Onward and Inward

As you practice, stay occupied and invested in noticing more and more subtle inner activity. 

The idea that the mind can be trained never occurred to me before I started practicing yoga. The mind and its movements always seemed like something I was at the mercy of. Trains of thoughts crashed into my day, effecting its' entirety; dictating for me the kind of day I was going to have. The funny thing is that I had trained my mind as a kid. You kmow when you lay down to go to sleep you give your mind the chance to run free? Sometimes whether you like it or not. If it's particularly active you can't sleep. I sang to myself to counteract that problem. I would hear songs I liked in my mind, trying to hear them as exact as possible. I practiced at this (without knowing that I was) so much that even to this day my mind chooses songs it thinks appropriate to situations I find myself in.  

Pratyahara is the withdrawal of the senses. As I mentioned last week, we are both physical and nonphysical, and we have a hard time experiencing the non because we identify so closely with the physical. It may seem counterintuitive to practice asana to draw our attention from the physical, but our mental processes are ceaseless and, as I'm sure you've noticed, your mind reacts to asana; you experience emotions that cause more thoughts. It's this process that I'd like you to focus on. Not to get caught up and carried away, but to notice the patterns in your own personal mental processes. The more familiar you become with them, the more you can change them, beginning to control the flow of your thoughts, instead of being at their mercy.  

Equanimity and Perspective

I just spent a week being sick and that is unusual for me. It made me realize how closely tied my own happiness is to the state of my physical body. It's easier for me to be lighthearted or let go of annoying things when my body feels fine. But when I'm in a great deal of pain or discomfort then everything is more annoying and everything is harder to do and it's not happy. It gives me a good deal of perspective on my job and the people that I see every day. It is very impressive to see some of the people who are in pain all the time yet maintain their sense of humor. That is not easy.

Yoga gives us many tools and techniques to utilize to maintain equanimity within ourselves: equanimity in our thought patterns and equanimity in our emotions. But they are only useful to us if we practice enough with them to remember that we have them when we're at our lowest. If we can remember that we can use these techniques to make us feel better when we are feeling our worst then we have practiced enough. Because physical pain is all-consuming. We become so closely identified with our physical form that we can't get any perspective on the pain when it occurs. Yoga (and many traditions) teaches that there is a part of ourselves that has nothing to do with the physical form and is therefore blissful. Because we are so in love with our physicality it is incredibly difficult for us to begin to sense that non-physical part of ourselves. 

It takes a great deal of effort when you feel bad to do even every day, simple tasks. It becomes very important that we practice things that make us feel better even when were feeling okay to begin with so that were prepared when we feel bad.

Remembering the Fire

The weather has been unforgiving lately and in class this week we will practice with the intention of building our internal fire. This is not necessarily about getting sweaty though you very well might. It is about remembering that we create our own internal, unwavering light source. Even on the darkest and coldest days we have a strength internally that we can tap into to get us through. We practice fire focused classes in order to step up or maintain our digestive health and it is not just our gut that needs to be maintained. It is also our discernment that needs to be polished from time to time. So come ready to work and we'll get warm.