Anantāsana (Sleeping/Reclining Vishnu): Lie on your side, supporting your head with the bottom arm or hand. Stretch the body into a long line, with hips and feet stacked vertically. Bend the top knee, and bring it towards your shoulder. Holding that foot with your hand or a strap, extend the leg upwards. Open the foot towards the sky.
ananta = the infinite, āsana = posture or seat
I was at the airport recently. I had about half an hour to wait, so I perused the magazines at the newspaper stand. Picking up the July/August edition of “Yoga Journal”, I opened it up and found myself looking at a photo of the yoga posture called anantāsana. How’s that for timely? Ananta (the infinite) and āsana (posture) have been on my mind for about a month now! It all began when I read this verse in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras (translation by Swami Satchidananda):
2.47 By lessening the natural tendency for restlessness and by meditating on the infinite, āsana is mastered.
The photo of anantāsana in Yoga Journal reminded me of something I had forgotten: that ananta, meaning “the infinite,” is also the name of the giant serpent that Viṣṇu – pronounced “Vishnu” – rests upon. (Viṣṇu is the Hindu God in charge of maintaining the Universe. Brahmā is the creator, and Śiva the destroyer.) Ananta’s coiled body makes a bed for Viṣṇu, and his hooded heads form a roof over the sleeping Deity. With his many mouths, he sings Viṣṇu’s praise, all while holding up the planets with his many heads. What an image!
And what does this all symbolize? I humbly offer my interpretation: Below us, above us, all around us, holding everything together, there is the Infinite. Underlying the apparent chaos of our earthly lives, there is Infinite peace and order. Like Viṣṇu resting on Ananta, we rest on the Infinite. We are sheltered by the Infinite. We can relax, like Viṣṇu, knowing that all is in place – that Ananta is taking care of business and keeping things in order.
To believe this is one thing, but to know it is another. How can we come to know this for ourselves?
A dear friend, patiently listening to my ramblings about all of this, reminded me of an article written by David Frawley in his book Vedantic Meditation. The article is titled “Limitation and the Unlimited.” In it, Frawley writes that anywhere we look, we can see both the Limited and the Unlimited. We can look and see defined objects – for example, “this is a tree, this is an oak tree.” Our mind likes these definitions, labels, distinctions, boundaries, limitations. But we can also see endless detail, endless subtlety, endless variation in these same objects. We can choose to see either the Limited or the Unlimited. We usually see the Limited; that’s the way we’ve been conditioned to see.
Frawley’s language (Limited/Unlimited) is a bit different that what I’ve been using (Finite/Infinite), but in essence, we are talking about the same thing: Limited = Finite, and Unlimited = Infinite. And yet, Frawley is offering us a new insight here, something I didn’t see before reading his article.
In my last post in this series, I wrote that in āsana practice, we can either turn our awareness towards the body which is finite, or we can turn our awareness towards something beyond the body, something infinite, the Source of Life itself. I also suggested that we could use the mind and the breath as a channel between the limited body and the unlimited Universe around us. Breathing in, we draw the Infinite, the Eternal into the various nooks and crannies of our bodies; breathing out, we give back to this Source of Life. (Personally, I find this very helpful – calming, yet energizing!)
But what David Frawley is saying is a bit different: he is saying that we can look at our bodies and see that therein lies both the Limited and the Unlimited. The body is both finite and infinite. We can look at our bodies and see its limited/finite aspects – here is my leg, here is my arm, place it here, move it there. Or we can look at our bodies and see its unlimited/infinite aspects – we can be aware of the infinite subtleties, the infinite sensations, the infinite nuances, the Infinite itself, as we move and stay and breathe within the postures. In Frawley’s words (p.47),
The world is the unlimited under apparent limitation. If we look superficially, we see the limited. If we look deeply we perceive the unlimited.
Looking deeply at our bodies in āsana practice, practicing deep awareness of the body, we can begin to perceive the Unlimited for ourselves. With the mind focused on body and breath, the mind clears and perceives clearly what lies before it: the Infinite masquerading as “you” and “I”. Rumi, the13th-century Sufi mystic, is getting at this same truth when he writes:
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.
It’s a matter of remembering to look beyond the surface appearance – to be curious and open about what lies before us and within us, to look for the Infinite, to be attuned to the Infinite, to meditate on the Infinite.
One more time, let’s return to Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras:
2.47 By lessening the natural tendency for restlessness and by meditating on the infinite, āsana is mastered.
May we see the Infinite residing within the Finite, and the Finite residing within the Infinite. In this finite life, may we feel the infinite peace and joy that sustains all of existence. Swaha – so be it.