Last year, when spring came (finally) to New England, I was driving one sunny afternoon, and saw a little boy swinging with abandon on his swingset. Legs pumping. Tossing his head back each time his feet swung up high. A full-bodied swing if ever there was one.
His huge smile and his touch-the-sky efforts stuck with me. They reminded me of and seemed to be the embodiment of the yogic principles of abhyasa and vairagya. Abhyasa loosely translates to “engage with experience,” or to “say yes.” This idea of abyhasa is often coupled with the concept of vairagya. Joining vi meaning “without” + rāga meaning “passion, feeling, emotion, interest,”, gives vairāgya a general meaning of “letting go” – a release of expectation, attachment, aversion, or the emotional or mental states that create resistance.
In other words, engage and release.
The little boy on his swing reminded me of this – so fully engaged in his experience, and letting go of anything that would have held him back from that free, sky-high, exhilarating swing.
Engage and release.
Sounds simple at first. But even taking these ideas to the 72”x24” rectangle of our mat can be a real challenge. Engaging with what is there in your practice while simultaneously letting go of expectation, judgment, attachment, and whatever else is in that giant garbage bag labeled “get rid of” is a lot easier said than done. I think about times in my practice when I wouldn’t try a pose because I couldn’t release the idea that I’d fall out of it, or when I would push past an injury because I was refusing to see what was so clearly presenting itself, and instead forcing my body into a pose I thought I should be doing.
It took many years practicing on my mat to come to terms with the ideas of abhyasa and vairagya. Learning them in yoga looked like:
– Experimenting with a challenging pose even if I thought I might fall.
– Not avoiding child’s pose because I thought it made me look weak
– Remembering the transitions between asanas. Practicing moment by moment.
– Not comparing my practice to the practice of those around me
– Using blocks, props, or taking modifications to allow me to find ease in a pose
– Listening to my body and my breath and trying to understand what was showing up and accommodating that.
– Not becoming fixed on a certain way my body had to look in a particular pose. Letting myself be in the variations of poses that best suited me.
– Engaging with any injuries, tightness, or fatigue more sympathetically, acknowledging their presence and rather than resisting them, working with them instead of against them.
– Keeping still in savasana. Instead of using it as time to let the mind take over, staying in the moment of rest.
Engage and release.
I often like to think of my mat as a mini playground to work out the kinds of things that present themselves in life. For anyone who has attended one of my classes, you know that I typically begin class with an intention for the practice and close by having students reflect on how that intention extends when they step off their mats. So, what do abyhasa and vairagya look like in your life??
To me, they seem to be the most fundamental ideals of “living your yoga,” but quite possibly the most difficult. Saying “yes” to our experiences when we honestly acknowledge what they are in the present moment, and releasing what holds us back or keeps us from living what is authentic. Sounds good, but when I think about all the many times I haven’t “said yes” to what was there in a present moment, it can be hard to acknowledge all the things I have missed. But we all do it to a degree. We avoid things because we’re too scared. We resist an experience because it is too hard. We don’t acknowledge an emotion because it is dark, uncomfortable, yucky. We keep others at a distance because they challenge us. We can’t say “yes,” because we can’t let go.
These two ideas in tandem allow us to experience life as it presents itself, in all its diversity, to engage fully and to release all of that that keeps us held back or mired down – anything that keeps us from simply, purely, authentically living life.
And maybe, in the end, it’s helpful to be reminded of that little boy on his swing.
Namaste,
Molly