Yoga is more than the body

I made a great big, stupid mistake during last Wednesday's yoga class and I have been worrying about it ever since. Christa always says that we yoga teachers are "three miles wide and one inch deep" and of course she's right. There is so much to know that we never feel that we know enough. The subject is so deep, so complex, so HUGE that we never quite get our arms around it. It's like the first time you try to grasp, I mean really comprehend, the size of the universe--both grand and terrifying. And of course I am by and large an autodidact when it comes to yoga. I have taught myself most of what little I know. And that only makes me feel more inadequate, frankly.

Whenever I start to feel this way I have to remind myself that the asanas are a tool and nothing more, just as our bodies are a means to an end. For me that end is enlightenment, the eventual escape from the cycle of suffering that is rebirth (if the planet survives that long). But I think we all have to define the ultimate for ourselves. It is easy in yoga to get lost in the body and forget that this fleshy shell--while extraordinary in many ways--really means very little. The asanas help to make us more comfortable in these bodies, prepare us for meditation, and teach us about ourselves. They are important. But they are not everything. Yoga is so much more.