tato dvandvānabhighātaḥ
tataḥ dvandva-anabhighātaḥ

“From that, non-affliction of the pairs of opposites.”

Patañjali makes a third statement on āsana that flows out of the first two. From that (tataḥ), meaning from āsana, he says, the practitioner is un-afflicted (anabhighātah) by the dualities (dvandva). The dualities could refer to any pair of opposites: up/down, hot/cold, pleasure/pain, good/bad, success/failure.

The suffering that arises from the pairs of opposites–and our perception of them–is basic to Patañjali’s definition of spiritual suffering (he begins this chapter with his discussion of the five klésas–the universal afflictions). In II.5, he asserts that the foremost affliction, the field out of which other affliction arises, is avidya (not-knowing). He then, interestingly, defines avidya as an assertion of knowledge where there is not knowledge: “naming permanent what is impermanent, pure what is impure, happy what is painful, and self for what is not-the-self.” (See II.5.)

The practice of yoga asks us to suspend our certainties, our conceptual orthodoxies, and to direct our awareness to a point of focus. In āsana practice, the point of focus is often the sight, sound, sensation of the moment.

Sanskrit teacher Vyaas Houston (II.11) describes the significance of the yogic discipline in how he teaches, and how, after decades of experience, he came to appreciate the amount of fear driving most students’ learning (or not-learning):

The inherent logic behind the fear of not getting it right, could be roughly represented by a set of subliminal beliefs: “I must get it right, If I don’t get it right, I will fail. If I fail, people will neither love me nor respect me. I am powerless to get free from the confines of my own limitations. I will never succeed. I am a failure. I cannot survive.” The other side of the illusion is that “if I get it right I will be liked, respected, successful. I will have money, power and happiness.” … Sanskrit is learned by immersing yourself in its pure and ever blissful vibrations, and seeing, only seeing, and hearing, only hearing, the consistent and symmetrical patterns of its grammatical structure.” –Vyaas Houston, Devavāṇī, pp. 21-26

Real learning, says Vyaas Houston, comes from only seeing, only hearing.

Some commentators (see Edwin Bryant) have asserted that the transcendence of the dualities comes as the practitioner detaches from body sensations and “loses awareness of the body.” B.K.S. Iyengar describes the process differently. It is the mind, he says, that creates duality. The physical āsana unites the mind, the body, and the soul. A joy and peace comes from this–a larger view. The mind, grounded in the body, locates itself in the soul.

In some sense, we enter and engage with the dualities in āsana practice. We press the feet down, stretch the arms up, come to the mid-line, spread to the East and West. We discover the space around us, the space within us, experience all as space (Hatha Yoga Pradipika, IV.55). Furthermore, we test the limits of our discomfort. Is this a good pain or a bad pain? many of us have asked. We pretty much have to find the answer to this ourselves. What will stretch and strengthen the body? What will harm it?

“The sun will not strike you by day. Neither the moon by night,” says Psalm 121, promising that the seeker who turns to the ultimate, the source, will find protection. The physical practice of āsana, done with love and heart, is such a turning. It brings strength and vitality that is sustaining.

The dualities represent the vicissitudes of life: gains and losses, delights and sorrows. Yet our perception of opposites is often off, reductive, tied perhaps to the nervous-system fight-flight response. Patañjali’s yoga is a successive process of being less certain of conclusions, of releasing black-and-white thinking that prevents us from seeing the grays, that closes our minds to depth, fullness, potential.

Our labels, our language, constructs our sense of the world. They also limit it. Last week, I attended a lecture by author Ibram X. Kendi and was profoundly affected by his message. Current genetic research, he explained, shows that 99.9% of humanity’s DNA is held in common. The concept of humanity having separate “races” of people is relatively new. It was born in the fifteenth-century, and it served to justify the burgeoning European slave-trade of people from Africa.

In his must-read book How to Be an Anti-Racist, Kendi tells his own story in relation to the idea of race. He describes how we are all soaked in the concepts of racism; our society is structured around it. He urges us to strive to be anti-racists. This means that we commit to learning. We pay attention to racial inequity and injustice, open our eyes to the effects of the social policies we support (or ignore). We can be racist by what we don’t do.

Our yoga off the mat calls us to be curious about our world, to be learners, to be participants. To do so, we will probably have to let go of a lot of old labels, of old certainties and illusions. We do so to make room for the bigger idea, for the possible.

And then I was answered in my mind, as if by a kindly go-between: “Look for the courtesy of God–and see it–in things in general, as [she] has already shown you. For it gives more praise to God to see [her] in all things than in one special thing.”

I accepted this, and by this I learned that it is more praise to God to understand all things in general, than to set your heart on one thing in particular.

And if I am to live wisely by this teaching, not only should I not set too much store by any one thing, but I should also not be too distressed by any one thing, either–“for all shall be well.”   –Julian of Norwich, from The Revelations of Divine Love, ch. 35, translated by Sheila Upjohn

—–

“When body, mind and soul unite in a perfect posture, the sādhaka is in a state of beatitude. In that exalted position, the mind, which is at the root of dualistic perception, loses its identity and ceases to disturb him. Unity is achieved between body and mind and mind and soul. There is no longer joy or sorrow, heat or cold, honor or dishonor, pain or pleasure. This is perfection in action and freedom in consciousness.” –B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sūtras, commentary on II.47

“It must not be just your mind or your body that is doing the āsana. You must be in it. You must do the āsana with your soul. How can you do an āsana with your soul? We can only do it with the organ of the body that is closest to the soul–the heart. …Many people try to think their way into an āsana, but you must instead feel your way into it through love and devotion. In this way, you will work from your heart, not your brain, to create harmony. The serenity in the body is the sign of spiritual tranquility.” –B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life, p. 63

“Stillness is a reflection of our growing openness to the unpredictable unfolding of the world as it is, a freedom from the constant effort to bend things to our liking, to make them conform to our conditioned notions of good and bad.” –Chip Hartranft, The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali, p. 39

Questions
• What  pairs of opposites are active in your āsana practice?
• How well do you accept difficult things?
• What is your experience of doing āsana from the head? The heart? How do you move toward serenity in a pose?
• Has yoga practice helped you become a better learner? Participant?