Counter posture?
Found in many classes and taught by many, it is called Pratikriyasana, yet no text speaks of it…
The practice of postures works on AnnamayaKosha, the physical body, and on PranamayaKosha, the energy body. This work is first of all physical and restores potential to the joints, tendons, muscles and organs of the physical body. By turning its attention to the energies (Nadis, Adharas, chakras), the posture allows us to become aware of the energy body, to develop it and refine it.
For this work to take place, we must give it time. Hold a posture long enough for the imprint to form. If you want to boil water, and so change the state of the water, you must leave the pan on the heat for a long time. Under the fire of the posture it is hard to perceive finely what is happening… So we take a posture following a whole precise path. Then we hold the posture and come out of it the way we went in, to remain seated for a long while so as to keep perceiving within us the subtle transformations that have taken place. This brings the energetic architecture to light and lets us meet and experience the centres, the nadis and the adharas!
The counter posture will erase a large part of what settled during the posture, and we will no longer be able to perceive the depth of the postures, the secrets of the postures…
Many styles of Yoga practice glide from one posture to another in pleasant, positive relaxation, giving a state of calm and peace already far greater than those we rarely meet in our lives. In these styles, the counter posture is present. It allows millions of people to live a “surface yoga”, and that is already much better than taking medication to feel well! As long as we practise with the idea that "we" are doing a posture, we will go no further than ourselves, with the great danger of reinforcing our ego through the exhilarating side of the posture and falling into: "look how beautiful and supple my body is".
Modern Yoga, focused on the body, dynamism, physical vigour and therapy, goes back to the Yogi Krishnamacharya, spiritual father of Desikachar, Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, Van Lysebeth… They all developed the same research and the same idea: making Yoga accessible to as many people as possible and turning it into a body therapy. A practice very much focused on posture, well-being, peace and calm. A practice that often separates asanas and pranayama, and sometimes sets Pranayama aside completely. In one of the yoga schools I attended, linked to Desikachar, we did little pranayama, and a strict rule was never to exceed 12 breaths of kapalabhati for fear of frying the nadis…
For a while you will love the postures and the effort in Yoga practice. Then surely one day you will want to go a little further and approach inner Yoga. Inner Yoga, defined by Madhya Lakshya, mastery of the mind… The kind that allows an individual to become a master of intention and energy. Behind every posture lies a secret to find and experience.
The posture is a "caricature", a linga that connects us to archetypes and subtleties. Hatha Yoga seeks the awakening of Kundalini by uniting within us the moon and the sun (Ida and Pingala). For this to happen within us, we must discover and work on our energy body and little by little accept its transformation. So a Hatha Yoga session is no longer there to make us feel calm and peace, but to transcend our body and transform it into a "glorified" body, where energy flows freely and can take every form and experience them directly, bringing knowledge and powers, the two axes of spiritual development.
Each posture lets us live and experience a new world every time: that of earth, that of water, earth combined with water, or air with fire… Not all the elements combine harmoniously, and they do not bring the same results.
Some postures allow us to work on archetypes such as animals, and here we join the vision of shamans and totem animals. There are also postures for therapy, for strength, for powers.
For example, the corpse posture (shavasana) allows us to live deep states of altered consciousness and reach the mystical journey, or discover the absence of breath, or sink into a place where "human" forms and time have ceased, and experience what we are without the body…
YSP: 49 Once the posture has been assimilated, one comes to control of the breath, which consists in stopping the movements of inhalation and exhalation.
Another example: in Kurmasana, the tortoise.
Breathing out, the breath descends into the feet, splits in two and runs along the legs back to muladhara. Breathing in, the breath rises to ajna, an internal massage that lengthens the spine. At some point I let all tension disappear, no muscular tension at all, total release, and I try to fall asleep in the posture, often at the bottom with empty lungs. The psychological sensation is unique: my senses enter into me and the outer world disappears when I take the posture. I find myself in my world, in my shell, deep inside me, in… Go and see!!!
Then on the in-breath, as I leave the posture, the outer world returns…
Nothing else lets you live this with as much intensity as this posture.
Each posture is unique and lets us live an archetype, a part of creation, a whole universe.
There is nothing in common between Bhujangasana (the cobra) and Sarvangasana (the shoulder stand): not the same postures, not the same centres touched, not at all the same psychological and spiritual sensations. This is the great secret of the postures. The session is not planned: it follows the silence and the energies present. So the idea of a "king" posture has no meaning in the vision of Yoga.
Each posture is complete, with nothing to add or remove compared with another posture or technique. We take it and hold it (for a long time!!!). We come back and let the trace fade in a seated posture that lets us live the posture for a long time still, motionless. Once the energy is in place, it keeps a strong inertia. Freed from the physical constraint of the posture, it will reveal itself to us in the neutral seated posture. So we come out of the posture as we went in, then once in the seated posture we no longer move, even if we feel some pulling: it is part of the whole structure.
If thoughts or mental movements arise, we can use the mantra HamSa and follow the breath in the spine, rising on the in-breath and descending on the out-breath. If all is calm, consciousness will follow the energy and go to the place brought to light by the posture, to identify with the place that vibrates and radiates. Through identification, we perceive the place. If the energy is strong, resulting from posture, pranayama and concentration, the breath will stop in that place and the absorption in it will be powerful…
This is the explanation of the 3rd part of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra: III
On the power of Yoga. Then the energy becomes neutral and chaotic again, and it is time to enter a new world!
So it becomes unthinkable that one posture could be amplified by another. For we must enter a state in which form, psychological traces, feelings, the idea of what we are and the concept of our character have completely disappeared.
This is to let new forms appear within us and experience them with the greatest neutrality.
Along the way, the practitioner increasingly loses their “human” form, and their spirit opens with the strong energies the postures offer.
Moving from one form to another allows the Yogi to discover the whole of creation within, to free themselves from all their forms and all their traces. They go back to the source by awakening their energies, which will reveal Their Consciousness.
At this level of practice it becomes logical that the counter posture no longer has any meaning: it no longer has to remove something negative or counter anything at all, since everything there is to live can only be positive.
It is depth that is being sought. The practitioner has entered Yoga with the fundamental idea of no longer considering any Yoga technique as harmful to their body or mind.
Without this very strong conviction, they will not be able to move forward on the path and take the real risks the path holds for those who venture on it and so become “true” Yogis.
Enjoy your practice!