Practice Point #18 - Alignment

I received a question from Ruby in India. Her question is...

How does one know one is aligned in the asana?

There is a beautiful, articulate passage in "The Tree of Yoga"

I think this answers your question... just not in my own words.

Chapter 16 The Branches The branches of the tree are the asanas. What is the right attitude and approach to the performance of an asana?

Here Guruji asks the same question as Ruby. This is how he answers his question...

“You have to become completely and totally absorbed, with devotion, dedication, and attention, while performing the pose. There should be honesty in approach and honesty in the presentation...

Are you working from the body to get the factual feeling of the pose, or are you doing the pose because you have read in books that itis going to give you such an effect? Are you caught in the web of what you have read, searching for the experience of somebody else's written word, or are you working to know with a fresh mind what type of new light is cast on the pose by your own experience while performing it?

In addition to this total honesty, you have to have tremendous faith, courage, determination, awareness, and absorption. With these qualities in your mind, your body, and your heart, you will do the pose well...

Asana means posture, which is the art of positioning the body as a whole with a physical, mental, and spiritual attitude. Posture has two aspects, namely posing and reposing. Posing means action. Pose is assuming a fixed position of limbs and body represented by the particular asana being performed. Reposing means reflection on the pose. The pose is re-thought and readjusted so that the various limbs and parts of the body are positioned in their places in the proper order and feel rested and soothed, and the mind experiences the tranquility and calmness of bones, joints, muscles, fibres, and cells.”

-BKS Iyengar

That certainly answers the question for me and I hope it does for you.

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