Positive Liberty

I know, I know. Yoga is an icon for the old-time New-Agers who don’t seem to notice that the information revolution has both come and gone already. You’re probably thinking that I play “Kumbayah” on my acoustic guitar, too, whenever the mood strikes me. But I’m not growing a ponytail and I don’t even own anything that’s tie-dyed. So get with the times, you say. Get your ass in front of that computer, darling, and hunch your back a little bit more. Good posture is so 1970s.

I still do yoga.

Maybe yoga only got so far the United States because it came from a polytheistic religion. Most people in the United States are content with one God, thank you very much. One God in three persons is as complicated as we get, and when our Guys get anatomical, it’s purely human. They’ve only got one head, and it’s not an elephant head. They have two arms, two legs, and no additional appendages. Come to think of it, we’re still debating about the physical form of the Holy Ghost, but one thing’s for sure: Yoga is all about those multi-headed multi-legged elephant-face gods from somewhere-over-there. It’s not for us.

I still do yoga.

Some days it hurts like hell. I get up into a shoulder stand and my neck is in pain from doing something I shouldn’t have been doing the afternoon before. I twist, and the muscles along one side of my chest feel like they’re separating in a way not good to behold, a feeling that no one who hasn’t done yoga is likely to feel. Slowly, slowly, slowly; the way of grace is to push as slowly as possible. My foot cramps, and I go from the pose of Shiva the Dancer to the pose of God-Fucking-Dammit-I’m-Hopping-On-One-Foot-Like-A-Fool.

I still do yoga…. I just do it gentler some days than others.

I’m an atheist for crying out loud. I don’t believe in anything at all unless I can see, touch, taste, smell, or feel it. I don’t believe in auras or chakras or the cosmic bank account of my karma. Crystals are a neat little trick of chemistry. I don’t believe in reincarnation and I sure as hell don’t believe in castes. I burn incense, but only because it smells nice. Religion is at least 90% bunk, and that’s when I’m feeling charitable.

I still do yoga.

I do it because of the way it makes me feel. It’s like I’ve never felt anything so real before. If you think that sex puts you in touch with your body, then you’re fooling yourself even worse than you can imagine. Want to be in touch with your body? Then strip down to nothing but your shorts, get on the mat, and start laying out the poses. Breathe deep, feel the pain and the rush and the stretch, feel the entire being of your body. Do something really hard with this piece of flesh for once–Lord knows most of us never do that in our automated, pre-packaged, convenience-food culture. Feel your feet and hands bury into the floor and your chest rise surreally toward the ceiling as you go into the full wheel pose. Your head arches back, between the hands, and all that you know is your body, your material-self, your own fleshy reality behind all the crap that you’ve come up with to hide it. I still remember the first time I managed the incredibly precarious full-wheel pose. I also remember the ugly moment when I realized that I hadn’t the faintest idea how to get down from it.

I got down, and I still do yoga.

I got down from that first full-wheel pose all right. I got down, and back up again, and down-and-up yet again. I’ve got a routine now, with warm-ups, sun salutations, balance poses, strength poses, flexibility poses. I don’t believe in the spirit, just the body, and that’s the way that religion’s finally gotten to me in the end. It hasn’t come through the spirit but through the body, and boy-oh-boy has it ever got me. Sometimes I think I’m fooling myself, and that yoga is just one big trick that my body has learned to play on my mind. After all, I’m looking to fill that God-shaped hole that even the atheist supposedly still has. I ought to be more sophisticated than that. I’m a rationalist and a skeptic, and I’m damn proud of it. Remember the benefits of being an infidel? I get to scoff at religion itself, because these days religion is just a bunch of people killing each other over whose imaginary friend is better. Then I catch myself slouching again. I get out my mat, I start doing the poses, and I believe.

I still do yoga.

I remember the first time I did the inclined plane pose, too. Picture facing the ceiling. Your heels and the palms of your hands are both on the ground, but nothing else is. Your arms are straight, holding you up in a triangle. Imagine your spine straight, your neck arched gracefully back, your toes pointed to extend every last fiber of your body.

Now imagine painfully twisting and straining your back. That was me the first time I tried the inclined plane. I got over it in a couple of days, thanks to some advil and a few good backrubs. I learned a lot in the first few months, things about my body, my mind, my habits of discipline. The inclined plane is a piece of cake now.

Some things, though, I’m probably never going to master. I’ve tried and tried, and even now I can’t get into the lotus position. A lot of people have asked me about it, and it’s getting embarrassing. After six months I’m not a single inch closer than when I started. I know beyond the slightest breath of a doubt that I will never be a yoga master. I’m always going to be mediocre at it, just like with most things. The eternal doesn’t care, and neither do I.

I still do yoga.