I’ve been thinking about the idea of balance that we often seek/preach with regard to yoga…my practise has become less about regular ‘physically’ advancing asana recently due to increased demands of time in paid work, family life and household maintenance/chores.
Throughout my life, I feel the concept of balance is always shifting, and if I am honest, my commitment to yoga has sometimes not been a good balance. It has been an avoidance and obsessional practise.
This isn’t of course as black and white, or negative as I may sound – if we want to learn about something (especially as adults?) often a ‘deep dive’ is what we need. It got me thinking about the idea of yin or yang yoga classes, and this energetic combination which I try to offer in pretty much all our weekly morning gatherings…
The Wikipedia explanation of ‘Yin and Yang’ includes:
Yin and yang is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives. Yin is the receptive and yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference such as the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both men and women as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order).[1]
Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang.
Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts….
…something you hear me bang on about regularly, but it’s oh so easy to lose awareness of this when we caught up in the demands of our individual lives….
According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation….…I have certain times where my fiery commitment to something gets a little wild, and then burns itself through into something dimmer, at which point the shadow side seems to take a bigger form! This year, I have seen the dimming as ‘Wintering’ and have taken time to move intuitively when I can, to go back to therapy, take lessons to progress my piano repertoire and technique. If you want to share heat, you need to take time to stoke your own fire, of course!
The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section. In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole….
… cycles are wonky, things need to shift and evolve as we do. There is so much social noise on the ‘right’ lifestyle and in yoga this can become a source of shame. Commitment to yoga practises can be healthy, and it can also fuel avoidance of other life difficulties. It is of course important to learn with rigour and consistency, but after a while, it can also be a means of creative play and joy in seeing what movement we can really do! At other times, the body cannot keep up with all the other time demands and we take a simpler ‘checking in’ to this awareness – stopping to look at the sky on a walk for a moment, lying on your bolster and belly breathing and so on and so on.
In Tantra of the Yoga Sutras, Alan Finger suggests that the Niyamas can be thought of as ‘principles of self-training that help us reprogram the mind toward an attitude with universal intelligence’…the niyamas in a nutshell are...
Saucha: keeping the body & mind healthy so that our relationships are also so
Santosha: finding contentment with whatever life presents you and in who you are
Tapas: discipline to focus the mind in order that you can let go of self-struggle and connect to the greater whole
Svadyaya: deeper self-investigation, looking into patterns of thought and belief about who we are
Ishvara pranidhana: surrendering the efforts of the ego and remembering that we have a small role in a vast universe
These principles, along with getting back into the self-investigation of therapy, are also helpful for me in forgiving myself for mistakes I have made, for people I feel have let down, and in holding to onto guilt and worry about others expectations.
I hope you can join me in noticing on how the yamas and niyamas can be helpful in moving through black and white, and learning to be with all the spectral colours in between…
‘Working with the yamas and niyamas does not require that we master the art of being a “good person’. They give us a way to discover and work with our reactive patterns so that we can respond, rather than react, to the experiences of our lives.’
(Tantra of the Yoga Sutras, Alan Finger)
This investigation will surely never be finished! I hope that yoga remains a tool of respite, inspiration and cultivates your awareness to the greater whole of life, when it is perfectly balanced, and especially whenever the balance tips! Remembering who you are, who you want to be, and letting go of judgement of the shadows so that we all look towards becoming greater than the sum of our parts.
Image Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
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