The Phenomenology of Hatha Yoga
The context
The central concern of Yoga is to understand human suffering and thus to mitigate
it. This question of suffering necessarily involves its complement: the questions
of what human flourishing is and how it is to be facilitated, if indeed it is possible.
Historically, there has not been one single set of yogic answer to these questions.
Rather, the traditions have painted a variety of pictures of our human situation
and no doubt the future will see more pictures emerge. What has remained consistent
however is the view that individual human beings have to investigate these questions
for themselves, and on the terrain of their own lived experience: received dogmas
will not do.
When it comes to the matter of how the investigation is to be conducted, we again
find that the traditions offer a vast diversity of practices, and a vast ranges of
approaches, even to what might superficially seem to be identical practices. This
is particularly apparent in our own time in which hundreds of styles and approaches
to the practice of Hatha Yoga asanas vie for our attention. This is a quite confusing
situation for those we loosely call 'seekers' and often even for experienced practitioners.
Investigating both the ancient traditions and the offerings in the contemporary market-place
for signposts faces the novice with an array of choices but supplies no criteria
by which to choose. However wonderful any guidance we might receive, (and how are
we to judge this?), we are ultimately thrown back onto our own 'finding out.'
So, is there anything in our modern Yoga practice, obsessed as it generally is with
the practice of Hatha Yoga asanas, that can offer practical purchase on the great
questions of suffering and flourishing? Here I want to answer with a very qualified
'yes'.
How so? It is my conviction, based on experience, that the beatitude that the sages
from a wide variety of traditions have spoken of is woven intimately into existence
itself and is the very ground of human experience. This means that it is already,
everywhere and always present and is in no need of cultivation. This in turn means
that any human experience whatsoever is an opportunity for the beatitude which ensures
our flourishing and mitigates our suffering.
Now this is a bold claim for which I offer no justification because it cannot actually
be justified a priori. Nor do I offer complete descriptions of the state of beatitude
to which I allude because it cannot be adequately described. The ineffable cannot,
after all, be 'effed'. However, it is possible to point towards this beatitude so
that you can find for yourself that you already have what you need, that peace is
yours, that energy is yours, that wisdom is yours, that love is yours, that ecstasy
is yours.
If the intrinsic beatitude of life is present in all experience, though, what's the
use of our asana practice? One is tempted to say that it is no more or less use than
anything else. Strictly this is the case, but practically Yoga asana practice has
a few fertile qualities: if it is approached in a certain way.
The Phenomenology
Adopting and maintaining a Yoga asana potentially throws us into our own finding
out. It does this by creating fairly strong sensations in the body which then tend
to draw our attention to what is actually happening with us, immediately, in the
present moment. As a corollary of this movement of awareness to the immediate, a
movement away from dwelling on the past and fantasising or worrying about the future
potentially occurs. However, we can take advantage of this opportunity to reconnect
with our unfolding existence or not and this depends on how we orient ourselves within
the practice. This latter claim, it seems to me, can be verified experientially.
It is for instance, easy to distinguish experientially between, on the one hand,
a prescriptive approach to practice based on some theory or another about the nature
of the human being, and, on the other hand, an approach based on a commitment to
finding out what is going on within this strange phenomenon of being alive. Thus,
(and you can try this very easily), you can co-ordinate movements of the body in
and out of familiar Yoga asanas with a willed artificial pattern of breathing and
the vocalisation of various sounds and the imagined projection of 'energy' here and
there within the body. The lived experience of this kind of practice, and indeed
any practice in which doing figures prominently, is one of feeling busy, somewhat
noisy and not completely without tension in the field of awareness. I should also
mention that such approaches can be used to manufacture some spectacular psychic
fireworks which clamour to be endowed with significance.
By contrast, you can practice asana with very little doing, without presupposing
very much, without expecting this or that effect, with an attitude of receptivity,
openness and patience. What might this be like? At least initially, there is doing,
technique and busyness. That is, one adopts the asana, and by focussing awareness
here and there in the body, places the various body parts in the necessary orientation
for the asana to be maintained. As soon as the the technical aspect of adopting and
maintaining the posture has been executed, it is possible however for the subtle
clench in the field of awareness of doing and focussing to be unclenched in a letting-be
movement from doing to non-doing. Immediately a responsiveness and openness to the
unfolding of the experience of the asana arises and the field of awareness becomes
spacious and easeful.
At this point a couple of possibilities open up: being aware of one's unfolding experience
can easily become a hyper-vigilance, rather like that of a cat at a mouse-hole. It's
easy to verify that this state of being is rather tense and not a little cold. (Try
it!) Alternatively, awareness of one's unfolding experience can be rather akin to
the listening of delightful music (in the manner of a hippy!) In this mode of being,
there is subtle mergence of 'you' and 'your experience'. You are then no longer internally
split, as you would be as a tourist in your own psyche, or a spectator in your own
inner theatre. Instead, the unfolding moment-to-moment of your life is you, not something
happening to you. There is complete ease and freshness in this state of being into
your life-music. But don't take my word for it! This approach offers only pointers:
your experience is sovereign in this matter.
It should be obvious that I recommend the second of the two approaches outlined above.
But more than that, I recommend that you find out for yourself. What I am vainly
attempting to point towards here is not in any way difficult, but it is elusive.
Very small differences in the orientation you bring to practice make vast differences
to the possibilities it opens up for you.
It is possible to practice Hatha Yoga asana in a way which actively mitigates against
inner quietness. It is also possible to practice asanas with an orientation that
allows the peace and flourishing that we are to come into the foreground of consciousness.
But again, don't take my word for it! Finding out for yourself is the only real option.
