The Ritual of Yoga
In his book “Virasamavesa, The Hero’s Contemplation”, senior teacher Christian Pisano has a chapter called “The Practice of Non-practice”, where he writes:
”You open your mat as if you were arranging your funeral pyre”.
As extreme as this might sound, I fell in love with this image when first reading it, as it resonated so much with what the practice was and is for me: an inner sacrifice.
The first implication of the metaphor is that every time we practice some parts of ourselves must die: the small self, our limiting beliefs and selfish narratives, they are all burned by the heat of our practice. So opening our mat becomes an offering, a sacrifice of some of our personality traits, the ones that are blocking us from seeing things as they really are.
All this makes perfect sense as Yoga is (especially in the early stages) a purification process. Many texts like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika insist that the more advanced Yogic techniques should be learned only once the embodiment has been thoroughly purified by the Shatkarmas (the six cleansing acts) or by the practice of Pranayama.
I was in my early days of practice when I first read Pisano’s book, and the purification aspect of the sadhana was predominant. Reading the quote now, what comes more to my awareness is the ritualistic aspect of a Yoga practice. We open our mat as if it were our funeral pyre. And we keep doing it, again and again and again…
The act of opening our mat is a conscious choice we make to come closer to the essence of our existence. We long for intimacy with our True Self. For us to “see” who we really are, our vision needs to get purified, much like Arjuna needed new eyes to see the real aspect of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Therefore we utilise Asanas, Pranayamas, Mudras and Bandhas as tools to burn our impurities and elevate our senses simultaneously. Choosing to perform such practices daily is what makes Yoga the ultimate ritual for the practitioner.
The word ritual might be interpreted under a religious lens, but what is a ritual in its essence?
It is a sequence of activities of any kind performed with a certain goal and intention. Depending on the desired outcome, the ritual might involve gestures, words, objects, actions and so forth. Therefore, anything can be a ritual, from preparing our daily coffee to reciting a poem or engaging in a Yoga practice. What matters most is the emotional involvement of the person performing the ritual and the intention behind the gestures.
So when and how does a Yoga practice become a ritual?
In my experience, it is when we start establishing our own practice that the ritualistic aspect of Yoga begins to emerge. The conscious act of opening our mat and seeing where it might take us is a brave decision, especially in the beginning. We still train with our teachers but we need more. We long for a personal relationship with the practice. This longing makes us step out of our comfort zone, and that is the beginning of the journey.
Perhaps the practice has been so transformative that we just can’t do otherwise, or maybe our teacher suggested we start practising outside the classes. Whatever the reason, a shift starts to happen when we aren’t anymore just class-goers.
It is also then that the ritualistic component of the practice will start to emerge. We can choose and prepare the space, the time of the day and all sorts of conducive settings for the Yogic act of introspection. We are then developing a relationship with the practice. If we stay with it we will watch the relationship dynamics evolve and adapt, as we inevitably change and grow as human beings. And while techniques and tools adopted might change over time, the basic spirit of enquiry should be retained. We practice to get to know ourselves, to gather experiences of our embodiment on every level from physical to spiritual, but then also learn to let go of all the excess information.
It is interesting to quote what Patanjali says about how the practice of Yoga should be performed:
1.14 ”Practice becomes firmly established when it has been cultivated uninterruptedly and with devotion for a prolonged period of time”.
The word Patanjali uses for devotion is “Shraddha”, which means faith. Faith in the practice is like a loving mother for the Yogin according to commentator Vyasa.
In my experience acknowledging and honouring the ritualistic aspect of the practice in our unique way creates Shraddha within us, as well as the space in our practice for new positive information, imprints or “samskaras” to be created.
References
“The Hero's Contemplation: Yoga in the Light of the Teachings of Yogacarya Sri B. K. S Iyengar and Non-Dual Kashmir Saivism“, Christian Pisano, 2010
“The Yoga sutras of Patañjali”, Edwin F. Bryant, 2009