‘Performance’ in Yoga Philosophy
What do you think of when you hear the word performance?
Peak, optimal and efficient are all words that we might see preluding performance on the packets of supplements, smoothies and gym snacks. The ‘High Performance Podcast’ interview a line-up of athletes, broadcasters and entrepreneurs who are all famed for their achievements along Western success metrics of money, athleticism and fame.
Companies can out-perform one another financially. We might be required to attend an annual performance review in our work, where we can be congratulated for a good performance but also punished, or even fired, for a poor one.
This all feels very different to the act of performance we can feel as a participatory and co-creative act on stage through theatre, dance or live music. Whether we are the actor in the play or the observer in the audience, we can be immersed in the act of artistic self-expression (or not). Through awareness, this act of performance can be expressed. This is much closer to the way we might see performance in the context of yoga philosophy.
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The word performance (Siddhi) appears in the first of twenty sutras in The Recognition Sutras.
‘Awareness, free and independent, is the cause of the performance of everything’
Here, performance is the expressive nature of the absolute, or life itself, continually manifesting itself through you in every moment. Performance is the act of life willing itself into being. Performance is an act of process. It’s not permanent and you can’t hold on to it.
This performance starts from the moment your cells begin to unfold upon themselves, an intricate and beautiful dance of becoming that moves you through the stages of your life.
In this definition there is no peak or optimal performance, but instead a constant self-exploration.
In Christopher Wallis’ commentary on the text he writes:
“The word ‘performance’ rightly suggests that all activity is the artistic self-expression of the Absolute: sometimes a joyous dance, other times a tragic play, but like all art, always a self-conscious exploration that yields wondrous beauty as its fruit.”
The only purpose to this performance? The joy of seeing and being seen in our true nature.
When I consider this word in my movement practice it allows for freedom of expression, enquiry and exploration. This can be found in the act of inquisitive spontaneous movement but it can also be found by opening curiosity and shapes and patterns we already know.