Creating Health, Vitality, and Joy through the Healing Path of YogaYoga and Meditation
The Essence of Yoga
Yoga is simply a means to reduce suffering on a deep level- be it physical, mental, social, or emotional. Yoga is a means for us to disentagle ourselves from our painful and habitual cycles and dis-identify with our perceptions of ourselves as small.
Our yoga practice in its entirety (asana, pranayama, meditation, relationships, devotion, etc.) is a remembering of and relaxing into our True Nature as we are. There is nothing to create or work towards - in fact "working on ourselves" implies that we are not already exquisite and unique expressions of the One. Yoga is an intimate invitation to be with oneself deeply and compassionately - Self to Self. With time and gentleness we bring awareness to the multitude of polarities in our existence (good/bad, right/left, male/female, happy/sad, like/dislike, inhale/exhale, and so on) as well as our own preferences within these polarities. We learn to trust and reside in a space large enough to hold all of these seeming opposites safely and openheartedly.
It is rather easy to bring our neuroses to our Yoga practice by obsessively practicing or pining to achieve a particular shape with our bodies. Clearly, the mastering of complicated asanas or pranayama technique does not offer us a direct ticket on the enlightenment train. Our challenge then is to allow our "Yoga practice to be a little bit more clever than our habit patterns" (L. Kaminoff) thereby teaching us to be resilient and pliant with a greater variety of inner or outer challenges. Embracing life exactly as it is with a joyfulness of inhabiting our bodies and breath, with an easefulness and skillful/compassionate response to the events around us are some of Yoga's most precious gifts.
Our meditation practice is not meant to withdraw us from the world around us - rather it serves to "wake us up" to our surroundings, teaching us to see things (and ourselves!) with more clarity and accuracy. We deepen our compassion and insight to all parts of our experience, including our suffering and it's sources, and with this clearer "seeing" we can take more skillfull action. By understanding that all beings, at their core, are seeking happiness we find with that our hearts naturally blossom in compassion with time.
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