Be Humble: The Four Stages of Your Yoga Practice
When you look at decolonizing yoga on social media, it is the constant message: “Yoga is not just asana.”
It is easy, as an asana teacher, to become discouraged. Especially when you go on social media and you see asana as the culprit behind everything that’s wrong with modern yoga. It’s discouraging for people like me who find asana a spiritual practice, because the message seems to be: asana is not authentic yoga.
I have spoken about asana shame as a speaker for Flow In Solidarity Summit 2021 and on podcasts like A Yogi’s Perspective. I see asana shame come through when yoga teachers market their asana class as a philosophy class, as a breathing class, as a mudra class etc. They try to pack everything but the kitchen sink into their asana class, which does as much of a disservice to their students as much as separating asana from its roots of Indian spirituality does.
Yoga is not just asana but asana is important. Mastering asana and pranayama are essential keys for you to unlock your meditation practice. Yogic texts like Hatha Yoga Pradipika and Yoga Sutras consider asana and pranayama as preparatory limbs for concentration and meditation.
Asana is so important because it paves the way for us to move from the gross body to the subtle body. To dismiss the gross body is the same as to elevate it - a distortion of reality. In Swami Muktibodhananda’s translation and commentary of Maharishi Svātmārāma’s Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Chapter 1, verse 17 states:
“Prior to everything, asana is spoken of as the first part of hatha yoga. Having done asana, one gets steadiness (firmness) of body and mind, diseaselessness and lightness (flexibility) of limbs.”
Yet I had intrusive questions that came up from within me, as I began to decolonize my yoga. Some questions with more merit than others. Many of them reflecting the insecurities that come up when we do the work:"
Was my training for nothing? What do I know of yoga? Am I an imposter? Is it bad to enjoy asana to the extent that I do? Can I honour yoga if I primarily practice asana?
Honestly, the discourse surrounding asana is not new.
Andrea Jain’s Selling Yoga traces how asana was considered not the “real” yoga, and that far from being the harmless commodity it is today, it used to be the “scary” yoga that wasn’t aligned to Good Christian Values.
And this was not too long ago, during the turn of the twentieth century.
This perspective was popularized by loud voices like Swami Vivekananda. He wanted yoga to be credible, associated with psychology and science - not with hatha yogis who were considered magicians and circus freaks by the West. He was a loud proponent, and not the only one, who saw meditation as the correct yoga. He had his reasons -Indian independence from British colonial rule- for pushing this narrative.
It’s been interesting to see this advocacy work/marketing strategy play out on modern social media.
It is important for us to recognize the truth that there is more to yoga than asana, because nowadays all that people know about yoga is asana. And there are consequences when we believe yoga is only asana. Separating it from spirituality. Acts of service. Meditation. Breathework. Consequences like, the belief that having a strong asana practice means you will be a good teacher. Or that if you know about asana so well, you can also speak about philosophy or ayurveda or whatnot with authority.
This is one vritti (mental fluctuation) of viparyaya, wrong perception of reality, that we collectively need to overcome.
A strong asana practice doesn’t mean anything except that this person has a strong asana practice.
For asana lovers, students and teachers alike, it then behooves us to ask:
How can we practice yoga asana without letting it become about our ego?
There are numerous health benefits to a regular yoga asana practice but ultimately, yoga is a spiritual practice that is meant for us to connect to the living pulse of the world. Instead, many self-professed yoga students (and spiritual practitioners) can become alienated from others.
If you’ve been feeling like you’re unable to stand certain teachers or students in the room, if you catch yourself judging them harshly in a way where you are subconsciously putting yourself in a different category to them (“I’m not like them”), if you’re finding yourself feeling good about yourself for knowing something, know that you are not alone.
Superiority mingled with Imposter Syndrome is the oddest feeling, sort of like when you have to pee but you want to drink at the same time. It’s okay to have these emotions. You don’t have to feel guilty when you have a “bad” thought. You don’t need to resist them. You also don’t need to analyze yourself each and every time. But if these thoughts and emotions continue to persist, I welcome you to ask yourself, is this how you want to feel?
Would you want to know a way for you to reframe and refresh? So that you change HOW and WHY you practice asana?
When I was in Bali, my alignment teacher, Ida Ji, shared the stages of yoga listed in Hatha Yoga Pradipika and when she shared this, I felt something profound move through me.
It is comforting to know the stage that you are in, so that you have boundaries on where to focus your attention.
Sometimes, when I speak with yoga students, I sense the pure curiosity in wanting to know everything but there’s also a sense of rushing that inevitably happens. This overwhelming feeling of knowing that there is so much out there you just don’t know.
