Having recently been invited to take part in some yoga sessions, I struggled to understand exactly what it was.

Exercise? Then why all the religious trappings?

Spirituality? In what way?

I went into it with more than a few preconceptions, but little real knowledge.

Facing failure

After just a few sessions I noticed something. Yoga makes me angry. Irritable, annoyed and rudely dismissive.

That these negative feelings are so strong suggests that there is more to them than meets the eye. Could they be a defense mechanism to protect my ego from admitting failure when I am unable to contort my body into a pose?

It certainly feels that way.

It feels like my ego was having a bit of a temper tantrum because it was faced with limits that it didn’t want to accept, as well as comparisons with others that hurt its petty pride.

My ego is a fragile little boy, probably still living in the shadow of my father.

Discovering wisdom

On the positive side, today was the first time I understood the wisdom of yoga. Or put another way, today was the first time I had the feeling of bodily wisdom that couldn’t be expressed with words.

Something about battling through resistance, working with the discomfort of limitations, not taking things too seriously, realising that my worth in front of the yoga master leading the class is not related to physical ability, and so much more.

I believe that wisdom is the ability, possibly intellectual, possibly physical, etc., to match oneself to Reality as it genuinely is. From what I have seen, I now realise that yoga teaches precisely this.

It teaches how to be embodied in a world of limitations. It also teaches how to face any such limitations (physical or not) with hard work and with humour.

Weirdly, these sorts of lessons will be more easily experienced and learned by someone entirely new to yoga. The worse you are at it, the more obvious will be the lesson. Such a shame then that our society (or is it our egos?) offer shame and ridicule to new-starters, instead of the neutral encouragement to do it no matter what. Not the encouragement that promises reaching a future goal, but rather the advice to let go and just do the thing that you are bad at. No judgement at all. Not negative judgement today, nor the implied judgement of future improvements.

It is strength training for the soul.

Namaste.