It is a wonder sometimes how we survive difficult experiences and life events.
Have you ever shared events from your life to others and only fully appreciated the impact these have had on you when you saw the response of worry, or pain, or shock, or pure joy and excitement in their faces? It happens. Life happens and we respond in the best way possible with what is available for us in that moment. In big or in some small way life will have an impact on us, in the conversations and interactions we have with others, in the perceived demands on our time and our ability to manage, but mostly it is in the relationship that we, quite a lot of the time unconsciously, cultivate with ourselves.
This is where the real value of yoga shines. Yes, it helps our bodies be stronger and more flexible, it helps us manage back pain and reduce anxiety, but in many ways these are by-products of the real work which is this relationship we develop with ourselves. Patanjali's guidance in the yoga sutras starts with the yamas and niyamas, the principles one should observe in one's interactions with the world and with one's own self, which reflects their importance.
I often say, to others and to myself, that ultimately we are the only ones that have to live with ourselves, so making efforts to make friends with ourselves, feels like a good thing to do. Scriptures from different philosophies and religions often talk about the need to stop looking for love and happiness from the outside but to make efforts to experience it within.
In fact as we are not able to control the outside (we might think that we are but we are not really) then it feels in fact logical that we make efforts to learn to control the inside.
This also brings questions of free will that perhaps are moving too deep for this current blog but it is worth considering - what it is that we can have control over and what is the best use of our energy.
According to Samkhya philosophy the world is made out of Purusha and Prakriti - consciousness/energy and nature/matter. Ourselves being potentially a perfect combination of the two. As part of Prakriti, of nature, we will have pre-determined tendencies, that will set the scene if you like in the way we respond to life's happenings. It took me some time to realise that those moments of response were really out of my control. With that realisation however came the revelation that what I do have control over is the efforts I make in refining and purifying my "natural tendencies". In yoga we speak of a process of moving from tamas, a quality in nature that brings inertia and darkness, to rajas, the innate tendency towards movement and activity, to sattva, a quality of purity, harmony and balance. In fact in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains to Arjuna these three qualities in nature and the ways these manifest in our behaviour and interactions, depending on which one predominates.
With all these in mind it seems to be that the real purpose of yoga is to practice mastering our inner world and developing qualities of sattva in order to be better prepared in the moments when life happens so that are responses and the ways in which we are affected start from a better place.
Through the practice of yoga we come to a better, more sattvic place, by moving our bodies in postures and sequences that ground our energy, as well as uplift our spirits and release tensions we might be holding, by bringing awareness to our breath and starting to find a calmer centre with the breath as the anchor, by cultivating mindfulness and gratitude and starting to notice the ways we use our energy and the ways we treat ourselves.
So what would it be like to start the day with an explicit intention for yourself, of how you want to experience the world and in what relationship you want to enter with yourself?
I would encourage you to use this month of March, a time period which brings with it the promise of new beginnings and new life, change and renewal as Winter starts to give way to Spring, to begin a practice of setting a daily intention for yourself.
Choose a time in the day it is more likely for you to remember to engage with this practice and take a few minutes to sit still, to take a few deep breaths, and as you do so to let your awareness settle into your heart space. From that place listen to what is your innermost intention for yourself in that moment. To listen rather than think - let the thinking mind take a break from this practice and just listen into the space of your heart. As someone shared with me recently, to "drop into your knowing", which might be wordless and not logically coherent. It might be a feeling, a sensation. And then intentionally breathe into that intention, take a few more deep breaths and let it expand into the rest of the body with each breath. To plant the seed of the intention and trust that it will start growing.
Notice if you can recollect during the day, that seed and if you can reconnect with the feeling of the intention.
Come back every day, at the same time in the day, to practice again.
Notice how life unfolds over the next month, but more importantly how you engage with life's happenings and unfolding.
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