Where does meditation exist in the physical practice of yoga?

The very first description I heard of yoga was this concept of unity, the coming together in some way of body, breath and mind. I would hear this idea over and over again, this mention of the breath and some relationship it had to my yoga practice but I’ll be honest, I couldn’t really understand how to make it tangible. It felt like some distant far-away spell that would one day just land on me and I would be whole. In that space I stayed for some 20 years of practice.

Then one day the nuances of how to breathe and how to move with the breath, were taught to me as the most important part of my practice; as the very foundation upon which every conscious movement grows. No longer an add on to the movement but an intricately woven, inseparable marriage. Suddenly (by suddenly I refer to the twenty years it had taken for me to be ready to understand) this particular translation of yoga to mean unity, was beginning to make some sense.

So where then does the mind come into it? If all aspects of yoga are present in every other aspect of yoga, at all times in order for that moment to in fact be yoga, where does the dharana (meditation) come into play during this time of asana (physical movement) and pranayama (conscious breath)?

This was so simple that I still giggle at how long it took me to understand this one translation of yoga as being the unity of body, breath and mind. A great lesson as to how the mind can overcomplicate even the simplest of things. In fact, who else finds this happens no more often than in their yoga practice?? How we complicate the concepts of the yoga sutra, how those of us who are teachers overcomplicate instructions of asana or pranayama and definitely the philosophy, creating this idea that we are the only ones who can understand such complex knowledge, when it’s our job to UN-complicate the overthinking that may be present in the student. The over complication of things being one of the very obstacles that the mind puts on our path to prevent us from progressing.

In order to maintain the technique of breath (every inhale fill the high belly, every exhale empty from the low belly in and up), as well as the relationship between the breath and the movement (breath begins, movement begins, movement ends, breath ends) the mind must be focused to the breath. As the breath elongates through the nature of practice (staying steady and at ease throughout), every breath provides a longer moment for the mind to be focused, distiling into the potent moments of pause between every breath so that no longer is it easy to see if the mind is leading the breath or the breath is leading the mind. Both are happening, they are in reflection of each other. We have become that! And all throughout, the movement being born within the parameters of those breaths, a hundred stunning moments of stillness that happen in every asana practice as we patiently wait for the next breath to begin before the next movement unfurls!

I’ve since heard many different, all true and potent definitions of yoga since first experiencing it 25 years ago in Far North Queensland:

santi - peace even when circumstances are not favourable,
samskara - conditioning
sannahanam - clean/purify
sangati - to move together; action and effect
yukti - the most intelligent way forward

and ‘Apraptasya praptih yogah’ any step that was not previously experienced, is experienced (incremental improvement).

Every one of these definitions is worthy of exploration as they all provide a pathway toward the same end goal: to dissolve the tight walls of attachment, that we meaninglessly fight to protect.