Yoga Is

Yoga Is

I have been a student of yoga for about 10 years now.  I will say that my understanding is in its infancy as there is so much to learn through study as well as experience.  Perhaps though, we have lifetimes to explore, so, no hurry! Below are some of the gems of insight I’ve collected along the way.  I hope they will inspire your own investigation into this mystical modality said to assist us in navigating being embodied once we find ourselves here.

Some say Yoga is a science, others a religion, a healing modality, or perhaps a philosophy.  For many, it is a form of exercise, a means of gaining and maintaining strength with flexibility.  For others it is a way of life. Yoga, it’s been said, isn’t the “what” but the “how”. It’s the presence with which one moves about.  The awareness one brings to action, a practice in living consciously. It’s a harnessing of one’s personal power to mindfully choose action rather than going about unawake and unaware bound by habitual patterns of behavior and thought.  Yoga is said to be skillful engagement with life.

I think of it like this, if I’m stuffing my face with chocolate cake, in an unconscious attempt to quell a storm of emotion, caught up striving to satiate uncomfortable sensation, I’m slave to a pattern of mindless reactivity. If however, I am aware of first how I am feeling, second how I am reacting, conscious of action, able to process and feel as best as I am able what is here now, is this not yoga?

For me, yoga is a way of being in the question of life.  It’s a way of exercising my body, a dance between both discipline and compassion.  It is a tool through which to focus my mind in order to go deeper beneath mind into more meditative states of flow and oneness. It allows me to practice being with emotional weather moving through, (while eating the chocolate cake too)! Yoga invites me to explore being compassionate awareness, kind attention, even neutral presence.  

Is it easy for me? Absolutely not. To recognize compassion in myself is one thing. To catch myself caught up in judging can feel humbling at best, or crushingly defeated, much harder states to be with. Yoga thus requires “tapas”, discipline, in order to build the heat necessary to catalyze change.  The discomfort associated with being outside of one’s comfort zone, whether physical, mental or emotional, build the heat necessary to grow beyond our own limiting sense of self, of other and the world around us. Such growth calls us into our most authentic expression of Self.

As most of us know, there are sensations in life that are not comfortable, some, downright painful.  Emotional states, physical states, mental states, these all have spectrum, ranging roughly from pleasurable to excruciating.  Sometimes though, the only way out of these states is through. Meaning, that which one resists persists. Meaning, the more we are able to practice mindfulness, a being with the sensations of life, the more we develop tolerance.  Tolerance allows us to to be more willing and ABLE to feel.

An increased ability to feel can sometimes seem a blessing and at other times a curse.  For most, the more pleasurable sensations such as joy, happiness, love, oneness with life, fulfillment, hope, pure potentiality are more comfortable states. Feelings such as self doubt, dissatisfaction, sadness, grief, disappointment, fear, insecurity and despair are some of the states that tend to be resisted.  This resistance of the the less pleasurable states accompanied by the alternate grasping onto of pleasurable states is said to be the root of suffering referred to in yogic philosophy as attachment and aversion.

My yoga practice has aided me in being with the ever changing scape of states and sensations that accompany being embodied.  It’s helped me to feel that this flux, the weather within as well as the weather outside of ourselves will most likely continue. Change seems to be a constant in this physical realm.  It feels better though, for me, to not fight, nor resist. I’m quite confident that the story of life will continue. We can fight it. We can struggle. We can suffer, trying to hold on to some sense of permanency.  Or, instead, feel, observe, chill, eat chocolate cake (mindfully) and allow everything to unfold. Free will allows us the choice to be with and in this conversation of being alive however we may choose. It is my promise though that your yoga practice will gradually but inevitably increase your ability as well as power to consciously choose how to skillfully engage as an active participant in this amazing journey of L.I.F.E, a ¨Living Inquiry Forever Evolving¨.  Don’t take my words for it though, dive in and explore for yourself!

Blessings in your L.I.F.E as you investigate what Yoga Is

Vanessa Kent

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