How comfortable does my yoga practise feel?

The yoga sutras tell us that our practise of yoga should always have within it Sthira and Sukha, stability and ease and comfort. 

Yoga sutra chapter 2 verse 46.

Sthira the stability 

Sukha ease and comfort.

That our practise isn’t yoga without these qualities, and I’ve been pondering on these ideas and acknowledging that this isn’t as easy as it sounds.!

Is it really comfortable?……….

Like all things in yoga, we can hear the teaching but that is as far as it goes, but we don’t always digest it, absorb it and eventually embody it.

Well I know, from my own experience, and I am aware it may not be the same as yours, that I’ve found myself sometimes pushing through in asana , trying too hard, desperately trying to improve that posture, to get to that perfect picture that I have put in front of me, because I want to do it better! 

Sukha- (ease and comfort,)  straight out of the window!, I just need to get my nose on my knees!!
but in fact the kha part of  the word sukha translates to the heart space , so sukha in fact means ease and comfort in the heart, in the same way dukha means suffering in the heartspace. 

So it’s not the body we are talking about, but how we feel.! 

Is our practise containing enough sukha in it to feel good, heart, mind and body.?

Clearly pushing my body to get my nose on my knees, when it just won’t go there, creates suffering, and deciding it should go there and that it is important that it does go there, creates more.

So in fact trying too hard has the opposite effect to the one we are trying to find.

So let’s bring our attention to the other part of this sutra, sthira (stability) in the sutra it comes first before sukha, and I would suggest there’s a reason for that.

Because sukha can only exist if sthira is there, ease and comfort evolves from stability, we need them to work together. sukha without sthira has no support, sthira without sukha is too rigid.

So place your support well and ease and comfort will grow from It as do all things in life, not just those on the mat.

But to do that first we also have to acknowledge satya (truthfulness) we have to be truthful with our selves, exploring a posture or any situation we find ourselves in, with satya in mind, modifying, adapting and creating an environment in which our stability is good and our ease and comfort can grow, is the best practise.

So if, like me, you occasionally find yourself trying too hard, and aspiring to someone else’s idea of perfection. 

Forget it, you need your stability placed well, you need to feel ease and comfort in your heart space and if both of these things are there, you are practising yoga

If however you’re struggling, pushing, trying too hard, then you are not.

So I feel that this lets me off the hook, my ponderings have taken me to a place where I will no longer continue to fight with my nose and my knees, and I will rest with my sthira supporting me and my heart happy

Yoga Sutra chapter 2. Verse 46

Sthira suksham asanam – stability, steadiness, ease and comfort

Yoga Sutra chapter 2. Verse 36

Satya Referenced from https:/yogainternational.com

(Truthfulness), the second of the 5 yamas ( restraints) described in the yoga sutras, guides us to think, speak and act with integrity.

The word sat means ”that which exists,that which is” Satya therefore is seeing and communicating things as they actually are,not as we wish them to be.

Gill Ansty YHET Trustee