Sutra 2.46

So now having covered yemeni yaman, potentially continues to talk about the 8 limbs and the benefits of cultivating Pratipaksha Barvinham as he describes arsenal. Asked in which means literally the seat of Boag. Not just the seat of the physical body, but the seat of our awareness, the seat of yogic awareness, How is that yogic awareness? Steeda Sukam Arsenal. The seat of yoga is at once, Steeda, steady, and so come, easeful. Just 7 syllables for this initial definition of yoga asana but potentially says so much in these 7 syllables. We mentioned many James, sutras are always distilled.

They're very condensed, but with this stitch, These 7 syllables, potentially is able to hold a vast, vast, vast fabric, a vast, fast tapestry. What does it mean? The seat of yoga is at once steady and easeful, but let's just look at that word easeful in a little bit more depth. So come. So it means good or agreeable or pleasant. Come means space or arkarsha.

Now, perhaps you remember the tutfer's sheet that we've looked at before, the yellow sheet, which you'll be able to see on screen just now. When we look at the Panjamaha, the 5 great things that have become Earth water fire air and space, We notice they correspond to the Tanmatra, those portions of reality that we've evolved to be able to experience. And space corresponds to sound. So come the space that you're asking is, this space We could describe it as a space of good vibrations. So Sula means a space in which there is a good vibe. Stidus Ocumassanum, Boag Asana is a state of sustainable good vibrations.

Of robust harmony. This is what Georgina means. Notice the the there's a there's a French world word that's polyvalon means valid in so many different settings for so many different contexts. This definition, it's so wide reaching. It's so valid to all layers of practice.

It's a beautiful example of how potentially sutures work gross to subtle. It's also a beautiful example of how richly, potentially encodes so much in such a distilled and memorable way. There have been people over the years who have said, like, oh, Potash doesn't say much about Arsenal. And perhaps that arsenal or physical practices are not part of the classical Boag. I don't think that's true.

I think potentially says so much about physical practice, but He was a yogin of such deep insight and such genius that he was able to distill it into such a succinct form. When we're doing physical yoga practice, we want it to help us feel more steadiness more robustness, and more easefulness. And let's just consider this, how this secret is a beautiful emblem of the whole teaching Each of the ungers, each of the members of the collective body of classical yoga practice, They are each a microcosm of the whole practice. 1 cannot become fully established in any one of them without becoming established in the others. If one becomes fully established in any of the Yamaniyamas, then one will become established in the Hinsa will become established in New York.

But if we can actually sit, reside, move, live in a state of total, serious circumstance, then we'll be living the state of Boag, and look how beautiful this sutra is in the way it is still so much. Which relates to body based yoga practices, practices that work with the life force the expansions and contractions of the pulsating bodily vehicle. It works with these pairs of opposites and we find that encoded so beautifully here. Steeda on the one hand and succumb on the other. Now, for example, just try it. Make yourself super steeder, very, very steady now.

Okay. I'm gonna get so steady that if I, by some yogic magic trick, was to leap out of the screen you're watching this on and use not just my regular physical powers, but some yoga city power to try and push you you would not budge because you're so steeder. Now, if you make yourself like that, if I try and make myself super steeder, What happens after a while? I can feel all years. I'm getting very grounded. I'm very steady. But if I wanna make myself so steady that nobody will be able to move me, After a while, what's likely to happen? I'm gonna come to a state of fatigue, and then I will likely collapse.

Into a state of extreme succa. But is this ex is this state of extreme succa really succumb? This may feel like a relaxed posture, but if I stay here very long at all, I would rather it's not a relaxing or relaxed posture. I will start to feel stiff. I will ossify in that position.

So, really, there can be no ease without some steadiness that supports it. There can be no steadiness without a sufficient degree of ease to make that steadiness steady and sustainable. So at first glance, steeder and the sucker can appear like opposed forces. But really, these are potentially mutually complimentary forces. And this is the whole play of yoga practice to work with the reality of life of our pulsating bodily experience and work with all those seeming pairs of opposites and bring them into togetherness.

Let them meet and get to know each other so intimately, so deeply that they can bring out and bring up each other's innate complementary potential so we can actually reside in a steady, useful state. So this is an absolute wondersutra, and it tells us so much about all types of physical practice. If you're doing a yoga arsenal practice, you want it to be steady. You want be easeful. You want it to cultivate greater steadiness and greater relaxation.

