Letting it be

“How much can it be about letting go and not trying to have a particular experience?”

My friend, the yoga teacher Seth Lieberman, asked this question at the weekend as he closed his class with savasana, corpse pose. And for me, laying on the ground, it was like a cartoon lightbulb lit up above my head; my whole body responded with a big Yes. “That's what I need.”


And I wonder, What does this question mean to you?


To me, it has everything to do with the vrittis. In the ancient yoga sutras, Master Patanjali states, Yoga chitta vritti nirodha, which can be translated as, Yoga is the cessation (nirodha) of the fluctuations (vritti) of the mind (chitta). To me, it’s about finding a quieting of the mind’s chatter and the body’s agitation.


You've doubtless experienced this powerful effect in your physical practice. Mostly we do feel calmer and clearer after a well-taught class. Our minds are so focused on the breath and movement that its usual shifts and stories start to settle down—and perhaps we even feel a deeper truth emerging.


Savasana can simply be a welcome rest at the end of class. It can also be challenging. The late yoga guru B.K.S. Iyengar considers it among the most advanced of all poses. He writes, “By remaining motionless for some time and keeping the mind still while you are fully conscious, you learn to relax. This conscious relaxation invigorates and refreshes both body and mind. But it is much harder to keep the mind than the body still. Therefore, this apparently easy posture is one of the most difficult to master.”


Often, the more "advanced" out physical practice gets, the more our expectations come into play: We want savasana to be a profound experience. And the wanting can get so in the way of the actual having, in terms of the experience. Wanting something that isn't present can only take us out of the present.


So it is in everyday life. Can we simply let go, and not try to have a particular experience, to try to make things be a certain way? And if we practice this in small ways—taking the train, talking with a friend—can we edge towards trying and pushing less when times are tough, and we feel anything but cool as a cucumber? Can we breathe and let go, when our reactive self starts to panic and wish us somewhere else, to wish our feelings were something else?


As hard as it can feel to do this—and even to remember to do this—you may just find that when you let go, you feel relief, and a childlike curiosity. When we truly let go, we surrender the ego, even if it is just for a second.

The next line in the Yoga Sutras continues, Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam. Meaning, Then (tada) the seer (drashtuh) abides (avasthanam) in its true nature (svarupe); when we stop pushing and pulling and identifying with our “small” self, we get to rest, perhaps in something far more expansive.


So... Today I am consciously trying this in little ways. Today I will see what happens.