A lot of yoga philosophy involves multiple bodies- not just our physical body, but other subtle energetic bodies, such as intellectual, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual bodies. In another post I will get into the Kosha system, the 5 subtle bodies, but here I want to explore the concepts of 4 basic bodies: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, and how the asanas help us find balance in each.
In each asana (yoga pose), there is a primary movement and a secondary movement. The primary movement is what we do to get into the pose--for example, for warrior I, this would be flexion in the front hip and leg. The secondary movement balances us out, as extension through the back leg does in warrior I.
The physical body is the most straightforward. The primary and secondary movements create physical balance in poses, as discussed above, by physically balancing flexion with extension, grounding effort with lifting effort, stretching with folding, etc. The secondary movements also keep our bodies in alignment while doing the primary movement, creating balance in our internal systems, bones, muscle, etc.
Asana allows us to focus our intellectual (mental) body of thoughts and chitta vritti all on one thing, our asana and breath, which quiets the chitta vritti. This offers an opportunity to create balance in our intellectual body by offering it a drishti (a focus point). Even if our mind wanders and goes back to frenetic chaos of our lives, we can return it to our breath and our practice. There is so much to focus on in the present moment while practicing asanas, especially the dual focus of primary and secondary movements. It allows our intellectual body to find peace and balance while being full present in our asana in complementary directions—and if it wanders, to find its way back again and again. Consistent practice of this will allow this intellectual peace to be more readily accessible to us in other moments of our lives, as well as offering practice in seeing both sides of things and recognizing the way each perspective has an opposing one which balances it. This allows our thought patterns to recognize that all things can be seen from opposing perspectives, and there is no one “true” perspective, a practice in distinguishing the different mental fluctuations of the chitta vritti. Practice over time allows us to access balanced contentment (sattva) when we need it and also balance out the chatter of our intellectual body with peace.
Asana allows the emotional body the opportunity to be heard and to express itself. Creating the time and space for asana is also creating the time and space to listen to our body and for the emotions held within it to release in a safe and loving atmosphere. Emotions will arise and release as a result of different asanas in their own time, often unpredictably. The primary and secondary movements can help us to see that the aspect of our asana from which emotions are rising is support by the secondary movement. For example, we may feel vulnerable in warrior II or camel, since our hearts and throats are open and exposed, but we can feel that even though we exposed in those ways, our strong legs are grounding and supportive in warrior II and our strong hips and back are grounding and supporting us in camel. These opposing forces can allow us to access our emotional body while still supporting it strongly and allowing those emotions the space to be expressed and felt without as much fear, since we can balance these emotions with the support and strength we all contain.
For the spiritual body, primary and secondary movements bring about balance in the physical, intellectual and emotional bodies which prepare our minds to reach a state of openness and awareness of our highest selves. The practice of finding balance and duality in our minds and bodies during asana practice allow our spiritual body to awaken and flower, so we can truly be open to the wisdom of our heart. The practice of balancing primary with secondary movements in physical, intellectual, and emotional bodies build patterns of balance, acceptance and observation in our brains that allow us to be open to pure awareness without judgement, chitta vritti and distraction, which is the path to access and open our spiritual body.