Why practice Yoga? מאת Ernessa
Why practice Yoga?
What is Yoga?
Why do we constantly keep coming back to the mat? Look for a new teacher? We make the effort to move through and beyond our patterns we have been born with or have learned in this life time in order to discover that there are so many. Our bodies show us our limitations, our emotions take us on rides that are both ecstatic as well as discouraging, and our minds are often filled with noise that even an Indian Highway would find difficult to compete with. What are we supposed to do? How can we find peace? Where is the peaceful tranquility that the Yoga Journal promises us from a Powerful Yoga class?
We are human. We are a part of nature. We have within us the intelligence and resources to be able to choose between right and wrong, peaceful and painful, dark and/or light thoughts. We are exceptional. Through our decisive decisions we can shift and clean out our forever changing thought patterns. Yoga’s ancient texts have provided us with some tools to aid us in doing so. And so we seek out new teachers and studios and practice in classes. Depending on our age, our gender, our physical capacities and health we decide upon different forms of yoga. Yoga for the physical body, we work hard to strengthen and maintain our flexibility and health. Yoga for the breath, we sit for hours breathing through one nostril and another, to lengthen our breath. Yoga for the devoted, we strive for the Divine to enter our beings. All these practices and hard work are there for us to assist us in our transformation.
Have we transformed? We are getting older every day. Our bodies find new things to complain about. Our breath changes depending on what decisions we made regarding our food intake, our sex life and sleep. Let alone the stress of everyday life. We find that no matter how often we practice, no matter how hard we work on our external aspect of ourselves, or even on our emotions. Everything is in a state of flux. Everything around us is in motion. Changing without restraint. We find we have 0 control of nature.
Sounds pretty despairing doesn’t it? Perhaps the decision to begin this subject on this note is because many of us have the motivation to practice with others in classes. We are all practicing yoga, or thinking of practicing yoga.
There is no question that we are all striving for a more peaceful existence. Right?
We all want to feel that peaceful feeling more often. To rest easier at night. To sleep better. To breathe steadier when things get tough. To not always feel so stressed in our everyday life.
I have been very fortunate in my life regarding my teachers. I admit I have moved around a lot, lived in many different countries since I am very young. My teachers have varied and have been there for me when I needed them. Men and women like you and me, who learned to be compassionate, authentic, intelligent, strong and passionate in their wisdom. Each has communicated to me in their varied ways one common and essential theme: we are born into this world and leave this world alone. No one outside ourselves can make us happy, peaceful, whole, or whatever you want to name it. Our constant search for that someone or something outside ourselves which will be “it”, the answer to our problems, the balm for our wounds, the excilier for our pains, is forever changing. Like the winds we move through the shopping mall of life shopping for answers. After all these years what should we do? Where should we turn?
I have just had the privilege to meet a new teacher. His name is A.G. Mohan. He and his wife Indra were there to provide me with another nudge in the direction I have been encouraged to travel towards for quite a long time now. That direction is inward. Mohan’s remarkable intelligence, wisdom, logic and capability of communication taught me once again to stand on my own feet, listen to my own rhythm and make a conscious continuous effort towards creating new patterns in my life.
Mohan and Indra are two remarkable people. They are committed to helping people discover their own power. To send them away when they look too strongly towards a “quick fix”, to help people find the strength within themselves to shift their attention towards a more peaceful state of mind without fighting, without resisting, without disturbing the beautiful nature of things.
They have studied for many years with Krishnamacharya and learnt the ancient texts by heart. They continue to study and Mohan has written many books to bring to our contemporary minds practical methodology that stem from ancient traditions. This methodology is a yoga practice. Asana, pranayama, bandha, meditation. All with the focus inward. Towards a peaceful state of mind. A cool breeze on a hot day, a glass of water in a desert, the metaphors can go on and on.
It is really not new, actually its really old stuff.
Perhaps what is unique for me is there is no going away from the logic of what he teaches. He never once says that this is his. Like my teacher Mark Whitwell, Yoga of Heart, whose teachers were : Krishnamacharya and U. G. Krishnamurti, I have been exposed to a lineage where the message is the antithesis of most of our culture. Go the path, walk it, do it alone. PRACTISE YOUR YOGA. There is no getting away from that message.
The efforts that need to be made are towards a commitment to ourselves. With the attitude to give ourselves time and space everyday to practice our yoga by ourselves. There is no other way to be more peaceful in this yoga path. Our individual practice at home with ourselves is the best gift we could give ourselves. There lay the answers, not through the questioning, the discourse, the struggle with our minds, our emotions, our relationships outside ourselves, but in the time we take every day to look inward, observing our minds as we move, breath, pause after each in hale and ex hale, chant, and rest. Without struggle we feel a little bit more peaceful.
As we get older our practice varies. Make sure the practice you have varies with you. Be smart, use your intelligence and practice what helps you feel peaceful. Of course effort needs to be applied, but not a painful practice. One that prolongs the breath, a practise that sustains our sanity, and helps our spines to stay healthy and strong. To live till 120, healthy and peaceful. Please go out and prosper. Live your lives, have children, do all the things that you want to do, but don’t relinquish the space of you.
