We all know that YOGA means union and wholeness but, can we ever get to the point where it actually changes us? The great 20th century Indian sage, Sri Aurobindo said "All life is yoga." But, how many of us walk out of class and get into an argument with the dry cleaner or fall victim to a fit of road rage? The challenge of living a fully engaged, high-speed, modern life as a centered, conscious person can sometimes feel like one more impossible demand.
Can we remember, just once during a hectic day, to perform one action with the same care as constructing an asana, one breath as oceanic as in pranayama, one thought a seed cultivated like a meditation?
Yes, over time, practice works us. Each asana, well-constructed, massages your glands, frees your energetic blocks and you get a different understanding. You become less reactive. You gets insights. You begin to take self-responsibility when you understand that you are always creating something (health or disease, love or fear). The truth is these opposites are really different ends of the same spectrum. The results you get reflect what you are really in relationship with. We get into patterns. We choose to unconsciously repeat those patterns. We keep getting the same results.
A good yoga practice takes a closed energy system (you before practice) and amps it up (you after practice). All of you is different. Your metabolism, your thoughts, emotions, everything has shifted. With experience, you eventually learn how to make a passing state become a behavior trait. You learn how to raise your frequency to a vibration that exists above the old patterns.
Here is the best part, you're not doing this alone. The mere fact that yoga's benefits are enjoyed by so many is proof. It works, not because it is some arcane system of contortions. It works because the universe wants it to. It works because it is part of an inescapable wave of evolution. The wave is not from matter to spirit. It is, to paraphrase Sri Aurobindo, the unfolding of the seed of spirit in everyone. It is the conscious recognition that in addition to our desires, our stories, and our accomplishments, we are also, that vast, timeless mystery of eternity.
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