When you explore the postures of Hatha Yoga, do you yawn and stretch naturally or is your practice imposed by the mental understanding that you have Osteoporosis, that you have to have proper alignment, correct breathing, and all the things that well intentioned folks tell you that you should do to receive optimum benefits? Do you approach yoga through a fixed mental picture or as a living process that attends to the harmony of you mind and body?

 

The paradox of Yoga is that it is necessary to have this mental understanding and yet if your understanding is limited to only the mental realm, then the practice of yoga can be likened to a journey of a thousand miles where you advance by hopping only on one foot.

Yoga means Union and the practice is Re-Union. Yoga is the reconciling of extremes.  It is like learning to walk again where you first learn to stand on your own two feet, then you take those first tentative steps and as you practice you realize that you can move so elegantly and freely that you do not have to think about walking at all – it is perfectly natural.

 

So – how does this apply to Osteoporosis?

Medical scientists describe two types of bone cell that are constantly building new bone or destroying old bone. And, they say that the actions of these two cell types -- called "osteoblasts" and "osteoclasts" -- usually balance each other out (like everything else – this is also the reconciling of extremes). But when stresses on bones are reduced (as in spaceflight and/or during the onset of osteoporosis), removal outpaces replacement, leading to too little bone that can more easily break.

 

The human body is a tensegrity structure (tensegrity means tension integrity – the equilibrium of push and pull – stretching in opposing directions). The bodymind is a living representation of Yoga and when all extremes are in union there is order called robust health. When emphasis is on one extreme or the other there is potential for disorder and if this emphasis is allowed to continue the result is dis-ease. Muscles, bones, memory, etc. all atrophy if they are not used, therefore, health is attained and sustained by reconciling the extremes. In other words muscles, bones, memory, etc. need to be naturally stressed and yet never over stressed/strained to be healthy.

 

A very simple example of a tensegrity structure is a one-foot wooden ruler with an elastic band wrapped around it lengthwise. Do you see how the ruler maintains the integrity of the tension/stretch of the elastic band? What is the relationship of the elastic band to the ruler? Do you see that the elastic band works to compress the ruler? Do you see the union of the two extremes that work in harmony to produce something beyond themselves and each is made stronger in the process?

 

(Another example of tensegrity structures are bones. Strong healthy bones are supple and bend, weak unhealthy bones are brittle and break easily – strong bones give and receive, they provide stability and they bend rather than break – weak bones do neither; they have lost their integrity.)

 

This is the true nature of Yoga. Yoga includes exercise and a clear intellectual understanding of the process, and, it is a living art that is felt. The living union of thinking and feeling is the reconciling of extremes and this union cannot be defined as the sum of the parts (it is beyond definition). Yoga is always new.  It is necessary that this holistic understanding be appropriately applied while exploring Hatha Yoga.

 

Many folks approach yoga as exercise to lose weight, become flexible, or because they have been told that preventing and reversing Osteoporosis can be accomplished by weight bearing exercises – this is true and yet this mental understanding usually causes the practitioners to strain while activating muscles as they apply the knowledge of book learning and well intentioned folks to achieve the promised results (yoga is approached as work-exercise). As stated above, these things have their place, yet the deeper understanding of Yoga and stretching naturally (the way your dog or cat yawns and stretches) will more effectively facilitate the desired result without the risk of injury that comes from mentally driven straining, and, all that unhealthy stress that the mind says you have to do to avoid the bad situation and to promote the good one.

 

The two pillars of yoga are centre and openness. The centre is the precise space where all extremes are together. The other space where everything is together is openness. The current of exploring from one extreme to the other is the reconciling of extremes that is living yoga. In this way yoga practice starts with union and it never loses its integrity as the ebb and flow of extremes unfold (like undulations in water as nested ripples simultaneously move in opposing directions away from and toward centre). 

 

If you explore Hatha Yoga practice from the muscles and through mental understanding, you are not centered. If you explore by first mentally understanding the pillar of centre – the heart centre - and then activating the core of the body (bones are at the core) by feeling like you are yawning and stretching so that the bones of the body feel like they are filling out the glove of the body – then the bones and the muscles behave in an entirely different way – they are in union, equilibrium. And, when you allow the body to flower from centre to extremes as you release deeper, then, the pose flowers into the space, openness, around the body and you realize the reconciling of extremes – Yoga.

