How 'Living Yoga' Is Evolving For Me
In my years of being a yoga practitioner and as a teacher I would like to share what I have learnt the most from yoga and its practises, it has nothing to do with my body what it can do or how flexible I have become. What I have learnt goes far deeper - I can now understand the workings of my mind and how I can interact with others on a deeper level, understanding them as myself. This comes from meditation, self-inquiry & yama/niyama study. The mat has been like a blanket to soften the sometimes harsh blows that life can bring. It helped to get me through the loss of my dearest friend, my Mum. Yoga has taught me patience. To stop judging myself and others. To stop trying to control the uncontrollable and go with the flow more. To see that good comes from bad and bad comes from good, so not to judge something as good or bad… its all as it should be. To see that everything is changing including my thoughts and opinions, I read once “If you keep doing things the same way, nothing changes”. To see that 'I am' not my thoughts, 'I am' much more than that. To be true to myself, what ‘I’ need and not what others think I need. I find my-self now being able to see things from a different perspective, not to be rigid in my thinking. Seeing others opinions as sacred as my own. Also to recognise that a belief is just that - a belief, not the 'Truth'.
The truth is we are all One and LOVE its what we are at our essence, its our birthright and its what we all need. LOVE is a medicine for healing and a powerful vaccine against hatred. LOVE your-self unconditionally, forgive your-self for everything, when I make mistakes which I will, I learn from the mistake and move on. When I make a mistake, I remind your-self... "Oh how human of me" One of my teachers taught me this!
When you do your practise at a studio or at home try to see the bigger picture, that yoga is a way of living its trying to show a way to live more peacefully with your-self and others. Each time you come to the mat to meditate, practise pranayama or to make a shape with your body, you are learning about yourself. Its not a religion, nor it does not ask for you to believe or follow any religion. You can be of any religion or no religion, maybe you just feel that the earth/universe the planet is something more powerful than your-self and that there is no God at all. Yoga is non-dogmatic, it teaches us not to believe something just because we are told it, we investigate it, experience it for ourselves then we know its a truth.
A by-product of yoga is that your body becomes more flexible and so does your mind!...Keep practising... Keep loving:) Om Om Om Shanti Shanti Shanti