Asana and Bhakti Yoga – Lara Warren

Still your mind in me, still yourself in me, still your intellect in me, and without doubt you will be united with me forever. If you cannot still your mind in me, learn to do so through regular practice of meditation. If you lack the self-discipline, engage yourself in my work, for selfless service can lead you at last to complete fulfillment. If you are unable to do even this, surrender yourself to me, disciplining yourself and renouncing the results of all your actions. (Bhagavad Gita 12.8-11)

In a class taught by Prashant Iyengar, he spoke of “sustained subservience,” asking no body part to be self-serving but relating it to devotion and selfless, God-filled acts.  The idea that one stays in the service of another without thought of gain or reward, and without tiring and becoming resentful on a mundane level can be hard to fathom. For instance, for most, we like to be charitable, but for only so long and only up to a certain point. Truly embraced, “sustained subservience” is acting with devotion and devoting every act to another without thought of reward.

Consider the moment Krishna presents his universal form to for Arjuna to see–known as visvarupa darsana–and it is clear that Krishna’s message is that He, Krishna, exists in all things. He is within each of us as Supreme Self. He is the “spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality“. The divine is in one and all, and it is perspective and intention that transforms our acts into ones that move us closer to divinity or move us away from it. This message is at the core of the Gita, to recognize the divine in everything, the “One” underlying many; the eternal beneath the ephemeral and act accordingly.

An example of how our approach to asana creates a laboratory to explore and live this principle, is watching how various body parts assert themselves to the detriment or exclusion of others. The arms, for the arms; the legs, for the legs; the shoulders for the shoulders…etc. For example, in sirsasana, if we lift the shoulders just for the shoulders sake, then there is disintegration, there is “piece-meal” and selfish action, even if only arising from ignorance. To start to integrate the body, breath and mind and to begin to move from the skin to the soul, learning sustained subservience on the physical level is indispensable. So, to continue with the example sirsasana–the arms aiding the shoulders, the shoulders aiding the back, the back aiding the the legs, the legs aiding the neck, the wrists aiding the feet, the feet aiding the breath, the breath for the body and mind…the relationships are endless.

The whole point of Bhakti is to transform motivation from I”” to “thou”.  Surrender selfish acts and replace them with the desire to give. When we truly practice “sustained subservience”, our actions become “actionless acts”, leaving no negative imprints, because they are no longer acting, but it is the Self acting through them.

“They who do all work renouncing self for me and meditate on me with single-hearted devotion, these I will swiftly rescue from the fragment’s cycle of birth and death, for their consciousness has entered into to me.  (Bhagavad Gita 12.6-7)

When we enter our asana practice (and anything for that matter) with open full heart and devote what it is we do to others then there is no room for regret and only room for fulfillment. There is a difference between desire to do a beneficial/skillful and desire to do an unbeneficial/unskillful act.