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Asana practice strengthens us emotionally as we learn the use of breathing techniques (pranayama), and how to breath through
a challenging pose. There is a point as you enter into a pose that you feel a bit anxious. Your unconscious mind quickly
decides for you that this asana looks difficult- there's no way, I'll never be that flexible. Now as you move deeper into
the pose, you wait for the tightness to hit and it does, it's there where you thought and in other places that you didn't
know existed. It's nerve racking- your muscles tense up, you are barely breathing- all you want to do is relax.
The thing is, though, the pain isn't that bad, it's just uncomfortable, it's a tight muscle. By focusing on the breathing
and relaxing the body, you realize that you can stretch a bit farther, breathing into a pose.
In my own practice, not only has my flexibility increased but my tolerance for the uncomfortableness has increased as
well. The initial anxiety when first starting yoga makes us think that we are stiffer than we really are. The asana practice
which builds our tapas is helpful in that it teaches us how to deal with loss and pain in our daily lives.
Yoga helps improve efficiency of the cardiovascular system, digestive and nervous systems.
Each asana physically reflects and can induce different states of mind- such as balance, surrender, open heartedness,
acceptance. As we move into a pose, we take on the external form and attitude and let it move through us. It's experiential
rather than intellectual. If you are trying to cultivate open heartedness, you may decide to do backbends to open your chest.
There is also a surrender that occurs within you as you practice regularly, exposing your heart; it is a surrender to God
or to the Universal forces. Self makes us believe that we can control our lives and make things happen according to our plans.
Also, the strong "I" presence diminishes its power on our consciousness.
There isn't an urgency to fight every battle or to fix all the people in our lives that we think need fixing. Somehow
life still happens, work gets done but with much less emotional energy. When you are in the mind set to do battle and fix
and criticize all- it feels as if it's "me against the hostile world- everybody is stupid and against me" thoughts.
But when you trust in the energy that you've connected with during meditation- a deeper kind of awareness surfaces- a natural
sense of love and compassion. We don't have to respond automatically like Pavlov's dogs every time someone or something presses
our buttons or an urge or desire floats through our minds.
There is an order in the world and the true self emerges with increased energy working through you and guiding you through
everyday actions. It's as if we all have an inner compass to guide us through life if only we checked our pockets. But the
ego doesn't think it needs any help. It can guide us just fine, make us lots of money, get us the fastest car. The Truth
is trying to get our attention all the time but when the focus is always searching outward toward the physical world, you
may not even know that the inner voice exists.
Yoga will help quiet the senses so that we can experience the Truth. The Truth is not what it appears to be. Many of
us live our lives feeling that there are divisions or differences between the races, hostile countries, cooperative countries,
men and women, mankind and nature, animals that are pests, animals that we eat, animals that our part of our families. The
division is an illusion. There are many illusions that we believe to be true but with a daily yoga practice, we can gain
a different perspective on how really connected we all are to each other, a universal consciousness.
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