Is Yoga a Physical or Spiritual Practice?

The easy answer is both.

I’ve been separating my Asana practice from my spiritual / sitting practice and it’s been quite nice. Asana is still part of my spiritual practice in the way that everything is spiritual practice. But I’m starting to view Asana similarly to how I view eating nutritiously or cleaning the bedroom. It’s my daily housekeeping. It’s a daily chore that I genuinely enjoy. The purpose is simply to help my body feel strong and supple.

It’s my first nature to forward-bend and go inward. So my self-prescribed home practice involves lunges, twists, backbends, and inversions. The lunges teach me to step into the world. The twists help me get around myself. The backbends help me take up space. The inversions help me flip the perspective.

There’s a ripple effect. The physical affects the mental which affects the spiritual. While the postures aren’t necessarily spiritual in nature, they can certainly help the spirit rise. A functional Asana practice makes it substantially easier to sit with a tall spine for longer periods of time while we practice meditation or pranayama. It took years before I could meditate without my back and knees becoming sore within moments.

The Asana practice has a simple goal. Simplicity allows for non-attachment (vairāgya), which creates opportunity to experience clarity (viveka). May our practices, whether physical or spiritual (or both) slowly bring us back to our innermost sacred selves.