Savasana is the ultimate act of conscious surrender. It takes practice and patience to surrender easily. It intends to prepare the body to separate from the soul, which is only possible with an absolute physical surrender. However physical surrender is not possible without surrendering the EGO. It is said that real shavasana is a serious meditative state. Why do we do that beside getting a rest or may be even reaching that meditative state after our practice?
To prepare for DEATH.
Fear of death, says the yoga tradition, is one of the primary sources of our suffering.
In fact, ‘fear of death’ or ‘clinging to life’ is the fifth klesha (source of suffering) outlined in the Yoga Surtras of Patanjali. What the Yoga Sutras point out is that it is not the death of the physical body that we are most afraid of, rather, it is the death of the ego, the death of the story of ‘I’. If we can see that the core of who we are exists beyond the ego, we will realise that the ‘I story’ we cling to is an illusion anyway and we don’t have to wait until the end of our life to let it go.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains this to Arjuna, saying that only that which is not real anyway can perish. The physical body is no more than the clothing for our soul, and in matters of yoga, clothing is not what counts. The part of us that is pure consciousness and pure energy may take on a form that is unfamiliar from our own but it cannot, and will not, die. This is what savasana asks us to consider. Contemplating death helps us to understand this reality. It also gives us a sense of the preciousness of life and in doing so, calls us into greater presence, to make good use of the time we do have on this earth and in this way it is a motivating force. As much as we fear it, contemplating it also gives us a measure of freedom and perspective. This is what savasana represents; an act of letting go. Everything we cling to becomes insignificant in the face of death and so savasana represents the death, or surrender of our individual ego to the universal consciousness. Are you ready for that?