Celebrate Now (sutra 1.1)

Now the exposition of yoga is being made.  Yoga Sutra 1.1

When people hear the word yoga most immediately think of either physically challenging postures (asana) to tone & strengthen the body or the complete opposite – relaxing, stretchy poses to create a zen mind.  Neither of these are wrong but they are just a glimpse into what yoga really offers.

To me, yoga is a celebration of “what is” in life particularly within our individual selves.  Yoga is about accepting our bodies (and others) as they are, being with our emotions as they arise vs. reacting/running and understanding that we are more than just our bodies, minds and emotions.   When we are able to catch glimpses of any of this, life becomes a celebration every moment.

Beyond asana, one way to really start to understand yoga and the celebration it offers is to go inward with one of the three main sacred yoga text:  The Bhagavad Gita, The Yoga Sutras or The Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Still need a 2012 resolution?  Commit to reading all three.

I should let you know though that reading through these books like you might read The Help or The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo won’t really increase your understanding of yoga.  What will is putting svadhyaya (Sanskrit for self-study) into practice.  Pick up one of these books, read a small section and meditate upon it.  Contemplate and reflect on its meaning.  Then put it into your life practice.  The deepest part of yoga is inward (Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi —all Sanskrit words found in The Yoga Sutras and eventually explained here in my 2012 blog sutra writings) and that is exactly what the sacred text I’ve mentioned offer —a chance to venture inward and experience life as “it is”.  This is yoga.  This is where party starts.

So to keep me honest and force me to practice what I preach (and not just by casually mentioning a sutra in a yoga class I teach), I’m starting right now with yoga sutra 1.1 listed above.  Not yesterday, not sooner or later but right now yoga begins.  Many in the yoga world (including my teacher Sri Dharma Mittra) are calling 2012 the year of self-realization (click here for Dharma’s New Year Message).  Keeping in line with this, 2012 will be my year of digging deeper into my yoga studies starting with The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Each week I will select (not in any particular order) and study in depth one of the almost 200 sutras, reading from the various translations I have.  I will meditate on it.  I will observe it in my life.  I will celebrate it.  And then I will share my experience with you.  NOW let the party start.