Aligning With Nature

The Pathless Path to Immortality, Shri Gurudev Mahendranath wrote:

Man is born with an instinct for naturalness. He has never forgotten the days of his primordial perfection, except insomuch as the memory became buried under the artificial superstructure of civilization and its artificial concepts. Sahaja means natural. It not only implies natural on physical and spiritual levels, but on the mystic level of the miraculous. It means that easy or natural of living without planning, designing, contriving, seeking, wanting, striving or intention. What is to come must come of itself.

It is the seed which falls in the ground, becomes seedling, sapling, and then a vast shady tree of wisdom and teachings. The tree grows according to Sahaja, natural and spontaneous in complete conformity with the Natural Law of the Universe. Nobody tells it what to do or how to grow. It has no swadharma or rules, duties and obligations incurred by birth. It has only svabhava - its own inborn self or essence to guide it. Sahaja is that nature which, when established in oneself, bring the state of absolute freedom and peace.

This past weekend I did a workshop on Sahaja within the yoga practice. The session was an invitation to align with nature. Connecting to that place within ourselves that is free of condition and rules of how things "should" be and movement instead towards the living and creative energy inside of us that can give birth to freedom in the body, heart, and soul.

So many of us have so carefully been handed down rules and regulations for all the many expressions of asana. We have come to know our bodies in such rigid and regulated ways. For many the ways in which we have lined up have been forced or contrived and while it looks good, has never really felt good. We have learned so much about the way things are "supposed" to be that we are fearful to stray at all. In essence we have shifted a practice that is born to create freedom to one that has imposed so many rules that have left many fearful to play, change, grow, evolve, and return to and align with nature.


I want to be clear that I think that there are many really wonderful reasons to line up in certain ways. It surely has it's place--especially when we have been so far removed from our nature that we really are so disconnected that we no longer have any intelligence in the body. Things such as learning some basic biomechanical principles are important. At the same time however, it's important to remember that even biomechanical inspired ideas and practices need to be explored to align to the unique sahaja of each person's body and practice (You cannot have cookie cutter approaches to the body when everyone is navigating vessels that are so unique). As practioners we need to be empowered to align with our nature--what shapes make us come to life. Each pose should be like sticking the prong of a plug into a light socket--we light up from it's power and electricity and feel the powerful life flow through us.

Nothing in nature is linear, nothing in nature stands still. Yet in practice so many of us think of that as the goal. To come to a pose, hold it very very still, and some are even being told to keep it rigid. Not only this but if we stray from this form we are doing it "wrong" or worse "you're going to hurt yourself".

Nature is spherical and nature is vibrating dynamically all the time. Even things that appear to be still such as the stones and mountains are teeming with life and vibrating with space and spaciousness.

Aligning with nature means returning to the spherical. Within our bodies recognizing the patterns of nature and moving in ways with our body that mimic nature. Sometimes in modern day yoga classes it feels like modern day construction. We tear down all the nature first and then construct our house, or new building, and then try to put some new nature in to accomodate our new structure. Meanwhile we just displaced thousands of nature's inhabitants and whatever we put in was not in alignment with nature. Same is true for the body. First we must listen to our Svabhava--from deep listening hear and feel the deep life force within and allow movement to erupt into the dance of yoga. Stillness does have its place, but in service to the recognition of the life intelligence inside from which we breath and move.

Emerson says "Everything in nature contains all the power of nature, everything is made of one hidden stuff" Our practice then is to awaken to the "stuff". We invite the power of the waves, the flight of the bird, the power of the mountain, the speed of the cheetah, the strength of the wind, whatever quality we wish to align with that in that moment can liberate our body and open our heart.

Movement then in the practice is not about forcing, controlling, subjugating our body, but rather on returning to the natural state of sahaja--free of condition and just as spherical as one wave crashing down into the other.

"Rocking, undulating, swaying,
Carried by rhythm,
Cherish the streaming energy
Flooding your body
As a current of the divine.

Oh radiant one,
Ride the waves of ecstatic motion
Into a sublime fusion of passion and peace."

--Radiance Sustra 60 translated by Lorin Roche


May we all be inspired towards a living practice rooted deep in our svabhava!

Peace!