Richard's Asana Breakdown: NAVASANA

NAVASANA (nah-VAHS-uh-nuh)

nāva = boat

The Sanskrit nāva is cognate with the Latin naus, ship, from which we get words like navy, astronaut, and nausea, which originally was a word for seasickness. 

There are two versions of Boat in Light on Yoga (hereafter LoY), ardha (are-duh), which means “half,” and paripurna (par-ee-POOR-nuh), which means “full” (purna by itself means “full,” pari is an intensifier, I supppose then paripurna means “full to the brim”). As you may know, most of the 198 poses in the book are given what might be called “difficulty ratings,” on a scale, oddly enough, from 1 to 60, the former assigned to Mountain Pose (tadasana), the latter assigned only to one pose, the antepenultimate, Tiriang Mukhottanāsana, a standing backbend in which the practitioner rounds back and holds her ankles with her hands. Don’t expect this one in the breakdown any time soon.

The Half Boat is rated 2, which makes it seem just one notch up from standing upright. Many of my students may quibble over this rating, at least if it’s held for more than about 15 seconds. The description of Full Boat follows right on the heels of Half, so it has no separate section of its own, and as a result it has no rating. 

There are actually two traditional Boat poses, both found in the 18th century Hatha Abhyasa Paddhati and the 19th century Shri Tattva Nidhi. One, Naukasana (nauka means “small boat or “ship”) looks very much like our Half (as illustrated in a 19th century drawing). The difference is that while our Half is performed in LoY with the hands clasped on the back of the head, the practitioner in the older pose has his palms under his buttocks, and so is resting on his forearms. This would seem to make the pose somewhat easier (rating 1½?). The other, Tiryan Naukasana,  looks (again from its drawing) something like a shoulder stand with the torso and legs raised to about a 45̊ angle relative to the floor, which gives this pose its name; tiryan means “oblique.” I don’t know if this was ever done, but the former pose could move to the latter and vice versa. From Nauka, the practitioner could roll back onto his shoulders, lift his torso and legs to the proper angle, and support himself with his hands on his buttocks. 

Such a sequencing of our two Boats is also possible. In LoY, both Boats begin in Staff Pose, but let’s make it slightly easier and start in Ball Pose (kandukasana) instead. Lie supine on the floor, then with an exhale, curl up into a tight ball: firm your belly, lift your head to your knees, and wrap your arms around your shins. Ideally you should be resting on your sacrum with the rest of your back torso away from the floor. 

1. While you continue to squeeze the left thigh to your belly and hold your head to the knee, let go of your right leg and with an inhale, stretch it out, aligning the big toe with your right eye (Quarter Boat?). Press through the heel and base of the big toe, and hold for 15 to 30 seconds, depending on your seaworthiness. When time is up, exhale and draw the right thigh back into your belly. 

2. At this point you have two choices. For more challenge (and who doesn’t want more challenge in their life nowadays?), maintain the Ball, and take few breaths before repeating on the left. For less challenge, deflate the Ball and release your torso, head and feet to the floor. Take a few breaths, and then re-inflate. In either case, repeat what you did with your right leg with your left. Try to hold for same length of time you did on the right. Once you’re back in Ball, you again have two choices, maintain or release, prior to doing the complete pose. 

3. Now you’re ready to launch your Half Boat. From Ball, inhale and reach out through your heels and again align your big toes with your eyes. Ideally your belly is firm but not hard. There are various ways you can deploy your hands and arms. In LoY, the hands are clasped on the back of the head. If you do this, you can do one of two things: press your hands firmly against the back of your head, which provides some support for the lifted torso, or again for more challenge, just rest them lightly in place. You could also start with firm pressure and gradually lessen it. 

You could also stretch your arms (oars?) out toward your feet, more or less parallel to the floor and each other. Again hold for 15 to 30 seconds, breathing as normally as possible, then sink to the floor. 

4. Of course you could also enter the pose as described in LoY. Sit in Staff Pose (dandasana), clasp your hands on the back of your head, exhale, and roll back onto your sacrum. No other part of your back torso should touch the floor. As you roll back, simultaneously lift your legs into position and hold for your preferred length of time. 

Now for Full Boat

5. Sit in Staff Pose (dandasana). Press your hands against the floor (or blocks) beside your hips, and apply some backward pressure too, as if you’re trying to slide them behind the torso. Use that downward-backward pressure to firm the shoulder blades against your back and lift the top of your sternum straight up. 

