Yogah chitta vritti nirodahah. Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. Yoga is samadhi, realization of the self with the soul, and of the union of the inner soul with the cosmic consciousness.
I have learned that these are the principles of yoga, but I have not yet experienced the manifestation of these highest principles in my life or my practice. What I have come to understand in my embodied experience of my existence in this world (informed by my yoga practice), is that yoga is the faithful return to the effort of directing the mind towards one-pointedness. The attempt to find clarity and simplicity. The consistent repeated practice of this attempt. What I believe is an important interpretation of the principles of yoga, is that the yoga is the journey; yoga is every step taken on the path of yoga.
Yoga is being a good person; centralizing love and generosity as we move through life. Yoga is treading lightly on the earth, with graciousness and humility, and awareness of how the earth supports life. Yoga is the awareness of breathing, and breathing is living. So yoga brings awareness through breath to all facets of life. It is acknowledging that the divine human form is health, lightness, and purity, and in our modern urban life, it is sifting through many distractions in order to build a lifestyle that fosters the development and nurturing of our health, lightness of spirit, and purity of mind.
Yoga is the control of the mind through the body. In this way, we must first find clarity in our body. Find home in our body. Withdraw from stimuli, and peel away layers of socialization, business, emotion, defense, and aspiration, which prevent us from understanding our essence. It is not that we must “find ourselves;” we are within. It is more so developing awareness to what behaviors, habits, and beliefs we have accumulated over the course of our lifetime; what is not us. By understanding what is not intrinsic to the core of our being, yoga guides us to the essential goodness within all beings and the universe.
Yoga can be a universal practice of healing and liberation, but it must not lose its roots. Yoga is born of a history of incredible poverty and suffering; a tool for detachment from circumstance (some unimaginably brutal), to find equanimity, neutrality, and calmness where one may face great difficulty. Yoga is a journey of self-introspection. Yoga is Patanjali’s 8 limb path, so necessarily it is living harmoniously with society and with ourselves.
I have begun to think deeply about what yoga is not. It is not for the rich or for commodification. It is not a group activity even if it is practiced in a group. It is not for aesthetics, for exercise or weight loss. It is not religion or worship of modern gurus. The cultural appropriation of eastern spiritualities is not yoga. Abusive hierarchies are not yoga. The colonization of yoga in the fitness industry is not yoga. Yoga is not just advanced asanas for thin able bodies. The offering of yoga is an act of service, love, and compassion; this act is itself yoga. The teaching of yoga must be flexible, consensual, and trauma sensitive. Yoga is the acknowledgement of the inner divinity in every person, and peace and respect to all beings of the earth. Yoga is not just believing this, but acting on this principle in everything we do.
In this way, I understand yoga to be both a practice to free my own life from suffering, and a guide to a collective peace that we may mobilize in order to create a better world day by day.
What I understand about the practice of yoga, is above all else, the importance of consistency. Abhyasa. The return to the practice, every day for many years. With joy, with lightness, with non judgement, with compassion for one’s self. What is important is not how advanced the asana practice is, but what it teaches us about life if we continue it for a long time.
Mat practice mimics life. The application of the principles of yoga with complete concentration on the mat for asana practice gradually teaches us how to live our life following yogic principles. The way that we work with our body, our tensions and tightnesses, our tendencies, and our mind through asana practice teaches us how to approach challenges in daily life. Asana practice fosters a strong and healthy body, and prepares the person to still and direct their mind. It creates habits of resilience, adaptability, and above all awareness, which apply on and off the mat.
This quote is not specifically about yoga, but it resonates with me as a lesson I have begun to learn more deeply as I continue my personal sadhana. “Survival lies in sanity, sanity lies in paying attention. The truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of a life is in proportion always to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is a gift of paying attention,” Julia Cameron in The Artists Way on creativity and spirituality in art-making. Through yoga practice I learn to take an hour and a half or two hours of challenges literally breath by breath. I learn resilience by paying attention to the qualities I am experiencing in the immediate present. This clears my mind, expanding my capacity for bliss, and my ability to cope or detatch. I become reliant on nothing but myself, my own mind, body, and breath, as the vessel through which I navigate all that comes my way. I judge less, I learn more.