We often talk about the body as something to improve, manage or outgrow. Iyengar offers another picture in Chapter 2. He writes that “a yogi never forgets that health must begin with the body. Your body is the child of the soul. You must nourish and train your child” (p. 23). A child asks for patience, steady feeding and honest attention, and caring for a child belongs to the parent’s real life. Iyengar asks us to raise the body.

A ladder that starts at the floor

He sets the body at the first rung of a larger ascent: “Health begins with firmness in body, deepens to emotional stability, then leads to intellectual clarity, wisdom, and finally the unveiling of the soul” (p. 23). The chapter title says “Stability,” and the stability he means holds the whole person. He also gives the body two further images: “The yogi knows that the physical body is not only the temple for our soul but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core” and “To a yogi, the body is a laboratory for life, a field of experimentation and perpetual research” (p. 22). The temple offers dignity, the laboratory offers inquiry, and the child offers relationship.

He guards against two opposite mistakes in one paragraph:

“As I have said, the body should be neither neglected nor pampered, for it is the only instrument and the only resource we are provided with which to embark on the Pursuit of Liberty. At times it is fashionable to despise the body as something non-spiritual. Yet none can afford to neglect it. At other times it is fashionable to indulge the body and to despise what is not physical.” (p. 26)

Pain as a teacher

Every injury I have had taught me something about this chapter. Iyengar says it in his own register, and the passage deserves a reading:

“In the beginning, pain can be very strong because the body resists us. By surrendering to it, we soften the body, and gradually it will lessen.” (p. 48)

He then states the principle that surprised me when I first read it: “In the correct posture, pain does not come. To learn the right posture, you have to face the pain. There is no other way” (p. 49). The sentence sounds harsh until you read what comes around it. He asks for intimacy between the mind and the body: “Your intelligence should have an intimacy with your body” (p. 49). Pain draws the attention to a place, and attention shows the way to ease:

“Pain is a great philosopher, because it thinks constantly of how to get rid of itself and demands discipline.” (p. 49)

“In this way, pain can be a great teacher, which educates us how to live with it and eventually say goodbye.” (p. 49)

He keeps his balance. “While we must recognize the existence and importance of pain, we must not glorify it. Where pain exists, there must be a reason for it” (p. 49). On the following page he separates two kinds of pain. “Right pain is not only constructive but also exhilarating and involves challenge, while wrong pain is destructive and causes excruciating suffering” (p. 50). Right pain feels like “a gradual lengthening and strengthening,” and wrong pain tends to arrive as “a sharp and sudden cautionary feeling” (p. 50). He also tells the story of his own mistake: his teacher demanded the Hanumān posture “without proper training or preparation,” and Iyengar hurt himself (p. 50).

Then comes a line I place on the wall of every injury I teach through: “If the practice of today damages the practice of tomorrow, it is not correct practice” (p. 50).