On a sultry May afternoon, I was talking to a bunch of babus, and had just pulled up their spines, literally, and had made solid arguments (or so I thought) about the ills of sitting. About how spinelessly we sit on our chairs, rounding our delicate lower backs and straining our necks, and refuse to sit up or stand even while the spine groans in pain. About the human physiological needs to stand, run, twist, move, and reasoned that sitting was the new smoking.
One of them raised his hand and started with, “Madam, I strongly disagree”. What followed was a discourse on how we are meant to practice the two ‘best’ asanas—siddhasana and padmasana that can ‘cure spine ailments’ and can even lead to spiritual evolution.
It broke my heart, not that I could not convince him, but about how as Indians we are most guilty of misunderstanding and abusing our priceless and timeless wisdom of yoga and ayurveda. How easily we have converted and reduced the two to just ‘sarvangansana for thyroid’, ‘nadishodhan for heart’, ‘dhyana for stress’. Svatmaram, who wrote the Hatha Yoga Pradipika or Patanjali who compiled the Yoga sutras never could come up with ‘best asana for sitting’, ‘best asana for heart’ or whatever, but we lesser mortals do. Or maybe it needs a lesser mortal to completely reduce and misinterpret an ancient science.
Any sensible yoga guru and school understands that a lot needs to be done before the siddhasana or padamasana or even savasana can be perfected. One of them is activity, being self-reliant and not slouching on your chair and sinking in your bucket seats. So come on, sit straight up and stop reading this with a rounded back on the pot.
