Savasana: Silent or Not?

by Baxter

One of our readers recently sent us this topic idea for a post:

I am usually ready to cry in class when the teacher insists on talking throughout Savasana. I had one class where the teacher literally droned about how important silence was for >10 minutes. If silence was so important, why couldn’t she have given us some?

There is more to this question than meets the eye, or the ear in this case! Some of the challenge is that modern Savasana (Corpse pose) is taught is so many ways by so many teachers, and different modern yoga traditions often have different recommendations on the best way to do it and what the purpose or focus should be.

One option is that Savasana is just another body position in which you can meditate. If so, getting yourself or your students into a comfortable Savasana and then letting yourself or your students use whichever the meditation technique they are presently practicing for the remainder of the Savasana time is all that is required. So there would be the potential for the room to be quiet for a good part of the pose (that may not be the case with your mind, of course, but that is what you are working on!). In a mixed level class, I feel as a teacher that I may need to talk for a few minutes on how to enter the meditative practice, especially if I have newer students in class.

There is another option of Savasana being used for a guided mediation, such as a simple body scan (see Audio Tracks for a free recording) or a more elaborate yoga nidra practice (see Audio Tracks for recording of a short version), in which the practitioner is guided by the voice of teacher for most of the time in the pose. I find for students with very active minds who get more busyness in their minds when the room is completely quiet, these guided meditations in Savasana actually quiet their minds and bodies more effectively than a silent personal meditation.

In some traditions, Savasana is also used as a spacer between more active poses, where the practitioner goes into Savasana between every other pose done in a particular practice. That is a lot of Savasanas! But in these classes, it is only held for a minute or so, and can be an opportunity to reflect on the effects of the previous pose done or just to rest.

Historically, Savasana, translated as “Corpse” pose or “Death” pose, was likely nothing like it is today. After all, who in their right mind would name a pose after death if they wanted to appeal to a modern audience! This is probably why a lot of teachers rarely mention the real translation and instead call it “Relaxation” pose. In has book Original Yoga Richard Rosen notes:

“We know for sure that some schools of Hatha [Yoga] encouraged members to frequent graveyards and to meditate there on the transience of life while perched on a corpse no less—quite literally a Shavasana, “corpse” seat.” 

Why on earth, you may ask yourself, would they want to do something like that? Richard explains:

“Death, too, had a different meaning for these men; it stood not for the much-feared end of worldly life, but for the death of their limited ego identity and their final release from existential suffering.”

Richard has more to say about this important pose in his book, and I highly recommend the book for those of you who don’t already have it!

So, to our reader, I’d encourage her to find a teacher that offers the Savasana experience she is looking for, or push the boundaries of her understanding of Savasana and try out many types of Savasana with an open, curious mind. 

For more on Savasana, see Savasana (Corpse Pose) for instructions on how to practice Savasana, Savasana (Corpse Pose) Variations for information on supported versions of the pose, and Friday Q&A: Savasana vs. Seated Meditation for a conversation between Nina and Timothy McCall about the difference between meditating in Savasana vs. seated meditation. 

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