In fact, Patanjali doesn’t cease with apply alone. In Yoga Sutra 1.12, it explores how a gentle thoughts is cultivated by each abhyasa and vairagya.
If abhyasa is a wholehearted effort, vairagya is the willingness to let go. It’s releasing attachment to outcomes, expectations, and the tales we create about what our apply ought to appear like.
With out vairagya, our effort can grow to be one other achievement to chase. We start measuring ourselves by how typically we apply, how versatile we’ve grow to be, or whether or not we’re progressing shortly sufficient. The very apply meant to regular the thoughts turns into one other place the place the thoughts creates expectations.
This educating invitations us to discover the steadiness between effort and ease. Some days we naturally lean towards self-discipline, whereas different days we crave softness. Yoga reminds us that each are crucial.
B.Ok.S. Iyengar described these ideas as two wings of the identical chook:
“A chook can not fly with one wing. In the identical method, we want the 2 wings of abhyasa and vairagya to soar.”
This concept additionally echoes one other foundational educating in yoga: sthira and sukha. Sthira presents steadiness, whereas sukha presents ease. Simply as each posture invitations us to steadiness stability with spaciousness, our internal apply asks us to steadiness effort with letting go.