Please Don't Use Ashtanga Yoga As A Blunt Instrument With Which To Beat Yourself To Death

by Sam Glannon

"Ahimsa is not the crude thing which it has been made out to appear. Not to hurt any living thing is no doubt a part of ahimsa. But it is its least expression. The principle of ahimsa is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to anybody."
– Mahatma Gandhi, 'From Yeravda Mandir'

It is not well remembered that Mahatma Ghandi ran an ashram and commented on yoga. In an attempt to teach others his method of Satyagraha, which he hoped could be used to liberate India from British colonial rule, he founded an ashram to teach his methods of non-violent resistance. During a period of his imprisonment at Yeravda Mandir he wrote a series of weekly letters to the residents of this ashram. The term Mandir normally refers to a temple, but in this case the name is a sarcastic one designating a prison in Pune which was used to house some who opposed colonial rule. He wrote these letters in an attempt to stay connected to the residents of his ashram, and to explain certain philosophical points about satyagraha and non-violent resistance. Some of these letters focused on several of the yamas and niyamas of yoga, describing the way that these principles related to non-violent resistance.

One of the principles he focused on - one which was central to his life and political philosophy, and one which we should hope is part of our yoga practice as well - is the principle of ahimsa. To Ghandiji, the practices of yama and niyama are not just ethical proscriptions, but are a deep spiritual path in and of themselves meant to change our state of consciousness and our attitudes towards the external world.

As he states:

"It appears that the impossibility of full realization of Truth in this mortal body led some ancient seeker after Truth to the appreciation of ahimsa. The question which confronted him was: 'Shall I bear with those who create difficulties for me, or shall I destroy them?' The seeker realized that he who went on destroying others did not make headway but simply stayed where he was, while the man who suffered those who created difficulties marched ahead, and at times even took others with him. The first act of destruction taught him that the Truth which was the object of his quest was not outside of himself but within. Hence the more he took to violence, the more he receded from truth. For in fighting the imagined enemy without, he neglected the enemy within.”
– Mahatma Gandhi, 'From Yeravda Mandir'

In our practice, we are dealing most often with difficulties which are by their nature within us, whether that means within our own bodies or within our nervous systems and minds. Say, for instance, that we have difficulty getting into or staying in a pose. We might have tight  hamstrings or we aren't strong enough. Maybe it's hard to wake up early. We can respond to the difficulty in a few ways. We might try to use force and get into the posture through struggle. We might pull or push ourselves into the pose. We might become aggressive in our attitude, even though this aggression is directed at our own body. There is an aspect of violence to this kind of forceful approach. However, these difficulties cannot be dealt with through violence. If we approach them in a violent way, the person who bears the impact of that violence is, of course, ourself. It is easy not to recollect this and see obstacles, be it lack of flexibility, or what have you, as an imposition from without, and not as something integral to our own being. But this is to create a false dichotomy. Perhaps the next part of what Gandhiji says will introduce an analogy which is helpful:

"We punish thieves, because we think that they harass us. They may leave us alone; but they will only transfer their attention to another victim. This victim is however also a human being, ourselves in a different form, and so we are caught in a vicious circle. [...] In the end we see that it is better to endure the thieves than to punish them. The forbearance may even bring them to their senses. By enduring them we realize that they are not different from ourselves, they are our brethren, our friends, and may not be punished. But whilst we might bear with the thieves, we may not endure the affliction. [...] So we realize a further duty. Since we regard the thieves as our kith and kin, they must be made to realize the kinship. And so we must take pains to devise ways of winning them over. This is the path of ahimsa. It may entail continuous suffering and cultivating of endless patience. Given these two conditions, the thief is bound in the end to turn away from his evil ways."
– Mahatma Gandhi, 'From Yeravda Mandir'

Gandhi's approach towards thieves should be instructive to us. The conventional attitude towards thieves is reversed. Instead of regarding them as other than ourselves, we are asked to view them as an extension of ourselves. This non-separateness is one of the deepest realizations of yoga - that other living beings and the universe itself are not other than ourselves, but an extension of us. Similarly, the obstacles in our own practice are not some separately existing entity which we can meet as enemies. They are extensions of our own body and mind, which we have to meet with a fundamentally different attitude. Instead of trying to force our way though obstacles, or coercing our bodies into doing what we want, instead of using violence in any form, we have to use softness and respect. We have to use patience and forbearance to change the obstacle in an almost alchemic manner. As a slight digression, I should hasten to add that in our relationship with the rest of the world, this same change would be helpful. We are living through a historical moment in which there is a lot of violent coercion of one kind or another, especially in the political sphere. It would be useful to recall that part of Gandhiji's Satyagraha was the idea that one needs to respect the agency of one's political opponents and change their opposition into agreement through the power of truth and persuasion, calling upon their shared humanity to bring them over to one's side, instead of using violence to force them to do what you want. Even when Gandhiji and his adherents were being beaten and otherwise physically assaulted by his opponents, they did not give up this ideal and reacted with non-violence. This approach is useful to us in our relationships internally with ourselves, in the asana practice with regard to our physical body, and in our own minds in our relationship to negative experiences and emotions. It represents a departure from the conventional adversarial relationships we might otherwise adopt. We should give up violence and violent coercion of all kinds and use softness instead.

