The Journey Of Yoga Through Mind

Yoga is a transformative art, and deceptively easy. At least, though the advanced yoga positions are in reality tough to the unpracticed, and look it, the changes that yoga can bring into one's life belie the clear simplicity of stretching muscles. Of course, we stretch muscles at the gymnasium in a heat up. So what's the real difference between yoga and regular exercise programs, including pilates.

Pilates, in fact, took some of its inspiration from yoga. Or perhaps the facet of yoga that is made from the physical exercises, the asanas. But in yoga, thru the breath, and concentrating on it inside our body, we come to a bigger experience of both our body and ourselves. We start a more conscious relationship with our individuality. We meet that unique expression of ourselves expressing physically in that moment. We'd be nearly stiff, or hurting, or distracted, than common. It's a journey of discovery, not of attempting to fit ourselves into an external concept, even if that idea is represented in that moment by the yoga pose we are attempting to do.

Desikachar writes the body can'only steadily accept an asana'. We shouldn't strain ourselves, or judge ourselves, if we can't fit into that posture. That posture is a likely end result, yes, but what we do in our practice of yoga is to take the journey. Desikachar makes another critical point [*CO]'We should stay flexible so we are still ready to react to changes in our expectancies and old concepts. The more distanced we are from the rewards of our works, the better we may be able to do this.. Giving more attention to the spirit in which we act and looking less to the results our actions may bring us - this is the meaning of isvarapranidhana in kriya yoga' The asanas are a method of preparing ourselves to more totally meet the problems of life in a way that doesn't throw us off balance, and increases our capacity to adjust to those changes that are embedded in life. They let us be more delicate and aware to what's really going on within us, and in life itself. This growing self knowledge then provides us with a more complete picture in which our replies to whatever eventualities confront us more exactly reflects what's actually present.

There's a deeper engagement that goes past the vagrancies of the mind, the self doubt, the domination of our preconceptions and expectancies, or our desire for something that should be a certain way. When we are distracted or engrossed with doubts, troubles, and fears, and even hope that's attached to an end result ( need ), the imperative energy of our full being is leaking, diffused. This is an energetic facet of self-mastery. Integral to this is the awareness of oneself as entire, and at the same time part of the wholeness that is inside everything.