Perhaps you’ve noticed that some people try yoga and it works wonderfully. Their bodies become lean, strong, and supple. Their minds calm and clear, their emotions steady and even. They are kind and compassionate and yoga becomes a life-long path. But for others yoga does not seem to stick. Maybe they practice for a while then they let it go. Some say it feels like poison or they find it boring and they reject it from the start. Why is this? It is important to understand. Yoga is a serious endeavor and promises nothing short of transformation, liberation, and joy. If we expect it to work, we must know how yoga works.
It would be easy to say, “It just works for some and not for others. that is just the way it is.” But “just the way it is” does not exist. “Just the way it is” is a lie that we use to cover up an unwillingness to take the time or trouble to figure out how things work. When we recognize that our own healing and empowerment deeply influences our family, friends and the planet, perhaps we will pause and bother to understand how yoga works to ensure that it does work for us. Because when yoga transforms us, the silent ripple effect of our elevated energy makes the whole web of life glow brighter.
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, book 3, verse 27 he says, “Turn the combined effort upon the sun and you will understand the earth”. Now this sounds like secret code, but it you understand the relationship between the sun and earth, there is a profound logical message here. All life on this earth (including you) is solar-powered. Sun is the life source for this planet. In everything we eat drink and breath, there is an element of the sun. Only if we learn better how to digest the sun and direct its energy can we truly benefit from this process. Yoga is designed to help us integrate and organize the solar energies within out bodies. So it flows through us strong, steady and clear. So what does it mean to integrate sun energy into our earthly bodies?
Remember the feeling of finding out that person you have a crush on likes you back? Those butterflies, those elevated emotions that make us feel like we’re walking on sunshine… they are not just chemistry. The hormonal response is chemical, yes, but the source of that response is energy moving through us. And it moves in very specific ways, through channels. That is why certain types of energy affect different parts of the body and produce different “flavors” of chemistry and neuro-endrocine response. But it is the solar/life-force energy that evokes these responses. And that energy moves through an organized network of subtle channels. Channels? Like nerves? Not like nerves, but imagining them that way can help. These channels are much finer, more subtle as if made of light itself.
We have all have these channels running through our bodies. They organize in the fetus before the rest of the baby does. Inside the mother’s womb, a whole network of extremely subtle tubes, branching out into the pathways and networks that the nerves and blood vessels and even bones and flesh follow as they develop. Its sort of like the way ice crystallizes around the branches and twigs of a tree. The network begins growing at the point along our back right behind the belly button. This is our energetic connection to mother and all our ancestors. This is why Patanjali says in the Yoga Sutras, book 3 verse 30, “Turn the same effort upon the center at the navel, and you will understand the structure of the body” As the networks of channels grow from this center, they branch off like spokes of a wheel and the hub of the wheel grows up and down forming a central channel that the bones and nerves along the spine follow as they develop. So why are the channels important and what is it that moves through the channels?
The short answer is that energy moves through the channels, but the quality of that energy is what matters. We have all felt emotions of fear or despair and how that energy effects the mind and the body. Emotion means “energy in motion” so we can begin to understand that thoughts and emotions (which go hand in hand) are part of what moves through the channels effecting our inner atmosphere, our organs, muscles and bones. We could take all the things we think about and divide them into two categories; thoughts that feel good and thoughts that feel bad. There are scales on either side but the distinction can be made clear if we are willing to become sensitive to it. Yoga works when we are willing to take responsibility for the energy we move through our channels. The asanas can help us develop and refine this sensitivity, but they are not the key.