The Value of Not Doing (Rerun)

by Richard Rosen

Enso by Torei Enji

I recently discovered in my files an interview I did with Richard Rosen in 2008 for a book I never wrote that was going to be all about Savasana (great idea, right?). As he always does, Richard had some wonderful things to say, so with his permission, I�m going to share them with you today. Because my questions weren�t particularly compelling and what Richard said was so beautiful, I�ve edited and reorganized the interview at tiny bit so it reads as a single statement. Thank you, Richard. �Nina

In my early years as a yoga student, I really didn�t understand Savasana, I thought it was a waste of time. I sort of tended to either cut it short or skip it completely. And I think a lot of classes�a lot of teachers�still tend to do that. They don�t really give time to Savasana in their classes. As I got older as a yoga student I began to appreciate the value of the practice at the end of a yoga session, and I spent 15 to 20 minutes in Savasana at the end of a practice, which is a good chunk of time relative to the rest of my practice.

Teachers want you to feel like you�re doing something. And a lot of people don�t understand or appreciate the value of not doing. But a lot of traditional yoga is just that. The idea is that you�re already doing something that is interfering with your self awareness, your self understanding. And that rather than doing something to fix it, what�s really necessary is to undo what�s getting in the way, which means a need for a surrender, a letting go. To a certain extent that�s what you get a taste of in Savasana. It�s just stopping doing, and letting what�s being interfered with come out. 

What comes out for me is, like Popeye says, �I am what I am.� I just get a feeling that I�m closer to myself. At my stage of yoga development, I feel very keenly that there�s a separation, that I don�t really know who or what I truly am, and that when I perform Savasana well that I get a clearer sense of the underlying truth of myself, the underlying being.

It�s a contrast to the way I usually feel, which is sort of there�s a lot going on in my head and I�m not exactly aware of the present, I�m not connected to the sounds around me, I�m not connected my breath, I�m connected to anything that�s really happening in the moment. There�s always a distraction of some kind. I�m thinking about this or that. I�m thinking about what I have to do. And so there�s a lack of presence. Whereas the experience of Savasana is a clearing away of all of that static. Like in the old days when the analog radios would have dial�a little bar that would move up a down a range of stations�and you would turn it. In between stations you would get a hissing sound, and as you approached a station the music or sound would come in more clearly. I also think of yoga asanas as being like tuners, where as you approach the essence of the pose, say, the static begins to diminish.

I think there�s a lot of static in the brain that interferes with your connections to your surroundings. It�s a distraction in a way. It�s like you�re trying to concentrate on something and somebody�s playing music outside. It takes you away from the direct perception of what�s going on. In Savasana, at least momentarily, that�s turned down, quieted. So I think the way I would describe my experience of a well-performed Savasana is that the dial gets a little bit closer to where the station actually is and the interference goes away and the music of the self comes in more clearly.

When I come out of a well-performed Savasana, I feel very quiet. My senses are more receptive. I feel more expansive. I feel bigger. Physically I feel taller. And when I walk out of my practice room after a well-performed Savasana, I feel more in tune with my surroundings. Colors are brighter. Sounds are clearer. I feel more alive.

Richard Rosen is a yoga teacher and writer from Berkeley, California. He is President of the board of the Yoga Dana Foundation, which supports Northern California teachers bringing yoga to under-served communities. Richard has written three books for Shambhala: The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama (2002), Pranayama: Beyond the Fundamentals (2006), and Original Yoga: Rediscovering Traditional Practices of Hatha Yoga (2012). He also recorded a 7-disc set of instructional CDs for Shambhala titled The Practice of Pranayama: An In-Depth Guide to the Yoga of Breath (2010). For more information about Richard and the workshops he teaches internationally, see http://www.richardrosenyoga.com/. 

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