Living Yoga’s Ten Codes
By Derek Beres
“The rigors of yoga philosophy and practice have been overcompromised in focusing on the results, a pattern Patanjali explicitly warned against,” cautions yoga teacher and author Derek Beres, “but we want the glory without the suffering.” Throughout The Warrior’s Path, Beres continues to focus on second-century sage Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, specifically the yamas and niyamas—the moral foundation of yoga and the groundwork to the asanas—as they pertain to our modern lifestyle, and he doesn’t mince words about digressions he perceives.
Beginning each chapter with anecdotes, including his own current battle with cancer, Beres, a veteran yoga teacher and creator of Flow Play yoga at Equinox Fitness, presents an extensive amount of scientific research and cultural observation investigating the role of yoga’s dos-and-don’ts—prohibitions and disciplines—in modern culture through the lens of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and moral and developmental psychology. He puts common practices and widely accepted truths under the microscope and finds many of them wanting. For example, he questions the positive-psychology mentality often espoused in yoga classes:
“Every misstep is either the result of misguided action or part of a ‘plan’ that will ultimately resolve itself. If it never does, that’s part of the plan, too, and something better is waiting… The tragedy occurs when we find ourselves waiting instead of failing… By not failing, we’re not learning.”
Beres takes an interesting perspective on each precept—connecting the idea of play to aparigraha (greedlessness), for example—but this is a serious read. The vast inclusion of information challenges the reader to navigate a dense field to the ultimate destination.
The “right” path is always to some extent subjective, but this insightful work can serve as a guide for the practicing yogi in rethinking ways of putting time-honored precepts into practice, in yoga and in life.
This article is a part of the April/May 2015 issue of Whole Life Times.