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OPENING TO GRACE: RE-LEARNING PRAYER THROUGH YOGA By Donna Miele May 2006
The first principle of Anusara Yoga is: “Open to grace.” Before doing anything, you are asked to do nothing. Just as my Catechism tells me, my first and foremost responsibility in prayer (and I’m paraphrasing, I admit) is not to speak, but to Listen. Open to grace. I started taking yoga classes at Shree Yoga Studios nearly eight years ago, after the birth of my third child. I wanted to build strength and energy, but found most exercise programs kind of mindless. Yoga, I heard, was more mentally stimulating. I got more than I bargained for! I discovered at the source of my exhilaration during yoga class was nothing less than the touch of God. It was the same sense of communion with God that I was accustomed to getting through meditative prayer. The difference was that in yoga I felt the communion as the unity of body, mind, and spirit that is supposed to be a normal part of human existence (and which is so often ignored). This was unexpected, and it commanded all of my attention. Nobody had ever told me that my body could be a medium for prayer, and yet it made sense. If all my spiritual duties could be done through conventional prayer, then why do I not live in a purely spiritual realm? How else am I to do the tasks God asks of me, if not through physical action? If the human organism exists as a union of physical and spiritual energy, should not we have a practice that incorporates the whole organism? I did not come to yoga seeking the unity of mind, body, and spirit that I now find in my practice; I did not come seeking communion with God. I’m Catholic. We do our praying at church, and if we’re particularly religious, at the dinner table. We might teach our children their prayers at bedtime. Sitting down. Our bodies are not part of our worship; any physical experience is too close to sin. An interesting aside on this, by the way: Christ does not talk about chastity even a tenth as much in the gospels as he does about compassion and justice. Anyway, I digress. I can testify that yoga, as a physical form of prayer, has become essential to my Catholic spirituality. Through yoga I have learned that it is right and necessary not only to think about my body in positive terms, but to revere my body as an expression of God. Chaya often opens her classes by asking us to make an intention or an offering to carry through our practice. I rebelled against this at first; or rather, I didn’t know what to do in response. I could clear my mind and concentrate on proper alignment; I could control my breath; I could envision my body as a tree, or a mountain. But “intentions” and “offerings” didn’t belong in this class of physical imagery and activity. These were in the realm of prayer, of seated meditation. One morning we were focusing on the physical action of “melting the heart,” a beautiful image, to say the least. From tadasana to downward facing dog, through vinyasa and back again, melt your heart. It became a mantra for the class. We progressed through the more difficult poses, ardha chandrasana, third warrior, revolved triangle; melt your heart. I began to tire, to say no, or why, or this is crazy. You can’t do that in this position, when you are pretzeled into revolved triangle, you cannot melt your heart. Frustrated already, at the end of my rope, I thought, I was asked to prepare for handstand. There were some grumbles and sighs. Chaya looked at all our rebellious faces. “What is the first thing you should think about before doing this handstand?” she asked.
Chaya turned to one of the more advanced students, smiling. “What is the first thing you should think about before doing this pose?” she repeated. The student got it, returning the smile suddenly. “Open to grace,” she said. That hit me like thunder. Don’t do anything. Pray. Humble yourself to the divine within and without, so that you can accomplish what you were meant to, however difficult the pose, in yoga or in life. When you think you’re at the end of your rope, open to grace. I did my handstand, I melted my heart. Now, please excuse me for keeping to myself the reasons I had in my life at that time for weeping during savasana that day, for the first time but by no means the last. Suffice to say that I remembered I could melt my heart even in the most difficult pose, if I first to opened to grace.
Student Stories:
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The first principle of Anusara Yoga is not “Engage your core.” It is not “Place your feet shoulder width apart,” nor even “Breathe.” 
