Why The Corpse Pose Is Not That Easy As It Looks?

 

What is in a Corpse Pose? We just have to lie down on the floor with spine grounded. Simple, isn’t it? It is quite a tendency among the common people to consider the Shavasana (corpse pose) as the most simplistic of all the yoga poses. But, if you ask the experts, nothing can be farther from the truth. If the asanas or poses are graded as beginner, intermediate and advanced level ones depending on the difficulty level, then this asana might be placed at the intermediate level, not in the beginner level category. Why?

The reason why this is not an easy pose to do is that it involved considerable mindfulness which is not easy to cultivate. The beginners will take some time to develop this to the level which is required in doing this pose. It is only with the regular and conscious practice that mindfulness meditation activity can be mastered. It might take weeks or even months to do it. In fact, this corpse pose could itself be used as one of the methods or daily techniques for doing mindfulness meditation.

So, how do the two correlate? Shavasana requires you to move your conscious attention from one point to another, throughout the body, with the clear objective of making every nerve and every cell to shed off tension and stress and relax. When the attention moves along, you get to feel the tension in muscles and nerves, and then you loosen it up consciously. This stress-relief is to be done from toe to head, covering all parts of the body.

When you are doing this precise exercise, the body does not move since every movement will also require some sort of tension to develop which your activated mindfulness will not allow. This will result in you being totally immobile, not because you cannot move, but because you are thoroughly enjoying the induced relaxation and are not letting the strain to develop. To the onlookers you are lying still, just like a dead person. But, deep within you, you are moving the attention to all parts of body and relaxing them one by one.  The effort required to remain like that takes time to cultivate.