In yoga and meditation, we ground down to rise up.
We work on our alignment and we breathe.
In the midst of all these poses and/or meditation, we may become aware of an uplifting feeling, a warmer or brighter feeling inside, even a flow of warmth.
Take this in like soaking in a hot tub.
Be still for a bit… and enjoy.
This is yoga!
I meditate every day. Sometimes briefly, sometimes not–depending on the day.
I cannot deny myself its benefits.
It not only sustains me but mutually benefits those around me.
It is a loving offering or tribute to life!
If you’re curious in learning more about meditation and its benefits for you and those around you, you might want to read “How Meditation Benefits Everyone Around You”.
It is still amazing, even though it’s happened so often in my many years of practice, how meditation and yoga can burn off the clouds and let the sun through.
This can truly make your day!
It’s funny how even just a little bit of yoga and/or meditation can take me back to happy.
It’s as though a succession of holes in slots misaligned is brought back in line with one another.
What can you do to realign more to happy, to that energy that uplifts you… and those around you?
We all can be the change!…
As you do more and more of the practices and deepen your connection to them*,
what is it that you come more in alignment with?
It feels good. It is supportive. It is expansive and uplifting. It gradually opens you more and more to its all-encompassing compassion and love. It is beyond this ego. All of life seems to be alive with it!
We are all “yoked” to it for life!
It is yoga!
*See this link to learn of the 8 limbs or areas of practice in yoga.
In yoga, we work with the breath (pranayama), bend and stretch into all sorts of shapes (asanas)… we meditate… we try not to harm ourself, and others, and nature (ahimsa), we try to be honest and truthful (satya)*….
But why do we do all this?
The practices in yoga align us more and more to that which is greater than this ego, to that which in yogic terms is our “true nature,” to that which is truly great in all life,
to that which is universal.
One thing is certain. Despite some predictability, life will at times throw unexpected twists and turns in our path.
We can get upset with what “obstructs” us, or we can adjust, modify our course based on the new circumstances.
The witness allows us to be present to new circumstances without judging them– dropping our resistance to what is, and adapting to the unexpected.
Meditation and yoga strengthen our ability to open to the witness and thereby be more present to what is, rather than clinging to what we want or think things should be.
Meditation is a deep listening and watching, observing… our thoughts, and feelings, our body’s sensations.
This witness is interested, attentive but uninvolved, detached. It is the stillness in the midst of all…
Listening deeply.
The mind is always looking to fix things, to make things better.
This is all well and good for so much of life’s activities.
A settledness is not the mind’s usual repose.
What would happen if for just a moment the mind truly came to rest?
The same life force is being us all, flowing through us, enlivening us–every one of us with all our cells alive with it.
It is the source of everything about us. There is nothing about us that is not that.
We really are the same thing being different.
The Every Day Yogi 