6. Maintaining the firmness of the shoulder blades and the length of your front torso, lean slightly back onto your tail bone, so that you’re sitting on the “tripod” composed of the tail and your two sit bones. Be sure not to simply slump back. 

7. We’ll enter the pose in stages. 

a. Bend your knees, touch your feet to the floor, and hold onto the backs of your thighs just above the knees. 

b. Inhale, and lift your feet a few inches off the floor. Pull your thighs toward your torso, but at the same time, press your thighs into your resisting hands, so the thighs are held in place between those two pressures. This will further assist the lift of the front torso. 

c. Now maintaining the balanced pressure between hands and thighs, inhale and lift your shins parallel to the floor. This may be as far as you can comfortably sail for the time being. Hold for 15 to 30 seconds and release. After a few breaths you might want to repeat. 

d. If you want to go farther, inhale and straighten your knees, try to raise the feet sightly higher than your head. Press actively through the heels and big toe mounds. 

8. For the full pose, inhale, release your thighs and reach your oars out beside your legs, parallel to each other and the floor. Widen equally across your upper back and chest. Bring your sternum toward your chin and soften your throat. Breathe easily. However far you sail, again hold for 15 to 30 seconds and sink onto the floor. That taste of salt is probably coming from your sweat. 

9. There’s actually an exercise that looks a lot like Full Boat but is grouped with the seals (mudra), called Vajroli Mudra. It makes Full Boat slightly easier. It’s described in the 18th century Gheranda Samhita at 3.39 (a different version of this mudra is described in the Hatha Pradipika, it’s NOT the one you want). The torso and legs are arranged exactly as they are in Full Boat, but the hands are pressed to the floor slightly behind the torso, fingers pointing forward. It’s said to “awaken Shakti and bring about long life.” It’s certainly worth a try. 

Sequencing the Boats

As mentioned previously, we can sequence these two poses to add to their challenge. Start in Staff and move into Full Boat. Slowly release your torso onto the sacrum, rounding your back,  and at the same time, lower your legs to bring the big toes opposite your eyes. Stay in Half Boat for a time that suits you, and then with an inhale, lift back to Full Boat. You can do this several times if you like, holding each position briefly, a sort of yoga sit-ups. End in Staff. 

Beginners’ Tips

For many beginning students, the Boats are closer to 60 on the difficulty scale than 2. Don’t despair, props can help. For Half Boat, lie with your shoulder blades on a yoga block or bolster. When you curl up, maintain your contact with the support. You can also or instead support your feet by simply pressing them on a wall, or resting them on some prop. You can start this way, just to get a feel for the pose. Then gradually, over time, rest your torso and/or legs more and more lightly on the support, until one day you’ll be able to sail away from the sup-port and out to sea. 

For Full Boat brace a solid chair against a wall and pad the front edge of the seat with a blanket. Then sit a little in front of the chair and lean back against it. From here you can work with your legs as described previously, starting with your feet slightly off the floor and proceeding from there to your capacity. Again, over time, rest more and more lightly against the seat, until you can do without. 

Advanced Tip

Want more challenge? OK, perform the Boats with a sand bag held to your chest with crossed arms. Alternatively, do the poses with 2 pound ankle weights wrapped around your ankles. 

Richard's Asana Breakdown: MĀLĀSANA II

MĀLĀSANA II

(muh-LAHS-uhnnna)

Garland Pose

mālā = wreath, garland, rosary. Note the Sanskrit spelling of the rosary-type “mālā” has two long a’s, and shouldn’t be confused with “mala,” with two short a’s, which means “dirt, dust, impurity.” This pose is named for the way the arms are “wreathed” around, or almost around, the torso. 

One of the principal schools of the yoga tradition is Mantra Yoga, the central practice of which, no surprise, is the recitation of mantras. The Sanskrit word for this repeated uttering of a mantra is japa (“whispered, muttered”), the practitioner is called a jāpaka or japa yogi. While sometimes the practice calls for just a few repetitions of the mantra, other times the number of repetitions can run into the hundreds, thousands, or in extreme cases, millions. The jāpaka, who’s intently focused on the right pronunciation of the mantra and its meaning, obviously needs some simple way to help her keep track of her repetitions without distracting her attention. And so she uses a mālā, the Hindu equivalent of the Christian rosary. 

