To understand spirituality, whether at its base level or at a level that takes you deeper, let’s understand its root word, Adhyatama – meaning, that which pertains to the atman (spirit).
The fact that you wish to understand spirituality, is in itself an indication of the embarkment of your journey on it. When one wants to talk or understand spirituality, one already accepts that there is something beyond the physical framework of our body.
It is, as if one chose a vehicle to travel to a certain destination, then that chosen vehicle can be understood as our body. This vehicle has a certain prerequisite, in order to run efficiently and to facilitate your life journey with ample ease, joy and comfort. Daily practices of yoga asanas help in keeping this vehicle in a fit shape.
As such yoga asanas can be practiced at any level, as per one’s capacity. Start by incorporating a dynamic posture into your daily practice – Seated Forward Bending Pose / Paschimmottanasana.
How to do Paschimmottanasana:
Sit down on your mat with your legs out forward, come to the posture as demonstrated, keep your back spine erect. Inhale with your arms up to the sky, exhale and bend forward to hold your big toes. Stay down
Here as you hold your breath, try to touch your nose to the knees.
Longer duration of this practice, with appropriate breathwork, will regulate your blood flow, prepare your body towards a healthy mind.
A healthy and hearty mind and body is the catalyst towards ways of life that begins to nurture you, brings out a spiritual taste for you.
When our self is being nurtured, first by our mothers, and then by suitable practices, we begin to taste and understand Nature and its forces. Spirituality can be said to deal with the understanding of this very nature which underlines our existence.
(The author is a spiritual yogic master. Founder, chairman and course director of Akshar Yoga, and president of the World Yoga Organisation)
