If you’ve practised the pose – or simply read about it – you’ll have a sense of what makes Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) distinctive. This is an invitation to explore what lies underneath that: where this pose sits in Virabhadra’s story, what the classical tradition means by equanimity in the face of outcome and what it means to hold past and future with the same open attention
Virabhadrasana I (Warrior pose I) rises. Virabhadrasana III (Warrior pose III) flies. Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) holds.
Not passively – not the holding of someone waiting for the moment to pass. The holding of someone who has arrived fully, taken the measure of what’s before them and is completely present to the whole breadth of what the moment requires.
That quality of alert, open, sustained presence is what this pose is practising. And it turns out to require something that goes considerably deeper than strong legs.
Virabhadra Turns
The three Warrior poses tell a sequential story – and understanding Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) requires knowing where it sits in the arc of Virabhadra’s narrative.
In Virabhadrasana I (Warrior pose I), Virabhadra has just risen – born from Shiva’s grief, emerging from the earth with fierce purpose, standing fully committed to what needs to be faced. In Virabhadrasana III (Warrior pose III), he is in flight – moving toward the ceremony with the speed and singular focus of an arrow. Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) captures the moment between these two: Virabhadra has risen and is taking full account of what surrounds him before he moves.
He turns. Opens his body to face the full breadth of the field. Looks out over it with the watchful, steady gaze of someone who sees clearly and is not destabilised by what they see.
This turning is significant. Where Virabhadrasana I’s (Warrior pose I) squared hips and forward gaze embody direct, frontal commitment – the full-face engagement with what’s immediately ahead – Virabhadrasana II’s (Warrior pose II) open hips and lateral gaze embody something more expansive. Both directions are visible simultaneously. The front hand extends toward what’s coming. The back hand extends toward what’s been. The gaze holds the middle – steady, clear, taking in the whole rather than fixing exclusively on any single part of it.
Vairagya – The Warrior’s Equanimity
Throughout the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna returns repeatedly to a quality he describes as essential for the spiritual warrior: vairagya – often translated as non-attachment, but perhaps more accurately as equanimity in the face of outcome.
Act fully, Krishna urges. Bring your complete skill and commitment to what the moment requires. And then hold the result lightly – neither grasping after favourable outcomes nor contracting against unfavourable ones, but remaining inwardly steady through whatever arises.
This is not indifference. Virabhadra cared profoundly – his entire existence arose from Shiva’s grief and love. Vairagya is not the absence of caring. It’s the capacity to care deeply while remaining inwardly unshaken – to be fully engaged without being destabilised by the engagement.
Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) embodies this quality physically. The arms extend in both directions with equal engagement – neither pulled forward by eagerness nor pushed back by resistance. The gaze extends steadily over the front hand – present to what’s coming without grasping toward it. The legs hold their wide, strong foundation through the duration – not because holding is comfortable, but because steadiness is the choice.
This is vairagya in the body. Fully present, fully engaged, inwardly unshaken.
The Arms Extending in Both Directions
There’s an image in Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) that I find worth sitting with.
The front arm reaches toward what’s coming – the future, the challenge, what needs to be met. The back arm extends toward what’s been – the past, the foundation, everything already navigated. The warrior holds both simultaneously – neither abandoning the past to rush toward the future, nor being pulled backward by what has already occurred.
Most of us find one direction easier than the other. Some of us reach eagerly toward what’s coming while the back arm goes passive – the past released, perhaps a little too quickly. Others hold the back arm with more investment than the front – the history more present than what’s arriving.
Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II) asks for equal engagement in both directions. Not as a permanent life philosophy, but as a practice – a brief, honest exploration of what it feels like to hold past and future with the same quality of open, unclinging attention, while remaining firmly rooted in the present.
A Closing Reflection on Virabhadrasana II (Warrior pose II)
Vairagya doesn’t mean not feeling the burn. It means feeling it fully and remaining anyway – not from stubbornness or self-punishment, but from the clear-eyed, equanimous recognition that what’s being practised here is genuinely worth the effort.
The warrior who can hold this pose – truly hold it, with open arms and steady gaze and vertical torso and breath that remains full and unhurried through the duration – is practising something that goes considerably deeper than physical strength.
They are practising the art of remaining present. Of being unshaken without being unmoved. Of holding the wide, open, fully engaged stance of someone who has decided to be completely here.
That decision – renewed breath by breath, moment by moment – is the practice.
On the mat and, in whatever way makes sense to you, beyond it.