Śivasaṃhitā 5.218

This rhetorical question brings the spiritual path’s urgency to its most laconic formulation. The body is the laboratory of transformation: without it, there is no prāṇāyāma, no mudrā, no kuṇḍalinī ascent. Postponing practice while one has body and life is wasting the only available opportunity for liberation in this existence.

Sthite = while standing, while remaining, dehe = in the body, jīvati = while living (jīv = to live), yoga = the practice of union, na śriyate = is not taken refuge in, not practiced, bhṛśam = intensely. The way the question implies its own answer is an example of tarka rhetoric (argument by reduction to absurdity).

This verse’s urgency connects with the Buddhist concept of anicca (impermanence): the body is impermanent, the opportunity limited. The Jain version speaks of narajanma durlabha (human birth is rare). In all Indian traditions, human life holds special soteriological value precisely because of the capacity to practice yoga—and that value is only realized if one practices.