The Philosophy of Yoga

The boy hadn't meant to stop here. The ten-year-old was following his grandfather through the rooms of the Museum of Cham Sculpture in Da Nang, his eyes skimming past stone statues, carved reliefs and altar pedestals. Then he stopped short.

In front of him was the statue of a woman in dark brown sandstone. She sat very still, her back straight, both hands resting lightly on her thighs. Her face was serene, like someone listening to something very far away and very quiet. The boy stared.

He had seen this pose before. Last week, his yoga teacher had the class sit exactly like this. Back straight. Hands on the thighs. Eyes closed, the breath slowing down.

"Grandpa." The boy tugged gently at his grandfather's hand. "Is she meditating?"

His grandfather followed the boy's pointing hand, then looked back at him. He said nothing. He only led the boy over to sit on a wooden bench beside the statue.

This was a Cham statue of an apsara. An apsara is a celestial maiden, a being who lives in heaven. This one was carved in about the 10th century, more than a thousand years ago. And the Cham stone carver of that time had shaped her in the very pose the boy had learned in his yoga class the week before.

"Listen to this," his grandfather began. "The name yoga already says it all."

In the ancient Sanskrit language, the word yoga comes from the root yuj, which means to connect, to unite. It doesn't mean connecting hands with feet. It doesn't mean connecting a person with a mat. Yoga means uniting the awareness inside oneself with something far greater, which the sages of India called cosmic consciousness. It is like a small drop of water finding its way back to the great sea.

"But I do poses," the boy said. "The twisting poses, the tree pose."

"That's right." His grandfather nodded. "And those poses matter a great deal. But they're only a small part of it."

About 2,000 years ago, a sage named Patanjali wrote a book called the Yoga Sutras, setting down the whole path of yoga. He called it Ashtanga Yoga, the yoga of eight limbs. The first two limbs are about how to live with the people around us and with ourselves. Only at the third limb do the postures come. These are called asana, the very thing the boy practiced in class every week. And the last limb is samadhi, the deepest stillness a person can reach.

His grandfather looked at the apsara statue. "Which limb has this apsara reached?"

The boy looked at her, then back at his grandfather. "The seventh, Grandpa? Meditation?"

"That's right." His grandfather smiled. "She's on the seventh limb. And you're learning the third."

The two of them sat quietly for a while. The museum room was hushed and cool, with soft golden light on the sandstone walls.

"How did all this knowledge get here, Grandpa?" the boy asked.

His grandfather told him. Long ago, merchant ships left the ports of India. They sailed with the monsoon winds across the ocean to the sea off this coast. They carried silk and spices, and also religious teachers who could read the scriptures and pass them on.

The kingdom of Champa, on the central coast of what is now Vietnam, lay right on that sea route. The Cham of that kingdom worshipped the god Shiva. In Shaiva Hindu belief, Shiva is called Adi Yogi, the first to teach yoga to his disciples. When the teachers came from India to Champa, they brought that philosophy with them too.

And the Cham stone carvers set that meditation pose down in sandstone. That is how the apsara came to sit before the boy now, back straight, hands on her thighs, meditating for more than a thousand years.

"Here is something wonderful," his grandfather went on. "Yoga doesn't have just one path. Some people are suited to the path of wisdom. Others are suited to the path of devotion. Still others are suited to the path of acting without seeking reward, as the Bhagavad Gita teaches. Yoga does not judge. You're already on the path. You just don't know it yet."

"And the apsara?" the boy asked softly.

His grandfather looked up at the statue. She still sat there, serene and silent.

"She chose a long, long time ago."

Today, yoga classes are opening in cities all over Vietnam. And when someone sits down in a meditation pose, knowingly or not, they are touching the same stream of knowledge from India. Long ago, that same stream crossed the sea to Champa and was carved into sandstone.

Grandfather and grandson stood up. The boy looked back at the apsara statue before leaving the room. She still sat there, back straight, hands resting on her thighs, her face calm, as if listening to something very far away and very quiet.

That evening, the boy rolled out his mat on the floor and sat down in the familiar pose. Back straight. Hands on his thighs. Just like the apsara in the statue. Just as people sat on this land a thousand years ago. He closed his eyes. And for the first time, he truly wanted to know why he was sitting still.