Some essential aspects highlighting the beneficial effects of practicing yoga techniques (I)
by eminent yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru
The aspiration towards perfection can be awakened by practicing yoga
Whether we are yogis or common human beings without special spiritual preoccupations, we more or less consciously nurture the desire to become one with the Godly Wholeness. Such a deep yearning for perfection, for completion, manifests itself simultaneously with the tendency to take in and absorb into our being all that surrounds us.
One of the benefits of yoga practice is that it subtly, deeply and completely helps us to harmoniously manage our insecurities, vulnerabilities, ominous emotional tendencies and imperfections that are inherent in human nature, and even more than that, it gives us the opportunity to transform ourselves and evolve spiritually.
Very often, human beings experience in certain situations the feeling of not being ready or not being up to the height, especially when they are confronted for the first time with certain aspects of their existence. For example, when we are choosing a profession or starting a romantic relationship, embarking on a new activity or adventure, we may feel that we are not fully prepared for the experience. However, over time, with each experience we go through, we learn that the state of ‘not being ready’ awakens our courage to embark on a new activity, which gives our actions freshness, spontaneity and forces us to seek constructive and creative solutions.
Human beings thus realize that the mistakes they make in their actions are also a source of learning. The newness with which human beings are confronted for the first time in an experience can be seen as a specific difference between the way in which they generally perceive life experiences and the state generated by the new situation in which they feel the lack of so-called prior preparation. This difference can, however, be stimulating, giving rise to a healthy and necessary state of constant enthusiasm, typical of the eternal beginning. Not feeling ready or ‘up to the task’ is a source of motivation that protects our daily efforts to improve our lives.
The importance of intention, but also of proper focus on the spiritual path
One of the purposes of yoga practice is to help us find the best way for each of us to realize and accomplish ourselves as spiritual beings. Through our daily spiritual practice, we aim to awaken our Godly virtues and become aware of our beneficial endowments. If, however, we approach our spiritual practice with a certain state of stubbornness, which is expressed by a kind of inadequate perfectionism, this momentum that usually could be constructive can turn into an obstacle.
In the practice of the bodily postures (asana-s), our stubbornness and obstinacy can push us to overcome the inherent limitations of our body (flexibility, endurance), and some human beings even force their structure in their realization to the point of physical harm. For example, the desire to achieve the lotus posture (padmasana) perfectly, at all costs, despite the lack of flexibility we experience, can lead to injury to the knee joints, precisely because they are overstressed. In this case, it is important to assess the possibilities of the moment and the consequences of our deeds before taking action.
Moreover, this way of acting emphasizes the fact that we are only approaching spiritual practice in a superficial and egotistical way, and our attention is directed only to the outward aspect of realizing the yogic practices. The urge to perform a bodily posture perfectly only feeds our egoic motivations.
In the yoga practice, the intention and focus with which we carry out the spiritual techniques is at least as important as the actual realization of them. Following of our physical, psycho-emotional, psycic and spiritual needs is the implicit reflection of a natural attitude of love towards our own being and our own body. If we look in a transfiguring way at our body as a temple, we can open the gate of subtle perceptions that are meant to free us from an egoic, limiting, outer achievement-oriented vision, and thus be able to give ourselves to other people and to the beneficent energy of life.
The necessity to always be honest and responsible, and the role of genuine soul openness
The British writer Christopher Isherwood lived for long periods in California in the ashram of Swami Prabhavananda, an erudite Indian scholar who wrote numerous books on the Vedanta tradition and the sacred scriptures of the Indian religion, as well as some commentaries on them. He practiced yogic meditation intensively and translated the Vedas in English.
In his memoirs, however, he recounts that during the night, he would leave the ashram to go to the nearby beaches in search of love affairs. Because of this weakness, he felt ashamed and considered himself unworthy to be on the spiritual path that he was assiduously following during the day. Eventually, he confessed to his spiritual guide, who gave him a wise answer that made him accept this flaw he had, and then overcome it: “You are sincere and dedicated on the spiritual path, what more can you ask of yourself?”
In the book My Guru, writer Christopher Isherwood describes with great frankness the faults as well as the qualities of his spiritual guide: “He was very gluttonous and had many vices. Yet he was a genuine spiritual guide, and his love for spiritual aspirants was unconditional. It was real love.”
Certainly, these two different aspects that seemed to characterize his spiritual guide are at extreme poles. Almost every human being may feel that his or her “flaws” are not as visible as those of others. However, we can objectively ask ourselves: who does not face their own contradictions within themselves? On the path to spiritual realization, however, it is necessary to cultivate a state of sincerity, responsibility and deep contact with our soul.
Within the Christian religion, the concept of sin and the need for atonement of the human being is nurtured, often with obstinacy and stubbornness. However, the spiritual message of Christianity is eminently benevolent and compassionate, illustrated by Jesus’ famous utterance on the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.
In Harold S. Kushner’s eloquently titled book, No One Demands Us to be Immediately Perfect, Not Even God, he says: “If we define ourselves by our bad actions rather than by the good deeds we do, we come to think of ourselves as beings who are constantly making mistakes, rather than as predominantly good beings who occasionally make an absolutely human error.”
The fact that, until we reach ultimate spiritual realization, we are not perfect should give us a sense of relief, not fuel the tendency to give up our efforts. It is about realizing the difficulty and sometimes even impossibility of immediate perfection, a claim that only reflects an erroneous view of reality. In the Zen tradition, there is a way in which the polarity and complementarity that exists in nature is highlighted. It is found in the special arrangements in so-called Zen spiritual gardens, where each element that is included there is also a symbol that is meant to induce a state of complete harmony in the being of the beholder contemplating such a garden.
One example that highlights this harmony is the very careful way in which the sand is arranged: a tree is shaken to make a few leaves fall on it. Without this element, the perfection of the sand arranged would have a dry, cold touch. The beauty of the meticulous order stands out even more when contrasted with the seemingly unpredictable mess of fallen leaves.
The unsuspected grace of imperfection
By clearly accepting our own limitations, by understanding where the “grace of imperfection” lies in our being, we can more easily accept others, with their qualities and faults, and thus live the experience of life in a full but complex way.
So we can enjoy the fact that we have a boyfriend or girlfriend with whom we’re a good match, without immediately demanding perfection. Louise Bravermann, director of the Ackerman Institute for the Family, says that one of the reasons for divorce today is that spouses have too many expectations of each other. Each wants the other to immediately become the best friend, the passionate lover of opposite gender, the ever-balanced partner, etc., all of which can be perceived as burdensome and far beyond the other’s capacity to transform.
At the same time, it is necessary for parents to love their children unconditionally, with all their qualities and faults, and to encourage their development according to what they predominantly show as beneficial.
Thus, parents will then stop asking their children to be other than their natural and inherent structure, which will also cause parents to profoundly transform their very vision of their own being. We can also be thankful that we have a good job and not a perfect one, because, after all, we may ask ourselves, and rightly so, what would be the job that could always and fully satisfy our desires and demands?
(to be continued)
yogaesoteric
July 25, 2024
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