Yoga: to ‘Yoke’, to Unite.
There’s no magic TO Yoga, the magic is IN the Yoga.
To the unacquainted, forget what you think you know about Yoga. Yoga is a practice that can only truly be grasped through its ‘doing’. ‘Knowing’ is in the doing, it is more directly inquisitive and its results can be immediate, as is the case with asana (the postures of physical yoga). Yet it’s not about what you can or can't do physically. It's more about how you approach the mat. It is the quality of mindfulness you bring to it and ultimately your attitude while on it that will determine whether your practice is purely physical exercise or whether your practice is working on both deeper and subtler realms.
As off the mat, as on the mat: check in daily with yourself, ask questions of yourself, what, why, & for whom? And importantly challenge those answers! Look into your motives, what do you want from your practice or indeed from any other action off the mat you are choosing to make? Be honest with yourself. Is the practice purely physical; is strength and flexibility alone your goal, or purely personal perhaps; for better health or is it uniting you with something deeper & is this, or has this become the raison d'etre; something less tangible, something ultimately more long lasting, more rewarding? Are you, through your practice, more connected, and if so to what? And how far reaching is that connection? Is there a final culmination, an end goal?
Show me your practice and you’ll show me your self. Are you the type to get annoyed when something is beyond your limit or do you accept this, and in acceptance do you believe this can be changed, and if not, does this sit easy, can you surrender to this? Do you exercise compassion or criticism to self when you fall out of a pose or lose your balance? Can you get straight back in and try again? How much devotion is there? Not just for the practice, but devotion whilst IN the practice? How much prayer? Can in each salutation, a cycle of celebration, of thanks and gratitude, of surrender be found? Is meditation there, can you still the mind? What of your focus, your concentration? And your awareness, is it floating around the room, can it stay focused, is it externally directed or internally? How deep does it go, to the physical body, or into the more subtle realms? Are you listening? Sssh. What can you hear? Can you surrender, fully let go, trust? How open is your heart? How deep are your back bends this will tell you so! How does one transition, from pose to pose, from life experience to life experience – are you a bit shaky, a bit unsure or can you transition with ease, with poise, with grace? Trust. What guides one? How fully is one in-tune with the breath? What guides which? Does movement dictate the breath or does breath guide the movement? Can you work either one to change or influence another? Can you work a pose, bringing awareness to each nuance of its expression? Can you dig in deep? Can you find a little more stamina when you feel spent, a little more staying power in the face of discomfort? Can you rest, find stillness? Just Breathe? Is GRACE present? Are you present? Can you ground, be rooted, focused, can one then find length, grow tall, keep balance? How stable is your ‘tree’, are your branches flexible and free? Can one stay concentrated, energy & gaze fixated on a singular point? Breathe. Can you be firm, work through polarities, be firm and yet stay soft? Do you know when to push and when to hold back? Do you face your fears, have aversions to inversions? Breathe. Show me what you’re like on the mat and I’ll know what you are like off the mat.
The magic is not in a foot placed behind a head but IN the journey to get there, only when, and only if awareness has been present in that journey. Then the mat is a doorway to great and personal change.
If yoga is a doorway to greater divinity or ultimately union with the divine (SAMADHI), then devotion to practice is the key to unlocking in oneself greater potential of being, and greater potential of connection to self and to divinity and more, to eventually closing the gap between the illusion that separates these – from two to ONE.
Yoga asana, not a work-OUT, it’s a work-IN.
