Beyond the Mat: Yoga as a Spiritual Language
[Excerpt from Heart of Spiritual Tending, book 3]
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to
the self.”
— The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, Verse 20
Note to the Reader
This chapter cannot do justice to the vast, living, and
internally diverse tradition of yoga. What follows is an introduction: enough
to avoid causing harm, to recognize what an explorer may be carrying, and to
know when to refer out. Yoga is rooted in Hindu philosophy and intertwined with
Buddhism, Jainism, and other South Asian traditions going back thousands of
years. The practices most visible in Western culture -- posture classes, wellness
studios, meditation apps -- represent a small and often stripped fraction of a
much larger whole.
This chapter has been written with cultural humility as its
north star. Before this material is finalized for publication, it will be
reviewed by practitioners and scholars from within Hindu and South Asian
diasporic communities. If you are from those communities and notice errors,
omissions, or harm in this chapter, please reach out. This work is incomplete
without your voice.
A note on the spiral: This series introduces wisdom
traditions in a spiral across four books, moving from contemplative interior
aspects (Book 1) to justice and community (Book 2) to crisis and transformation
(Book 3) to vocational and applied expressions (Book 4). We meet yoga here in
Book 3 because this is where the tradition's gifts for accompanying people
through multiplicity, suffering, embodied complexity, and the relationship
between the individual self and the larger whole are most directly needed.
Yoga Is Not a Fitness Routine
Yoga is a deep and expansive spiritual path rooted in Hindu
philosophy and practice, with ties to other Indian traditions including
Buddhism and Jainism. When accompanying explorers who draw from yoga -- whether
through heritage, personal practice, or embodied exploration -- it is vital to
approach yoga not as a brand, but as a sacred, many-layered offering.
The word yoga means union -- a joining or yoking of
the self with the Sacred. In Vedantic and Hindu traditions, this union is the
ultimate aim of human spiritual life: the recognition that the individual self
(atman) and the universal consciousness (Brahman) are not
ultimately separate. Every practice of yoga, whether breath, posture, service,
devotion, or inquiry, is oriented toward that recognition.
As spiritual companions, we are called to meet explorers
where they are -- and many today find meaning in yoga as a source of healing,
community, or divine connection. Whether a seeker approaches yoga as devotion,
discipline, or embodied inquiry, we can deepen our presence by understanding
its spiritual roots.
Historical and Cultural Context
The roots of yoga extend at least 5,000 years, with origins
in the Indus Valley civilization and the Vedic tradition. The earliest
references appear in the Rigveda, among the oldest known sacred texts. Over
millennia, yoga developed through multiple philosophical schools and textual
lineages: the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
(approximately 400 CE), and the later Tantric and Hatha traditions.
Yoga arrived in the West primarily in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, through teachers like Swami Vivekananda and later T.
Krishnamacharya, whose students -- including B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, and
T.K.V. Desikachar -- shaped much of what became modern postural yoga. The
popularization that followed, particularly from the 1960s onward, brought yoga
to millions and also severed much of it from its living tradition.
Today, yoga is practiced across the globe in forms ranging
from rigorous traditional study within a lineage to gentle chair-based movement
in hospital settings. For spiritual companions, the key is holding this range
with awareness: the seeker in your session may be anywhere on that spectrum,
and their relationship to yoga's spiritual roots may be one they are just
beginning to discover, actively reclaiming, or navigating with ambivalence.
The Many Paths of Yoga
In Vedantic and Hindu traditions, there are multiple
pathways to union. Each offers tools for explorers with different temperaments,
needs, or spiritual callings. These four are among the most widely recognized:
• Karma
Yoga -- the yoga of selfless action: doing one's duties and offering the
results to the Divine. A seeker on this path may find the Sacred primarily
through service, work, and ethical engagement in the world.
• Bhakti
Yoga -- the yoga of devotion: cultivating love and surrender to God or
Goddess as ultimate truth. This path is often characterized by chanting,
prayer, ritual, and an intensely relational orientation toward the Divine.
• Raja
Yoga -- the yoga of disciplined meditation: using breath, posture, and
focused attention to align body, mind, and spirit. This is the path most
closely associated with Patanjali's classical framework.
• Jnana
Yoga -- the yoga of knowledge: a path of philosophical inquiry,
discernment, and direct investigation into the nature of the self and reality.
Each of these paths can be practiced independently or in
combination. A seeker may chant in devotion (Bhakti), reflect philosophically
(Jnana), and also serve through their work (Karma) -- all as valid expressions
of yoga. As companions, we are not here to determine which path a seeker is on,
but to remain curious about how they find the Sacred and what sustains them.
The Eightfold Path of Classical Yoga
What most Westerners call yoga, posture classes,
stretching, fitness, is actually one small part of a much larger framework
rooted in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The classical eight limbs (ashtanga)
are:
1. Yama, ethical guidelines for how we relate to others, including non-harming
(ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), and non-stealing.
2. Niyama, ethical disciplines for how we relate to ourselves, including purity,
contentment (santosha), and self-study (svadhyaya).
3. Asana, posture: not primarily for fitness, but to prepare the body for stillness
and meditation.
