Yoga5 is a creative name to encapsulate Anusara yoga’s practice and Tantric philosophy, which include:
The 5 Universal Principles of Alignment™ of Anusara yoga, which are expressions of the 5 elements, the most condensed form of consciousness per the Hindu Tantric philosophical understanding of reality. They are the building blocks of all things in the universe. Cultivating a resonance with the qualities of these elements in our body/minds through practicing the Universal Principles of Alignment opens up the matrix into our own deepest identity. This ‘set of 5’ of the 5 elements repeats itself more and more subtley through the enumerated description of reality known as the Tattvas – 7 sets of 5 principles (plus 1!) that go from our most tangible experience of earth, water, fire, air and space – and our most tangible experience of ourselves: our bodies, personalities, and emotions - all the way into the absolute realm of consciousness with its five ultimate powers. To me it’s ever astonishing that we can smell, taste, see, touch and hear our way back into a deeper and more free experience of ourselves. It’ s fascinating too that we see this auspicious number and pattern reflected in 5 fingers and toes, 5 limbs radiating from our core, and more!
The 5 Sanskrit syllables – Na Ma Shi Va Ya – also correspond with the 5 elements and lower 5 chakras and make up the ‘maha mantra’ that begins the Anusara invocation – Om Namah Shivaya.
5 appears again in the mythological symbol of the Shiva Nataraj, the cosmic dancer, who dances the whole of reality into being and embodies Consciousness and its Bliss. The 5 acts of Shiva are creation, maintenance, and dissolution along with the play of concealment and grace-bestowing revelation. The practice of Anusara yoga takes us into deeper relationship with the potency of this symbol as our own deepest heart. 5 is the number of the Guru, related to the weight of Jupiter, a metaphor of the weight of our own spiritual truth.