tainly, stiffness and rigidity in the body is like wearing a straightjacket
or living one's life in a prison.
The movement of the skin gives the understanding of the asana.
You must feel the extension to the limits of your skin. As I have said,
the skin is the brain of the body, telling what is happening everywhere.
The skin, like a mirror, reflects one's mental state, whether tight, slack,
flaccid, swollen, tremulous, or stuck. So watch the quality of the skin
in practice.
When you extend to your skin, you are also extending your nerve
endings. Extending them opens them so that they can throw out their
stored impurities. That is why I teach extension and expansion. The
nerves release and relax. You feel as if you are extending the skin, the
muscles, and even the bones of your body. Practice asanas by creating
space in the muscles and skin, so that the body fits into the asana. To
do this, the whole body has to act. To extend the part, you must ex
tend the whole.
If the stretch is even, throughout the whole body, there is no strain
at all. This does not mean that there is no exertion. There is exertion,
hut this exertion is exhilaration. There is no wrong stress or strain. A
state of elation is felt within. When there is strain, the practice of yoga
is purely physical and leads toward imbalances and misjudgment. One
feels weary and tired and gets irritated and disturbed. When one stops
straining and the brain is passive, it becomes spiritual yoga. When you
have extended to the extreme, live in that asana, and experience the joy
\ ol freedom in that asana. While stretching, you must always create
space and extend from your center. Compression is bondage, and ex
pansion is freedom.
Horizontal expansion and vertical extension should synchronize
so that you are extending in all directions. Freedom in a posture is
when every joint is active. Let us be full in whatever posture it is we arc
doing just as we should be full in whatever we do in our lives. In pos-
� T fl II I I I I Y Ill I· I' II Y \ I (. fl I II (I I I Y I .1 .\ :I N :I I