxins, your knowledge of Ayurveda can prove invaluable in assisting your body. It will guide you toward foods that are considered light and nourishing: split yellow lentils, sweet juicy fruits, plenty of water.
2. Using ghee in daily cooking, which is a basic Ayurvedic recommendation, supports yoga exercises. Ghee has been believed since ancient times to lubricate connective tissues and increase flexibility. So if you are learning yoga and cooking with ghee, you are getting the maximum benefits of both Ayurveda and yoga.
3. Daily self-massage, or abhyanga, is part of a healthy Ayurvedic routine (see chapter 10 for details). Among the many benefits of self-massage is that it moves toxins from the body, helping flush them out of your system through the channels of elimination. So if you massage your body regularly in conjunction with yoga exercises, you will give a much greater boost to toxin removal.
4. Ayurveda emphasizes the value of eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at regular hours to keep toxins from building up. A person who knows this will take care to supplement her yoga sessions with healthy meals at scheduled mealtimes.
5. There are times when the body feels too sapped to exercise, even gently, or when the mind is too tired to focus on anything at all. These are times when Ayurvedic herbs prove to be of tremendous value. Powerful healers such as ashwagandha and arjuna have long been known to strengthen both body and mind. Blended in the right proportions and taken as recommended by a vaidya, these herbs provide vital support to your yoga practice.
Yoga asanas are poses or exercises designed to work your body in a series of non-strenuous steps. The key in yoga exercises is to begin slowly, progress steadily toward the next step, and relax after every asana.
Almost every yoga asana contributes in its own way to making you more beautiful, because each of them helps strengthen several aspects of body and mind. I will share with you three favorites, which are not only easy but extremely relaxing.
How to Do It: Sun Salute is performed in twelve continuous stages:
1. Standing up, with feet close together, place the palms and fingers of your hands together in front of your chest, fingers pointing upward. Breathe normally, looking forward, for five seconds.
2. Unclasp your hands and, inhaling slowly, raise them parallel to each other, shoulder-width apart, over your head with palms facing forward. Extend your arms slightly behind your head so that your waist is slightly bent and your face is tilted toward the ceiling or sky. Hold your position, as well as your breath, for another five seconds.
3. Exhaling, lean slowly forward and touch the floor in front of your feet. Do this only to the extent that you can. Keep your hands about shoulder-width apart and bring your head as close to your knees as you can without straining any muscles. Keep your knees straight. Hold this position and your exhaled breath for the next five seconds.
4. Inhale once again, and simultaneously place your palms on the floor shoulder-width apart. You’ll find it easy to do this while sending your right leg straight back, with its knee and toes touching the floor. Bring the left leg forward at a ninety-degree angle to the floor, so that your left knee is a little below your chin. Arch your back and tilt your neck up toward the ceiling or sky. Hold this position and your breath for five seconds.
5. Now start exhaling while placing your left leg back with the right leg. At the same time, raise your buttocks and hips so they form a mound shape, pointing straight up. Your palms and fingers should still be held flat on the floor, and your head between your arms. Try to get your feet flat on the floor at this time — but try very gently. Remember, no strain. Again, hold your breath in this position for five seconds.
6. Slowly releasing your breath, lower your chin, chest, and knees until they almost touch the floor and the weight of your body is briefly on your palms and toes. Keep your hips raised above the floor. You don’t have to maintain this position; make the transition to the next one once you have reached this one.
7. The next part is called the Cobra pose. Keep your palms in place. While inhaling, straighten your arms, arch your neck and spine so that your head tilts back, and keep your knees and toes touching the floor. Once you reach this position, hold your breath here for five seconds.
8. Repeat position 5: exhale while raising your hips and buttocks to point straight up. Keep your knees and back straight, palms on the floor, head between your arms. Hold for five seconds.
9. Return to position 4: keeping your hands on the floor, bend your left leg at the knee while inhaling. The right knee and toes should stretch behind you, touching the floor. Arch your back and neck to gaze upward. Hold another five seconds.
10. Step your back foot forward beside your other foot, returning to position 3: exhale, straighten your knees, bend forward at the waist and hips. Your full weight is now back on your feet. Try to touch the floor with your palms once again without undue effort. Keep your head close to your knees. Hold this position and your breath for five seconds.
11. Repeat position 2: begin exhaling as you raise the upper half of your body until you are standing straight again. Raise your arms above your head with the palms facing forward. Continue to stretch your arms until they are slightly behind your head, then lean slightly back from the waist and gaze upward, holding your breath for five seconds.
12. Go back to position 1, then slowly exhale (instead of inhaling). Stand straight, with palms and fingers held together in front of your chest and your eyes looking straight in front of you. Hold your breath out for five seconds.
Here are some additional tips on performing Sun Salute:
• When you do the second set of this asana, take the alternate leg back in positions 4 and 9. That is, in the sequence above, you extended your right leg backward; in the next set, take your left leg backward.
