Meditation Training-Yoga Postures

The previous blog briefly discussed meditation training by breaking into two parts.  The first being yoga postures, and the second being breath discipline.

Yoga postures can have a beneficial influence on one's ability to relax and calm down.  When I was in Afghanistan on deployment, one of the other medics I worked with began to teach herself yoga.  I always wanted to try, but lacked the discipline to focus myself in such a calm quiet physical manner.  Well, a form of battle stress I was experiencing forced me to begin a personal yoga practice and teach myself what I could.  I was already physically fit, I ran 3-4 miles 3 times a week and lifted weights 2 times a week, and walked everywhere with a rifle on my back.  Adding yoga was the best thing I did for my physical fitness routine, and it wasn't weird or awkward like I thought it would appear to military personnel.  I gave it sort of a strong self-confident appearance, like neuromuscular strength training.  That is one thing I've learned to love about yoga, there is no one view on how it should be perceived, like being mystical or prayer like.  It can fit into the most unusual environments and work for different groups of people.

The way yoga postures assist in meditation can vary from person to person, one way it can be explained is not far from the meaning of the word yoga which is union.  Union simply describes the Sanskrit word yoga, it's also described in various other words, but the most simple is - union.  I like to think of it as forming a union of mind, body, and emotions or spirit.  It's like imagining that there are three bodies and they are all connected but moving in different directions, like you might imagine seeing the body move in tracers, not being in one place.  Throughout the practice, the three bodies start to align, and they become one, so there is a centering or alignment and the body reaches harmony.

Following this process, one is ready to end their yoga practice in Savasana (Corpse Pose).  Most times in Savasana, the instructors lead the class through breathing, recovering, and allowing the nervous system to accept and save the changes the body has been through.  This is a necessary step in yoga, but not preferred to practice deep mediation.  Mostly because, you may be in a class, so you are under time constraints.   I have also noticed many people fall asleep in this posture, so after Savasana, one should move into to easy pose (seated cross-legged pose) when ready to start meditating.  When sitting in easy pose, it allows for more awareness and responsiveness to the physical changes that start appearing.  When I go into deep meditation, I notice sensations in my nervous system (mostly my spine) become, how I would describe as, an increasing more prominent feeling, or activating feeling.  My transition to meditation is gradual, it happens over several minutes, I wish I was one of those people who could just move into it immediately, but it takes time for me.  Leading up to easy pose, the process of practicing yoga postures has proven to be imperative in reaching my higher self.