The Body is the Gateway
The body is the gateway to the expanded Self.
– Abhinavagupta via Sally Kempton
Yoga is, first and foremost, an Awareness practice. We take our attention from our thoughts, from whatever is “running us,” to our breath and the sensations in our body—for example, to the sensation of our feet connecting with the earth. We become present.
In the evening, doing a few yoga poses to release tension in the body might bring us right into meditation. As Paul Muller-Ortega notes, all the practices of Yoga are inter-related.
In a body scan, with eyes closed, immersed in the breath and feeling into sensation, we may experience our body as a pulsating field of energy. We may experience what Yoga calls our “subtle body.” We might experience the truth of what the sages said, that every particle of our body is made of conscious energy. The body truly is a gateway to our deepest core of Self that is of the nature of bliss.
It is often while doing the physical practice—in child pose or in savasana, that we begin to touch meditative states. We might start to notice the pause between the breaths and thoughts.