There are stages to your yoga practice. And when you know the stage that you are in, you can start to understand what you need to focus on, and it doesn’t feel so overwhelming.
Perhaps the chaos is inviting for you. If not, these stages are helpful because you can say to yourself: I don’t need to know everything right now. I don’t need to rush my yoga journey.
The Four Stages of Your Yoga Practice
“In all the yogic practices there are four stages; arambha, beginning; ghata, vessel; parichaya, increase; nishpatti, consummation.”
- Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4.69
Avastha is translated as “state or condition of mind and consciousness achieved through effort” so there are four stages or avasthas.
In Swami Muktibodhananda’s commentary, she says that “each stage is more subtle and refined than the preceding one.” Like we journey from gross body to the most suble, each of these stages progress from outward to inward. Just like the koshas or the realms of existence of our bodies.
1.Aramba Avastha: The Page
This is the stage where we begin to explore asana on the anatomical level. Arambha means 'to commence or begin', and avastha mean 'status'. This is the stage where you are a beginner. You are becoming acquainted with the physical sheath that you have. This is known as the annamaya kosha in Vedantic philosophy, a sheath that covers the soul.
You become familiar with the shape of the asana for your body. Don’t rush, and don’t be pedantic.
Some folks can get real stuck on what is the right shape, disguising it under the argument of safe alignment.
I pose the question to you. What would it be like for you to embody your inner child? To embody the beginner’s spirit? The page?
As I began to reflect upon the stages, I realized how they correspond to the Court cards in tarot. You can also think of this as the stage where you embody the Page.
Be open to learning, which requires you to make mistakes and learn from them. Which requires you to be excited without holding on to this idea of yourself as not a fool or ignorant. On a physical level, falling out of an asana, mixing your directions etc. To just practice without being self conscious. A tall order, I know.
2.Gatha Avastha: The Knight
Gatha translates to a vessel for holding water, and this stage “symbolizes” the state of mind in which the second stage… is perceived” (Swami Muktibodhananda). This is a stage when you begin to work with your energy body, your pranayama kosha, as you practice asana.
In this stage, you are familiar with asana on a physical level. That doesn’t necessarily mean you are a teacher, but that you understand how this asana works for your body. You are aware of where your physical body is in space.
Now, you are becoming aware of the impact that asana has on your energy. You start to explore how being in an asana impacts your mind. How you can manipulate the effects by becoming conscious and concentrating your efforts on the interplay of breath with each movement. And how that translates to your energy.
Gatha avastha is the Knight card in tarot. You have skill. You know enough to be valuable but you are not your own master. You know yourself a little better, but you are still proving yourself. You are refining your practice.
3.Parichaya Avastha: The Queen
Parichaya is also known as the “increase stage.” This is the stage where you have refined the temple of the body through asanas considered beginning and intermediate, and through pranayama.
You have attained a level in your asana practice where the “indwelling bliss of an undivided mind is experienced” (Swami Muktibodhananda). This is considered a spiritual stage. A stage where “imbalance of your doshas, pain, old age, disease, hunger, and sleep are overcome” (Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4.75).
You are able to achieve a blissful, peaceful mind when you have expanded the depth and dimension of your awareness. Swami Muktibodhananda says that it is not that you do not have disease but that “the pains and demands of the body diminish in intensity, becoming only minor distractions.”
If this stage is the Queen in tarot, this is a card of sovereignty. Of ownership. And of power. You have control and mastery.
And this is the stage when you start to recognize your true self. This happens when you have already made the journey from the gross, physical sheath, and the energy sheath.
4.Nispattia Avastha: The King
Nispattia Avastha is also known as the consummation stage. This stage is achieved when body-mind-breath is refined into a seamless quality of pure being.
Where everything one does and experiences in life is a moving meditation.
It can be hard to separate gender from the traditional names of the court cards, but this is the stage of being a King. A king, free of gender, is the master. This is a stage of self mastery off the mat as much as it is on the mat.
As you train yourself to focus your drishti, gaze, in an asana, to breathe in difficult asana shapes, so you apply this training in your life.
In summary, knowing these stages can help you break through unease around your asana practice. If there is one thing that I believe would benefit students and teachers of yoga, it is to stay humble.
There is no shame in being a Page. Being a Page is probably the best stage to be in because there is no expectation but to explore. Don’t restrict or hold yourself back from your pure excitement of being in the practice. And if you are a Queen or a King? Act like it. You have responsibility. Speak wisely. Act with justice. Take the weight with care. You have responsibility to hold space - don’t make it about you.
No matter what stage you are on in your yoga journey, I hope this inspires you to stay humble. There is so much we can receive when we are. There is so much freedom we experience when we do.
Written By: Irene Lo