Practitioners inevitably encounter personal obstacles in yoga and life, and how individuals handle these challenges ultimately matters more than the hurdles themselves. Classical yoga is clearly goal-oriented toward enlightenment, though setting interim goals can help practitioners move in the right direction and provide valuable mileposts along the way.
Identifying Vikshepas
When pursuing goals in yoga and elsewhere in your life, individuals will inevitably come up against hurdles that Patanjali refers to as vikshepas. The nine specific obstacles enumerated by Patanjali include illness, listlessness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, cravings, delusion, inability to progress, and instability in maintaining progress. Depending on a person’s individual nature and the specific goals they have set, they will run into some of these obstacles more readily than others before eventually encountering them all.
Facing Challenges
There are no rigid rules for overcoming these barriers, meaning what works in one situation may or may not work in another. Teachers and personal practice serve as guides to help build a repertoire of responses and refine the skills needed to use various tools. Among these tools, a sense of playfulness known in yogic terminology as lila can prove invaluable for practitioners.
Finding Seriousness in Playful Yoga Practice
While lila involves cultivating playfulness, it does not mean being casual or careless. Being serious about practice remains extremely important because yoga connects practitioners with profound and fundamental questions about existence and purpose. However, serious and grim are not synonymous, allowing practitioners to remain serious about yoga while simultaneously enjoying their practice.
This Yoga Journal Archives feature was originally published in the July-August 2000 issue as part of a curated collection of past articles beginning in 1975.
