What is Energetic Alignment?

Let us begin this class rooting ourselves in the understanding that yoga is not about bending, twisting, and balancing but about transformation, about revealing our essential nature and freeing ourselves (liberation) from suffering: realisation= MUKTI= Union=YOGA.

Sadhana is a device to create transformation, to achieve the state of Yoga or Integration. So is the practice on and off the mat.

Have you ever asked yourself why none of the ancient scriptures on Yoga talks about anatomy? Or anatomical Alignment?

Why Patanjali does not even mention physical alignment in the Yoga Sutras?

While in the west, at the moment, what we call yoga is a physical exercise derived from yoga which is completely physically oriented and anatomy based. We focus completely on the physical, and in the name of anatomy study and postural misalignment and how many certifications we can get ( or money we can give to the different institution that claims we need to keep collecting diplomas), we dismiss the essence of yoga which is energetic alignment and integral transformation.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras Begin like this:

Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodhah: The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga

Yoga is the process of achieving stillness of mind.

To achieve stillness of mind. We are to balance our physical body, transform the vital body to find stillness- equanimity of mind so we can access higher states of awareness & consciousness and transcend our physicality.

Yoga is not about physical postures. Asanas and the physical practices are a device to cleanse the body and purify it so it can become a sensitive receptor for subtler energies. To prepare the body, so it is no longer an impediment to finding stillness and equanimity or union, which is Yoga.

To bring the body to such a state that it does not turn against us and is not an impediment but a vehicle to live vibrantly and awakened in the first place.

So yoga is about finding inner stillness, creating internal space, dissolving separation, becoming receptive, light, subtle…

How to do our physical practice, so it becomes yoga?

• We want to find inner stillness to transcend Maya or the illusion of everyday mundane nonsense and touch essence, space, consciousness: realize. We want to get down off the Ego-horse and time it, so we are the ones ruling our life and karma, not our ignorance.
• Cultivate discipline and self-practice so we can become observers of our practice and inner energies: it is important to develop self-practice and a practice that is to be repeated for long periods of time. Knowledge comes only through experience.

Experience comes only through embodiment. Wherever we are, we have to learn to handle things properly. It is about becoming Satvic in nature. We want to find inner stillness to transcend the irrelevant and touch the essential becoming essence and space ourselves.

Portion Of Practice: then Patanjali says

Stira Sukha Asanam

‘Asana means the posture that brings comfort and steadiness.

Physical and mental toxins create stiffness and tension. Anything that makes us stiff can also break us. Only if we are supple will we never break. The body must. The body must be so supple it can bend any way we want it to. Such a body will always be healthy and tension free. The moment we sit in meditation with such a body, we’ll forget it. If the body is still, it is easy to make the mind still.’

To Create a Satvic state in us, Integral Purification is the only way. 

Be flexible but not by forcing…by clearing and being with what is and with no tension.

To be in the postures in a state of Satva, we need to understand that the alignment is energetic: we ought to master ourselves, the elements, not the postures. Master the breath, the emotions, and Ahimsa: non-harming.

We are energy: alignment is energetic.