Pose & Poise
Posture, by which is meant both pose & poise, is one of the key elements to achieving enlightenment and is tied tightly to our breathing and to the emotions we feel and experience moment to moment. The word posture has both noun and verb forms; the noun meaning ‘relative position of parts, especially the body or mind.‘
Posture also means the condition or state (of affairs, etcetera) one may find oneself in. As a verb it connotes ‘to dispose limbs of (person) in a particular way.’ This is often to reflect and attitude or stance toward others or their ideas, communications and other energetic flows and the intransitive form of the verb means to assume posture (literally or figuratively) especially for effect! Its roots are from the Latin positura ~ (ponere posit ~ place) + -ure ~ forming nouns - the result of an action or process (composure, enclosure et. al) and refers to function, state, rank, dignity, office (judicature, prefecture) collective body of agents (legislature) collective body of agents (legislature) that by which action is effected (closure, ligature); from Latin -ura.
Traditional postural control is called ‘Asanas’ and is the third step of the eight steps of Astanga Yoga. There are many well known positions and postures?each with it’s own purpose. The most famous is probably the Lotus posture, however there are many others equally renowned, such as the Sun Salutation of Hatha yoga, and even the movements of Tai Chi; all are postures.
The Lotus posture is a still posture for stability while Tai Chi is flowing postures aimed at reasoning inner and outer tensions. Many of the martial arts also pay particular attention to how the body is held by the mind.
Ideally the mind has moved from deliberate conscious to deliberate unconscious. I know it sound backwards but skilled workers seldom think about their position and motion - they exist in it’s energy flow and move with it spontaneously in each moment. Nothing is pre-planned or rigid.
Practicing Yama (purification & control), Niyama (observances) Asanas, Pranayama, Pratyahara (sense withdrawal) and Dhyana (concentration) leads eventually to the final stage called Samadhi - complete equilibrium. This is often termed nirvana which is an aspect of it. Joy literally beams out of every pour of the body-mind complex.
If you’ve ever watched the Matrix, you’ll know exactly what I mean. At the end of the film, Neo has arisen from the dead and flies into and merges with the super-agent Smith; bulges course throughout the agents’ body, cracks beaming intense light begin to spread out over him and he shatters into thousands of pieces leaving only Neo left still standing there, breathing in and out as the universes fluxes bending with his breathing and to his will - this is precisely what Samadhi is like.
When you experience this level of relaxed concentration and deliberateness (control) you will know what I am talking about when I tell you that there are Walls of Fire between us and heaven and only when we have become pure of heart have we any chance at all of passing through them. This stuff goes straight into astral realms and believe me, this ground is littered with corpses and skeletons of those who mistook it for a playground. However relax because you will never encounter anything that you are not ready for, although I don’t promise that you’ll necessarily feel that way at the time, it is all worth every effort.
The reward is a certainty and joy that replaces all the junk we have been carrying around for millennia.
You will know when you have achieved perfect posture when you can sit comfortably for hours on end in meditation without being distracted by numbness, aches or pain of any kind - especially when you stop meditating. This is perfect poise and not quite as easy as it may sound and there are many who will believe their body is loose and relaxed while they still have considerable tension in the body.
The word poise come from the Latin pensum ~weight and means graceful and elegant bearing; composure; dignity of manner; and as a verb means to cause to be balanced, aligned, ready and prepared while the word pose means to present, contribute to, assume a position; from the Latin pausare ~ to pause, which replaced the Latin ponere ~ to place