The word mālā names any wreath or necklace, but it’s mostly associated with a necklace-like string of beads that’s used to help jāpakas keep track of their recitations. Each round of the recitation begins and ends at what’s called the head or guru or Meru bead, an uncounted bead on the string usually distinguished from the others by being slightly larger or tasseled or both. For each repetition the jāpaka moves one bead along the string.

Nowadays 108 is the number of beads most closely associated with the mālā. But through its long thousand year history, we find references to mālās with a range of numbers of beads, from the mid teens to the mid 80s, though some have more than 108. For example, there’s a reference in a 10th century CE text, the Paramārthasāra (Essence of Supreme Truth), to a mālā with 244 beads (v. 78). Some of these numbers are relatable to 108, such as 18 (108 stripped of its middle zero) and 27 (one-fourth of 108), while others have no particular relationship at all (e.g., 15, 30, 50). Remember then that though 108 beads is very common for a mālā, it’s not the only number possible. 

B. K. S. Iyengar teaches two versions of Malasana. Usually if there are two or more variations of the same pose, the more challenging version has the higher number (e.g., virabhadrasana II compared to virabhadrasana III). But with Malasana the first is far more challenging for the average than the second. The version described here is closer to what he calls Malasana II, and is suitable for experienced beginning students. 

1. Stand in Tadasana with your feet hip width and parallel to each other. Then bend your knees into a full squat, with your buttocks sitting on your heels. If it’s not possible for you to comfortably squat with both heels on the floor, or to squat for more than a few seconds without feeling pain in the legs and hips, raise your heels on a sand bag or thickly-folded blanket. 

2. Open your knees wider than hip width and, exhaling, lean your torso between your thighs. Lengthen the sides of your torso by releasing your inner groins deep into your pelvis. Bend and widen your elbows, and lay your hands on the floor so they’re wider than your feet. Squeeze your inner thighs against the sides of your torso, and work your shins into your armpits. Press your arms back against the shins to further lengthen the sides of the torso. Take a few breaths. 

3. Then on an exhale round your back and release your head toward the floor. With an another exhale, slide your hands back along the floor and grip your heels or the backs of your ankles. Stretch the entire back of your torso and neck, compressing but not hardening your belly and front throat.

4. Stay for 30 seconds to a minute. With each inhale, expand your back torso; with each exhale, release the inner groins and deepen the pose. Finally let go of your heels/ankles, lift your head and torso with an inhale, and with a last inhale straighten your knees back into standing forward bend (uttanasana).

5. Can’t squat? Take a sturdy chair, secure it on a sticky mat or brace it against a wall, and sit down as close to the front edge of the seat as you can without falling off. Separate your thighs to a right angle, and point your feet in line with the knees. Inhale, lift the top of your sternum straight up, the exhale and lower your torso between your thighs. If your knees collapse inward, join your palms together in front of your chest, and with your elbows against the inner thighs (as close to the groins as is possible for you), press your thighs back to a right angle. To exit the pose, follow the instructions in item (4) above. 

Benefits:

Stretches the ankles, calves, thighs, groins, and back spine 

Strengthens the muscles of the fronts of the legs 

Stimulates the abdominal organs

Improves digestion  

Contraindications:

Students with serious ankle, knee, or low back injuries should avoid this pose, or work on a chair as described in (5) above. 

 Modifications & Props:

Many beginners will have a difficult time gripping the heels with their hands. Before you squat in preparation for this position, lay a strap on the floor just behind your heels. When you’re ready to take the hands back, reach for the strap. Walk your hands along the strap and closely to the heels as possible. Then pull the strap firmly forward against your heels. 

Variations:

As mentioned, Malasana I is a more challenging variation of Malasana II, as described here. For Malasana I, perform steps 1 and 2 as described above. Then with an exhale, instead of reaching for your heels, sweep your hands around behind your back and use one hand to clasp the fingers or wrist of the other. Come out of the pose as described above. Good luck.

