15. High-Tech Practice

Some people have a job which demands a lot of them; they are not ready to practice, I would say. They just want you to feed them.

Yes, this depends upon the calibre of the students. If they come for just a few workouts, they expect that you pull, push, turn and lift. That's what they expect. Well, that's the calibre; you should do that much and get away with it. But if you think that they can be improved, that they can be graduated, then make them self-sufficient.

This whole thing in practice is based on one sutra, which speaks about mastery of asana. [ 2 ] What is mastery? It is not constantly struggling; it is maturity. Maturity must be there; cessation of effort must be there. And what do you expect when you are skilful in something? You expect that you are able to do the same output with less input. That is skill. So when do we learn to do the pose with less input? We don't do it. We go all out. Every time we go all out in our poses. We never bother to think, "Can I do the same degree of pose with lesser input?" That is "high-tech practice."

You have seen Guruji several times. He is on a stool, or in independent Viparita Dandasana for fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, or sometimes for half an hour. Do you mean to say that he is struggling for the whole half hour? If he struggles for half an hour, he can't stay there for half an hour. You ask him, or you watch his half-hour Viparita Dandasana, see how he does and then you say, "I'm going to take a photograph of you in Viparita Dandasana." If he is doing Viparita Dandasana for a snap, which is only a sixtieth of a second, what will it be?

If you have watched Guruji, the above-mentioned points are there. That's why I said, there should be perception; if the perception differs, you are a different person all together. When Guruji practises, when he is staying for half an hour in a pose like Viparita Dandasana, a complicated pose, do you mean to say that he is constantly manipulating, doing and doing and doing? Initially, he will be doing, to reach the pose, but once he reaches the pose, will he not be there for some minutes before the next adjustment, or is he constantly adjusting for thirty minutes? Imagine, when we take Viparita Dandasana in a class, for those couple of seconds, at the most a minute or whatever. We constantly say, "Do this, do this, lift here, pull there," etc.

But that is how also Guruji is doing it, to start the pose, to commence the pose: lift here, stretch there, open there, etc. Do you mean to say that if he stays for half an hour, he will be constantly doing it? A simple thing: just watch how he stays, how he does and you are carried away.

Have you ever bothered how he stays, whether he stays there by doing, or if he is also non-doing? Have you ever bothered? He can stay there, because of non-doing. If he stays there by doing, his mouth will get exhausted, jaws will get exhausted - and you can imagine how much you use your jaws in Viparita Dandasana, your teeth and your jaws, your face. The Viparita Dandasana that you do in your class, if you try to stay there for half an hour, you will be there no more. In that one second, see how much you harden your face, your brain, your jaws, your teeth, your eyes, how many things you do. Now, suppose you do that for thirty minutes. Will you be there to do? Will you last for thirty minutes?

You have not wondered whether, when Guruji stays there, he is more than doing, he is in a non-doing state?

Which is the sutra that describes this?

It is in the asana sutra, in the second chapter. There are three sutras on asana [ 3 ] and one of the sutra says: "Prayatna saithilya ananta samapattibhyam." Prayatna saithilya: cessation of exalted efforts for reflexion, or meditation on infinitude. So if you are expected to be meditative in a pose, you can't be gripping your jaws and teeth. Your brain cannot be tense and hard.

So every pose, however complicated it is, has its level of relaxation. You must attain it. Not all the poses have same level of relaxation, because you can be more relaxed in Halasana than in Viparita Shalabhasana. You know what Viparita Shalabhasana is? Viparita Shalabhasana is reversed Halasana, lie on your stomach and take the legs over the head. So, it has its own level of relaxation; you can't say, "I am as relaxed as in my Sarvangasana or Halasana." It is not the same relaxation, but each pose has its level of relaxation. Vrchikasana has it's own level of relaxation.

Both Swastikasana and Vrchikasana are poses in which you must have relaxation, but their levels differ. This doesn't mean that, being in Vrchikasana, you should be biting your teeth and hardening your jaws because it is a difficult pose. So in every pose you must reach "ease" and you can only reach an ease when you are mature, when there is no learning. When you are learning, you are clumsy; when you are clumsy, there is over-combustion. You generate heat in the body when you are learning. Do you recall those days where you were learning to cycle, how tense you were. Are you tense when you cycle now? No. Because you are matured. If you are asked, "What do you do to balance," you can't answer. But then why are you tumbling ten times, when you are learning? That is maturity. If you are constantly doing your practice as if you were learning to cycle, then you are constantly falling, you are constantly involved in injuries here, there and tense all over.

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