Shaucha

In practice we are trying to negotiate a kind of integration of the body, as well as a willingness to separate from it such that we do not depend on it to do something or be something. Body, mind, soul are stitched together by breath and asanas, bandhas, and the slow sinking of the brain into the heart...but how challenging it can be to detach from the vessel that not only carries us, but that also represents our physical beauty, relays to others our thoughts and emotions, helps us to make tangible, loving connections with one another. In Yoga Mala, Guruji discusses "shaucha," or purification, with respect to the body:

From this twofold shaucha [external purification and internal purification], a loathing is developed for the body, which is seen as abominable, essenceless, and perishable, and a disgust is felt when touching the body of another. (13)

With my own body in practice, I continue to incorporate shaucha. I try, and it is not easy to ward off the dependence, vanity, fear, connections to pain and lack of pain, feeling of rescue when my teacher eases me into a pose.

But with my child, who lived and grew for so long in my belly, how can I detach from her physical body? How can I not be in awe of the softness of her skin, the remarkable looks on her face, the exquisite tones and developing intonation in her voice, the redemption of her unexpected kisses and snuggles? How can I not be so viscerally connected?

For instance, she loves to play on a big bed. It fills her with smiles and silliness to fall back on to the bed with abandon, to feign intolerance as tickle bugs snuggle into her most ticklish places. Today I examined the bottom of her foot, something I had not analyzed yet. It begins now to look more like a foot for walking, which she now prefers over crawling. I also noticed how the hair on the back of her head grows in a spiral, like a pinwheel. The child has very little hair, even now at 15 months, like her mother. And so to see the beginnings of this growth is quite beautiful. One never thinks about this kind of growing in a circular way...but of course it make sense.

These days, the child is in love with her father. She's knows "Dada," "Where's Dada?" and "Hi, Dada!" When asked, "Where's Mama?" she smiles. I'm not sure if the smile means that she already knows where Mama is, silly. Or, if she thinks the question is absurd: why should I care where Mama is when Dada is here?

My friend tells me that she does not yet see us — herself and me — as two separate people. And so I, the Mama, in all of my mothering, am assumed. Like the surface she walks on. She looks to me when she gets hurt, to see if I think she has been hurt enough to warrant a big cry. She looks to me when she's found a particle on the floor that should not be there. She looks to me to acknowledge the dog passing us on the sidewalk: "See the dog?" "Yes, I see the dog." She looks to me when I enter the room when she is with her father: "Oh, yes. Good. There you are. Now, Dada...what were you saying?"

It can be a little painful...it's hard for it not to be. One cannot completely keep the narcissism of needing to be overtly loved by one's child at bay. One finds little motivation to practice shaucha when watching one's baby sleep on the web cam at her school — the pain of separation, of wanting, intensifies the resistance to detachment. It makes sense, then, that I gather some satisfaction in a room full of strangers when my daughter will not leave my arms, or in those moments when Dada has disappointed her and she, surprisingly, wants to be held by that other person she lives with (me). She, too, relies on the proof of physical presence, though she delightfully takes it for granted most of the time.

But if I scoot over from my ego — just a tiny bit — I can make room for a piece of insight in Guruji's advice. One possibility is that in "loathing" the body we are refusing to allow love to rely on the physical presence of those we love, who are loving us. Indeed, I may have some proof of this possibility to offer, in the small glimpses in which I have seen in my child's evolving, calm independence, the flickers of her embodying herself. Among the long stretches when we are playing on the floor, as we so often are, I may drift away into some sort of sleepy stare. Recently, she notices. She climbs up to stand next to me. "Hi," she says, and softly touches my hair.

And it occurs to me that she may not always see a distinction when I am with her, but she feels the separation when I am not. And that has nothing to do with the body.

Works Cited

Jois, Sri K. Pattabhi. Yoga Mala. New York: North Point Press, 2002.