Beginners’ Tip: Beginners often have difficulty in this pose, both with the squat and bringing the torso through the legs, because of tight groins. Here’s a good exercise to open the groins and improve your squat. Sit on the front edge of a chair seat (make sure the chair is either fixed by a sticky mat or braced against a wall). Separate your legs so that the thighs make a right angle, with your pubis at the apex of the angle, and point your feet in the same direction as your knees. Grip the sides of the chair seat with your hands, inhale your buttocks slightly away from the seat, and slowly with an exhale lower yourself into a squat. Now, with your left hand still gripping the seat, bring your right elbow to the inside of your right thigh. Push the thigh with the elbow as you turn your torso to the left. Sink the right groin deep into the pelvis, and lengthen the right side of your torso. Stay for 30 seconds to a minute, then return your right hand to the seat, and repeat on the left. To come up, push your hands against the seat and, with an inhale, sit back up on the seat. 

Advanced Tip: Advanced students can challenge themselves further in this pose by squatting with their inner feet touching. 

Richard's Asana Breakdown UPAVIṢṬHA KOṆĀSANA

UPAVIṢṬHA KOṆĀSANA

(oo-puh-VEESH-tah cone-AHS-anna)

upa a preposition or prefix to verbs and nouns, expressing “towards”

viṣṭṣha ṭ be spread

koṇa ṇ angle

āsana seat, sitting

Seated Spread-Angle Pose

Whenever we do a seated forward bend, as this pose is, it’s essential that the pelvis begin in a neutral position, that is, the pubis and tail bone should be equally distant from the floor. Very often, when a student who’s a bit tighter in the backs of the legs, groins, and outer hips sits directly on the floor, their pelvis will tilt backward so the tail bone is much closer to the floor than the pubis. Forward bending when the pelvis is more or less doing a backbend is a back injury in the making. Be sure then, if need be, to sit on a blanket or two to bring the pelvis to neutral.

1. Sit in daṇḍṇ āsana (Staf ḍ f Pose). Lean your torso back slightly on your hands and lift and open your legs to an angle of about 90 to 110 degrees, depending on your flexibility. Firm your thighs, reach out through your heels and stretch your soles.

2. Firmly press your left hand into the left groin, right where the thigh joins the pelvis. Imagine that the back thigh is anchored to the floor (or your blanket support), and with your hand turn the thigh outwardly (laterally) so the center of the knee cap like an eye looks straight up at the ceiling.

3. Exhale and rotate your torso to the right, bracing your right hand on the floor outside the hip. As with all twists, the movement is rooted in the groins. So as you continue to firmly anchor the left thigh bone, think of lifting the left hip point over the thigh and aim it at the right heel. The pelvis, in other words, should rotate with the rest of the torso. Make sure you’re not twisting from the lower back. Imagine your tail bone lengthening (but not physically dropping) toward the floor.

4. Then maintaining the anchor, inhale and reach your left hand out to hold the right foot. Keep the torso more or less upright and the left arm fully extended. If you need to round forward to hold the foot, it’s better to use a strap. Whether you have the foot directly or are using the strap, keep your left arm fully extended and draw your left humerus head (upper arm bone) back into the shoulder socket. Then imagine your arm is reaching out from the spine at the mid-back, between the shoulder blades, and that the entire left half of your back torso feeding into your left arm.

5. There’s a tendency in this twisted position for the side twisted toward to shorten and, concurrently, the side twisted away from to overstretch. In any twist, we want to lengthen the sides of the spine as evenly as possible. If need be then, try to open the right side here and bring the left ribs into the torso. Use the firm pressure of your right hand to the floor to encourage the right side’s length.

6. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute. DON’T lift straight out of the twist. Swing your torso to the left to neutral between the legs, and lift then on an inhale. Reverse the directions and repeat to the left. Again be sure to exit the twist by first swinging right to neutral.

7. Now for the full pose. Press your hands against the floor just in front of your pelvis and lengthen your front torso upward through the top of the sternum (manubrium). To help with this lift, imagine your hands still firmly pressing on the thigh bones. As B.K.S. Iyengar said, and I paraphrase, you’ve got to go down to go up.

8. Now, angling forward from the groins, exhale and begin to walk your hands forward along the floor, pushing the floor away from you as you do. Carefully monitor the space between the pubis and navel. When you feel it start to diminish, stop, back off the forward bend a bit, reaffirm the lift of your sternum, then try again to angle forward. Be sure to continue lengthening your front torso so as not to hunch into the forward bend. Draw your shoulders away from your ears and maintain the width across your upper chest.

