Samatvam - the yoga of balance

Image by Nadin Mario Unsplash

The ancient science of Yoga recognises that we are all in a state of imbalance, whether from a cellular, physical, mental, emotional or spiritual perspective.  This seems to be the natural order of things, and is reflected in our selves, and most markedly in our environment, the outer being of course a reflection of the inner condition of humankind. 

From a philosophical perspective, everything in the universe, including our bodies and mind are subject to the ‘play of the Gunas’, fluctuations in energy that range from stagnation (Tamas) and turbulence (Rajas) to balance and harmony (Sattva).

One can only guess what historical and ‘karmic’ forces reflect the influence of the Gunas on a global scale, never mind their influence on the psyche of the many who contend with a sense of alienation, dislocation, spiritual confusion and loss of meaning. 

We live in a world of duality: male/female; positive/negative; good/evil; inner/outer.  This duality expresses itself symbolically in our physical structure, in our two eyes that see everything dualistically, and in the in and out breaths. 

Whether we are male or female or transgender, we still have this dichotomy in our being: the animus and anima, the yin and yang.  

The Yoga scriptures (Shastras) recognise that we have lost a part of ourselves, and like ‘Humpty Dumpty’ need to be put back together again- to become whole (there is a lot of truth in the nursery rhyme). 

The Yoga Sutras diagnose the human condition to be afflicted by five existential afflictions (Kleshas). The ‘root’ Klesha is known as ‘Avidya’, primordial ignorance or forgetfulness. We have become divorced from our original nature, our primordial ‘wholeness’ and forgotten who we are. Even our cherished attachment to our sense of individuality is another Klesha, known as Asmita, cleaving us from the rest of the universe. 

The Christian myth of ‘The Fall’ in the Book of Genesis is an allegory of the same sense of loss. Adam and Eve inhabit the Garden of Eden in a state of unconscious bliss. There is no sense of gender, and they live in a state of total harmony, attached to the source, symbolised by the ‘Tree of Life’. However, there is another tree in the garden, ‘The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’, the fruit of which (tainted as it is by duality) is forbidden. 

When they eat the apple, they instantly recognise, for the first time, one another as male or female and become self-conscious- and cover themselves with a fig-leaf.

Subsequently, they are banished from Paradise and suffer a ‘Fall’, which is none other than the descent from a state of unity to duality.

A little digression: interestingly, a great sage has conjectured that the name ‘Adam’ is derived from the sanskrit word for the Spirit ‘Atman’; and ‘Eve’ from the Sanskrit ‘Jiva’ (the individual self); and the apple tree is none other than the sacred fig tree of India ‘the pippala’, so the Genesis myth may have Indian origins.   

Yoga scholars and academics have attempted to estimate a timeline for the origin and development of Yoga. The sages of India do not concern themselves with such matters. They say that Yoga is as old as humanity itself, and that it ‘began’ as a compensation and antidote for the rupture felt in the separation from primordial unity. Once there is separation there is an instinctive urge and yearning for return.  

It is therefore more accurate to define Yoga as the path of ‘reunion’ rather than ‘union’. The word ‘religion’ has the same connotation: to ‘re-link’. Yoga is therefore the path to restore wholeness or balance, whether primordial balance or personal harmony. 

This is beautifully symbolised in ‘Yoga Mudra’, where we link the tips of the thumb and the index finger respectively signifying the Higher Self/Universal Spirit and the lower self/ego. The two fingertips forming a circle is the gesture of unification.   

This is the panoramic or philosophical perspective, and yet, Yoga is a practical discipline and teaches that philosophy must always be supported with practice (sadhana). 

Yoga is a Path. It is the Path to restore natural order or harmony, firstly in the self. ‘Heal thyself’ and then others. There is a beautiful all-encompassing word for the state of natural order. It is ‘Dharma’. Yoga is Dharma and the way to Dharma. It is the journey and the destination. We all must discover our own Dharma (svadharma). 

‘Follow the path of your Dharma and not that of someone else’, says Krishna, Lord of Yoga, in the Bhagavad Gita. He also says that ‘Yoga is evenness of mind’. What else is this than balance.      

Lord Krishna gives instruction on four principal paths of Yoga in the Gita: Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Gyana Yoga, Raja Yoga but others are implied, including Hatha Yoga- in a text of 18 chapters each named after a path of Yoga. We chose according to our calling or disposition. We are, in a sense, physicians of our own soul. 

