The body is the physical manifestation of everything that you have ever experienced. Your body reveals all of your thoughts, your activities, your emotions, your consciousness, your dreams, your relationships. You can look at someone and see how well he or she treats his or her body, and it is visible in yours. Your body is a record of your entire history of your life. It is not who you are, of course, but this is your vehicle for now, and everything else in the world benefits from you taking care of yourself. The wonderful thing is that you are able to choose and create your own form, to a certain extent. We don’t all start with the same advantages or disadvantages, but it’s never too late to begin the process of becoming exactly who you want to be. Every yoga practice that you have ever done has shaped you in some way, creating layers and layers of yoga that you carry with you always. You can hold the shape of someone who loves their body, who eats well, who carries the sheaths of myriad practice, and has whittled away some of the stuff (physical, mental, emotional) that no longer serves you.
I get asked a lot about how to cultivate the discipline to practice yoga every day by myself. The answer is: yoga is its’ own reward. Never once have I ever thought to myself “I really wish that I hadn’t done yoga today.” There was the initial hump to get over of developing a strong home practice, but once I got past that, the day doesn’t feel right unless I do my yoga and my sadhana. I will admit that I have also built my days around the fact that I need to practice, and have always avoided jobs and other things that take me away from my path as a yogi. This isn’t a luxury available to everyone, and I recognize and appreciate the gift of time that I have. It also helps a bit to have teacher training and experience, but it isn’t essential. In fact, the thought process of how to teach can interrupt my focus on the practice itself, taking me out of the present moment and into the future. On the other hand, these thoughts are the seeds of what makes me the teacher that I am. Through my solitary practice, I am better able to communicate my discoveries in a posture from the perspective of a teacher, and give language to what I am experiencing to share with future students. This is an analytical process that creates a barrier, making it more of a cerebral layer to the yoga, but also offers the opportunity to deepen the experience for myself as well.
One of the things that has made for an increasingly richer practice, is that the postures themselves continue to take on new meanings and are connected to memories. Revelations discovered within the poses are awakened when I take the posture again. The first really significant moment of this happened when I was camping with a family in Pennsylvania near a lake. The place was tremendously packed with campers, and I had to find an escape for a few moments. I found myself on the shore line as the sun was setting, and I took Malasana, the yogi squat, when the sunlight suddenly struck a large rock on the other side of the lake, bathing it in a golden glow, which was really prominent against the dark background of the trees. The reflection of the golden glow rippled across the water and pointed directly to me, an ephemeral bridge of light and color. It was a stunning moment, and every time I take Malasana, I am transported back to that moment.
Not all lessons learned are pleasant. In the Kundalini series that I learned from Dr. Atre, my Guruji in India, there is a section with various kinds of jumping followed by a number of breaths between sets. I was going to Dr. Atre’s Yoga Kendra at 6:30am and again at 6:30pm. The morning class always had a good number of people who attended regularly, and in the evenings I practiced only with Ashwini, an engineer who could only come to Dr. Atre at night. We had an unspoken, undirected dynamic of moving through the series at more or less the same time. In the mornings, it was kind of a free-for-all, with people starting at different times and moving through the series at their own pace. But, one morning, Dr. Atre directed us all to move through the series all at the same time, and flow together. This pleased me, as an American yogi, who enjoys moving as a group. Later that night, before Ashwini and I started our practice, I told Ashwini that in the mornings, we did slightly different breath counts for the jumping bit, and I suggested that this was the point when we always got off rhythm from each other. She looked at me kind of strangely, and then we began the series, but the energy was totally different from the usual calm focused practice. Having spoken aloud about staying together for the practice demanded that she be keenly aware of me, and I of her, and I could feel how much this outward focus took us both away from our internal meditation. Who was I to give directions? That is the task of the teacher, the guru, and I was just a student. Moving through the series that night was awful, as I felt that I had robbed her of her practice. Now, each time when I get to that section of the series, I re-experience that shame and guilt, and remember to keep my mouth shut, to practice humility, and to not be such a bossy know-it-all. I allow myself to re-experience the emotions, allowing me to curtail such behavior in the future. Luckily the next kriya in the series is really cleansing and releasing, and so I am quickly liberated from the suffering of the guilt of my insolent behavior. But I always dedicate that extra fourth breath to Ashwini.
