Uniting your body-mind-spirit.
Yoga is a pure group of physical, mental and spiritual practices which originated from ancient India and it focuses on breathing techniques, exercise and meditation. What a beautiful mix, right?
Simply said, Yoga is “the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind”. What does that mean?
I had been casually doing Yoga since the beginning of 2018, however, let me briefly explain to you my level of yoga commitment.
Starting slowly with 2 or 3 practices per week, not truly understanding or being fully confident in the practice itself, I embarked on this journey without knowing how much Yoga is going to impact my life.
Starting from there, I got more and more drawn into this spiritual technique (after finding Yoga with Adriene – check out my Blog to find out more), moved to Bali and immersed myself into the true culture and practice of Yoga, and that was the moment when I realized. Yes. I am ready and willing to commit to a daily Yoga practice lifestyle and fast forward to the present moment, I made it.
I am making it happen every single day, even if it’s for 10 minutes in between long-haul flights, or 20 minutes after a full day in Uni, or a whole hour on a Sunday morning on my mat, surrounded by my lavender candles.
Yoga awakened a feeling that has been ‘asleep’ in my for a long time. A feeling of being in sync and fully connected with myself and the Universe, whilst flowing with my body.
Yoga made me feel whole. For the first time.
And this feeling started to sleek its way into many parts of my life as well, all leading to myself discovering my TRUE SELF. But the idea of the self is an assumption in today’s Western World, unfortunately.
“What we in the West define as the true self is actually patterns of continuous responses to people and the world; patterns that have built up over time.”
~ Denning (2016)
As we are so obsessed with achieving happiness, what Yoga truly teaches you is TO LET GO. To let go of your past and future selves and all the emotional package that comes with them. Oh, and how heavy is that package right? Yeah, I know you get me.
Yoga is a spiritual practice that teaches you how to get out of your own head and it makes you fall in love with life. It makes you truly realise that you don’t need anyone or anything to find what you are looking for.
Now, I didn’t want to get too technical or focused on explaining the science of Yoga, however, understanding The 8 Limbs of Yoga (or known as The Yoga Sutras of Pantajali) will offer you a guide in understanding how to live a purposeful life whilst introducing them into your Yoga practice.
- YAMA – Restraints, moral disciplines or moral vows
- NIYAMA – Positive duties or observances
- ASANA – Posture
- PRANAYAMA – Breathing techniques
- PRATYAHARA – Sense withdrawal
- DHARANA – Focused concentration
- DHYANA – Meditative absorption
- SAMADHI – Bliss or enlightenment
(For more information, check out this Blog which explains in detail The Yoga Sutras of Pantajali)
What most of you might think when hearing the word ‘Yoga’ is flexibility or physical exercise, but as you can see, Asana’s are the third step on the path to spiritual freedom and let me tell you this. Yoga is not about being able to perform a perfect downward dog or a perfect headstand.
The whole idea is to get in the state where your body is in alignment with your mind and soul, preparing it for a meditative state.
“The most important posture the practitioner can hold is a comfortable and motionlessness posture.”
~ Hatha Yoga Pradipika
The next important aspect of any Yoga practice is Pranayama (the breath), which is perceived to be the Soul. Once you attain a ‘freedom of breath’ or ‘breath liberation’, being in full control and in the present moment, your body will follow your breath, therefore, you will then be fully prepared and ready to immerse yourself into a meditative state.
In the meditative state, the aim is indeed to become completely absorbed, fully concentrated and focused, however, still detached. It is essential to remain an observer, even whilst meditating, in other words, without letting thoughts like ‘i’m meditating, ok, I need to focus, I need to be present’ creep into your mind.
Don’t forget that your own mind has more storage than the Cloud when it comes to storing and gathering thoughts. Pretty tricky, right?
How many of you have heard the word Samadhi? It means bliss or enlightenment and this is the final step in Pantajali’s Yoga Sutras, and in Hinduism is described as the ultimate state of deep concentration resulting in union with the ultimate reality and the Soul.
“To put it simply, once we’ve reorganised our relationship with the outside world and our inner world, we come to the finale of bliss.”
Let’s just break this sacred word in half, shall we?
Samadhi
‘sama’ – same or equal
‘dhi’ – to see
So, you can see how the common paradigm of Samadhi just fell apart? Yeah. That was my hope. Samadhi is not referring to us floating on a fluffy cloud and being high from a state of next-level kind of happiness. Nope.
It refers to the true realisation of the life that lies in front of us and which we live every day. However, the process of seeing is totally different from this point onwards.
Once we reach Samadhi, one will become capable to ‘see equally’ without the mind being in control, without its experience being conditioned by likes, dislikes or habits and without being attached to any particular aspect.
“You can finally see the reality for exactly what it is, you can finally be in a state of ‘I-AM-NESS’.”
In conclusion? Haha, I wish I could put a conclusion to this blog, but I can’t. So instead, I will say this.
“I am a good yogi because I am fully me.”
And that is what I can say about each one of you reading my Blog right now. But the only difference is that some of you, or most of you, don’t feel that way. Yet. So, I will tell you this. You are PERFECT already.
I am still a long way towards achieving this Samadhi state, and in all honesty, not many souls achieve this in multiple lifetimes, and I or you might not ever achieve it either. So, you might think now, where’s the point of doing Yoga and embarking in such a draining Spiritual Journey, etc etc.
For now, to find peace of mind, joy and happiness in your soul and stillness in your body, and once you become in control of your aversions, desires and habits, and you embrace each practice with a completely pure mind and free of impressions and misleading thoughts, things will start shifting for you.
So, enough said! Hop on the mat, even if it’s your first time or 100th time and get to it!
Identify yourself with compassion, open-mindedness and willingness to commit in redefining your life by practising Yoga. One step at a time and you will slowly start to realise that Yoga happens beyond the mat.
Sending you Love and Light,
Namaste 🙏
