Hatha Yoga: Building a different kind of toughness

'The simplest physical postures can lead to a profound understanding of life's experiences'

ONE of the fundamentals of hatha yoga is to change the definition of what is tough.

In yoga, toughness means to be in a state of acceptance, to be able to absorb everything without reacting to anything. Hatha yoga builds a different dimension of toughness – not with rigidity and resistance, but with flexibility and acceptance.

Within the fundamental principles of yama and niyama, one important aspect is Ishwara pranidhyana, which means to constantly acknowledge an intelligence beyond yourself. It means to know where your will ends, and where another dimension, which nurtures us, which is the basis of our existence, begins. Yoga is about seamlessly playing between these two – individual will and intelligence, and the universality of our existence.

For many people, their body, mind, and emotions are making up some kind of drama all the time. This drama includes your psychological scape, your perception, and your experience. The way the world is playing within you, how you see, hear, taste, or smell – all this is your drama. Another creature would not experience it the same way.

Yoga is a dimension where even the simplest physical postures can lead to a profound understanding of how to take charge of this drama.

What we are trying to do is to get a hold on this drama, understand the source of this drama and direct it as you want, not only in terms of thoughts and emotions, but in terms of your very perception. Through the yogic process, you can take charge of how you see things and how deeply you see things, and how profoundly or profanely you experience life.

That will not come with the surface activity of twisting and turning your body. It needs enormous involvement. You involve yourself in what you like or know. You do not involve yourself in what you do not like or know, or what you consider as unpleasant.

This discriminatory process creates a lack of involvement.

Early morning yoga may not be pleasant, but to be absolutely involved without discriminating between what you like and dislike is the answer. As your involvement becomes profound, your experience also becomes profound.

There are many compulsions and limitations you have to face to make things happen in the world. All these things will have an impact on you, unless you know how to involve yourself in just everything, without fear of failure. Establish involvement without discrimination, which means simply doing whatever is needed – not doing more of what you like and less of what you do not like.

This is about bringing a sense of vairagya into your life. The entire Indian culture has grown from vairagya, though this is changing rapidly today. Raga means “colour,” vai means to be beyond that. So vairagya means “beyond colour”– in other words, to become transparent.

If the background behind you is blue, you become blue; if the background is red, you become red. If you are transparent, you can take on and experience every possible colour in the universe without a trace of that colour being left in you. You are absolutely involved in the process of life, but remain untouched by it. Life does not leave a scratch upon you.

Unless you have this freedom, you will not be able to deepen your experience of life.

Ranked among the 50 most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan, the Indian government’s highest annual civilian award, in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.