I have heard the analogy of the yoga postures being likened to the pearls of a necklace, with the breath being the string that holds the whole thing together, but slowly but surely, for me, each posture is a unique bead, with its own particular energy and purpose, as well as featuring these personal connections. These layers of memories, experiences, revelations and learning continue to personalize, dimensionalize and enrich my practice of yoga.
I get asked a lot about how to cultivate the discipline to practice yoga every day by myself. The answer is: yoga is its’ own reward. Never once have I ever thought to myself “I really wish that I hadn’t done yoga today.” There was the initial hump to get over of developing a strong home practice, but once I got past that, the day doesn’t feel right unless I do my yoga and my sadhana. I will admit that I have also built my days around the fact that I need to practice, and have always avoided jobs and other things that take me away from my path as a yogi. This isn’t a luxury available to everyone, and I recognize and appreciate the gift of time that I have. It also helps a bit to have teacher training and experience, but it isn’t essential. In fact, the thought process of how to teach can interrupt my focus on the practice itself, taking me out of the present moment and into the future. On the other hand, these thoughts are the seeds of what makes me the teacher that I am. Through my solitary practice, I am better able to communicate my discoveries in a posture from the perspective of a teacher, and give language to what I am experiencing to share with future students. This is an analytical process that creates a barrier, making it more of a cerebral layer to the yoga, but also offers the opportunity to deepen the experience for myself as well.
One of the things that has made for an increasingly richer practice, is that the postures themselves continue to take on new meanings and are connected to memories. Revelations discovered within the poses are awakened when I take the posture again. The first really significant moment of this happened when I was camping with a family in Pennsylvania near a lake. The place was tremendously packed with campers, and I had to find an escape for a few moments. I found myself on the shore line as the sun was setting, and I took Malasana, the yogi squat, when the sunlight suddenly struck a large rock on the other side of the lake, bathing it in a golden glow, which was really prominent against the dark background of the trees. The reflection of the golden glow rippled across the water and pointed directly to me, an ephemeral bridge of light and color. It was a stunning moment, and every time I take Malasana, I am transported back to that moment.
Not all lessons learned are pleasant. In the Kundalini series that I learned from Dr. Atre, my Guruji in India, there is a section with various kinds of jumping followed by a number of breaths between sets. I was going to Dr. Atre’s Yoga Kendra at 6:30am and again at 6:30pm. The morning class always had a good number of people who attended regularly, and in the evenings I practiced only with Ashwini, an engineer who could only come to Dr. Atre at night. We had an unspoken, undirected dynamic of moving through the series at more or less the same time. In the mornings, it was kind of a free-for-all, with people starting at different times and moving through the series at their own pace. But, one morning, Dr. Atre directed us all to move through the series all at the same time, and flow together. This pleased me, as an American yogi, who enjoys moving as a group. Later that night, before Ashwini and I started our practice, I told Ashwini that in the mornings, we did slightly different breath counts for the jumping bit, and I suggested that this was the point when we always got off rhythm from each other. She looked at me kind of strangely, and then we began the series, but the energy was totally different from the usual calm focused practice. Having spoken aloud about staying together for the practice demanded that she be keenly aware of me, and I of her, and I could feel how much this outward focus took us both away from our internal meditation. Who was I to give directions? That is the task of the teacher, the guru, and I was just a student. Moving through the series that night was awful, as I felt that I had robbed her of her practice. Now, each time when I get to that section of the series, I re-experience that shame and guilt, and remember to keep my mouth shut, to practice humility, and to not be such a bossy know-it-all. I allow myself to re-experience the emotions, allowing me to curtail such behavior in the future. Luckily the next kriya in the series is really cleansing and releasing, and so I am quickly liberated from the suffering of the guilt of my insolent behavior. But I always dedicate that extra fourth breath to Ashwini.
I have heard the analogy of the yoga postures being likened to the pearls of a necklace, with the breath being the string that holds the whole thing together, but slowly but surely, for me, each posture is a unique bead, with its own particular energy and purpose, as well as featuring these personal connections. These layers of memories, experiences, revelations and learning continue to personalize, dimensionalize and enrich my practice of yoga.