Buried Treasure

What I love about yoga is its restorative qualities.   I can do it as much as I want without fear of pushing my body further than its limits by just modifying my practice or choosing to practice with meditation.  Unlike running or weight lifting where I feel like my body needs a rest if I do it too often, or if I run without warming up I could hurt myself, yoga is a safe way for the body to exercise with the added benefit of spiritual growth. Yoga poses, sun salutations specifically, can be done anytime of the day and will warm your body up safely early in the morning, or for a  cool down after a long run.  I have been recently reminded how yoga can activate my spiritual center, by energy fields called Nadis.

Nadis are like channels or energetic passages that eastern medicine considers vital components of the body (or at least close to the realm of the body). Even though nadis can not be measured, or looked at through a microscope,  these mysterious energy lines, and subtle body is what I am most excited to understand through practicing yoga.

What I love about yoga (asana) is that you can activate these energy channels, and revitalize the energy in your body.  Asana is the practice of posture in yoga, and the asanas are one of the 8 limbs of Ashtanga yoga, or 1/8 ways talked about in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.   Lately my goal is to try to wake up and practice asanas every morning.  I was never a morning person, so one idea I have is to do a couple of breathing practices, or Pranayama, to bring oxygen to my blood and help me feel alive.  After that, I try to do at least one sun salutation to activate my energy centers.  Why not get all the energy I can access? 

I love yoga, but the truth is I love the woo hoo hocus pocus part of yoga, the part that reminds my mind and my physical body that I am a glorious spirit body.  I must remind myself to care for my physical body and elevate my spirit as much as possible so that  my body will allow my spirit to come through.  My spirit the part of me that glows after having a wonderful date, or realizing you changed someones mood by making them laugh, or that sense of happiness and clarity you feel after realizing a long time goal you’ve had.  This shining star inside of all of us is what I crave to groom and foster- and the practice of asanas and pranayama cleanses our body in order for my spirit to come through better. 

On page 74 of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book 1 number 49, I was excited to read about how knowledge is part of our consciousness, and part of our mind.  The Sutra describes a higher knowledge ; something we must seek for during our lifetime, and one of the ways to facilitate this and be more receptive to the answers we are seeking is to keep a clean body. Pantanjali says, “there is a higher knowledge that can only be understood without the mind.”  The chapter continues to read, “As the Mandukya Upanishad says, ‘ Not inside knowledge, not outside, not knowledge itself, not ignorance.’”

I love the way it describes all that is to be discovered, and that it can not be described in words, only be described by what it is not.  All of this, is for us to discover- through meditation, pranayma and asanas.

YAY.  And the wonderful thing is, all of us will discover something different, and something indescribable.  It is our own little buried treasure for us to go to.  When I was a child I would always dream about witches and buried treasure.  I am realizing now, that have my own very real treasure hunt to go on.  OMMMM

What is Yoga?

Since completing my teacher training certification, the question that people ask most often is "what is
yoga".  This is a question that was asked of us teacher's to answer a few times throughout the training.  Currently, I am reading Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, and this is one text I can use to answer this question.

According to the Patanjali's Yoga Sutra written in the early part of the first millennium, there are eight different ways to practice yoga- or as I like to call it, self realization.

1. Yamas: relationship to others, community, and societyAhimsa (non-harming),Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (nonstealing), Brahmacharya (self-restraint), Aparigraha (non-hoarding)
2. Niyamas: restraints, observancesSaucha (cleanliness), Santosha (contentment), Tapas (discipline), Svadhyaya (Study of Self), Ishvarapranidhana (devotion)
3. Asana: practicing physical development, care for the body, cleansing rituals, liberation of stagnant prana
4. Pranayama: to still the mind and cultivate the life force with breathing exercises
5. Pratyahara: Mental cleansing and fasting
6. Dharana: Comtemplation and concentration, mantras, visualization
7. Dhyana: Meditation and observing yourself
8. Samadhi: Experiencing the true self

So when people ask me what yoga is, I often respond using the eastern philosophy I learned in the training, and how yoga is a practice to align your soul and body together.  It's very spiritual, and so am I.  Even though I am very excited about sharing this wonderful practice with the world, I try not to come on too strong when people ask me what yoga is and do not expect for me to explain the spiritual aspect of it.  I try to share a little at a time starting with what brought me to yoga- a way get in touch with a deeper part of myself, physically and mentally with the added benefit of focus and body education.

The Bhagavad Gita, "The Lord's Song'

After finishing my 200 hour RYT Intensive Teacher Training Course, I am taking a few weeks to ponder and read The Bhagavad Gita, a very famous yoga text.  No one is sure when it was written, but from what I understand, it's history is similar to how The Odyssey was handed down to us westerners (passed from one generation to the next through oral tradition),  but this text is one of the texts considered as a foundational Indian text for yoga practice and is full of inspiring and universal ways to find self realization.

This Indian text is deep, but any yogi who has dreams of leading a yoga class would benefit from the read. The roots of this text are from the literature of the Upanishads, a revelation text from the ancient Hinduism. According to my teachers manual from Sonic Yoga  "the word Upanishad combines the verb 'shad', which means to sit, with 'upa' meaning near, and 'ni' meaning down, which suggests that the only way to learn the truths hidden behind these revelations was to sit at the foot of his guru or teacher."

If I always stay curious in the remainder of my life and remained learning one new thing every day, I would be blessed beyond belief because the state of staying open and in a state of learning is one of the most important thing one person can do.  I mean, who wants to be around people that know everything?  I love this yoga!

So, I continue reading the Bhagavad Gita, keeping an open mind and a desire to learn moving me through the pages.  I think this is the first step in understanding the text.  Keeping my heart open and practicing the lessons in the book is an entirely new post :)