Reading the weekly blogs has been so much fun and has given me so much to think about. There is much going on out there and I would like you all to consider starting to post some of your experiences as I believe everyone could benefit from each other’s stories. One thing that has been coming up this week is the realization that our yoga practice can be so many things. The immersion is about spending time everyday in some kind of formal yoga practice. However, the truth is that our day to day lives provide the perfect stage for practicing all that we have learned through our formal practice. What we do on a daily basis, how we spend our time, how we interact with the people around us, how we relate to ourselves, this is all our practice too. Patanjali gives a definition of yoga in the Yoga Sutras. He says “Yogash chita vritti nirodha” which means that yoga is the stilling of the thought waves in the mind. When we practice, whatever our practice may be, this is what we’re working on – gaining some mastery over our minds. But as we all know, this is so hard to do. The mind likes to be all over the place, to obsess, to create drama. It’s interesting to watch what happens in the mind – what are our tendencies, habits, thought patterns, how do we handle difficulties and successes? At the same time, can we acknowledge what’s happening and then move on without tacking on our opinions or judgments to these thoughts. Can we train the mind to listen to us, to come back to what is happening in this moment instead of being carried away, lost in thought, dwelling on what the mind presents to us, making that thought take over every space in the mind so there’s no room for anything else.
Our lives are full of opportunities to work with the mind. If you find you can’t get to your mat one day, don’t let that stop you from practicing.
-kyra
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