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Yoga and Marriage

by Megan McCarver

Hello … My name Megan McCarver and I am a traditional Hatha yoga instructor.   One morning while teaching yoga, I was reminded of a subtle truth. Yoga refines relationships.  Mr. TKV Desikachar, son of Sri Krishnamachaya and founder of viniyoga, at a gathering in 1999 in Narbonne, France stated it very clearly. He declared that “Yoga is relationship. The word yoga means to relate.”

The event that brought this statement to my mind a while back was when my students were instructed to dangle their arms from their shoulders to their finger tips. I was borrowing a modified Feldenkrais technique as an exercise to loosen up their shoulders. As I demonstrated this exercise in front of the large group, my two wedding rings slid off my finger onto the wooden floor: Clank, Clank! I paused, tilted me head and we all smiled.

“Clank Clank” echoed deep to my core. Ironically, I was simultaneously instructing my students to let go of any grasping, gripping or attachments. Giggling silently to myself, smiling broadly, I bent down to retrieve my rings. Placing them mindfully on my finger, it all began to make some sense.

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.12, it states “abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan nirodhah”. One English translation is that through practicing presence and non-desire, we reunite our natural balance to all our relationships. This personal reuniting with our inner axis allows us to outwardly reflect our pure state of the heart which is a principle component in the act of relating to ourselves or to another. All balanced relationships, including marriage, demand a pure state of the heart partnered with sound mental clarity. Marriage is not about partners being “married” to each other. Marriage is not about how big, how much, how long,  who’s who, and who isn’t.

The yoga has taught me me that marriage is about a shared commitment towards internal balance and the art of relating from that balance state.  Pray for peace and prana ...