‘Yoga allows you to rediscover a sense of wholeness in your life, where you do not feel like you are constantly trying to fit broken pieces together.’
~ B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life
I don't want to just keep doing what I've always done? Do you? Learning and growing are essential and over the last three years, I've been evolving what I do while still trying to retain the essence of helping people to rediscover that sense of wholeness in their lives. Many of you know me as a yoga teacher and you're reading this because you joined my yoga list.
I've been noticing that over the years yoga has become a big 'industry' and fitness, flexibility and a 'fit' body from yoga are often emphasised. The more this is happening the more I personally gravitate towards the 'roots' of yoga. What is yoga?
The Vedas (most of yoga philosophy comes from the Vedas), state that there are four purposes of life:
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Dharma – spirit's/life's purpose or mission
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Artha - prosperity
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Kama - pleasure
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Moksha – Spiritual pursuit.
Dharma is like the doorway and through that doorway the other three purposes can be cultivated.
Research (Gallup and others) shows that having a purpose is key to our health and well-being. If you have a purpose you feel committed to something bigger than yourself. Your purpose motivates and inspires you to keep going and find solutions when obstacles appears. It's a constantly evolving mission.
Having a purpose and aligning it with your career/business (where we exchange our energy for money) can reveal a clearer path for wealth-creation/prosperity and provide more meaning and fulfilment from your means of generating income.
For me pleasure encapsulates love, all kinds of healthy relationships, healthy eating, exercise, having fun, laughter, connections, self-care...
And spiritual pursuits like meditation, mindfulness, breath-work, prayer, quiet walk in nature all move us towards transcendence and being more enlightened.
Then, there are the 8 Ashtangas or limbs of yoga from Patanjali's 'Yoga Sutras'. The Yoga Sutras explain that if you don't learn to quiet your mind, then the body can't be understood.
The 8 limbs are divided into the Yamas (our attitude towards things outside ourselves e.g. non-violence, truthfulness, ...), Niyamas (how we relates to ourselves inwardly, e.g. contentment, discipline, self-study, surrender), asana (posture), pranayama (controlled breathing), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration), meditation (dhyana) and absorption (samadhi).
These are guidelines for a healthy, happy, fulfilled and connected life.
Yoga is really a healing modality for the body-mind-spirit that is intended to lead us to greater happiness and acceptance. Yoga is meant to support your spirit's or life purpose. As I've shown above its foundational pillars encompass a lot more than just asanas and an exercise/fitness regime.
When you can surrender in an asana and experience it, you connect with the unspoiled intelligence of your body. You discover that the energy force/field that is your body has a lot of knowing. You notice and can begin to unpack your unhelpful body-mind patterns and habitual behaviours. Your body starts to spontaneously stretch and sign and groan. The intelligence of the ancient, primal part of you that exists even before the neo-cortex can come out to play.
Then, you experience asana differently. You notice that when you focus the mind in the body, your body is teaching you. Your feeling-senses become more alert and yoga begins to provide insights, personal awareness and growth.
Taking time out for self-study, inner work and more absorption is itself a discipline. If you attend yoga in the evenings , for instance, you will get home a little later and lifestyle flexibility may be required.
Another way to get the absorption, self-study and contentment is to join me for a new venture taking place from February 28th – a yoga holiday to Goa, India.
