Blog 4 / Savasana: Is It Just A Dead Body Pose?

Dear Yogis:

As I lay there in savasana before class begins, I feel my eyes start to twitch and my focus drift away from concentrating on my breath.  As I attempt to relax, my mind chimes in with its thoughts. I think to myself, “Ugh, how dare my brain actually try to form thoughts right now?”  These thought processes sometimes involves making a hypothetical list, being arbitrarily self-conscious about if I was cool enough when I talked to the teacher earlier, or the all too common worry about the person next to me for whatever reason.

Though these seem like small thoughts, they are quite a big feat for the body and mind to manifest. The energy it takes to create a thought in the brain is stronger than we are lead to believe. I once saw this cool statistic about how the brain represents approximately 2% of the total body weight, but is a surprising 20% of the energy consumed.

When we let the energetic and repetitive egoic monkey mind take hold, we can exert unnecessary energy in the hot room and in life. I have found that sometimes it’s helpful to acknowledge that the mind will never run out of things to think of, so there is no use in fighting it.  Allow the thoughts to come into the mind and return to the breath or pranayama.

The rigor of Bikram Yoga can be much easier when we make a conscious decision to focus our energies towards a balanced combination on ourselves and the people around us or the larger level of intelligence. It would be two dimensional to think that we only affect ourselves on an individual level.

To illustrate this concept, A few years ago in Washington over 40,000 yogis gathered to meditate for 6 weeks with a mission to decrease the overall crime-rate.  In the first 4 weeks the crime-rate dropped 23.6%. I remember feeling disbelief the first time I heard this, but also feeling intrigued that human energy could be so powerful.  

Our goal doesn’t have to begin with what seems like an ambiguous vision for galactic peace. However, we can begin by engaging in a simple goal in the hot room. Whether it is in savasana before or in between the postures, try practicing your contribution of intentional energy and focus towards the group of people that you will spend the next 90 vulnerable and intense minutes with.  Be your own universal explorer and see where that intention for positive feelings towards yourself and other humans takes you.

                                                                                                                  

Nams,

                  little YogaGal