At some point in a yoga class you may have heard the teacher say, “Savasana is the most important pose“. Depending on your reason for practicing yoga you may have found this statement confusing. Why would sava (corpse), sometimes called mrti (death), asana (pose) be more important than dynamic standing poses like warrior one, or strength building postures like boat pose? And why would a pose that asks you to lie still on your back be useful when you came to class to learn how to move?
In most schools of Hatha yoga, the corpse pose brings us to closure by asking us to completely surrender our physical practice. We’re told to relax our muscles, to turn our gaze inwards, to quiet our minds and eventually even cease the effort in the breath. This pose isn’t for sleeping, it’s to practice being a corpse. A corpse no longer worries about things that might have felt important in life but were, in fact, temporary. A corpse ceases to resist union with the earth and gives up its weight completely to become the earth. A corpse does not effort to move towards or away from likes and dislikes, hopes and fears. A corpse gives itself to the movement of the organism that surrounds it and eventually becomes indistinguishable from the organism. A corpse is not the separation that most of us feel in most situations, a corpse has found yoga (union) with the earth and the air. A corpse is not concerned with the past or the future, it is not concerned at all.
In a standard yoga class you’ll practice standing poses first, then move to the floor and practice forward and backward bending and then lie down to finish with supine postures and end in Savasana. In some ways each yoga class takes us backward through the life cycle. In yoga asana we first learn to stand, then we learn to sit, then we learn to withdraw our senses, and then we learn to rest in awareness. Your life cycle generally goes the other way. Interesting isn’t it? We practice yoga to come back to our inherent stillness and perception, our intimacy with what is.
Practice a few minutes of Savasana every day. Find somewhere to lie down comfortably and feel your body connect with the earth below you, your skin breathe in and communicate with the universe around you. If you are anxious try to deepen your inhales and imagine bringing in clarity. With your exhales try to feel gratitude for something, it doesn’t matter what. Scan your body and notice the places of tension, discomfort and holding on. Approach these places with love; extending appreciation to your body for its efforts, for its strengths and for the challenges you feel, remembering that if you didn’t have challenges you wouldn’t learn. Let your breath, your kindness, and attention spread through each part of your body and imagine that your are saying goodbye to a dear friend, feeling your appreciation and love as you let go. Try not to fall asleep, but stay with the sensations of your body as they become more subtle and as the breath ceases to be an effort. Let your eyes rest back into your skull, there is no need to look outside of yourself. Release your lower jaw and let the tongue fall back in the throat, there is no need to talk. Soften the sinuses, the cheekbones, the ears and turn your senses inwards.
Listen to your inner cues, you’ll know when you’ve stayed long enough. To come out of Savasana, come out with same care and attentiveness you came in with. Deepen your breath into your belly and let it spread out to subtle movements in your fingers, toes, arms, legs, and face. Reach your arms up beside your ears to take a long deep breath and welcome life back into your body. Roll over on to one side and spend a moment noticing what you see and feeling equilibrium in your limbs. Press yourself into a seat and take a few minutes with care to feel your place in the space around you. Try to take the peacefulness and equanimity of your Savasana into the rest of your day and night.
“That is the end of your practice for today, but it’s not
the end of awareness.” – Patricia Walden
[...] the blogosphere, Renee over at Feed the Yogi shares a wonderful reflection on savasana (this will be some great inspiration for some of the [...]