And so what if I can’t figure it out, so what if I never figure it out?
Does it matter if the mind knows what oxygen is? The body still breathes.
And as for that thing some people call the “soul” or the “spirit” or in sanksrit the jivatman, maybe it’s not real in the first place; maybe the self is the marriage of the body and the mind, maybe there is no third thing.
It’s simplistic, I know. Because I know, both from Islam and my yoga practice, that intentional action is important, so important that punishment and rewards are often given based on intention rather than end result in both of these practices.
Perhaps I’ll change my mind about it tomorrow, don’t worry.
It is true, anyhow, there are some for whom the path is through the mind, others for whom the path is through the body. Why argue if Margot Fonteyn, Albert Einstein, or Virginia Woolf was the greater genius when what they each did was so radically different?
In yoga there are numerous paths, that of jnana yoga, or yoga of knowledge, bhakti yoga, or yoga of devotion, karma yoga, or yoga of service and action, and even, yes, hatha yoga, a yoga of the body that seeks to understand the spirit through examination of the body and its attendant parts, which in the Yoga Sutra, includes the mind.
The mind being an organ just like any other: skin, lungs, heart, spleen.
There are other yogas, infinite paths, as there are infinite people.
Yoga is not just for people who can afford mats and have a yoga studio nearby. Yoga is from the same sanskrit word that gives the word “yolk.” And “yoke.”
And interestingly: “religion.”
Which can be both yolk and yoke, fruitfully and restrictively.
It is a practice, not unlike fasting, that allows us to practice linking the inside–the private experiences of the body and the mind–with the outside, the pulsing, breathing, actual world.
Fasting has, interestingly, made it easier for me to practice vigorous vinyasa yoga. And though I am barely eating and worrying about losing muscular mass, it has made me stronger.
Today I attempted an arm balance I had never tried before: from a forward bend take the hands through the legs and place them flat on the mat behind the heels. Tuck the shoulders behind the knees. Bend the arms and sit back high on the upper arms. Pressing into the ground and pulling the stomach in strongly, first shift the weight forward and then lift the feet off the ground. Extend the legs to straight.
Now, besides falling on my bottom and laughing in a mixture of delight and shame, I have never really gotten very far in this posture, whose sanskrit name I do not know. But today, pulling my stomach in I felt myself working with and against gravity, moving forward and back, up and down–I was not a body but a dynamic moment in time, an atom crashing against all the others, electrons twirling around me.
My arms felt strong enough, I expanded with breath and lifted my legs up and moved them towards straight.
And then I fell on my bottom.
With more delight than shame. But also I jammed my elbow as I fell. It hurt terribly and after practice I iced it continuously with–having nothing else–a bag of frozen blackberries from the freezer. It’s still feeling a little weakly.
I berate myself in all the old familiar ways: you come so far on a path and then you knock yourself back. You’re no good at this anyhow. You’ll never really be strong enough.
Partially those things ring true for me because I am not quite a natural yogi. I have an awkwardness in my body that’s much more than skin deep. I’ve been practicing for ten years but I meet people all the time who’ve practiced far less but are infinitely more advanced in their asana practice.
It’s a natural thing, but very humbling always.
As a yoga teacher I have always viewed the limitations of my body as part of what I have to offer. Three years ago when I gained about 25 pounds (and I am a small person with a small frame) and could barely do any of the binds or twists I used to do, I viewed it as a way of understanding my students who maybe had never done yoga before or never been physically active.
I hurt my elbow but I hope I can learn something about the posture, about my elbow, about how to best practice yoga with myself and with others.
The mind and the body have lots in common: they are both sense-making objects. They are both experiencing entities.
I once had a discussion about spirituality where the other person said something like, But what if this world is all there is and there is no heaven or hell.
Well, that’s part of the point. We’ve made all we need of heaven and hell right here in this existence.
Maybe this body, this one, mine, yours, this fleshly thing, if this is the extant of eternity, all there is of divinity, maybe there isn’t anything else.
Maybe the mind doesn’t understand. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Matter matters. We are matter.
And as Fanny Howe wrote, “If this life isn’t enough/then an afterlife won’t be enough.”