Pain Free?

While I was on the west coast, I visited a  Hot yoga class where the teacher encouraged us -- "some day you will be pain free."

"Really?" I thought "is that our goal?"

I remembered back to an Ashtanga class years ago when our teacher remarked that "injury has a certain inevitability to it."  I consider an Anusara class where our teacher talked about honoring our whole self, the broken as well as the healthy. What different philosophies these remarks reflect.

My great goal in yoga is not an absense of pain, though I do generally feel better than before I started to practice. I fantasize about practicing until I'm 80 (pincha mayurasana at 80 - that's my goal) and know that things break and wear out as we age. I've experienced plenty of that already.

I guess my sense of the goal of yoga is to be  interested in whatever happens, and to breathe and stay present with the experience in each moment, whatever may come.