Behind The Pose - Hanumanasana

Hanuman, a character in the Indian epic, Ramayana, is King Rama's bestie, confidant, and most loyal courtier. 

As the story goes, King Rama sent Hanuman to save his wife, Sita, from the demon Ravana who has her imprisoned in the island of Lanka across the Indian Ocean from the Indian subcontinent. Hanuman will do anything for his friend Rama, and heads toward the ocean without having any idea of how he is going to accomplish this feat. Once he to the edge of the ocean, he prayed that he would be filled with the grace that it would take to do the impossible. When he got up, he grew multiple times his size and was able to step right over the ocean and continued on his quest to save Sita. In his leap, one of his foot reached forward toward Lanka and one foot reached back to push off of the beach. This is where the pose hanumanasana comes from. 

The thing to remember about Hanuman, is that he had the ability to achieve the impossible within him all along. Hanuman is the son of the wind and had the ability to grow very large or very small, to move mountains and to shape shift in general. But he was always forgetting his divinity, so he turned to faith to give him the confidence to do what he needed. 

What we can learn from Hanuman is to always remember our divinity. That we have the capability of achieving what might appear to be impossible, and sometimes it just takes a little faith to take the leap. 💛