 

Stretching from the core in this way while exploring weight bearing exercises acknowledges the tensegrity structure that is formed by a feeling of lengthening the bone in opposing directions (the bones are akin to the ruler in the example given earlier – they are being stressed in beneficial ways through the weight bearing and by the tensigrity of yoga) and the muscle which is connected to the bone by the tendon will be toned (like the elastic band in the example – they are also being stressed/vibrated in the same beneficial ways as the bones) – thus the pushing of the bone and the pulling of the muscle are in union, the result is that both will be stimulated to grow stronger, the living process unfolds with the flow of the breath, and, the integrity of the structure and practice is attained/maintained naturally. And because both are equally involved there is no risk of the dis-ease that emphasizing only one extreme entails.

 

Yoga is the journey and the destination of your Self-Nature. This activity is first understood intellectually and the application is felt intuitively as you breathe. The process is living yoga. It is a communication, a feedback loop where you explore in the same way that you walk – first you put one foot forward, the intellect, and once that step completes itself, you make the transition to the other foot, the intuition. Initially this is awkward as you are learning to walk and once you truly understand yoga practice both intellectually and intuitively, then there is the flowering, the re-union of the the two qualities of Intelligence that manifests as elegance in walking and naturally adjusting for obstacles along the way.

 

This same flow from one extreme to the other is clearly revealed in the flow of the breath that is the essential activity of Yoga and all of its processes. The inhalation is the intellectual stimulation and its flow is inward-centre. The exhalation is the intuitive stimulation and its flow is in exactly the opposite direction called outward-openness. The marriage or union of the two is the living current of their flow, their relationship, and it is punctuated by the natural pauses between the extremes.

 

The simple process of welcoming and releasing a quiet breath is the most fundamental process that influences physiological functions of the body. Breathing is the complex of processes that deliver oxygen to the body and remove carbon dioxide (outer respiration) and also provide the use of oxygen by cells and tissues to oxidize organic matters and release the energy necessary for their activity (called cellular respiration). Every organ, every cell and every tissue of the body breathes. Breath is Life.

 

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Attention links the body and the mind. Attention is a way to realize the union of Yoga. Here is a description of how we apply the understanding stated above in the practice of Nisarga or the Yoga of Seeing Naturally.

 

In our practice we allow the body to be an object of our attention. We see that what we generally call our body is contraction, a construction, a pattern. Habit, resistance, memory condition the body. Therefore, the question is, ‘How can we become free from this conditioning?’

 

The body belongs to all the enses, but mainly the body is felt. It is tactile sensation. When our attention is free from intention and tension, the vast palette of body sensations naturally appears. In this yoga approach we use certain visualizations that facilitate feeling and certain feelings that facilitate visualizations. For example - visualizing the space created by feeling as if the bones of the body are filling out the glove of the body. The effect of this visualization and feeling, feeling and visualization, is union that simultaneously appears full and empty.

 

We note that when we look into open space our muscles and nerves react in a different way than when we look at something solid like steel. We facilitate the natural feeling of our body by visualizing empty space and allowing this feeling of full emptiness to be applied. We breathe emptiness into the core and allow it to fill the body from the inside – we yawn and stretch as we explore all the traditional yoga poses and healthy posture.

 

We explore certain parts of our body and see how this space visualization manifests. When we yawn and stretch we move intuitively, the activity is driven by the flow of the breath, nothing is forced or pushed and yet there is the delicious taste of stretching to relieve tightness that allows the current of life to flow without restriction. The means for this is the flow of the breath and the result of this is that the breath flows even more freely. The flow of the breath is the means and the end.

 

When we yawn and stretch we explore the parts of our body that are completely healthy, the ones that are completely empty of aggression, resistance, and, when we encounter resistance, we permeate the unhealthy part with the feeling of filling it with the breath/space until there is a sensation of full emptiness in the whole body – this is the reconciling of thinking and feeling.

 

An outside observer will note that we clearly are stretching and that we are exploring weight-bearing exercises that counteract Osteoporosis and yet we, the practitioners, report that the activity is really not exercise but rather that it is an enlarged version of yawning and stretching or walking that is holistically beneficial.

 

The visualization is a mental picture and yet it is not dominant, it simply plays it role in partnership with the feeling of full emptiness and the feedback loop, the marriage of thinking and feeling. The practice is the living understanding of Yoga. In this emptiness the whole body functions in full harmony and the optimum benefits of yoga are realized. This is the current of Love that is the real factor in healing, prevention, and robust health.

 

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