This is Part 3 of a three-part series published by Yoga Australia in 2025
“Like an unbaked earthen pot thrown in water, the body soon decays. Bake it hard in the fire of yoga so as to purify and strengthen that vessel.”
In the above metaphor by the sage Gheraṇḍa (GhS I.8), the body is a pot (ghaṭa) and we are urged to work hard to make this vessel worthy of its contents.
We all know that world mythologies are full of symbols and metaphors, since nothing is better than a powerful image to get a message across. Indian literature is also replete with symbolism to highlight concepts or ideas.
There is a well-known parable found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Kūrma Purāṇa etc., which beautifully sums up the essence of āsana, the third limb of Patañjali’s Yoga.
What happens in the ocean does not stay in the ocean:
It begins with the story of a spiritual journey by the gods and demons. There are a few versions of the story but the main gist is as follows: as a result from a curse by the sage Durvāsas, the god Indra lost his sovereignty over the three worlds. Indra was deeply apologetic but the sage Durvāsas did not budge (he was not known for his patience). From that moment the world withered away, people were in the throngs of deep suffering, noble virtues were decaying. Things had to be set right and a powerful intervention was needed to reverse the curse, but how?
Indra and the other deities were despondent, and whilst licking their wounded pride, they asked Brahmā for advice. “Go to ask Viṣṇu for protection”, said Brahmā, and off they went. Viṣṇu declared that gods and demons should form an alliance and collaborate in order to bring out the nectar of immortality (amṛta). They were to cast healing herbs into the milk ocean, then place the sacred mountain Mandara as a churning rod on the ocean floor. “Then” said Viṣṇu, “take the serpent Vāsuki, king of the Nāgas, and wrapped it as a cord around the mountain. With the gods holding one end and demons the other, you can pull to churn the milk ocean until the nectar is released”. Furthermore, Viṣṇu promised his assistance in securing the coveted nectar for the gods once it came out, so they could consume it to restore their status and remedy the world’s ills.
It sounded like a good plan, so they set to work and the churning began… until the mountain started to sink deeper into the ocean floor, compromising the whole process. Thankfully Viṣṇu saved the day again, manifesting as a giant tortoise (Kūrma) to sit firmly at the bottom of the ocean and carry Mandara on his back while the gods and demons kept pulling, turning the mountain and churning the milk ocean. Eventually the job was done and the nectar extracted along with other celestial and earthly objects. The story says that amongst the things that came out there was also a deadly poison called halāhala or kālakūṭa, which of course no one wanted.
An interesting situation indeed! What the milk ocean released was literally the best and the worst (nectar and poison) but we will save the rest of this story for another article: there is too much in this legend for us to unpack here.
Moving and non-moving parts:
Now, let us examine the mountain, the snake and the tortoise through the lens of yoga postures.
With its extremely solid shell, the tortoise can be trusted to support the weight of the mountain with perfect stillness, perfect poise. It epitomizes steadiness, the sthira of Patañjali’s Yogasūtra (II.46): no force can shift it, and it will not sink beneath the ocean floor even under the mountain’s formidable weight. In the myth, it is almost as if the mountain and tortoise were fused together for the sole purpose of liberating amṛta. Likewise, in yoga postures, there must always be an anchor point, our very own expression of Kūrma, the firm base supporting us: both feet (or one foot) when we stand, the pelvic girdle when we sit, our back side when we lie, etc. It should be an important consideration whether the āsana performed is symmetrical or not.
By contrast, Mandara, the ‘churning stick’, is always in motion: it turns, revolves under the dual action of opposite forces. As the backbone of the process, its movements must be smooth rather than brisk, continuous rather than interrupted, regular rather than erratic (forward, back, forward, back…) as the gods and demons work together towards the result. If movements were to ‘stop and go’, the churning would not be effective. So the mountain is a metaphor of the spinal column moving in perfect unison with the breath, for when we move in or out of āsana it is accompanied either by inhalation or exhalation, and they too must be smooth, not forced. The mobility of the spinal column in āsana cannot be neglected.
That leaves Vāsuki, the mythical serpent. Also called Ananta (‘the Endless’) or Śeṣa, it is probably one of the most complex Vedic symbols. In the above parable, Vāsuki is the cord turning the mountain, so it is the agent of movement, the inhalation-exhalation pair, toing and froing. Breath gives momentum to movement, it is continuous, and there is always movement in breathing even when the body seems perfectly still.
In other myths, Ananta has one thousand heads or hoods to represent infinity. In the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Ananta is an emblem of eternity. We can see his coils but we may not make out where his head and tail are, so it looks like he has ‘no beginning and no end’, a symbol of divinity and infinite wisdom. It also denotes the infinite number of ways to perform yoga postures, which are themselves infinite in numbers, as stated numerous times in ancient texts.
While soft and supple, the body of the snake is also firm and strong. In other imagery, Ananta’s coils are forming a couch for Viṣṇu to rest in yoganidrā once his work is done.* Ananta allows Viṣṇu to sleep on his coils and at the same time holds the universe on top of his head, a striking metaphor of āsana combining the opposite qualities sukha and sthira: comfortable enough to be Viṣṇu’s bed, yet strong enough to carry the world on his head without shaking. What’s more, Ananta is achieving this with the eagle Garuḍa (Viṣṇu’s vehicle) sitting nearby: this bird is a predator and enemy of the serpent race, yet Ananta is not disturbed by Garuḍa’s presence.
This sums up the yoga posture: in āsana, things must move but they must remain stable, and we need a strong support to be able to move well. Movement may be inevitable but we should not forget that there is no such thing as standard postures or standard ways to perform them. And finally, like Ananta next to his predator Garuḍa, can we remain calm when dealing with fear or stress? Can we look at our own predator in the eye and say: “I will be fine”?
Valerie Fimat-Faneco
* Images of Viṣṇu’s rest are plentiful and well-known to yoga teachers, especially to illustrate yoganidrā and śavāsana, the corpse pose.