And what this sometimes means is that Georgasana does not always look like classic modern Georgasana. The world that many of us have grown up in, we have developed habits in our body that have maybe closed certain of the body's energy pathways. Many, people in the west, so called, or people live in chair based society, for example, everyone I first went to live in Japan, I realized that it wasn't particularly easy for me to sit in the position that is the natural position to evacuate one's bowels. Now I lived in Asia a long time, and I've managed to rehabilitate it to some degree. But many people in the modern world that some people say that's the healthiest yogasin is that deep resting squat.

Everything's compressed. And everything's compressed. It allows things to get squeezed out. It massages the colon and everything. It helps things get it helps get things get flushed out.

But lots of people don't visit that position very frequently anymore. And consequently, there's not so much stimulation to cleanse and eliminate. And the triple flexion of ankle knee and hip that is so helpful for the robust health, the joints, isn't a feature of our day to day movement. So what I would suggest is that if we are to invite our body The vehicle that is going to support a Boag experience into status or come, we may need to rehabilitate some of the mobility and the deep postural strength. Which is completely, taken for granted for people who've lived a traditional lifestyle, for people who've grown up squatting a lot who sleep on the ground, and so get up from the ground many times a day.

If you go out into the wilderness for a while, you realize, oh, yeah. The way I move, it exercises the system in a much full away. Now, the people who invented your Garsener, their day to day life, you wanted to go and get some water. Well, that's a pulling workout. And then carrying it on the head, this is, I'm gonna have very good gate, beautiful posture. Many of the things that our ancestors did as a matter of course in the day to day life, they ensured a basic level of mobility and, let's say, deep postural strength or stability through the whole bodily vehicle with all the different important kinetic chains. So these days, if we want to practice yoga, it can sometimes be very helpful to rehabilitate our bodily capacities.

And so it might be that running through the forest or lifting some weights or swimming or dancing, these can be very helpful contributing things to do in an arsenal practice. Similarly, taking some time just to sit can be a very important part of asking a practice because again, another thing in the modern world A lot of people don't have much chance to just be without some external stimulation or something to happen to be dealing with. But just to be there and really cultivate a sense of steadiness, these can also be very helpful parts of your arsenal practice. One more thing I'd like to say before we leave this Sutra and continue with the next 2, which complete potential consideration of the limb of Asana is that in the commentary, Vyasa mentions some of the classic Boag Asanas. And he mentions Avirasana, Putmarsana, and Sidarsana. So Avira means hero. That human being who finds the courage to with all it means to be human.

Padma means the lotus, that which grows from the earth and the water. Is caressed by the fire of the sun and the breeze and fragrance of the air and then blossoms into space treaty that's inner beauty. And Sidham means perfection or culmination. So this is not so different from Sidarsen and this posture I'm sitting in. Padmar Padmarsen, I can't do Padmarsen, but, you know, you fold the legs in.

Vidasana, maybe look something like this. These three postures they're very stable. So their pastures in which a human being whose body has had the relevant preparation can easily access a steady, useful state. So they are suitable postures for a sustained meditation practice. However, in Sanskrit, there are always many layers to a James.

And I would suggest that any practice, anything we do with our body that helps bolster our courage to wrestle with all it means to be human is a type of. Anything that we do that helps bring up and encourage to blossom and open our deeper innate beauty. Anything that helps us become more fully our true self. Those are worthy of being called Padmars and citizeners. So your garson a practice doesn't just mean making shapes in space and helping the energy flows with the body more easily.

Of course, facilitating easeful flow of prana through the body is a very, very important aspect of yoga practice, but we can practice yoga in so many ways It's also about our attitude. It's also about the way we relate to our body in the context of our whole life. To our attitudes, to our emotions. And this is the beautiful thing with this definition. It's giving it's telling us everything we we need to know about how to do your your arsenal practice, but it's also reaching out that instruction in a very wide practical way.

And this is classic Potanjali. The Sutra's, he's not giving us absolute. This is what you need to do and how you need to do it. No. He's empowering us to come to our own understandings. He's giving us clear principles And as we practice with them, then we come to understand the more and to be able to sit established in those principles, and work from growth to social.