• Try to do this asana in even sets of two, four, or six, up to a maximum of twelve at a time.
• Always do this in a slow, steady manner without causing yourself strain. Build up your threshold gradually.
What It Does for You: Sun Salute, as you can see, is a complete asana that involves all parts of the body, mind, and breath. It thus integrates the physiology, strengthening major muscles and providing a light yet complete exercise that vaidyas recommend as highly as they do walking.
How to Do It: Kneel on your shins, buttocks resting on your heels. Keep your knees together. With your arms at your sides, bend from your hips and extend your upper body over your knees. Resting on your thighs, bring your forehead to the floor. Breathe deeply. Hold for as long as is comfortable. Then slowly sit up.
If you have trouble kneeling, placing a pillow between your thighs and calves will help.
What It Does for You: This simple asana floods every cell of the body with both oxygen and prana (life-force energy), helping eliminate physical and emotional toxins. The constriction on your legs increases blood supply to the upper body, making respiration more efficient and energizing the blood, which in turn begins to remove waste gases more efficiently. The pressure from the diaphragm in this posture creates a deep, slow, rhythmic massage of the vital organs, energizing them. Both the quality and quantity of the blood circulation to these vital organs improves when you are in Child’s Pose.
If you hold the pose for more than five minutes, deeper benefits occur. The asana has a regulatory effect on the endocrine system. It gets more blood to the head and to the pituitary gland — the master gland that regulates hormonal balance. This makes Child’s Pose an extremely relaxing asana.
It sounds like the easiest thing you could do: lying there like your body is dead to the world. But yoga experts tell me that this is among the most difficult asanas to master because we humans find it so difficult to allow ourselves to just let go and lie still.
Before he starts his instructions for the asana itself, yoga instructor Bob Rose tells his students to put all their anger, anxieties, and tensions in an imaginary bag that they mentally place outside the door. The choice is theirs, he tells them — you can leave the bag there when you go out, or pick it back up if you desire.
How to Do It: Lie on your back, with your feet about eighteen inches apart and turned out slightly. Place your hands on the floor about six inches from your hips, palms up. Close your eyes and breathe deeply and gently.
Rose likes to tell his students to do this asana in three “let-go” phases:
1. Let go of your body: Relax your muscles and any tense areas by breathing deeply and gently and directing your breath to those tense areas. Let your muscles sink right into the floor until they’re so relaxed they feel like Jell-O.
2. Let go of your breathing: After you have used your breath to relax your body, then let the breathing process become as gentle and natural as possible. Don’t control it. Relax, yawn, sigh. Let it become as deep or shallow as it wants to be.
3. Let go of your thoughts: Release yourself from thinking. This does not mean making an effort to banish them. Just let yourself become a passive observer — watching your thoughts go by like clouds in the sky.
What It Does for You: This asana is a luxury we don’t allow ourselves — a few minutes of just being, not doing. The very act of consciously relaxing — lying still, fully present in the moment — begins the process of releasing knots of tension from the deep recesses of the body and mind. It’s more than an asana; it’s a form of meditation, which slows down the metabolism, lowers blood pressure, and leaves you with a feeling of deep calm and rest.
• Always relax for a minute or two after every asana.
• Do not practice yoga on a full stomach or just before a meal.
• Ideally, perform yoga in the morning, right after a bath.
• Do yoga without listening to music or watching television. Yoga is a wonderful way to focus on your body and its various components, so you will benefit more from it if you do it without distraction.
• If you are menstruating, pregnant, ill, or have some specific bodily disorders, see a qualified yoga practitioner for guidance.
• For best results, perform yoga exercises daily.
Yoga has always been an integral part of the Indian civilization. The world’s oldest existing text, Rig-Veda, mentions it. But the credit for defining and organizing yoga is widely given to Sage Patanjali, who lived sometime around 200 A.D. In his treatise, called the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali lays down the philosophy, goals, and rules of yoga.
The most popular form of yoga today is hatha yoga. The word hatha means “insistence.” In the context of hatha yoga, the meaning of insistence is slightly modified; it means making consistent effort toward healing the self through simple postures and exercises. The exercises taught in hatha yoga are called asanas, some of which I have described above.
Other branches of yoga include raja yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, tantra yoga, and mantra yoga. These are all more evolved forms of yoga that delve into the realm of the spiritual. Most of the yoga classes in America are for hatha yoga.
I would recommend the magazine Yoga Journal, which combines articles on Ayurveda with fine writing on every aspect of yoga. In addition, introductory texts such as the K.I.S.S Guide to Yoga (DK publishing) are also very helpful. Another comprehensive book that discusses the mind-body benefits of yoga and its connection with Ayurveda is Hari Sharma’s Contemporary Ayurveda (Churchill Livingstone).