Hito all of you who are reading this 🙂 As fellow travelers in the journey of Yoga I would like to share with you a few things that I learnt or experienced about yoga. Like most of you here (excuse me if there aren’t many) I started my practice of Yoga quite late in my life i.e., after I became an “Adult”. An Adult — who the society defines as a person who is capable of perfectly distinguishing good from bad, necessary from unnecessary and thus takes logical decisions which makes him/her happy. Such an ironic definition right!!
In the initial phase, I was a little excited about doing Yoga. There are so many statements elaborating the benefits that one gets, both physical and mental. I felt so special about learning and doing something that was thousands and thousands of years old. In my mind I was imagining that something magical will happen within me all of a sudden (Kundalini energy awakening. enlightenment etc. etc.). The need to learn and master was so high in me. I felt excited in learning new asanas and was in the pursuit of attempting supposedly complicated postures. To learn something new is always exciting is it not?
Then, Yoga being what it is …. And having seen millions of people like me, Yoga knew what I should learn. No matter how much I attempted some asanas I could never master them. I pushed, I pulled, I shouted and sometimes even let down a tear or two (wide legged seated forward bend!!!) but the postures seemed impossible for me. Those postures which I could master, became somethings to which I did not pay much attention. To understand better, now the sight of a dog or a cow at the roadside does not excite this “adult” as much as it did when he was child. In a fit of frustration, I would sometimes give up practice and turn off my video sit and sulk in the corner. I would go and vent my frustrations telling my yoga teacher that Yoga is difficult. My teacher would stop me then and there and say
Aravind!
First stop and see where you are and how far you have come. Be grateful for this progress! Show up for your practice daily. Practice and practice …but with understanding. Without understanding asana and pranayama practising yoga will not be of great help!
Every time these statements hit me hard. Yes, it is true, from being someone who can’t do a forward bend to reach the ground, I can now touch the floor without bending my knees. This was possible only because I did turn up and practice daily (for roughly about 1 year).
A yoga practitioner, should do a practice with understanding and a lot of patience. It is going to take time (time being different for different bodies) but there is no doubt Yoga practice is going to effect beneficial changes. Where a practitioner’s patience runs out, is nothing but an indication of either lack of understanding or the want to progress quick (without the necessary readiness).
Time and progress have been bound together by Men in not so beneficial ways I think. We all want faster growth and visible progress. Nothing wrong about this but are we sensitive enough to note the progress that is happening? We consider only great changes as progress and ignore anything small. Also, we seem to understand progress as something that we show to others.
Yoga is a personal journey and the subject /object of focus in Yoga is only You. There are no others. Understanding ourselves is the tool which we have to solve the complex problem of understanding others but we seldom look at ourselves.
As fellow practitioners and students of the system of Yoga, I invite you all
To make your practice of yoga regular,
To make your practice of yoga personal
To make your definition of progress meaningful.
To end this big monologue, I present to you below, a poem from our teacher Srivatsa Ramaswai sir
Take as much help
As one can get
From others, present and past
All through life
Help others
As much as one can
All through life
But in the ultimate
The only one
that I can help
Is myself
And the only one
that I can get help from
Is myself
Yoga prepares one
To help oneself — it’s a
Complete self-help system.
Physical, mental, transcendental
Happy Yoga folks!
Aravind .S
Atma Yoga Shala
Live. Love. Learn
