Happy Accident?
This week’s question comes from a reader about spirituality and practice:
“Dear Yoga Therapist,
I’m not entirely sure if I found yoga or if yoga found me, but either way, the practice has helped me feel more centered, more balanced, and more aware of something I can only describe as spirituality. I have friends who ask me about this a lot. What does spirituality actually look like in a yoga practice? Does it become clearer through yoga, or Qigong, or eastern philosophy? And how does a person even begin to find their own individual spirituality?
Signed,
Happy Accident?”
Dear Happy Accident?,
Oh boy, this one has some layers!
Let’s start with what yoga says it actually is. There is a text that has shaped much of what I know about yoga. Written somewhere around 400 CE, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is a collection of 196 aphorisms describing the troubles of being human and the way to liberation. Within the first few lines the author states what yoga is; “Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah” (Yoga is the quieting of the fluctuations of the mind). That’s it. That’s the whole project. Not flexibility, not strength, not even peace exactly. Just the ability to see clearly, without all the noise getting in the way. Most of us have spent much of our life mistaking ourselves for our minds. The worry, the commentary, the plans, the regrets, the excitement. We think that’s who we are. Yoga suggests otherwise. When the noise settles, even briefly, what’s left is not nothing. What’s left is something that feels, to most people who experience it, distinctly spiritual in nature. That’s not something yoga adds to you. It was already there.
There are no activities that are not spiritual. Not really. Cooking, walking, sitting in traffic, washing dishes, kissing. The question isn’t whether something is spiritual or not. The question is whether we’re paying enough attention to notice. What yoga does is give you a reason to pay attention.
In Sutra 1.23, Patanjali offers Ishvara pranidhana (orientation toward a higher consciousness) as one path among many toward that quieting. He doesn’t define what that has to look like. No required tradition, no specific name. He doesn’t even prescribe a correct way to make a yoga pose. The “god option,” as some teachers call it, is genuinely optional. What matters is the turning toward something larger than the noise you once thought was you and the continual return to that orientation.
Yoga will never tell you that your understanding of spirituality is wrong. It doesn’t work that way. It asks how it feels. It asks you to bring your own ideas, your own history, your own sense of the sacred, to the mat. And then it gets out of the way.
Are people worshiping deities in yoga? Sure, some are. Others find something spiritual in the connection to themselves, or to a room full of people, or to a practice that stretches back thousands of years. Chanting can be a devotional act AND It is also a long extended exhale. Both are true at the same time, and yoga is capable of holding both truths.
So how does a person find their own individual spirituality? It sounds to me like you might already be doing it. Asking the questions and getting quiet enough to notice what’s there doesn’t require a tradition or a label or even a belief. It just requires a little willingness to pay attention. Yoga is one very good way to practice that, but there are many.
Wishing you many more happy accidents,
Your Y.T.
As always, if you are experiencing new or worsening pain, please consult with your physician or a qualified healthcare provider before beginning or continuing any movement practice. Yoga therapy is a wonderful complement to medical care — but it is not a substitute for it.