The Element of Space

Jim Tarran

When we follow teachers’ instructions, or recall a focus point from a book, we need to add some limitation, some framework or context, in which the instructions can be followed in a way which is conducive to yoga’s principle of gathering the senses in (Pratyahara).

When one is not blown around by worldly winds, and approaches their relationship to life through the heart, this allows choice and discernment. This way means, that the unconscious habits (samskaras) of the nervous system, that have built up from the physical/emotional/mental events of our lives, will not catch us in their grooves, and we are free to follow appropriate creative responses to the realities that the postures present to our body/minds, each time we practice. The Yamas can provide the limitation, the Niyamas the framework and the breath (and later on charka awareness) the context.

The Western mind tends to favour things over nothing, doing over undoing, the seen over the unseen, in other words we tend to be materialistic. As if to prove a point many of our initial reactions may be ‘of course!’ But consider the usefulness of a building, if we pump it full of concrete, the effectiveness of a wind farm, confined indoors, the ability of the mind working, without rest, chopping wood in the understairs cupboard, the speed of your car kept in the garage, the flight of a plane left in the hanger, the clarity of the spoken word from behind a thick wall, the planets orbits around the sun… In other words, without space nothing works.

In physics, there are general trends of movement from confinement to space (open the end of an inflated balloon, and where does the air move?). Sound needs space through which to vibrate and the mind too works best when there is a sense of space. When the mind is too busy, it slows down becomes less efficient, and can seize when seriously overfilled. Panic attacks, headaches and confusion are all results of too little space. In the West, most of us know four elements, earth, water, fire and air, the yoga tradition recognises space as the fifth elemental because without it the other four cannot function. (In some traditions a sixth, ether, is introduced, as the energy which moves in space).

Stira sukha asanam
When practicing yoga asana, ask yourself how much action there is and how much space. Look at the ratio; you will often find a gross imbalance between the two. With a lack of space, there is often tension and tightness, that if continued will build into stasis, or the inability to go further without aggression/suppression and risk of injury.

With a lack of action or attention, the concentration does not gather enough depth to absorb into a direct relationship with the body from where it can work creatively or intuitively. The breath is a valuable tool to gauge where you’re at in terms of this relationship.

Quotes

By passion for the “pairs of opposites,”
By those twain snares of like and dislike , Prince!
All creatures live bewildered, save some few.

— Bhagavad-Gita