4. Pranayama, breath practice: regulating and working with life-force energy (prana). A
foundational tool for nervous system regulation and interior attention.
5. Pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses: gently turning attention inward from the external
world.
6. Dharana, focused concentration: gathering and steadying the mind on a single point.
7. Dhyana, meditation: sustained, unbroken awareness without effortful concentration.
8. Samadhi, absorption or union: the dissolution of the boundary between self and
Sacred.
Only steps three and four, posture and breath, tend to
be emphasized in most modern Western yoga classes. The remaining six limbs
constitute an entire ethical, contemplative, and mystical path. As spiritual
companions, understanding this depth allows us to recognize when a seeker's
yoga practice is more than exercise, and to honor the full tradition they may
be drawing from.
Yoga as an Embodied Spiritual Practice: Gifts for Companions and Seekers
One of yoga's most profound contributions to spiritual
companionship is its insistence that the body is not separate from the
spiritual journey, it is the vehicle of it. This is not incidental to yoga's
philosophy; it is central. The body is understood as the dwelling place of
consciousness, and embodied practice is the means by which consciousness can be
known more fully.
This has particular significance when accompanying explorers
who are navigating illness, chronic condition, aging, disability, or any form
of what we call body grief (see the chapter "Body Grief: When the Body
Itself Is the Loss" in this section). Yogic traditions offer resources
that meet people in their actual bodies, not in idealized or able-bodied ones.
Three practices deserve particular attention:
Yoga Nidra: The Practice of Profound Rest
Yoga Nidra, sometimes translated as "yogic sleep",
is a guided practice of systematic relaxation and interior attention conducted
in stillness, usually lying down. It is accessible to virtually anyone
regardless of physical capacity, because it requires no movement at all. A
practitioner is guided through layers of the body, the breath, sensation, and
awareness into a state between waking and sleep that many traditions recognize
as a threshold of deep healing and spiritual encounter.
For explorers navigating illness, trauma, chronic pain, or
nervous system dysregulation, Yoga Nidra can be genuinely transformative. It
works gently with the same territory that Somatic Experiencing and
trauma-informed body practices address, but within a explicitly spiritual frame
that many explorers find more accessible than clinical language.
As a spiritual companion, you do not need to teach Yoga
Nidra. What you can do is recognize it when a seeker describes it, understand
what they are engaging, and refer them toward teachers from within the
tradition who hold this practice with its full spiritual depth. The iRest
Institute (a clinically adapted form) and teachers trained in the Satyananda
tradition both offer substantive starting points.
Restorative Yoga: Ease as Spiritual Practice
Restorative yoga is a form of supported asana practice that
uses props, bolsters, blankets, blocks, the wall, to hold the body in positions
of complete ease for extended periods. Rather than the exertion often
associated with yoga in the popular imagination, restorative yoga is about the
deliberate release of effort. Poses are held for five to twenty minutes. The
nervous system is invited, slowly, to shift out of activation.
This practice has particular resonance for explorers whose
bodies have been through a great deal, and who may have a complicated or
grief-laden relationship with movement. The emphasis on using whatever support
is needed to arrive easily in a pose, not effortfully, is itself a spiritual
teaching: that the body does not need to perform, achieve, or prove anything to
be in relationship with the Sacred.
When referring explorers toward restorative yoga, look for
teachers who are explicitly teaching it as a spiritual practice, not a fitness
modification. Teachers trained in Judith Lasater's lineage or those with
training in trauma-sensitive yoga are good starting points.
Pranayama: The Spiritual Work of Breath
Pranayama is often the most spiritually significant and the
most underestimated of yoga's accessible practices. The regulation of breath is
understood in yogic philosophy as the direct modulation of prana, life force
energy, and through it, the state of the mind and the quality of attention
available for spiritual practice.
Simple breath practices, extending the exhale, alternate
nostril breathing, or even the basic instruction to notice the natural breath, can
function as genuine spiritual practice and as somatic support for explorers who
carry a great deal in their bodies. When offering or pointing toward any
breath-based practice, always do so with consent and awareness: for some explorers,
particularly those with respiratory conditions, trauma histories, or high
anxiety, focusing on breath can be dysregulating rather than settling. Always
offer options. (See the chapter on Body Scans in Book 2 for guidance on
offering multiple anchors.)
Yoga and Decolonization
The popularity of yoga in the West has often come with the
erasure of its cultural, spiritual, and historical context. Practices once held
within lineages of transmission, in relationship with teachers and communities,
are now commercialized, renamed, and stripped of their roots. South Asian
practitioners, including many who have been doing this work for decades, have
named clearly the harm this causes: the flattening of a living tradition into a
wellness commodity, the exclusion of the very communities from whom the
practice was taken, the silence around caste and gender inequities that have
historically shaped who had access to yoga and how.
For spiritual companions, decolonizing our relationship with
yoga means:
• Citing
teachers and sources from within Indian and South Asian diasporic communities,
especially when teaching or recommending.
• Not
assuming "yoga" means posture, flexibility, or wellness.
