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living yoga
you are balanced. i live with you.You are a work of art. It’s not easy but you do it. You live true to who you are and know it. When you are open, chakras, in my yoga practice, I don’t question it.
dear chakras, you help me walk with strength, enchanted. i’m open to each of you as you arrive, speak and feel. i know who you are…
-->> chakra article moved to here.
Do you associate more with the right side of your brain while you practice yoga or the left side of your brain?
The two hemispheres of the brain have fascinating connections (Photo credits: Simeon Schatz)
The right-brain/left-brain theory grew out of the work of Roger W. Sperry in the late 1960s, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981. The cerebral cortex controls rational functions and is made up of two halves, connected by masses of nerve fibers which pass messages between each other. These halves, or hemispheres, are commonly referred to as right-brain and left-brain.
Is a true spiritual practice about respecting time—living by it and being on time for it? Or does the mere concept of time mess with creative flow in life?
...is most likely to live in a timeless place in your mind. To come down from that—to live with a real clock—is a downer. In this way, the clock can be a method of control, and becomes one to fight against in order to be free...
image by simeon schatz
Let's look at two different spiritual ideas to compare: mindfulness from Buddhism and illuminated thoughts from Tantric tradition.
Mindfulness seeks to empty the mind of thoughts, letting the thoughts go so that you are left with peace.
Tantra invites the thoughts to become illuminated, positive or negative, so that you have a beacon in which to focus for your true path.
Stop what you are doing now, no matter what it is, and for 15 minutes do nothing but close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try to breathe using ujjayi breath used in Ashtanga yoga or Pranayama meditation.
Make sure that you don't cheat yourself on your inhale or your exhale. Make them equal in length. Try 5 second inhales and 5 second exhales all through your nose, breathing through the back of your throat.
This breath is like an ocean with waves ebbing and flowing slowly. With your eyes closed you can even imagine waves moving to the rhythm of your breath as you look with the eyes of your soul.
While working a busy day, living a stressful moment at home, or feeling anxiously happy, this will be like transporting yourself to the beach...
You will be releasing toxins from the body and mind with this practice.
Are you a workaholic? Do you work extra hours because you really need the money, or do you believe your job really needs you, and that it's ok to take care of your job more than yourself? Or do you, for one reason or another, find yourself addicted to your computer whether it's work or personal?
You do know that if you are working too much, you are acting like you are not very important.
Maybe, without knowing it, you are covering up something basic in your existence and doing it through your work. Staying busy all the time with a task that does not cultivate your soul can be like a drug that you continually allow to drive you. But you can beat it if you recognize who you truly are.
If you need rationale outside of yourself in order to ease up on workaholism, remember that no one really gets the best of you if you don't nurture yourself first.
We go to yoga class. We start the class by making an intention. Then what?
Do we hold true to its energy every second of the class? No. We tuck it away in our heart and let it speak its own words to our soul.
For, the energy of a wish comes from within us and can hardly hide its wings when we are allowing the prana to circulate as we move our bodies in twists and waves.
What we feel comes from within. Before the words even articulate themselves to our being, we know what it is we are trying to say.
Sometimes we are silenced. Sometimes this is a blessing. In this inability to find words, our soul is telling us to go deeper. Look into the still pond of your being. Do not always rely on words. Look to the swirling space that doesn't want to hear your words and give it your thanks.
There is more to living.
Namaste.
© 2010 Yoga Robin®
I just returned from a Bikram yoga class. What sticks with me is not the power of enduring the heat, but the power of discipline to control the mind.
Bikram yoga, unlike the Vinyasa Flow yoga which I have 13 more years of experience with, has many rules that are not necessarily inherent in many people. In my life and in my yoga practice I am used to living organically, letting my life take me in a flow. When I am practicing yoga alone, I have no plans in advance for my practice. I let my yoga practice take me.
Sure, there is discipline required with many styles of yoga, such as Ashtanga. But the movement inherent in this active style, where you generate your own heat, and move your own prana makes for a more organic practice inately.
Back to Bikram. What I feel in these classes is the necessity for discipline, as I'm led along a distinct path and how the discipline itself becomes the spiritual practice.
It is important to notice where the mind goes in any yoga practice, but in Bikram it is more about needing to stay with the group, listen to the teacher on cue, not close your eyes, drink water only when told, rest in savasana over and over, to name a few
On my jaunt through life I have contemplated the truth of my nature. I have always felt most comfortable knowing that there is an ultimate source permeating us all, and at times I have felt a unity with this source. At other times I have felt completely alone. It was my yoga—vinyasa flow, ashtanga & meditation, in particular—that saved me from this quandary and answered many questions for me.
