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Drishti represents a ‘Gaze Point’ in yoga.

Although it may seem irrelevant what your eyes are doing while you’re focused on perfecting a particular pose, they actually have a very important role to play. The correct use of the eyes is achieved through the technique of the gazes (drishtis). And with some awareness, can help to improve your performance of any asana.

Much of our attention is caught up by what we see. To realize how much of our own energy is taken up by our eyes and the visual world, it can be interesting to experiment by closing the eyes (pratayhara) during asanas. Without any visual information to process, our eyes relax, releasing energy which then becomes available to the posture.

The simple act of looking in a particular direction encourages the internal focusing of the attention, rather than external wondering. The drishtis also involve an anatomical aspect. For example, we gaze at the toes in most seated forward bends. This encourages us to lengthen the front of the body more than we would if we were looking to our navel.

The 9 drishtis:

1) The tip of the nose
2) The thumbs
3) The third eye
4) The navel
5) Upward toward the sky
6) The hands
7) The toes
8) Far around to the left
9) Far around to the right

Like all yogic practices, drishti uses the blessed gifts of a human body and mind as a starting place for connecting to our full potential. When we clear our vision of habits, opinions, ideas, and their projections about what is real and what is false; we gaze beyond outer differences toward the absolute truth.

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