There is No Goal
A new student was gamely doing her best when I set up Agnistambasana, sometimes known as Fire Logs, or Double Pigeon, or my favorite moniker, Agony Asana.
This pose is a pain – literally and figuratively. It goes right to the heart of the matter in the hips, forgive the mixing of the metaphors. Some of us are comfortable, and some of us will always be tortured. That’s when the new student asked, “Is the goal to push the knee to the ankle?”
“There is no goal,” I responded, much to her dismay.
This is the truth of yoga, there is no goal.
The saying goes, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. It takes a long time to realize that in yoga, there is no goal. There is only practice, and coming to a deep sense of acceptance that this moment is all there is, and then the next, and the next.
Fewer Goals, More Acceptance
In the last few years I changed how I train with Ralph, my beloved goofy horse with a crooked leg and a deeply straightforward heart. My background was as a Hunter which involves jumping, but Ralph cannot jump, and honestly, at my age, neither should I.
Given our circumstances, I moved to Dressage and it has been life-changing. This training involves precision, alignment and patience. Ralph is now mostly sound using his weaker leg and hind end properly, and I am passionate about finding the form. The Universe brought together an alignment and mobility teacher with a horse who was unbalanced and often lame.
We have no goal, not even to get to a higher level of Dressage. I only try to keep him sound, for this day, and the next, and the next.
Goals Have a Purpose
Asking you to give up your hopes and dreams of attaining a big yoga pose is dumb. Besides, if I didn’t want to do a Handstand I probably would never have gotten it. So goals have their purpose as a motivator.
But they can also be a detractor. The Bhagavad Gita tells us that we are not to attach to the fruits of our action. Never. The more you desire an outcome, the more it seems to slip away. However, we can, and should, attach deeply to the process.
For my new student, the bad news is there is no goal in Agnistambasana, or for any yoga pose for that matter. But the good news is it will take a lifetime of dedication to getting absolutely nowhere that will keep us on the mat, or in the ring, for the rest of our lives.
Michelle Marchildon is the Yogi Muse. She is an award-winning writer and author of four books on yoga and life. She teaches yoga and mobility in Denver, Colorado.