To understand spirituality, whether at its base level or at a level that takes you deeper, let's understand its root word — Adhyatama —meaning that which pertains to the aatma (spirit). The fact that you wish to understand spirituality is in itself an indication of the embarkment of your journey on it. When one wants to talk or understand about spirituality, one already accepts that there is something beyond the physical framework of our body.
It is as if one chooses a vehicle to travel to a certain destination, then that vehicle can be understood as our body. This vehicle has a certain prerequisite to run efficiently and facilitate your life journey with ample ease, joy, and comfort. Daily practices of yoga asanas help in keeping this vehicle in a fit shape.
Yoga asanas can be practised at any level, as per one's capacity. Start by incorporating a dynamic posture into your daily practice —Seated forward bending pose / Paschimottanasana. Sit down on your mat with your legs out forward, come to the posture as demonstrated, keep your back spine erect. Inhale with your arms up to the sky, exhale and bend forwards to hold your big toes. Stay down here as you hold your breath. Try to touch your nose to the knees.
A longer duration of this practice, with appropriate breathwork, will regulate your blood flow and prepare your body towards a healthy mind. A healthy and hearty mind and body is the catalyst for life that begins to nurture you and brings out a spiritual taste for you. When our self is nurtured, first by our mothers and then by suitable practices, we begin to taste and understand nature and its forces. Spirituality can be said to deal with the understanding of this very nature which underlines our existence.
(The author is a spiritual yogic master. Founder, chairman and course director of Akshar Yoga, and president of the World Yoga Organisation)
