Everybody wants to be pretty because that's what they've been told will make them feel good even though there's no proof that people who are prettier are healthier and happier. So why don't we just cut to the chase and go straight to what makes us feel good?
Yoga doesn't ask you to be more than you are. But it does ask you to be all that you are.
Being empowered includes developing the powerful qualities that lead human beings to cultivate wellness and healing. And those are the same qualities that enhance all relationships on earth and reduce stress (which seems to be the largest precursor to disease)-gentle ness, calmness, patience, humility, compassion, and gratitude.
It doesn't matter what it looks like; it matters what it feels like.
When we start understanding that all challenges are really opportunities to learn and grow and become all that we are becoming, which is all being guided by nature and her desire to maintain perfect balance, then what could be wrong? If there is nothing wrong, then the burden of humanity has been lifted from my shoulder and I'm free to be me - to play, to cry, to laugh, to work, to explore, to serve, to unfold and grow.
When you're experiencing what's happening right now, all of a sudden everything that happened to you in your entire life melts away.
Yoga doesn't want to change you - it wants to take care of you.
Everything becomes an opportunity to evolve and grow.
Fall with awareness and acceptance.
This is what our yoga practice is trying to accomplish. Not white light descending from heaven and engulfing you, not energy released from the base of your spine going up through your crown chakra so you become a human lightening bolt, not a halo floating on top of your head. Simply heightened states of awareness, enlightenment, becoming more and more aware which gives more and more insight, which brings wisdom and gives choice. With that wisdom and choice, we become the masters of our destiny and at peace in our life.
Without challenges, there would be no opportunity to evolve.
Yoga practice seems to be used to access some deeper dimension or some enlightened state. Understand right now there is no connection between flexibility and enlightenment.
I need to somehow peel away the dullness and heighten my sensitivity and alertness. I need to start sucking the juice out of every single moment of the most precious gift ever to be had, "my life!"
Be gentle with everything in your life.
I do not believe you could intellectually comprehend all the different forces playing upon us. Yet what you can do is become very silent, so you are not distracted and then begin to feel how these forces playing upon us are affecting us, and according to how we feel, we can then make intelligent decisions as to how far, how deep, how much, we explore in any pose.
As a matter of fact, wherever I get to is a direct result of where I'm at now which makes where I'm at now equally important.
There is no reason to not trust your process, no reason to get frustrated, no reason to criticize, or judge others, nothing wrong with getting old, or not being able to get pregnant, or being handicapped, or being short or tall or gay, or injured, or divorced or married to an idiot, or with Christianity or Judaism or Islam, or indigenous beliefs, or pollution, crime, war, Bush, etc. When this understanding grows, we realize where we're at now is just as perfect as wherever we could possibly get to.
We all know what the moon does to the ocean in the form of tides. Well, we are about 85% salt water; don't you think it is also affecting you? Maybe you cannot quantify that effect along with zillions of other effects, but certainly you are being affected.
I see exercise taking this perverted detour. The original intention of exercise was to heal and maintain health. Now I see it as having nothing to do with health. I see most exercises based on looking good. They actually make you less healthy. You overdevelop the obvious muscles. You take drugs to enhance that. You ignore the rest, and you become more out of balance.
Mental development is a by-product of hard work and effort.
The only reason that we humans and all creatures have made it thus far is because of the lessons learned consciously and unconsciously through the challenges we have been through.
Just as the seasons change and the honey bees pollinate the planet and make honey, we are also doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing. We also are apart of nature, certainly not separate from nature.
Everything is unfolding perfectly. As this perfection unfolds, I learn and grow and become all I'm becoming.
Welcome to your body.
Because we are not separate and we are a strand in the web of this existence, there is nothing about us - which includes who we are and what we do - that is not happening perfectly.
