Why Practice 6 Days A Week or Every Day?
To become grounded in practice. “Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and in all earnestness.”-Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:14 What is practice? “Effort towards steadiness of mind.”- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:13 You practice 6 days a week, or whatever your tradition requires, to become firmly grounded in a steady mind. I recently read an article that stated, not practicing every day is an act of compassion. I think the opposite. Yoga was created to alleviate suffering in ourselves and in the world. Therefore, doing our chosen yoga practice is the ultimate act of compassion. Doing your practice not only serves…
Trigger….Unhappy
The video above talks about how Facebook makes money by triggering your negative emotions. By placing posts on your page, that you are likely to engage with for a long time, they can make more money from ad placement. Because of the uncontrolled mind, the best way to do that is through negative posts. They are not the only ones of course. All news channels do it. Bloggers do it. Our egos do it. Yes. Keeping you in a triggered state solidifies the ego. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, yoga is defined as, “the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” Facebook does not want you to do…
An Opportunity For Non Attachment
Life is a good and consistent teacher. She is constantly giving us opportunities to be stronger, to go deeper, and evolve. She is always teaching non attachment. Case in point. This morning, I woke up to find out that I am no longer admin of a Face Book page that I started and had no admin but me. Yep. I cannot post on the Ashtanga Yoga Project as the Ashtanga Yoga project. I immediately started searching Google and YouTube looking for hacks, solutions and people I could e-mail. Boy was that disconcerting. This happens all the time. No one knew how to fix it or posted getting it resolved. Like…
To Be of Service
“Do what you can to uplift and enlighten people, but never forget your path.”-Babaji, At the Eleventh Hour by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D. “Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and with all earnestness.” Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:14 When many practitioners become teachers, studio owners, and activists, they slowly, over time, stop practicing or practice very little. This is the worst thing we can do. As leaders in the community, we need the practice more than ever. When dealing with customers and students, we absorb their energy. We are effected by their stories. The stories and experiences of our students and community,…
Yoga and the Path of Forgiveness
Why do people love Ashtanga? It works. It heals. It has changed their lives. In the science of Yoga, firsthand experience is seen as the highest proof. 99% practice, 1% theory. Every day people are having the firsthand experience of how this practice is a catalyst for positive change in the world. This practice can work without our commentary. It can work without being announced on social media. It works in the wee hours of the morning when people silently come together in Shalas. It works in home practice rooms where lone practitioners practice to the sound of their loved ones moving around them. Yoga gives its gifts to anyone,…
Yoga: The Cure for Phantom Life Syndrome
When students get stuck on a pose, I often use a camera to record them and play it back. Sometimes we think we are doing something and we are not. We practice yoga through the veil of our own samskaras. Samskaras are pathways that, we take so often, that they become second nature to us. If we have always felt or been told that we were lacking, flexible, weak or strong, our perception of what is actually going on can be skewed. Injuries can also skew our perception. Sometimes, what we perceive in our bodies, is not really what is happening. An extreme example of this is Phantom Limb Syndrome.…
Meeting Hate with Love: Cultivating Compassion Through Asana
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali tells us to practice equanimity/upeksha in the face of wickedness. Equanimity is the ability to remain compassionate and calm in the face of wickedness and the ability to see both sides. Thich Naht Hanh says that “upeksha” means “upa” over and “eksha” look. According to Hanh, upeksha is the ability to “climb the mountain and look over the whole situation. ” For most, this is very difficult. We struggle with the idea that, if we allow ourselves to understand someone who has done an evil act, that we are somehow condoning their behavior. We struggle with that fact that, if we allow ourselves to understand…
A letter to Those Disenchanted by the World of Yoga
“Many of us get involved in spirituality and find our path, and then, without our being aware of it, the ego starts to co-opt that path. We begin to place more attention on appearing to be spiritual and talking about spiritual things than we do on the real heart of spirituality, which is about our connection to the transcendent mystery of existence-our own existence and existence as such. We should never forget that this is what spirituality is essentially about; everything else is window dressing”.- Resurrecting Jesus by Adyashanti Yoga calls this, maya. Maya is the magic that conceals the truth. It is a necessary illusion. We are either…
- Alignment and Injuries, Ashtanga Adaptability, Social Media, Teaching Ashtanga, Yoga Philosophy, Yoga Sutras
Yoga Statistics and Faulty Logic
I just watched a video where an Ashtanga teacher quoted a statistic that was probably true for her students but definitely was not true for mine. Earlier this week, someone else wrote a blog about how no one does shoulder stand anymore, but at the studio I work at, which is 90% Hot Vinyasa and 10% other, almost everyone does shoulder stand. About a month ago, someone wrote on Instagram that Ashtanga was dead when there are Ashtanga programs thriving all over the world. Sharath opened up for June and all the spaces were taken before some people even had a chance to log on. We have this way…
Ahimsa: Non Harming for Positive Change
No matter how angry we are, the unbreakable vow of the yogi is ahimsa. The Yoga Sutras state that the great vows, and ahimsa is one of them, are not to be broken no matter the circumstance. I know. That is a tough one. It is hard not to seek revenge when we are hurt. This is different from making sure that a criminal is off the streets and won’t hurt someone else. This is different from fighting for equality and rights like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Unlike war, the fighting was not done to take from and hurt others, it was done with the intention of stopping…
Making the Philosophy and Poses of Ashtanga Accessible for All
