Yoga is an inner journey, invisible and can not be measured …
Yoga is not just stretching and body worship. Or at least traditional yoga is not just that. From my point of view, anyone can practice yoga no matter the reason. Whether they are more or less elevated, all the reasons are acceptable and it is the well-taught yoga that is in charge of directing you without you noticing. Of course, no one can tell you that your level is beginner, intermediate or advanced. The evolution in the practice of yoga is an intimate act, where only you know, if you are honest, if you are advancing, retreating and in which moment of vital experience you are.
I am the ultimate advocate that yoga should expand like hairdressers or grocery stores. There should be one in each corner and the more the better. I do not support people who say that “not everyone is trained to teach yoga”. I have never believed in the limitations of talent and being. Of course, now that yoga has become fashion, which is booming, it is the responsibility of yoga teachers and students to deepen the practice and bring the public that begins to practice, a less sweetened yoga and that impel today’s society to self-exploration and self-knowledge as a tool for social, political, and systemic change that works towards a union of the common interests of the people. The large number of yoga schools is not the problem, but the quality and level of professionalism with which it is taught.
Yoga is not a product of the service sector …
Not that everyone can not be a yoga teacher, is that yoga does not belong to the service sector. It is life education and trying to make the student always feel good as if he were a customer of a cafeteria or the one that is going to buy at the English court, is an insult to the union and to the advancement of the student himself.
Physical yoga (the practice of asanas) is a psychosomatic exploration of the body points where contraction – freedom is experienced and its relation to the way in which we live our life. With the practice of the different positions that relationship is explored that exists between the block and / or physical, mental and emotional freedom. The physical posture is not the purpose. Acquiring the perfect form as they appear in the books may seem more or less difficult, but what is really important is the learning that exists to get there. That learning is sometimes beautiful and revealing and other times it will show us things about ourselves that we do not like.
The quality of the physical posture does not serve as a reference to say whether a practitioner is a beginner, intermediate or advanced.
Imagine two people who have just started practicing. The first is larger, stiffer, everything hurts, has had an accident and therefore his body is not so open. The second is a young person who from the first moment all the positions come to perfection, it costs him almost nothing and his level of flexibility is very high.
If we let ourselves be guided by appearances, anyone could say that the young person has a more advanced practice and a greater potential to evolve in the way of self-knowledge. And that the older person has greater impediments to evolve in practice.
However, the reality may be the opposite. That person who is older, who suffers from ailments has many points in favor and a greater potential to evolve within the practice of yoga. It may be that its rigidity, age and the ailments it suffers are what cause the change in that focus of external attention to a focus of internal attention where there is a negotiation and an internal dialogue with tensions, pain, limitations and fear. It is his own limitation that leads him to a self – exploration of his physical, mental and emotional baggage to understand what are the reasons, beliefs or events that have led him to be in the current state. The purpose of the practice will be the transgression of those limitations and the disidentification with the body in order to live in a lighter way.
Meanwhile the young person, healthy, flexible and who does not experience any kind of problem, if he is not careful he will continue practicing without any kind of conscience. He has the “bad luck” that does not have any kind of problem and therefore his practice does not make sense, there is no exploration, no learning. It may be a practice focused on the body, where an attachment to the body is generated even. It is curious that this state of health that can apparently be beneficial may become the reason for the evolution in the practice of yoga. Because as Prashant Iyengar says, the son of Bks Iyengar, it does not mean that by practicing yoga it evolves, there are yoga practitioners who instead of evolving, evolve.
It does not matter that the practitioner acquires or arrives at the stipulated perfect form. What matters is that there has been a process of acceptance and love towards oneself.
Yoga is also not a way to disconnect, which may sometimes be beneficial. Yoga is not if not a way to reconnect. Reconnect with our emotions, our values, our environment and ultimately with that life that allows us to live in complete fulfillment and that is consistent with our maximum potential.
Emotions in Yoga …
Therefore, the practice of physical yoga is a context as it can be another discipline where for example you can see the degree of flexibility with which we live (little or too much) whether we treat ourselves with love or not, the quality of our movements , the quality of our actions, the degree of fear that is stored in the body, aggressiveness, self-esteem, pain, freedom, lightness, joy, sadness … As soon as an emotion emerges during the practice of yoga, it is interesting to extrapolate when and how we feel that emotion in our daily life.
After all, the practice of yoga is yoga from the moment when there is inner learning.
Normally we live immersed in what you do in everyday life. “We fight” in an external battlefield. Our enemies are our parents, friends, co-workers, the boss who does not let us do what we want, the system that crushes us with the tax hike, the health system, the education system, the rise of gas, light, water and in the end we keep fighting always with aspects external to our person to which we give them the ability to influence our inner peace.
The practice of yoga puts the focus of light and attention not on external objects but on ourselves and gives us the power and responsibility to change our way of living and relate to ourselves and the world around us in a more harmonica
