My Conversation with a Yogi
How we navigate through life and the various systems we employ should adapt to the changing realities of ourselves, our lives, and our unique situations.
A few days ago, I was honored to have been asked to sit and pose for a talented artist named Luke Andahazy. I had an extremely pleasant time chatting with him as he painted me for about three hours.
If you’d like to see some of the artist’s work, check out Luke’s Instagram.
Amid a wide-ranging set of topics we discussed, I happened to notice a yoga mat rolled up and laying against a wall. I inquired if he practiced yoga. Turns out he’s a trained yoga teacher and has pursued a dedicated personal yoga practice for 10 years. Considering his young age, Luke has followed a personal yoga practice for most of his adult life. I could tell he is passionate about yoga and the conversation about it was informative and illustrative.
During the conversation Luke said this that he admitted was a paraphrasing of what he read in B.K.S. Iyengar’s book, Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom (paid link).
Yoga will always change to meet the changing needs of people.
For whatever reason, that statement struck me directly, entered my brain, and has been banging around in my head since I heard Luke utter it.
Since I was at one time an avid yoga practitioner (and am slowly starting to be again), Luke’s statement was especially interesting. We discussed how some people adhere to a strict interpretation of certain yoga series poses and practices even when there were physical contraindications that should have made them adapt their practice to accommodate their body’s needs at the time. Often physical injuries resulted from ignoring listening to one’s body.
The conversation with Luke proved to be metaphorical for me. What I once again realized as we talked, and as I thought about the chat later, is that so often we adhere to an externally codified system without adapting it to serve our needs better.
This applies to just about everything that we humans create as systems. Exercise. Diet. Business processes. Education. Everything.
I’ve written before about why we should “Beware of systems.”
Everyone is out to sell you a system. Diet experts sell countless weight loss systems. Fitness experts sell an endless array of exercise systems. Spiritual gurus sell systems to develop your relationship with the divine. Business experts sell moneymaking and management systems. Cosmetic companies sell beauty systems. There’s no end to the systems you can buy. Much of modern capitalism is dependent on selling systems.
What these folks don’t want you to know is that most of their systems are based on the same few principles. The systems may vary, but the principles remain the same. It’s the principles behind the systems that are ultimately what’s important, and what we should focus on.
Adherence to rigid systems might have its place. I’m not sure I’d want to take off in an airplane before the pilot dutifully went through their pre-takeoff checklist. That’s a system I think we’re all happy is in place and utilized every time a pilot prepares for takeoff.
But when it comes to most types of systems, they are simply human constructs that put some structure around underlying principles. We often become attached to the constructs and ignore the underlying principles which should be the primary focus.
So, I’m publicly thanking Luke for a delightful conversation that made me think yet again about the downside of becoming too attached to systems, yoga or otherwise.
Our conversation also made me dive a bit into the life of B.K.S. Iyengar and purchase his book for future reading. During my research, I stumbled upon this quote from B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Life and it now resides in my permanent repository of quotes I’m likely to reference in the future.
You must purge yourself before finding faults in others.
When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake.
This is the way to take judgment and to turn it into improvement.
Do not look at others’ bodies with envy or with superiority.
All people are born with different constitutions.
Never compare with others.
Each one’s capacities are a function of his or her internal strength.
Know your capacities and continually improve upon them.
An overreliance on sticking to systems can end up with diminishing returns unless they’re adapted to the reality of ourselves, our lives, and the world around us. Perhaps our need to compare ourselves to others is part of what makes rigid systems so attractive. If we do exactly what a system says to do, we can make a comparison to a solid metric of achievement or worth. Turns out, that’s often not such a great idea.
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