Patanjali Yoga Sutra 2.47 - How To Do Asana | Yoga Teacher Training | Anvita Dixit

Transcript

namaste everyone in today's video we're going to focus on muni patanjali's yoga sutra 2.47 now in this yoga sutra muni patanjali is explaining to us some more characteristics of an asana and what is the ideal way to practice an asana so let's take a good look at the sutra start breaking it up word by word and understand it a little bit better so the sutra itself goes prayatna shaithilya all right so that was the sutra now let's take a good look at each of the words the first word here is prayatna and pratna is a very common hindi word as well which means effort or taking the effort to do something so that is prayatna then we come to the next word which is shaithilya and shaytalia means releasing giving up or relaxing so it means giving up intense effort but doing something in a more effortless relaxing way so that is pratna srithilya and then we come to ananta now anantha is also a lot of people have the name ananta but anantha basically means something that is endless or infinite so that is the meaning of ananta something that has no end so antha means end anantha no end and then coming to the next one we have samapathi and samapathi is a process we've discussed in a lot of previous sutras so it's essentially the merging into or the identification with a particular object and then finally we come to the last word which is just an additional word here which refers to with so when we're saying ananta sama is just referring to with now that we've seen all of the different words let's think about what is the sutra trying to say so essentially the sutra is saying that two of the most important principles or factors of a yoga practice yoga asana practice are prathna shrithilya and ananta samapathi so what is prathna shrithilya that means reduction of effort doing a practice quite effortlessly and then of course being in the merger or identification with something that is infinite and absolutely endless so these are two more characteristics or ways in which we can understand the concept of asana now that we've understood the words and meaning and got a good idea of the overall sutra let's dive deeper into the meaning of the sutra all right so what this sutra was trying to tell us is that there are two more characteristics that we need to pay attention to most of the times when we're practicing yoga asanas we end up struggling or fighting with our bodies trying to force ourselves into certain postures that the body may not be ready for yet so what this is trying to tell us is to be gentle with the practice to have incremental increases and to try and be effortless with the entire approach to the yoga practice because the more we struggle and we create a tension within the body the higher the chances are for illness or injury and therefore it's very very important to be to have a certain level of effortlessness and ease with the practice even with asanas that are difficult for example there's an asana called pashimothanasan which is a forward fold that we do in a sitting position and for a lot of people if you have a stiff lower back or you have tight hamstrings and tight hips when you fold forward it's actually very difficult to go all the way down now there are two options here either you strain yourself and like push and pull your body to force yourself into the position and then the next morning you have a little bit of a backache or you just go slow and steady surrender to the practice accept where your body is right now and incrementally surrendering slowly slowly go into the practice that way the body is relaxed there's less chance of injury and also less effort being applied and in this way what happens is the spiritual and the psycho-spiritual parts of yoga can actually be experienced because we're doing it so slowly and so steadily the mind has a chance to slip into deeper states of meditative experience so that is what this entire practice is about now at the same time of course one is to do it in this pretness scheithelia format and over time what happens is when you do this week on week every single day the body transforms and over time you can actually do a full pastry multana sun your body becomes flat abdomen goes to the thighs head to the knees and boom that there's your pastry mudana sun but it takes a little bit of time it doesn't happen as quickly as we want it to happen and therefore we need to just give it that time um give it that sort of ease that it needs for the body to slip into that practice so this is one of the most important points of pratna srithilita in patanjali's yoga system especially through this sutra now coming to the next element which is ananta samapatti bhyam this is quite a unique you know characteristic that we've been provided where muni patanjali is also directing what the mind should be doing right when we're in a yoga asana a lot of times what tends to happen is all we can think about is how the body feels how we're experiencing this posture and if we're feeling tightness or pain or any other experience but what money patanjali is suggesting is that we actually start to focus on something which is infinite now i have to say over here that this is best done with meditational asanas such as the ones like sukhasan padmasan siddhasana swastikasan in this sitting posture this would be much easier to do both pratt and shaytalia as well as ananta samapathibhiyam however in case we are trying to do it in a different asana then the impact might be a little bit less anyway coming back to ananta samapathibham we're being told to focus on something which is in finite in nature now the commentators that we follow from keva lidham have suggested that we actually look at something like the sea or the ocean or the sky or something which is super expansive like space or the universe which really has no dimensions and the more you visualize such an such a vast expanse with nothing you know limiting it the easier it becomes to merge or identify with that space a very unique example which was given in the book which i found super useful was to imagine they were literally like a little log of wood in the vast ocean and the minute i read that and i visualized that i immediately felt so small like i felt like i was just one little thing in a in a huge ocean full of water with you know kind of no land to be seen anywhere and the minute you do that kind of a visualization and try to merge yourself with that water you really you start to understand how you are important you are an integral part of the universe but you're not everything you know every everybody works together to facilitate this existence and we don't have to give ourselves so much importance because we're just one little part of the puzzle an important one or one that deserves self-respect and understanding but still part of the integral whole and it kind of really makes you humble and makes you wonder like we're just little you know specs in the universe but sometimes we have big egos so it really helps to kind of reduce our arrogance and kind of feel more in sync with the world and more part of something bigger so this is a great visualization technique i feel an ananda samapathi bham there's so many ways to do it you can do it with light with sound anything that is infinite according to your imagination can be introduced in the yogasana practice and focused upon purposefully through this meditative journey of samapathi and then we can go further and further into the asana states so this was another characteristic that muni patanjali has provided us and as i mentioned even earlier this is very very specific to muni patanjali system of yoga any other physical asana practices may be different they may have different directives they may have different goals and objectives and therefore it entirely depends on that school of yoga asana and what it's encouraging you to practice this school is particularly focused on the mental spiritual and psychological elements of yoga and therefore it encourages such a deep and meditative practice which can be quite therapeutic which is very healing in nature and very powerful as well so just remember that there are many many different systems and each one advocates a different cause and in this one it's advocating effortlessness as well as ananta samapatibham doing samapathi on something that is infinite and endless so even though that is endless this now brings us to the end of today's video i hope you've enjoyed it if you did please don't forget to give it a big thumbs up drop your comments in the comment section below and share this video with your friends and family especially those who might be studying yoga philosophy or doing the yoga teacher training now apart from that if you're interested in meeting us for classes workshops the links are in the description you can also take our online courses and we would love to connect with you there apart from that if there's anything else we can help you with feel free to drop us a dm on instagram and we'll get back to you and we look forward to seeing you in the next video we come out with videos every week so super excited to see you in the next one until then take care and we'll see you very soon namaste [Music] you