I have previously practiced asana with the belief that balance was achieved by keeping a balanced breathe, drishti, and frame of mind even while those around you fall (and maybe yourself as well). I believed that balance was the sensation of being grounded and rooted. This past week I stuck every handstand (which is not the norm) but found it difficult to balance in seemingly easier postures i.e. tree, half-moon. It seems that in the physical practice, when one posture becomes easier, another becomes harder. Perhaps this is the definition of balance? Life on and off our mats is a series of ebbs and flows. Anyone with similar thoughts or experiences?
I think “balance” is such a profound and very interesting topic. “Feeling grounded and rooted” is one way to achieve balance, so is “keeping a balanced breathe, drishti, and frame of mind even while those around you fall”.
But to me, “balance” is more like the state of equanimity, when one is not distracted by the fluctuations of the mind identifying with the “good” and the “bad”, the “yes” and the “no”, the “right” and the “wrong”. It’s the state when I can just sit right there peacefully accepting whatever in the present moment as it is.
Everything is in a state of balance:
?Everything moves according to its nature. Where is the need of a policeman? Every action creates a reaction, which balances and neutralises the action. Everything happens, but there is a continuous cancelling out, and in the end it is as if nothing happened.? ~Nisargadatta
Hmmmmm it’s a very broad term. To be grounded and rooted could facilitate the type of balance defined as “stability produced by even distribution of weight on each side of the vertical axis” as in vrksasana, ardha chandrasana, Natarajasana, Padangusthasana, et al.
However a larger view of balance would have to include a duality - for example grounded/rooting in proportion with rising and aspiration. Two opposing forces would need to be present in equal proportion.
With regard to not falling in posture and the inclusion of breath, gaze, and frame of mind, yes there are three basic components to that type of balance; the physiology, the focus of the mind or concentration, and movement/control of respiration. The gaze or drishti is a subset of the second component. How they are balanced, in what measures, etc I believe varies from person to person, moment to moment, pose to pose.
I have not personally found a reciprocal relationship between “easy” poses and “challenging” ones. After some years of practice (or if one is exceptionally open and deeply connected to self) the postures are only experiential and the ones you stay in are not different from the ones you fall in, other than to educate you about you in that particular moment.