poses of the gods

SINCE YOGA WAS BORN in the context of the spiritual culture of ancient India, we can enhance our practice by becoming familiar with the world of gods and goddesses that is connected with it. Their stories contain archetypes that speak to our nature, tendencies, troubles, and joys. For example, hanumanasana is more meaningful if we know something of the character of Hanuman. The physical postures of the asanas contain within them the essence of the mythology that they represent.

Each asana carries the potential to help us more fully understand the Divine and create a personal relationship to it. Yoga doesn’t tell us to believe in a particular form of religion or worship in a prescribed way, but it does ask us to recognize and honor a higher power that is beyond our small selves. In order to help us find a means of connecting with it in a personal way, yoga calls this personal form of divinity Isvara.

In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali recommends that we surrender ourselves to Isvara. It is the only recommendation that is repeated four times throughout the text. It reads, “Isvara pranidhanad va,” which means, “When we dedicate ourselves to the divine, we become divine.” Or at least we are more able to recognize that bit of the Divine source that resides within us. Isvara is a personal form of God we can relate to. What is most important here is that we find some common ground with something that would otherwise seem too grand and unattainable. Isvara brings God out of the ether and into our hearts and bodies. As we express these divine asanas, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to relate to that divine element within.

If we start looking at the asanas from this perspective, our yoga practice can only become richer. And who knows? What seems otherworldly at first may even become a new world in which we can feel quite at home.