The Eternal Yoga

[primalfire]

Having practiced the forms of yoga for years, I have come to a deeper understanding of yoga.

The yoga which can be instructed and communicated, is not yoga.All the forms of yoga are techniques which are guidelines and methods for discovering yoga, yet which in and of themselves, can never be yoga. A person who practices these techniques can be

Comments

[jagwire]

At the risk of undermining your intended meaning, I would like to modify your original statement so it reads:

The wisdom which can be instructed and communicated, is not wisdom.

Everyting else you have written applies in turn.

However: You state that various forms of... commercialised... Yoga act with violence. I am Australian, and as a result have rarely seen schools of Yoga advertised at all (in a manner that would attract the mainstream, anyway). Do various Yoga schools in the U.S.A really conflict on such a level?

[primalfire]

Hehe, I like your rephrasing. :) It's true! I have no wisdom to share!

And, yes, unfortunately, there are yoga schools in america that do diminish and that are critical of competing schools, and senior / advanced instructors who go after other high-level instructors.

Yoga, in America, is under going a process of commercialization, and patents and copyrights for yoga, its postures and techniques, is on the rise. Capitalism, by its very nature, creates competition, and though I feel competition is healthy, the manner in which one competes is important.

[jagwire]

Hehe I didn't mean to imply you had no wisdom to share - on the contrary, I really enjoy reading your posts. I was just in a contemplative mood, and possibly trying to sound smarter than I actually am ;)

Such a shame about yoga. Now that science has given the big Thumbs Up to meditation, I can see the same thing happening there as well...

[primalfire]

Yet, you really are correct.

There is a story I heard many years ago that I still find amusing.

There was a person who became involved in spirituality during his college years. This person was very intelligent and gifted in science and math. During a meditation, he had a 'Eureka' understanding about himself. All excited, he went to share his newfound wisdom with one of his childhood friends, who was a jock. The jock, upon hearing it, looked at this super-intelligent person and went 'you are just figuring that out?'

For me, it communicated that what I consider wise might just be common sense or just a none-thing for other people that I would have considered 'common.'

[ommango]

One can follow techniques laid out by the Rishis as a method, and one can find their own way to self too. The codefied way isn't very much my way, yet it has given me some guideposts along the way. And my and me disappear in the end, fading away over the process. I agree with what you are saying! Yes!

I am immersed in thinking and writing about this. Having been given the task of writing about yoga for beginners it is a challenge. The challenge as I see it is to bridge yoga as experienced in modern culture with spirituality and yoga as a path to self-knowlege and then to self-realization.

[primalfire]

*nods* I've been having the same quandry, how to communicate yoga to beginners. There seem to be a few perceptions to diminish at the outcome such as yoga is religion, yoga is only for the young and flexible, and that yoga requires flexibility and is only about exercise.

The deeper aspects of yoga as a form of energetic empowerment and means for stilling the talking mind and reducing stress are concepts that some students find difficult, and nearly impossible, to understand.

[ommango]

As far as understanding quieting the mind: it can only be through experience it. Not hard to experience if you are willing.

Regular practice is more difficult...making discipline for practice at home.

Another bunch of myths: Yoga is only for women. I can't do it if I am stiff. I am not as good as my neighbor. It is a weird Hindu thing and is anti-Christian. Okay, I exaggerate, but you get the idea.

[primalfire]

You are absolutely correct!

The comparison aspect is huge.

Some other myths:

I am doing it all wrong ( I hear this one all the time )
I have to perform the full expression of the posture.
Yoga is a belief system (similar to yoga is a religion)
I have to 'get it right' to do yoga.
That yoga is 'hard work,' and you have to do it 'harder' to reap benefits.

I find that a number of students are caught in self-doubt.
That they do not understand how to feel sensation in the body.
That self-observation & the beginners mind are new territory.
That fear and resistance of the body are common.
Judgment seems to run rampant.

I'm interested in your articles, I look forward to reading your insights.

joke

[ommango]

Bad yoga is no yoke.

Re: joke

[primalfire]

*in his best yoda impression*

Yoke, or Yoke Not, there is no yoga.

damn.

this is what happens when I crawl out of bed at 1pm