Pink of Perfection

When my sister first sent me the details of our yoga retreat, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Hanuman, the monkey god, was the weekend’s theme, and while he might be a fine guy, I couldn’t get Hanumanasana, his namesake pose, out of my head. I was nearly enough to make me not want to go: it’s a pose I find uncomfortable, scary, and not to put too fine a point on it, just yuck.

But, as I learned over the weekend, Hanuman is so much more than the splits. Can I tell you a bit about him? You might learn to love him as much as I did.

We began each class gathered around our teachers to listen to stories from Hanuman’s life. Sitting under the windows of our wide, sunny room, surrendering to a tale, felt like being at the feet of a storyteller on the green carpet of my elementary school library. I loved it.

Monkeys will be monkeys, and Hanuman is very playful and mischievous. He has the power to get very large or very small. Giant-sized, he juggles boulders and wreaks havoc but–whoops!–it’s really all in the name of good fun. And this is what’s so lovely about Hanuman: while he’s a strong, fierce warrior, he also has a wide-open, loving heart, and a joyfulness that delights in play.

Yoga itself is play. It might be hard to remember this when sweat is dripping into your eyes and the woman on the mat next to you has her face set in a humorless, determined glare, but yoga is devotional play. We sit at desks, walk in straight lines, stand upright; but in yoga, we splay, we stretch, and turn upside-down; we hop, contort, and hopefully, laugh.

Many of the stories we heard about Hanuman over the weekend involved his great leaps; his first leap, when he’s a little baby monkey is a playful one. Mistaking the sun for the world’s biggest, juiciest mango, he catapults himself toward it, mouth wide open. The sun––understandably worried––enlists the help of Indra, lord of the heavens, to divert Hanuman’s collision course. Indra throws a thunderbolt at Hanuman, hitting him squarely in the jaw. The sun is saved, and Hanuman, that adorable, hungry monkey, tumbles back to earth with a broken jaw.

Hanuman, that wonderfully playful, strong, loving monkey is broken, my teachers said. We are all broken in some way. The world is broken and by living in it, it can break us. And that is how it’s all meant to be: imperfect, flawed, asymmetrical, and cracked. That’s how the light gets in. When we give up our efforts toward perfection, we can meet ourselves where we are, as we are. We can wrap ourselves in a fierce, loving, monkey-paw embrace. And instead of perfecting, we play.

Our last class on Sunday afternoon ended, of course, in Hanumanasana. By that point in the weekend, my heart felt as wide open as Hanuman’s. Sinking into the pose, inching down closer to the ground, hamstrings stretched to the limit, I tried to feel the playful challenge of the pose. It hurt, and I tried to smile. Even in difficulty, perhaps we can find the delight. Maybe the challenge is to find the play. To not take ourselves, our lives, or work, or our yoga so damn seriously.

Some questions to think about: What in your life feels like play? What just feels utterly joyful? How can we bring more play into your days? What makes your heart feel light and young, like a swinging monkey?