The great sage, Patanjali, is a ‘master physician’. In the Yoga Sutras we have an unparalleled diagnosis of the imbalances in our psyche and their remedy. The eightfold path of Yoga is the path to ultimate spiritual healing in the state of liberation (Kaivalya). He also addresses our personal predicament and psychological woes with the path of Kriya Yoga. 

This is not the Kriya Yoga of Paramahamsa Yogananda but a combination of three niyamas: (Swadhyaya- self-enquiry); Tapas (dedicated practice) and Ishwara Pranidhana (an opening or receptivity to the Higher Powers). This is a potent combination intended to uproot the imbalance caused by the Kleshas. 

Mother Yoga is a mighty tree with many branches to give shelter and restoration to the spiritual wayfarer. Hatha Yoga is the most popular form of Yoga practised in the West, and it too is fundamentally an ancient path to restore balance.     

It comes as a surprise to many Yoga practitioners that ‘Hatha’ is a compound word: HA-THA or ‘Sun- Moon’. It is the Yoga of the union of sun and moon, the harmonisation of the opposites in our being. It is the Yoga of Balance.   

We work from the body inwards through all the Kosha layers, from gross to subtle. In asana practice, we balance the right and left side of our bodies and indeed our pranic flow. Verse 2.48 of the Yoga Sutras states: ‘Tatah Dvandva Anabhigata’: ‘True asana is the reconciliation of the opposites’, the restoration of balance. This state is known as ‘Samatvam’, which is homeostasis on all levels of our being. 

Hatha Yoga seeks to achieve this through uniting the two great flows of Ida and Pingala Nadi. Ida, the left flow, represents the Yin energy, cool, quietening, lunar, linked to the right hemisphere of the brain and the parasympathetic nervous system. Pingala, the right flow, represents the Yang energy, warm, solar, stimulating, linked to the left hemisphere of the brain and the sympathetic nervous system. At any given time, one flow dominates the other, reflected in the flow of breath in the left and right nostrils. For this reason, Pranayama is a powerful and accessible means of gaining control over the inner forces and restoring inner balance. 

The supreme balancing practice is Nadi Shodhana Pranayama or ‘Alternative Nostril Breathing’. We balance the irregular breath flow ( Swara) in both nostrils, by breathing through each in turn. The effect of this can be enhanced by visualising the pranic flows in left and right nostrils as blue/silver or red/gold respectively. 

Our noses form a natural conical shape, with the base below the nostrils and the left and right sides of the nose forming opposite sides of a triangle, the tip at the eyebrow centre. The visualisation of a triangle impresses up on the psyche a beautiful sense of equipoise. When we hold the hand mudra (nasikagra mudra) with the middle finger resting on the eyebrow centre (brumadhya) we are connecting with the frontal field (ksherta point) of the Brow Chakra. Agya Chakra is the chakra of balance, where Ida and Pingala Nadi are re-united. Agya Chakra is depicted as a lotus flower of two petals, one containing a moon and the other a sun, symbolising the harmonisation of energies.  

There are so many creative ways to work with the breath. For example, we can visualise the ujjayi breath travelling up Ida and Pingala Nadi using their colours. Ajapa Japa pranayama using the So-Ham breath is another lovely balancing practice. We visualise the breath travelling up and down through a transparent hollow passageway from the navel to the throat chakra uniting sun and moon at the solar and lunar plexuses.  

There is another simple and often overlooked balancing practice: Anjali Mudra or Namaskar Mudra. The coming together of the palms in Anjali Mudra represents the unification of both sides of our nature. The thumbs connect with the breastbone/heart centre. Anahata Chakra is where Shiva (consciousness) and Shakti (subtle energy) come together symbolised by the interlacing upward and downward facing triangles. 

By now, I am sure the reader needs little convincing that Hatha Yoga is indeed the Science of Balance. In India, Shiva is Lord of Hatha Yoga.  One of his depictions is as Ardhanarishwara: ‘Ardha’ means ‘half’, ‘Nari’ means ‘a woman’, ‘Ishwara’ means ‘the Lord’: ‘the Lord who is Half -Woman’. Statues depict the right side as Shiva and the right side, his consort, Parvati: the masculine and feminine restored to unity.

I cannot complete this reflection without mentioning the role of mantra in balancing the psyche and integrating the levels of our being. The Gayatri Mantra is very beneficial because it opens us to the balancing influence of the Agya Chakra and unified vision. 

And of course, the mantra OM. The rishis proclaim that all creation came into being with the utterance of OM and, like a wave, it returns to the Source with that sound. 

If our first loss and affliction was the fall from primordial unity, this great mantra is the remedy: that is why the sages proclaim: ‘OM takes you home’. 

Hari Om Tat Sat.  

Michael