How Is Yoga Like Baking Bread?

Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt

When I read the article below, I thought of the alert stillness of Savasana (corpse pose) that is done at the end of each yoga session.  I’ve been to yoga classes where this pose is either rushed through or skipped altogether.  Both miss an opportunity to “BAKE THE BREAD.”  During our class we have squeezed and stretched and expanded and twisted and balanced and followed the yoga recipe but when do we LET THE BREAD BAKE?  For me, that’s what Savasana is for.

It may look like you are just lying there but your body is actually incorporating all the yoga lessons you have just guided it through.  The various poses you just did have given the body quite a lot of information.   Information that we want to lead to transformation.  Your body will transform into something quite different from what it was and how it felt when you came into the class, but this takes time.  Savasana is that time and, therefore, should be taken as seriously as any other pose.  Care should be taken making sure your body is evenly aligned on your mat so that there is nothing drawing your attention away from the work of the pose.  The mind is easily distracted by sensation.  A deliberate effort in coming as soon as possible to an open, relaxed, but alert stillness will get the baking process going.  Maintaining that stillness of body and mind will allow the baking to lead to transformation.  Transformation is, after all, what we want from all this time invested in our yoga practice, RIGHT?

” … The outcome of our practice must be transformation. We all know what it means to bake bread. We learn the art of baking through demonstrations and instructions. We learn the recipes and the process of baking. We learn which ingredients to use and how to work the oven. The goal is to bake a fine bread. If, despite doing everything we are instructed, the dough does not transform into bread, then the activity is meaningless.

We learn to create the environment for the dough to transform into bread, and we refer to the activity around this as “baking.” But the actual baking takes place in the oven, when we are not “doing” anything. If we do not allow the dough sufficient time in the oven to bake, then all the activity around this task is futile.

It is the same with Guruji’s system. The instructions, demonstrations, and teachings are to create an environment for transformation. We need to maintain tapas (heat) sufficiently for the transformation to take place. …”

Excerpt from an Article by Birjoo Mehta, that appeared in Yoga Samachar Fall 2018/Winter 2019, a publication of Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States. Birjoo Mehta studied with BKS Iyengar beginning in 1974. He is an engineer by profession and has been teaching yoga in Mumbai since 1987.