• Recognizing
that a seeker from a Hindu or South Asian background may have a complicated
relationship with how their tradition has been appropriated, and holding space
for that complexity.
• Understanding
that cherry-picking techniques without honoring their spiritual context can
cause harm, even when the intention is good.
• Acknowledging
caste and gender inequities that have historically shaped access to yogic
practice.
The podcast Yoga Is Dead offers essential listening
for anyone wanting to decolonize their relationship to yoga. It centers South
Asian voices, challenges persistent myths, and reclaims space for yoga as a
living spiritual path. It belongs in your formation library.
"Yoga was never meant to be a workout, it was always
a path to liberation.", Jivana Heyman
Considerations for Companions
A seeker may weep during savasana and not know why. Another
might speak of Ganesh or Kali appearing in meditation. Another may wrestle with
questions about practicing yoga as someone from outside the tradition. Another
may be a Hindu practitioner who feels their spirituality is invisible when yoga
is taught as secular wellness. Each is on a sacred journey. None of these
moments require you to be an expert in yoga. They require you to be a skilled
and humble companion.
Some orientations that may help:
• Stay
curious about what yoga means to this particular seeker. Their relationship to
the tradition is their own. Invite them to say more rather than assuming you
understand the framework.
• If
a seeker brings yogic language or imagery into a session, a deity, a concept, a
practice, follow their lead. Mirror their language. Offer spacious silence. You
do not need to interpret or explain what they share.
• If
a seeker is navigating body grief, illness, or limited physical capacity, be
curious about whether embodied yogic practices might be a resource. You are not
prescribing a practice; you are opening a door.
• Recognize
your sources. If you use breath practices, grounding techniques, or meditation
forms rooted in yoga, name their origins. This is a form of honoring the
tradition and modeling the cultural accountability we ask of explorers.
• Some
explorers may be exploring yoga as a spiritual path for the first time and need
information, not just presence. Others may be reclaiming a practice they
abandoned. Others may be grieving the commercialization of something they hold
sacred. Meet them where they are.
For Yoga Teachers Who Companion Others
If you are a yoga teacher who also practices spiritual companioning,
a particular set of distinctions is worth attending to. Yoga teaching and
spiritual companionship are different modes, each with their own authority,
direction, and appropriate scope. As a teacher, you guide and transmit. As a
companion, you follow and witness.
• Practice
the spiritual direction skills of deep listening and mirroring rather than
teaching or advice-giving within an appointment.
• Avoid
assuming that students want spiritual content in yoga class; let explorers lead
the integration between their practice and their inner life.
• Stay
in supervision or peer reflection circles that can hold both dimensions of your
work and the places where they might blur.
• Be
aware of the power dynamics that exist in a teaching relationship and how they
may carry into a companioning relationship, especially with students you also
accompany.
When and How to Refer Out
The following situations call for referral to teachers,
practitioners, or scholars who hold these traditions from within:
• A
seeker wants to deepen their understanding of yogic philosophy, scripture, or
lineage. Point them toward teachers from within the tradition, particularly
those who hold the practice in its full spiritual depth.
• A
seeker is experiencing what may be a
kundalini
awakening or intense spiritual emergence related to their yoga practice. This
territory is addressed in the chapter on Spiritual Emergencies in Section 2 of
this book. Err on the side of caution and consult your supervisor.
- A
seeker is navigating chronic illness or physical limitation and asking about
embodied practices. Yoga therapists (those trained through the International
Association of Yoga Therapists) or teachers with trauma-sensitive yoga training
are appropriate referrals.
- A
seeker from a Hindu background is experiencing religious grief, communal
rupture, or spiritual harm connected to their tradition. This may call for a
companion or therapist who shares that cultural context.
Try This
The following invitations are for you as a companion. As
always, they may also be offered to explorers when timing and consent align.
• Body
prayer with prayerful intention: If your body allows, learn a basic sun
salutation and practice it slowly with attention on intention rather than
precision. What shifts when movement becomes offering?
• Contemplative
inquiry from Jnana Yoga: Sit with this question for ten minutes, in silence
or in writing: "I am not the doer." What arises? What loosens? What
resists?
• Explore
Yoga Nidra: Find a guided Yoga Nidra practice from a teacher rooted in the
tradition (see resources below) and practice it once before recommending it to explorers.
Notice what it opens. Notice your own body's response.
• Decolonization
inventory: Reflect on your current relationship with yoga-adjacent
practices, breath work, meditation, grounding techniques. Where did you learn
them? Who taught your teachers? What do you know, and what do you not know,
about the roots of what you carry?
• Reflection:
How do I relate to yoga, as a spiritual path, cultural artifact, personal
practice, or some combination? How has that relationship changed? What would it
mean to hold it with greater care?
Learning Goals Connection: This chapter supports your
developing capacity to accompany explorers from Hindu and yogic traditions with
cultural humility and informed curiosity. It also deepens your understanding of
embodied spiritual practice as a resource for explorers navigating body grief,
illness, and physical complexity, the particular terrain of Book 3.
May we honor the lineages that give us breath and presence. May our companionship hold the sacred with reverence and care.
Beloved,
You are whole, holy, and worthy,
Rev. Amy