Mountain Pose

Among the scores of yoga poses the clumsy beginner encounters, the first one I think I’ve finally begun to master is called Tadasana, the Mountain Pose. It simply means to stand up straight—and I’ve gradually come to understand that I rarely ever do that—but I did it reasonably well at age six already, without much trara. Brigitte laughs and calls me Mountain Man now. "How tall you are," she says, shaking her head in amazement... I got to thinking about that. After three-score and ten, the simplest of things are initially difficult and, oddly, leave a very strange feeling behind. Worthy applying, this experience, in other spheres of life as well.

Yoga's Rich Lessons

When the brave, hardworking Number 8 is finally done with the day’s work and lies down to rest thus— ∞ — it passes from the realm of Tribulation to the domain of Eternity, as do we. The inspiration for this was a Yoga exercise in which one describes, fingers entwined, elbows out, first the one and then the second figure in the air—to flex the fingers and to feel the muscles of the arms. But there is a kind of deeper lesson here. And when you separate the fingers and rest the hands on the thighs—why that describes the happy middle position between the two: Detachment.