One week you are springing out of bed to practice and the next you are dragging yourself to the mat. It is like being in an ocean where the current is deceptive, you think you are in control, in one place, and then in a snap you are downstream!
Yes, the road behind me is strewn with my failures and as painful as all these mistakes were, and are, at least I can say I took on my darkness.
I used to hear my teacher Sri Pattabhi Jois during conferences go out of his way to remind us that beginning practice with Surya Namaskara was an act of devotion and not a warm up.
Practice only because you want to practice. End of statement. Don’t do it for any reason at all, not for following a lineage, for weight loss, to get in shape, fun, health, spiritual growth, realization, prayer, or devotion. NOT FOR ANY OF THOSE REASONS.
Ashtanga is not arbitrarily difficult or demanding—no, the practice provides you with a perfect, explicit model of what it takes to come to the mastery of anything. And the requirements of Ashtanga’s sacrifice are so blatant, physical and explicit.
Your efforts in practice are meant to feed the ideal images that you are shaping within your mind and body, and this maturation takes place nearly imperceptibly, little by little, day by day. Part of establishing yourself in the discipline, is learning to
The hatha yogi uses his body to create an inward, symbolic sand mandala each morning, and thus he mounts to a similar pinnacle of devotion, a turning away from the pull of materiality in favor of turning towards the sublime spiritual realms within. In ma
So how can I be realistic about the effort I do put forth? How do I accurately assess whether I practice too intensely or too mildly and in either case effectively? And what level of mildness or intensity is right for me at this time? How do I know the dif
I'm biased but I think that Ashtanga is the best practice. And the way to learn Ashtanga is to find a teacher who teaches Mysore. Sign up for the month and follow their instruction. If you can't get access to a teacher then a dvd can do it.
Stepping on your mat each day is walking into the forest, practice is sitting down in the middle of that scary place and undertaking to meet the source within...