9. As you descend, your legs may start to roll in. Try to keep the two kneecap “eyes” looking straight up at the ceiling by turning the legs laterally. When you reach what you feel to be the limit of your forward bending capacity, think of pulling the floor back to you and use that pressure to again lift your sternum. Every now and then with an inhale, lift out of the forward bend slightly, draw your belly out of the deepest part of your pelvis, and with an exhale lower back down to the forward bend.

10. Stay in the pose for a minute or more, then walk your hands lightly back toward your legs and, with an inhale, lift your long front torso by drawing your tail toward the floor. Slightly bend your knees, slip your hands under your thighs and scoop your legs together. Bounce your knees on the floor a few times.

Benefits

Stretches the insides and backs of the legs

Stimulates the abdominal organs

Strengthens the spine

Calms the brain

- Contraindications: If you have a serious low back injury, sit up high on a folded blanket and keep your torso relatively upright.

- Modifications & Props: If you intend to stay a bit longer in the pose, you might lay a bolster or thickly rolled blanket on the floor between your legs, its long axis perpendicular to your torso. Be sure to have enough height so that you can rest comfortably.

- Beginners Tip: Upaviṣṭha Koṇāsana is a difficult forward bend for many beginners. If you have trouble bending even a little bit forward, it’s acceptable to bend your knees slightly. You might even support your knees on thinly rolled blankets.

Richard's Asana Breakdown UTTHITA TRIKONASANA

UTTHITA TRIKONASANA

uttihita = extended

tri = three

kona = angle

asana = literally “seat,” usually interpreted as “pose” or “posture”

It’s not uncommon in the long history of yoga asanas for several much different poses to have the same name. Such is the case with trikonasana, popularly known today as Triangle Pose. According to the Encyclopedia of Traditional Asanas, trikonasana is the name of four different poses. Two of these four are fairly similar–and what seem to be very uncomfortable–sitting poses. The first looks like a wide knee Hero Pose (virasana), with the feet set slightly away from the hips and turned onto their inner edges (everted). The second is a variation of the first, with just one leg in the position just described. The third is a squat in which the elbows rest on the knees and the head is held in the hands. The fourth is the standing pose we all know so well.

Our trikonasana, in comparison to a venerable pose like Lotus (padmasana), which is more than 1,500 years old, is a baby among the stock of asanas, likely added not much more than 100 years ago. The pose is aptly named. Typically we see in it a pair of triangles, one formed by the two legs and the floor, the other by the front leg, the underside of the torso, and the bottom arm. But if we look closely at Mr. Iyengar’s photo of the pose in Light on Yoga (plate 5), we see there’s actually a very small third triangle, the formation of which needs a slightly wider stance than most of us take. If we do widen out a few inches more, then the bottom hand can be pressed to the floor behind the front foot’s heel, and voila, triangle number three.

PREPARATION

To begin, step (or hop) your feet apart. The usual distance given is about a yard (or meter), but this is only an approximation, the proper distance for you will depend in large part on your height and length of your legs. Shorter students might have the feet somewhat closer, taller students somewhat wider.

By convention in the Iyengar school, the two-sided poses are always performed to the right side first. A teacher once told me this is done because the word “right” in Sanskrit is dakshina, “able, clever dexterous,” a symbolic meaning that gets the pose off on the right foot, so to speak. Left, on the other hand, is vama, “perverse, vomiting,” a much less appealing leading thought. It seems to me though this is one more example of the ancient prejudice against lefties, and so to all you southpaws out there, if you want to start to the left, feel free to do so.

Once the feet are placed at the appropriate distance, they’re rotated to the right, the left foot just slightly, the right foot, as convention has it, 90 degrees, so that the inner edge of the foot is parallel to the long edge of the mat toward which you’re facing. Your pelvis should also turn slightly to the right so the left hip is closer to that same long edge.

This instruction, to slightly rotate the pelvis was at the center of a heated controversy many years ago. Back then it was generally taught that the hips should be “flattened,” as if the pelvis were secured between a pair of parallel plates. But this positioning tended to inwardly rotate the front thigh, which in turn twisted the front leg knee, a hinge joint, out of its crucial alignment with the ankle. Repeated over time, this twisting could potentially lead to knee problems. Some teachers then wisely began to instruct students to allow the back hip to come as far forward as needed to outwardly rotate the front thigh and maintain the knee-ankle alignment. The “press back” instruction was transferred to head of the back leg’s thigh bone (femur). I strongly urge you to follow this instruction, not only in trikonasana but in the other two-sided standing poses like virabhadrasana 2. Be sure though that as you rotate the front thigh, you press the base of the big toe firmly against the floor to keep the weight on the inner foot.