With that in mind - I am writing to you today with one very straightforward sentiment, and that is: Please, Don't use Ashtanga Yoga as a blunt instrument with which to beat yourself to death. OK, perhaps that is a slightly hyperbolic statement. What do I mean? Perhaps I should say that by a blunt instrument, I mean one with no subtlety or one without a precise effect. And further - By beating yourself to death, I mean applying that instrument in a dogmatic, unreflective way which harms you instead of healing you. But let me expand on this a little.

Our ashtanga yoga practice is an intense one. We practice six days per week, early in the morning, and the practice itself is potentially quite physically vigorous. New students frequently ask me what they should do if they can't practice every day. I am at pains to emphasize, here and to them in those moments, that this is OK. You should start where you are, as the saying goes. Similarly, if you are injured, pregnant, sick, or whatever else, please talk to me and we will make modifications to your practice to suit the nature of your current situation. Do not approach the practice as if there is one rigid, unchanging way to practice which is 'traditional', variation from which will make your practice 'not ashtanga'. Then this thing we're all doing becomes a blunt instrument in the sense that it has no subtlety and no flexibility, and no ability to change according to individual needs. That wasn't what I saw my teacher do with students in these situations when he was alive.

If ashtanga yoga becomes too rigid a system, it loses its ability to serve a broad spectrum of people. The number of people who will be able to devote their time and energy exclusively to the practice of yoga in the modern world is not large. Most of our students have other priorities along with yoga. People have their personal lives, their family, their children, and so on. People have their professional obligations to consider. Many of our students are in degree programs at local institutions which are prestigious, demanding, and time consuming. These are all legitimate and important priorities which deserve attention. Beyond that, these activities are not separate from spiritual practice, but on the contrary can become a part of the spiritual development of the individual if properly considered and integrated into their lives. 

There are some teachers who require their students to attend every day. I am not one of them. The reason is simply that it isn't practical for the students I am teaching, and to do so would push out people who would benefit from learning our yoga and who are genuinely interested. If you believe seriously, as I do, in the Bodhisattva vow, then we as teachers do not have the luxury of sending away students who can't achieve this. Similarly people who can't bind in Marichyasana D, people who have a hard time remembering the sequence, people who are chronically late, and so on, all have a place for the simple reason that they are sentient beings who need this practice to move forward in their evolution. To deny them this opportunity should they desire it on the basis of these things seems to me like missing the point. If the practice can't be flexible enough to accommodate peoples lives in the world as it exists now, it will become unuseful to them and will simply die out from lack of people to keep the fire of yoga burning into future generations.

On an attitudinal level, what I'm talking about is just another aspect of the ahimsa that Gandiji was talking about in the Yeravda Mandir letters. This is about how you regard yourself and treat yourself. Violence in this instance might mean forcing your body into a given posture without regard for pain. It might mean that you disregard the breathing or don't practice with full attention. It might mean that you don't take account of life circumstances as they arise and force yourself to do the same thing regardless of whether it will be beneficial to you or harmful. That isn't in accord with the sentiment and deeper meaning of ahimsa. So: if you are too tired to come in to the room, please, go to sleep. If you haven't eaten enough, please eat. If life circumstances make practice difficult, please don't stop practicing, but please do also take care of yourself and treat yourself in a non-violent way, instead of becoming dogmatic about what the practice should or must be. This is also ahimsa.

Finally, and on a more personal note, I would like to thank all of you for your continuing presence in the Mysore room and for the seriousness of your attention. You have chosen to make the effort and I appreciate that. I certainly take this practice seriously, and see it as a useful spiritual pursuit, and I hope that you can perceive this about my own thoughts, feelings, and approach. But each one of you individually also makes a choice, each moment and on an ongoing basis, to do the same. I see this in you and I respect this, and I am grateful for it. In that sense, we are all practicing together, and co-creating the community in which we practice. This larger unit, which is inclusive of all of us - all our focus, and energy, and effort - is greater than any of us as individuals and greater than even the sum of its parts. No one can do this alone. I wish to express to you therefore my gratitude for you all as members of this community and as individual agents who are walking this path, together with me myself and together with one another. May peace be with you all.

"The body will cease to be only when we give up all attachment to it. [...] The body does not belong to us. While it lasts, we must use it as a trust handed over to our charge. Treating in this way the things of the flesh, we may one day expect to become free from the burden of the body."
– Mahatma Gandhi, 'From Yeravda Mandir'