My search, through poetic expression, led me to this present moment as I move into my desires to use their creativity and life force to fuel me.
Taken as an excerpt from my poem yoga, what you do for me, I speak to you, yoga, inside me as you are me: You help me find my pure state of mind, you help me change energy into fuel, you help me find the deepest parts of myself without fear, you help me believe in magic and you taught me how I can do whatever I put my mind to.
In studying the histories of Sankhya-Yoga, Advaita Vedanta and Participatory Spirituality I have found inspirations from each to aid me on my path.
Although Sankhya and Yoga are different systems, they work together and support each other so have been combined together as one unique system called Sankhya-Yoga.
Hiking on a sunny day... turning to sunset. It is my favorite time up on the mountain.
image @ Cora Varnes
I can watch the day sunlight culminate from warmth to secretive, from life-giving to artistic. With that change comes a change of heart too.
Hiking is a type of yoga for me, as I pay attention to my breath in the same way as I do on my mat. Living yoga outside of yoga class is the true test of a healthy yoga practice anyway. Hiking is part of having a well-rounded yoga life for me.
If I take an intention with me, it unravels with every step. I can even go through the various chakras as I climb, balanced together with music of the soul. What's most important in order for me to make my hike into a yoga adventure is silence—not necessarily inner silence but literal silence (i.e., no orating any words). This can be done with a partner as long as this is agreed.
Another important factor is breathing through my nose, using what we call in yoga the ujjayi breath. It is done throughout an Ashtanga practice. This breathing is done by making a sound in the back of the throat. Some people like to refer to Darth Vader from Star Wars when describing it.
Life is a journey. I intend to make it worthwhile.
With regards to this journey it is not important what the venue, physical activity, or endeavor, or even the goal. What we make of our experience is what counts. What matters is the lessons that remain with us after we have completed whatever it is we do and how we integrate this knowledge in our hearts back into the society in which we live. It is a true life meditation to keep lessons we learn inside us and never let the magic die.
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you dropped everything and turned to your spirituality? I know I have. In fact, I have done it for days on end, which led to months and then years.
I added yoga to the mix as well as dream interpretation and psychology. Although it is all good to dig deep into yourself and find all of your secrets, it can be a double-edged sword. Is it part of the path to enlightenment, or it is a danger to avoid?
From the start what got me into yoga was the feeling of loneliness and a special group of people to practice with to stir it all up inside me. I think we were all there for the same reason. It was an escape while I was doing it, but it led to my freedom and happiness.
I was feeling bliss as if flying, yet I was also genuinely lost and ungrounded while I was not practicing yoga. I escaped my life and reality and lived in my yoga, always moving, isolating myself more and more from friends and family into my inner world. I was obsessed to meet some end, knowing on some level that the only way to open the door to peace was through this uneasiness and drama that I created.
With much strength and years I was able to get a hold of the escapist manner in which I was dealing with my life. I realized I mimicked my life in my yoga! I was able to get out of the endless loop
It is through an injury which brought me over my physical edge and left me unable to do my yoga practice and function in my life, that I was able to see my true power and find my true courage!
It was as if I quickly was shown what life would be like without the blessings I currently take for granted: my capable and amazing body. Through a significant injury I questioned, in a desperate way (as if the injury could be permanent), how can it be possible for me to maintain even a basic means of living? I learned how.
I knew it was my path. Our path always teaches us lessons. So I tried to see this injury was a gift and I surrendered to it...
With my neck and twist intensive yoga practice I've come to rely on periodical chiropractic neck adjustments from an amazing man—a yogi, in fact—so that I could continue to do the yoga poses which brought me to the most spiritual places that were unheard of before I learned how. They truly are the key to me.
Whether it be through yoga or through other means of moving the body such as hiking or surfing, our experience is embodied when we let our body absorb the essence of the movement allowing it to sink in to who we are. It is here that we no longer think with our mind and our ego, but feel with our mind-body. Here is where the magic begins.
Think now of the difference between hiking for two full months along a medieval trail mimicking the ley lines of the stars above vs. reading a book about the transformation of such a journey or path. Think now of the difference between surfing in the Pacific Ocean feeling the pure power of nature as it carries you to shore vs. watching a movie of someone else doing this and reading about their feelings of the experience.
The outcome of the experience cannot be easily described in words. The nature of it has the power to teach that silence, breathing, and being present with the experience are the true transforming powers.
The more awesome experiences in our lives are probably the ones that brought up the most fear in advance. What becomes torturous is putting ourselves into situations that force us to feel what we fear most. Surrendering and challenging our fear through boldness is the way, however, to crack open the secrets inside.
"Leap and the net will appear" (Zen saying).