The standard alignment of the feet has the front foot heel in line with the back foot arch. What isn’t often recognized, though, is that even with both feet on the floor, many of the standing poses, like trikonasana, are balancing poses. So if you feel a bit unstable with this heel-to-arch alignment, then it’s acceptable to slightly widen your base of support and align the front heel with the back heel.

When the feet and pelvis are properly positioned, it’s almost time to move into the pose, but one more thing is needed. Every pose has an anchor, and for standing poses like trikonasana, it’s the back heel. To create this anchor, press the inner left thigh actively off to the left to ground the outer left heel firmly to the floor. This grounding can be intensified if you also press your back heel to a wall. If you use a wall in this way, be sure after exiting the pose not to step forward directly onto the front foot. Always turn the feet forward to parallel, balance the weight between them and step or hop them together.

MOVING INTO THE POSE

Now inhale your arms up parallel to the floor, palms down, being careful not to raise your shoulders as well. Then with an exhale, from your anchored heel start to stretch out through the right arm. Keep your torso over the plane of the forward leg, imagine the legs drawing to the left as your torso extends to the right.

As you do this, draw an imaginary line of energy up along the inner right leg from the ankle to the groin, then continue this line through the pelvis to the left hip (imaginatively draw the inner left leg up from ankle to groin to help maintain the strength of the foot’s inner arch). At the same time, release the head of the right thigh bone deeper into the pelvis to encourage the length along the under side of the torso. Remember that trikonasana isn’t a side bend, and once in the pose, both sides of the torso should ideally be more or less equally lengthened.

Unfortunately, less experienced students are often reluctant to use props and have their heart set on pressing their bottom hand to the floor. But many don’t have the flexibility to do that comfortably, so the torso ends up in a side bend, the upper side overstretched, the under side compressed, a reflection of what’s happening to the spine. This is certainly not ideal. In each and every pose, the attempt should be made to re-create a Mountain Pose (tadasana) spine, that is, evenly extended front and back and along the sides. If a side bend is what happens when you bring your hand to the floor, I highly recommend you support it on a yoga block, positioned at a height against which you can spread your palm and press it flat. Doing so with your palm on the block will create a response in the shoulder blade, which will widen across and firm into your back, helping to support the lift of the chest. More importantly the two sides of your torso–and your spine–will be much more evenly lengthened.

The position of your arms depends on the angle of your torso relative to the floor. For beginning students, the torso is usually at a slight angle. The arms then should be parallel to the line of the shoulders. Only when the torso is more or less parallel to the floor should the arms be stretched perpendicular. You might also imagine there’s a wall right in front of you and “press” your top hand against it, using the imaginary resistance to do with the top hand’s scapula just what you did with its bottom mate. Keep all the fingers pressed together

The rotation of the head to look up at the top hand is a tricky movement. If you have any neck issues at all, major of minor, it’s best to keep your head neutral and gaze straight forward. If you do rotate the neck, always be sure to start with a neutral neck, that is, with the two sides (like the sides of the torso) evenly lengthened, and bring your chin close to the top shoulder. Never turn your head from a drooping neck.

It’s usually recommended to stay in the pose anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, but longer stays are not unheard of. Always breathe as slowly and smoothly as possible in the pose, rough breathing indicates struggle, something you want to avoid no matter what the pose. Come out of the pose with an inhale, pressing down heavily with the back heel and reaching up with the top arm. Try not to wobble.

It’s beyond the scope of this breakdown to detail the symbolism in yoga of the triangle. Briefly then, as

Betty Heimann writes, geometrical symbols–triangles, circles, squares, and the like–are “equivalent to the concrete personal expression of the unapproachable Divine,” often used as “seeds” for meditation. An upward pointing equilateral triangle represents the fire element and the universal human urge to transcend the material world. Its downward pointing opposite represents water and the contrasting urge of the Self to become embodied. When these two triangles are interpenetrated the world is created, when separated the world disappears.