Om Shanti
Ernessa
What is Yoga?
Why do we constantly keep coming back to the mat? Look for a new teacher? We make the effort to move through and beyond our patterns we have been born with or have learned in this life time in order to discover that there are so many. Our bodies show us our limitations, our emotions take us on rides that are both ecstatic as well as discouraging, and our minds are often filled with noise that even an Indian Highway would find difficult to compete with. What are we supposed to do? How can we find peace? Where is the peaceful tranquility that the Yoga Journal promises us from a Powerful Yoga class?
We are human. We are a part of nature. We have within us the intelligence and resources to be able to choose between right and wrong, peaceful and painful, dark and/or light thoughts. We are exceptional. Through our decisive decisions we can shift and clean out our forever changing thought patterns. Yoga’s ancient texts have provided us with some tools to aid us in doing so. And so we seek out new teachers and studios and practice in classes. Depending on our age, our gender, our physical capacities and health we decide upon different forms of yoga. Yoga for the physical body, we work hard to strengthen and maintain our flexibility and health. Yoga for the breath, we sit for hours breathing through one nostril and another, to lengthen our breath. Yoga for the devoted, we strive for the Divine to enter our beings. All these practices and hard work are there for us to assist us in our transformation.
Have we transformed? We are getting older every day. Our bodies find new things to complain about. Our breath changes depending on what decisions we made regarding our food intake, our sex life and sleep. Let alone the stress of everyday life. We find that no matter how often we practice, no matter how hard we work on our external aspect of ourselves, or even on our emotions. Everything is in a state of flux. Everything around us is in motion. Changing without restraint. We find we have 0 control of nature.
Sounds pretty despairing doesn’t it? Perhaps the decision to begin this subject on this note is because many of us have the motivation to practice with others in classes. We are all practicing yoga, or thinking of practicing yoga.
There is no question that we are all striving for a more peaceful existence. Right?
We all want to feel that peaceful feeling more often. To rest easier at night. To sleep better. To breathe steadier when things get tough. To not always feel so stressed in our everyday life.
I have been very fortunate in my life regarding my teachers. I admit I have moved around a lot, lived in many different countries since I am very young. My teachers have varied and have been there for me when I needed them. Men and women like you and me, who learned to be compassionate, authentic, intelligent, strong and passionate in their wisdom. Each has communicated to me in their varied ways one common and essential theme: we are born into this world and leave this world alone. No one outside ourselves can make us happy, peaceful, whole, or whatever you want to name it. Our constant search for that someone or something outside ourselves which will be “it”, the answer to our problems, the balm for our wounds, the excilier for our pains, is forever changing. Like the winds we move through the shopping mall of life shopping for answers. After all these years what should we do? Where should we turn?
I have just had the privilege to meet a new teacher. His name is A.G. Mohan. He and his wife Indra were there to provide me with another nudge in the direction I have been encouraged to travel towards for quite a long time now. That direction is inward. Mohan’s remarkable intelligence, wisdom, logic and capability of communication taught me once again to stand on my own feet, listen to my own rhythm and make a conscious continuous effort towards creating new patterns in my life.
Mohan and Indra are two remarkable people. They are committed to helping people discover their own power. To send them away when they look too strongly towards a “quick fix”, to help people find the strength within themselves to shift their attention towards a more peaceful state of mind without fighting, without resisting, without disturbing the beautiful nature of things.
They have studied for many years with Krishnamacharya and learnt the ancient texts by heart. They continue to study and Mohan has written many books to bring to our contemporary minds practical methodology that stem from ancient traditions. This methodology is a yoga practice. Asana, pranayama, bandha, meditation. All with the focus inward. Towards a peaceful state of mind. A cool breeze on a hot day, a glass of water in a desert, the metaphors can go on and on.
It is really not new, actually its really old stuff.
Perhaps what is unique for me is there is no going away from the logic of what he teaches. He never once says that this is his. Like my teacher Mark Whitwell, Yoga of Heart, whose teachers were : Krishnamacharya and U. G. Krishnamurti, I have been exposed to a lineage where the message is the antithesis of most of our culture. Go the path, walk it, do it alone. PRACTISE YOUR YOGA. There is no getting away from that message.
The efforts that need to be made are towards a commitment to ourselves. With the attitude to give ourselves time and space everyday to practice our yoga by ourselves. There is no other way to be more peaceful in this yoga path. Our individual practice at home with ourselves is the best gift we could give ourselves. There lay the answers, not through the questioning, the discourse, the struggle with our minds, our emotions, our relationships outside ourselves, but in the time we take every day to look inward, observing our minds as we move, breath, pause after each in hale and ex hale, chant, and rest. Without struggle we feel a little bit more peaceful.
As we get older our practice varies. Make sure the practice you have varies with you. Be smart, use your intelligence and practice what helps you feel peaceful. Of course effort needs to be applied, but not a painful practice. One that prolongs the breath, a practise that sustains our sanity, and helps our spines to stay healthy and strong. To live till 120, healthy and peaceful. Please go out and prosper. Live your lives, have children, do all the things that you want to do, but don’t relinquish the space of you.
Om Shanti
Ernessa