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Many years ago, while doing my undergraduate degree, I experienced an era of tapas. I eliminated anything, and anyone, who stood in my way toward a 4.0. I did nothing else and allowed nothing else into my line of sight. I look back on those months with admiration, but little fondness. I was aggressive and lonely. What I retained from that experience is that pure concentration or focus of direction and goal is extremely hard to maintain, albeit highly admirable on the surface to those who could see only the grades.
I always aim to return to those disciplined days, but I know there was something I was missing – the goal was clear, but the means, the complete fleshing out of the discipline, was not. Since then, there is an aspect of pure discipline that I avoid, simply because I cannot yet picture a way or means other than what I followed in my pursuit of good grades, which had negative effects on those around me.

The opportunity to look into tapas is therefore appropriate and fortuitous, for my understanding of yoga both on and off the mat. Initially I viewed all of the yamas and niyamas as pertaining only to thought and philosophy, and could not transfer them to an asana practice. On the other hand, if ‘mind’ is replaced by ‘mind and movement/body’, it becomes clearer how to bridge the gap I saw before.

Tapas is most often defined as fiery discipline, or the performance of austerities. Fiery discipline implies a strong active force, rather than repetitive rote thought or action. Austerities are performed to cleanse, remove the debris of our wandering minds and actions. What of our thoughts and actions can be cleansed? Loose movements, laziness, random piecemeal thought without aim, these can be slowly eliminated, resulting in Tadasana or Siddhasana in all movement; the comfortable seat in everything we do allowing movement and breath to bring clarity to our brains. That said, it is much easier to imagine an austerity, to imagine an ideal of discipline, than to DO it. This brings back the goal of asana to the definition of tapas. Tapas is like fuel. Unlit it can be stagnant, or if simply lit without aim it will burn itself out, without constant tending; alternatively it can go wild like a forest fire and ruin all things in its path, like my pursuit of perfect grades.

Asana is not about perfect poses. What happens when ‘perfect’ alignment is achieved? Do all yogis then throw in the towel having gotten what they came for? I have the opportunity to watch some of the teachers at the studio where I work, going through poses before class. Some poses are part of their plan, part of what they will put their students’ minds and bodies through, but others are for their own practice. It startles me somewhat to think that they still have a ‘practice’, that I know watching them, that the pose is really not the aim, that there is more but that I don’t yet fully understand what that is yet.

When we begin an asana practice, the first experiences are of struggle, consternation, challenge. As the postures become familiar, and the muscles and mind become more aware of each other, balance, flexibility, strength and stamina grow, but so too do a sense of accomplishment and needing to achieve more and more perfection. The challenge still remains until calmness prevails. With more practice (and it still remains a ‘practice’ for as long as and whenever it is done) focus of the mind slowly comes in view.

Discipline is required to move from one attitude in asana practice to another. At the same time there is no purpose to focus without ‘doing’, without action. Depending on the person/yogi (like myself) action may be required in order to develop discipline. Tapas is regarded as a kriya, a cleansing practice. It is the paring down of all unnecessary things, elements, thoughts, impulses, from moment to moment. Performing asanas as austerities of both mind and movement, not to any god, but to oneself, to the aim of the other yamas and niyamas, makes more sense than simply in the pursuit of a good stretch, which lasts only as long as our bodies retain their health. What is the source of the fiery discipline? Discipline requires self-control. Self-control requires relentless awareness of our every action and every choice toward further action. I suppose this could be expanded to thought as well, and the retaining of concentration through an asana practice.

Retaining concentration does not have to be painful, and there are other ways than self-immolation ☺ to building a strong concentration practice. Discipline in action is practiced in (walking) meditation, yoga asana, or as my driving teacher would say to me, staying centered on the road as one drives, all the time without wavering. He was a Zen master I used to think, always saying “stay centered”, and not much else.

The kind of self-control enlisted to be watchful of every moment being a decision, for clarity and precision of thought, can seem prohibitively harsh. Like teaching a dog to heel, stay, despite all distractions, which will come and go, it is a constant reigning in for the benefit of the mind/yogi/dog, that will ultimately allow him to overcome his aggressive nature, giving room for his sweet side to come out. More than anything, tapas on and off the mat is a combination of internal and external discipline to not let go of our practice.

There is often a lot of talk during an asana class about generating heat. But for what purpose? It is not the heat the results in sweat, but a heat that removes all other thought than asana. All reasons for performing any kriya, including any tapas (yoga asana) is to burn off the residue from previously generated karma, undisciplined action and thought, or harm done to others. These residues are seen as obstacles to enlightenment. Engaging tapas is like a slash-and-burn agricultural approach to karma removal. Ultimately there are no obstacles - in this view it is irrelevant what they may be. It is not important to dwell on them and think them through; tapas will burn through them.
Maintaining tapas, fully and tenaciously engaging with every moment, requires one to recognize that this transformation is both possible, and that it will occur. The burning off of karma, without the creation of new karma, is a complete transformation, a kind of offering of oneself, a surrender. Beyond the tapas, the discipline, is this transformation that is said to release the full potentials of mind, body, and senses (Pada III).

References:

Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Scheepers, A., The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Olive Press 2005, Amsterdam.
http://www.dlshq.org/teachings/rajayoga.htm
http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/455
http://www.yoga.com/ydc/enlighten/enlighten_document.asp?ID=81&section=9&cat=90
www.presentperfect.com.au/docs/Yoga_Philosophy_Niyamas.pdf
http://www.judithlasater.com/a/tensutras.html
**http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/Yoga Philosophy.htm
*http://www.yogawithamey.com/tapas.html