My Philosophy
Yoga is a form of technology
The yogic tradition represents a systematic approach to self-care that has the potential to unveil the healthiest, wisest and most beautiful version of yourself. You are introduced to your true nature when you approach a yoga practice. It is as much a physical exercise as it is a conversation between you and your soul. A full body prayer. A dialogue between the physical vessel and the sponsor giving it life. The result is undeniable new levels of wellbeing.
When people ask me why they should do yoga, I often boil the reason down to one thing; because it just makes you feel really good. The systematic approach I am describing is not about “fixing” you, or making you whole. Your practice is not about chasing a six pack or forcing yourself into a certain pose. Yoga is fundamentally not about making you “better".
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to sell anyone on the idea of leaving behind physical fitness, but rather; the point of this discussion is about parsing out where true health is actually rooted.
Going Deeper
The subtlety of this shift in perspective is nuanced and can be tricky to pin down. You can spend a lifetime chasing the idea of fitness or health without ever knowing where it actually stems from. But once you get a handle on this shift in perspective, the power you gain is impossible to ignore.
From my point of view, this power lies squarely at the point of paradox. When you remember that you are complete already, this is when you physically externalize the strength and vitality that is germane to your soul’s energy. You are eternal, but not static, and when you realize that you are perfect now, in this state, (for whatever it is worth in its messiness and imperfection) you give yourself the latitude to shift in the physical realm.
Yin & Yang
When you integrate this paradox into your mind, body and spirit through yoga— that is when the magic begins. This is the point where this ephemeral, material reality, including your body, and all of the other surface level circumstances, begin to reflect the soul’s grace.
Yoga allows you to stand in the light of your soul’s awareness. It integrates the clutter and noise of the ego so that you benefit from your shadow instead of being eclipsed by it. Instead of ego-death, yoga encourages an integration of the darkness. The darkness has a place, and a valuable service to provide. Instead of dividing us even further from ourselves, yoga carves out the path for this integration to take place. Because without the darkness, we cannot see the stars. We need the dark in order to understand the light.
At one point or another, we all take a dip into the realm of darkness. We have all taken the bait and bought into the idea that we are less than the soul-level-totality that we really are. We taste the flavor of separation that the ego willingly provides. The ego gives us a gift, a service, by allowing us to become myopically focused on our narrow human perspective. And while this can be painful, the forgetting always leads back to your remembering, every time.
Remembering Who You Are
The darkness of the ego puts your light on the map. The separation allows us to re-emerge into the familiar memory of union, which is one of the most valuable and spiritually juicy experiences that any being can have. We choose to forget on purpose, so that we can re-emerge into the sweet, powerful experience of relief, of knowing once again who we really are.
Your growth and your desire to change are both critically important; but you will never change in the physical realm if you don’ remember your soul’s perfection to begin with. You can use whatever word you choose to represent this dynamic. Perhaps you call your soul your “inner being” or your “higher self”, or maybe you just recognize that sometimes you feel a sense of alignment with something bigger than you. Maybe vocabulary escapes you entirely when this feeling finds you, but regardless, we all know this thing. We each have a memory, buried somewhere beneath the threshold of our conscious awareness, of something more that we are connected to. You don’t need to follow a particular religion or spiritual path to know this part of your identity. It is ineffable; it transcends the human definitions of God. Your relationship with your soul; with the beyond; with something bigger, is yours. Nothing and no one comes between you and this greater energy, because it IS you, and you ultimately cannot be divided from your own self.
For me, yoga has been a homecoming. A remembering of what lies beneath the layers of my conditioned identity. Yoga uncovers my soul. My practice nudges me deeper into the realm of eternity while allowing me to continue living a human life in a physical body. My practice is where I remind myself of my wholeness, so that I can grow, more like a plant, closer toward the light. Benefiting from the darkness of the soil within which I am planted, while continuing to bloom. Always remembering, that no matter how far I grow, that I am always at home, always whole and complete.