Yoga Within

I always believed that a good yoga class is not only about physical poses. A more important and crucial factor is what is being learned and shared in class. Perhaps that is why I love Anusara yoga as part of the requirement of an Anusara class is to have a theme to set you thinking. However, if you noticed, there are many many other yoga practitioners who complain that the teacher talk too much! When I heard such comments, I just smiled and walked away. ( I sort of sigh in my mind too… )

Is that why Hot yoga is very popular with most people? All intense work outs that just push you physically relentlessly? Your body probably feels good after such a “workout” and then that feeling probably goes off in an hour or so… and then what? The very next day, you rush to another class to workout and get that rush of endorphins, a temporary high.

Yoga is not only about the body. We all know that. But how many of us practice the yoga of the mind too? Yes, we do try to connect to our body but that is just one small part of the practice – on the mat. What about off the mat? I think that is even more important than being able to do a perfect pigeon (sure it’s a most satisfying feeling when you are able to do it finally – and then what… ? ). So what if you can do all the poses and yet you behaved as if the whole world owes you or you are so selfish and inconsiderate that you step all over other people’s mats?

It’s pretty amazing to learn how yoga can be used as a parallel to your life. During Bo’s Anusara class yesterday , he shared an important lesson. Life is not one straight road. Rather it is much like a “yard sale” – with aplenty of objects all over the yard – this is analogy of the distractions in life.

So we need to be able to overcome the distractions and refocus back to your center – on the mat as well as in our life. How do we do that? We practice and be aware! Imagine if I have just kept practicing yoga without thinking or reflections, with no one to enlighten or “seed” the thought, I would not have grown myself internally, mentally. ( Another excellent way to grow our minds is to read and I don’t mean main stream novels…. but books that get you to think. )

Ultimately, it is what we think that determines exactly what we do – we can choose happy thought or sad thought despite whatever happen as with an enlightened mind, we are able to choose to observe our emotions, not to react to our emotions and then choose the best reaction to whatever happens.

Hmm.. anyone understood what I’ve just said? Haha…

Maybe an example can help… imagine you are on a train and a man and his son sat besides you. Then the man’s son started to make a lot of noise, irritating everyone around him while the man just sat there without doing anything to stop the son or calm him down. Probably at this point of time, if you are tired after working the entire day, you would feel irritated, angry at that man for not controlling his son. Totally pissed and angry, boiling inside, you probably shouted angrily to the man “Hey, can you please control your son and quiet him down? So inconsiderate!” ( perhaps an even stronger term? ) This is what most of us do… we react to our emotion and react to the emotion.

What if then the man turned to you with a sad and forlorn face, and say apologetically “I’m very sorry…. my wife just died hours ago and my son is missing his mother… ” ? Is there a change in what you feel now?

What do you think?

~Namaste