“Now my buttock bones are talking to your buttock bones.” Yoga Master Teacher Sharat Arora
The art of honest speaking as well as the art of attentive listening takes place when you are clearly on your buttock bones. In order to speak meaningful truth and be able to listen in totality – be in your buttock bones. You become stable and grounded so are ready to speak from your heart and or listen fully alert. If you are sitting on the back of your sitting bones, i.e. doing sofa pose, your concentration is lost and your thoughts may wonder into the past. If you are sitting on the front part of the sitting bones you tend to move toward imagination and the future, so be in the centre, always be straight, so you give full attention to the present moment and alignment. You know when you are in the correct spot because the trunk ascends and the breath becomes full and free flowing. There is only one centre, and when you find it you will know. Do not make any local movements in the chest or shoulders, let the body grow from the aligned base. Making local movements is just encouraging more ‘action’ which comes from the mind.
Steady occurs when the head, neck and trunk support the natural curve in the spine and the breath in the body is free flowing and we are stable. Once a solid, equanimous foundation is established the next step is to surrender, reflect, do nothing and allow the pose to settle in for silence and meditation. Whether you are standing in Tadasana or practicing the standing poses, be in the centre of every bone. The centre is where healing and balance takes place.
Earth element we find in the centre of the heels or the centre of the buttock bones when sitting. Whenever there is earth element, then stability is found and the work becomes easy, so always be there! From the foundation of the centre the trunk grows all by itself. When you are in the centre you can’t be in your head. The fastest route to balance is being in the feet, not caught up in the mind. In the forward bends when you sit in the centre you feel the trunk rise up. The foundation of either the feet or the buttock bones is where it all begins. When doing the twists, it is important to twist with a straight spine and an aligned equal foundation otherwise the pose doesn’t work properly.
Past conditioning and programming takes us away from the centre. The secret to break away and free from all this is to sit comfortably and concentrate not on any part, but specifically on the centre of the buttock bones. When you find true centre, then automatically you start to remove imbalances on a physical and mental level. Ganesh is in the centre. Ganesh is in the centre of your heels and the centre of your buttock bones. Ganesh gives us the strength to remove obstacles that are obstructing the path towards truth.
“Be in the centre, be straight, always.”
Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre
Yoga Master Teacher Sharat Arora
December 2015, Arambol, North Goa, India