I've heard it put best by master teachers like Edward Clark and David Swenson, and I paraphrase-- If yoga (asana) was about achievement in the poses, we'd be looking to gymnasts, acrobats and Cirque du Soleil perfomers for the secrets of Enlightenment. This is not to diminish their accomplishment, it's that there's something unique about yoga asana that makes it more than contortionism; and even if we've never thought specifically about it, on some level we know that.
Perhaps it's not until we've reached "a certain age" or had an injury-- minor or debilitating, temporary or permanent-- that we recognize we are something more than our physical body. It doesn't make it any easier to "gracefully surrender the things of youth" (Desiderata), but it does underscore the value of our practice beyond the physical.
The question then is- why do the physical poses at all? Beyond taking care of our "temple", it's a vehicle through which we can understand and learn about everything around us. The practice room is like a laboratory, and we "experiment", putting our body through the paces, creating situations that create stress, intensity, discomfort, in a safe and controlled environment. We do this and learn about ourselves, train ourselves on many levels-- physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual-- so we can grow.
I ran across a poem by Theodore Roethke called Infirmity that I think illustrates the temporal nature of the body and our attachment to it, the play of the senses, and That within us that is always the same. We might call it "Spirit" or the "Soul", but it's this eternal Inner Light of Awareness that we seek to uncover in yoga, and better yet, allow to inform all of our thoughts, words and actions-- even while obscured by this body we inhabit.
INFIRMITY by Theodore Roethke
In purest song one plays the constant fool
As changes shimmer in the inner eye.
I stare and stare into a deepening pool
And tell myself my image cannot die.
I love myself: that's my one constancy.
Oh, to be something else, yet still to be!
Sweet Christ, rejoice in my infirmity;
There's little left I care to call my own.
Today they drained the fluid from a knee
And pumped a shoulder full of cortisone;
Thus I conform to my divinity
By dying inward, like an aging tree.
The instant ages on the living eye;
Light on its rounds, a pure extreme of light
Breaks on me as my meager flesh breaks down-
The soul delights in that extremity.
Blessed the meek; they shall inherit wrath;
I'm son and father of my only death.
A mind too active is no mind at all;
The deep eye sees the shimmer on the stone;
The eternal seeks, and finds, the temporal,
The change from dark to light of the slow moon,
Dead to myself, and all I hold most dear,
I move beyond the reach of wind and fire.
Deep in the greens of summer sing the lives
I've come to love. A vireo whets its bill.
The great day balances upon the leaves;
My ears still hear the bird when all is still;
My soul is still my soul, and still the Son,
And knowing this, I am not yet undone.
Things without hands take hands: there is no choice,-
Eternity's not easily come by.
When opposites come suddenly in place,
I teach my eyes to hear, my ears to see
How body from spirit slowly does unwind
Until we are pure spirit at the end.
As changes shimmer in the inner eye.
I stare and stare into a deepening pool
And tell myself my image cannot die.
I love myself: that's my one constancy.
Oh, to be something else, yet still to be!
Sweet Christ, rejoice in my infirmity;
There's little left I care to call my own.
Today they drained the fluid from a knee
And pumped a shoulder full of cortisone;
Thus I conform to my divinity
By dying inward, like an aging tree.
The instant ages on the living eye;
Light on its rounds, a pure extreme of light
Breaks on me as my meager flesh breaks down-
The soul delights in that extremity.
Blessed the meek; they shall inherit wrath;
I'm son and father of my only death.
A mind too active is no mind at all;
The deep eye sees the shimmer on the stone;
The eternal seeks, and finds, the temporal,
The change from dark to light of the slow moon,
Dead to myself, and all I hold most dear,
I move beyond the reach of wind and fire.
Deep in the greens of summer sing the lives
I've come to love. A vireo whets its bill.
The great day balances upon the leaves;
My ears still hear the bird when all is still;
My soul is still my soul, and still the Son,
And knowing this, I am not yet undone.
Things without hands take hands: there is no choice,-
Eternity's not easily come by.
When opposites come suddenly in place,
I teach my eyes to hear, my ears to see
How body from spirit slowly does unwind
Until we are pure spirit at the end.
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