The paradoxes in yoga are starting to obsess me. Class sometimes feels like a funhouse hall of mirrors, or a series of posed koans. A few weeks ago, it was breathing and the oddity of controlling a reflex (Feb. 15 posting). The latest paradox for me is the two-minute savasana. When teachers warn that it is the hardest of postures, the newbie wonders, what so hard about lying down doing nothing, especially when you are exhausted? It’s not like you are bench-pressing 500 pounds. Ha!

Lately my fatigue has been such–I practice almost daily and have apparently forgotten how to sleep–that I can not easily keep still in this posture. I can let the sweat roll without wiping; in fact focusing on its travels can keep me still. But these days I need to twitch, pant, adjust, stretch, discharge tension. I am not relaxed enough to relax.

We are wont to think of exercise as exertion. Savasana is an exercise in anti-exertion, staying still and calm, eliminating movement and reaction. Here’s the koan: To do nothing requires strength. Don’t wipe the sweat, don’t pant the fatigue. Watch the tension, don’t react. Watch the strain, let it subside. Feel the clutch of a tense heart, know the world won’t end. Let it be, as the song goes. It’s terribly difficult to not react, more difficult than bench-pressing 500 pounds.

Reactions are harder to control than muscles. Savasana is an exercise in self-control, and self-control is more important than elastic hamstrings. So with this yoga, as you rehabilitate your body, you start to rehabilitate your mind. You practice not reacting, which is a very useful strength. You learn to will calm. I try in savasana to calm my heart by slowing my lungs. It is exactly like willing calm.

Then savasana does not seem quite so paradoxical. The yoga is simply about strength, physical and mental. Muscles for stranding-head-to-knee and a mind that can force me past reaction. I am working for self-mastery in every sense. Or, as Bikram says, “Don’t let any one steal your peace.”

Paradoxes and koans are often infinite. Practice surely is.

Namaste, Yoga Lily