Yoga and the Ego

Hmmm the ego is an interesting concept to ponder.  Typically in yoga, we ask that students leave their egos at the door when they enter the asana room.  This exercise in functioning without ones ego may indeed be the most challenging aspects of yoga.  Since we literally cannot remove our ego from our body and deposit it at the threshold of said asana room, how then are we supposed to NOT heed its sometimes deafening call in our ears?  Exactly the challenge, my friends.

So why leave it at the proverbial door to begin with, you might ask?  Well it's our ego that drives us in life and may drive us to compete, covet, attach and thus eventually set unproductive goals for ourselves.  These goals can be falsely driven by the external world to which the ego is easily drawn.  In yoga class, this may mean forcing ones body into poses beyond its own ability in an effort to compete with your fellow students.  Or it may mean trying that 5th handstand even though you've done 45 minutes of demanding asana already and child's pose beckons.  An injury can easily occur in both the aforementioned situations.  Admittedly, I speak from experience as I have willingly listened to my ego on more than a million occasions, competing either with others in class or just my own darned self.  Let me tell you, a hamstring takes a good year to heal okay! 

So yeah leave it at the door.  Easier said than done especially in our American culture of doing everything first, faster, bigger and better.  We may indeed run our professional and personal lives on these red, white and blue tenants of Americana.  As result, bringing a little Eastern philosophy into our Western style of living can be difficult.

Okay, BUT what of tapas?  You may have heard teachers encourage you to practice with tapas.  Tapas is the philosophical concept from the Yoga Sutras commonly thought of as discipline.  So a student striving to get into scorpion pose may be practicing with tapas or she/he may be listening to the ego.  We often equate difficult and challenging things with being disciplined and therefore as tapas.  This is where the confusion between the ego and tapas surface.  As Judith Lasater says, "the ego is drawn to battle with difficulty: Mastering a certain pose can bring pride and an egoistic attachment to being an advanced yoga student."  She says a better way to think of tapas is to equate it with consistency. 

To bring tapas into your practice without mistaking it for the ego, set your intention to maybe practice or meditate daily, attend a class 3 times a week or read about yoga philosophy at bed time.  Consistency in your practice of yoga is what tapas means.  The fancy poses on the cover of Yoga Journal are beautiful but may not be what you need to experience yoga and connect with you true self.  A subtle distinction, all of this.  So give it a try, leave the ego at the door and hit the mat more often without judging your practice or overdoing it.  Namaste and see you in class.