Our Practice: Finding Purity in Mind Body and Actions Through Brahmacharya and Child's Pose February 8 2026

Writing Again From Utah-View Of Deer Valley

When I land on this fourth Yama and prepare to talk about it, I always smile a bit. When I started my yoga teacher training and read the most traditional definitions of brahmacharya, celibacy, I was thinking, wow, what did I sign up for?  

A translation that I favor (and one that is more relevant for today) says that brahmacharya teaches us to “walk in God-consciousness”. This can mean turning our mind inward, balancing the senses and leading us away from negative dependencies or cravings. It can also mean the wise use of our energy.

T.K.V. Desikachar (in my fave book The Heart of Yoga) explains the derivation of brahmacharya saying the “word is composed of the root car, which means “to move”, and the word brahma, which means “truth” in terms of the one essential truth. We can therefore understand brahmacharya as movement toward the essential”. He later says that brahmacharya “suggests that we should form relationships that foster our understanding of the highest truths”.

A Brahmachari can mean someone wholly devoted to experiencing the full value of every moment. Living as a Brahmachari means living with positive focused thoughts, words and actions.

As we explore brahmacharya through the lens of today, we can interpret this Yama as a guide to finding self-control in thought, action and speech. We can work to conserve our energy for the positive rather than letting it seep away on nonsense or things we do not consciously choose to do. Engage fully. When eating a meal, focus on savoring the flavors, have good conversations, linger. In conversations or activities with others, be completely focused on them and the activity. When alone, again, give ourselves over completely to the walk, the knitting, the meal, without splitting our mind or multi tasking. Don’t while away hours scrolling on our phone, having inane discussions or engaging in self-deprecation.

As we practice brahmacharya, let’s try to live a life of purity; purity in the a current relevant sense, one of pure intention in thoughts, words and actions.

Our Practice – Child’s Pose – Balasana

Child's Pose - Balasana with Prana Mudra

When invoking brahmacharya, I still return every time to balasana, child’s pose. As we settle into the pose, finding our breath, we can imagine we are in our own little cave, or looking inward, peacefully. As we settle in, we can absorb the completeness of our day, our life. We can find that “purity” of mind and thought and just feel full, complete without need for excess. Invoking prana mudra while in child's pose invokes prana (breath) or our life force.

This pose is often uncomfortable for some of us especially at the beginning of our practice, and, ironically, one that we often use at practice’s start. The hip flexion is intense and the idea that we need to simultaneously get our hips to our ankles and our forehead to the floor can be challenging. I like putting a blanket under my hips on top of my folded legs and/or a block or blanket under my forehead. As our bodies warm up, the pose becomes more accessilb.e I like to take the pose at the start of class and again towards the end reminding myself how the body evolves during a practice!

Meditating On Brahmacharya

“Rest when you’re tired. Take a break when life stales. Take time to recharge your battery. Energy isn’t something you have, it is something you are. To give and give and give, to put out without taking in, depletes your battery. It drains you, runs you down.” ~ Melody Beattie

“You have to live in the present and make it glorious” ~ Deepak Chopra

See you on the mat!

Namaste,

Julia Anne