How to Balance Structure and Creativity in Spiritual Practice - an ashtangi’s perspective

I’ve always been a hard-working person. A person that appreciates discipline and rigidity. Maybe that’s what draws me to both Ashtanga Yoga and Kung Fu as physical practices. I don’t mind struggling or feeling pain – in fact, I sometimes think that coming close to my physical limits is what makes me feel truly alive.

Sometimes, after an intense Ashtanga practice, when I lay sweating on my mat, my body being as open as it can be, my mind calm and clear, I have this thought: This is it, I don’t need anything more. Stripped down to the bare body, no accessories, no decoration. Just being.

Recently, I’ve had a dream. I was walking with a group of people in the desert. We had very little to survive. We had to reduce ourselves to the basics. I remember feeling good about it. Why did I feel good about it? Everyone else would be afraid, or at least uncomfortable. What is it in me that makes me want this? Enjoy this?

I like the struggle. I like feeling it because it makes me feel like there’s some type of evolution. Can evolution happen without struggle? Ty Landrum says that you have to look into the well of sorrow – otherwise, no liberation can happen. Vipassana teaches to practice equanimity in the face of pain.

But still. In recent weeks, I’ve been feeling exhausted. Because I was too concerned with following my practices the way it should be. Despite going through a time of change – a new job, a break-up – a time of change that required the practices to be adjusted.

When we stick to these rules, no matter what, we actually kill the fire. The fire that makes us love these practices in the first place, the fire that makes us run, bend, test our limits.

I think what some people – including me – sometimes misunderstand is that “flow” isn’t that thing that comes easy. The thing that New Age Spirituality uses to escape the fact that reality isn’t always pretty, that life can be tough sometimes. Flow can express itself in a seemingly rigid Ashtanga practice, it can be dance, it can be fight, it can be bodybuilding. Flow needs the structure – a regular diligent practice – but it doesn’t need dogma. Dogma and discipline aren’t the same.

If you don’t leave the space for creativity to flourish, you practice can kill your spark. It can kill that what makes me enjoy the desert. Then practicing Ashtanga doesn’t feel like you’re opening up, it feels like closing down. Your face gets tense, you don’t enjoy others’ company anymore, no ideas appear in your mind.

Finding the balance between structure and flow, between discipline and creativity isn’t easy – especially with all the dogmas and recipes floating around. What’s most important is to listen - and to preserve and protect our capacity to listen – to oneself, to adapt the practice when it’s necessary, and to always keep a little bit of empty space (and time) for creativity to rise.