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BEYOND THE POSE

By Fiona Cole

When you think of yoga, what springs to mind? Hard, athletic bodies twisted into pretzel-like shapes? As important as it is to have a healthy, limber body, you might be surprised to hear that the true purpose of yoga is often overlooked by the body-obsessed West.

At a recent workshop at the Yoga House in Pasadena, I watched one of the great yogis, Dharma Mittra, balance on his left foot, take hold of his right ankle with his right hand, and effortlessly raise his leg high up behind him into the standing splits. He completed the Dancer pose by extending his other arm out in front, holding the position with ease. It wasn’t a sight you would normally associate with a 65 year old man. But, there again, Dharma Mittra is no ordinary man.

Dharma Mittra is widely known for the yoga poster which shows him in 908 different poses. The poster, originally a gift for his guru, now hangs in studios worldwide, provoking audible gasps and inspiring his fellow yogis around the globe. Originally from Brazil, Dharma Mittra has been a ‘full-time yogi’, as he puts it, since 1964. He runs the Dharma Yoga Center in New York, and at 65, he is still defying gravity by achieving feats like standing on his head with no hands.

He exited the Dancer pose smoothly, instructing us all to try it for ourselves. As a chorus of groans and thunks echoed around the room, Dharma Mittra offered a helpful tip. “You should practice this pose standing on the edge of a cliff,” he advised. “Then you won’t fall out of the pose so quickly.” And then to counter the disturbing image of an accidental plummet, he added, “Well, if you did, maybe you would at least have time to get into the lotus pose and meditate before you hit the ground.”

Considering his poster, you might assume that a Dharma Mittra workshop would be full of highly technical instructions for advanced poses. But he flowed from one pose to the next, talking more about Lord Shiva and the spiritual quest than to what degree your back foot should be turned in. “Remember, the goal is not to get your foot over your head,” he told us. “The true purpose of yoga is self-realization.”

Dharma Mittra embodies the classical variation of yoga which first came to the West from India in the middle of the twentieth century. Raja Yoga, as it is called, is a highly integrated approach to mastering the Self. It is comprised of eight limbs - moral restraints, ethical principles, postures, conscious breathing, control of the senses, concentration, meditation and, ultimately, super-consciousness. Over time, two of those limbs - the physical poses and the breathing - grew to be the main focus of yoga in the West.

While a lot of us today might be skimping on at least six of the eight limbs, our experience of the third limb - the postures - has been enhanced greatly by an increased awareness of physical alignment, brought to us by B.K.S. Iyengar. We might not be meditating in class, but, on a more positive note, many of us now receive highly detailed instructions on how to get into the pose in order to maximize the benefits and keep the body safe.

During the break, a student commented to me, “His alignment is way off, don‘t you think?” Well, by Iyengar standards, yes, perhaps. But, it’s hard to criticize a yogi who moves so gracefully and effortlessly into such a vast range of demanding postures - let’s face it, he must be doing something right. Moreover, to only notice the technical aspects of Dharma Mittra’s practice is to miss the larger lessons we can learn from a man who has fully embraced the yogic life for forty years. His physical capabilities are impressive, but it is his commitment to self-realization which makes him truly inspiring.

Even if you are not ready to take your practice further, being reminded of the full scope of the journey you have started is something that can enrich all of your experiences on the mat. Beyond the physical aspect, yoga offers us a broad system of personal development. Every time you step onto your mat is an opportunity to improve not just the health of your body, but the health of your mind and your spirit.

As we wrestled with the Dancer pose for a second time, Dharma Mittra talked about the importance of dedicating every pose to the Lord - not an institutional God, but the Divine Spirit, the higher self that is present in all of us. “The pose must come from your spiritual heart,” he enthused. And it struck me that the main difference between Dharma Mittra and most of us in the room was that he does indeed practice yoga as if his life depended on it.