The Inner Tradition of Yoga: A Guide to Yoga Philosophy for the Contemporary Practitioner

Patañjali warns of this in one the opening paragraphs of the Yoga-Sutra, where he states, “Śabda-jñānānupāti vastu-śūnyo vilkapaḥ (Conceptualization derives from linguistic knowledge, not contact with real things).”1

When we give up our notions and labels of yoga postures, we relinquish our fixation on the reification of concepts: posture, body, leg, arm, bone, and so on. Experience no longer has to be “this” or “that.” Thinking of “this or “that” binds us to a particular mode of existence that is conceptual and built on linguistic association and memory rather

Raga and dveṣa come to an end when we see that the mind, breath, and body, as well as all objects of awareness (ālambana) are boundless, ownerless, and lacking inherent substantiality, coming and going contingent on conditions that likewise come and go.

If the mind, breath, and body are eternally changing, and if we can barely define their location or existence, they cannot be taken as self; then letting go occurs naturally because it is the only option when clinging has failed.

Furthermore, since perception, breath, and body are always breaking up, and continually fluctuate together, we cannot pin our stories of reality on any of them.

Patañjali describes āsana practice as a tool for liberating the kleṣa activities, and the Tantric traditions, most notably the Hatha Yoga Pradīpika, describe āsana as a means of liberating the practitioner by seeing the nonduality of mind and body.

Letting go in the practice of yoga postures occurs when there is enough concentration present that we can slip into the flow of conditions that we call “yoga posture.”

The first step in the process of releasing these patterns of distraction occurs as we experience the body and mind as process rather than a substance.

All of our problems and feelings of dissatisfaction and suffering are caused by fixation and clinging—latching on to things and not being able to release them. This latching is a form of distraction, and it occurs within all of the sense organs (eyes, ear, nose, tongue, skin, and mind). We latch on to sound, form, feeling, thoughts, and perception.