I aim to live my life with the attitude -- “If not me to bring forth the qualities that I wish to see in the world then who?”—If I want to see honesty or bravery or leadership or compassion, I pray that I don’t wait for someone else to exemplify these qualities.
Pratyahara is situated directly in the middle of the eight limbs, its central position indicates that it is the point where the outer can become inner (and also the reverse).
In weak moments I reason that I can’t do more or that yoga doesn’t have answers or the little practice that I do each day doesn’t adequately speak to or address what is happening right now with things seeming to be spinning out of control on every fault line across the entire spectrum of existence.
If yoga is to take its proper place as an main, effective agent for positive change in the world it is because of the philosophy that it is based on—not as much because of the power of doing the physical postures.
There are no easy or fast solutions to many of the problems we each face personally as well as collectively. There is often great complexity in the even the basic matters that we must deal with. The complexity that is inherent to acting skillfully and responding fittingly to whatever circumstances we face requires us to be patient, caring, and compassionate with ourselves and with each other.
Even though most of us begin yoga without giving much or any thought to the yamas eventually we open the door to contemplating and even putting them into action.
Learning to exert even a tiny bit of conscious control over the largely unconscious process of image formation will greatly increase your understanding of asana theory and practice.
Because fire is THE most important element in practice, you must work consciously with your fieriness or lack of. It can require tremendous energy to get to a place where fire presides over your practice, where tapas leads you...
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...
