Yogic Wisdom
My young yoga teacher is wise beyond her years. Yesterday afternoon she started our class by reminding us that we have everything we need and we need everything we have. And by remembering this we open to grace, one of the 5 principles of Anusara yoga.
I’m intrigued by this concept. Obviously this is not about material possessions, since I certainly don’t have the underwear I’m going to need to buy in 10 years and I don’t have the food I’m going to eat tomorrow. But rather it must be about what’s in our heads and hearts and bodies.
It asks us to look inside and take inventory to see how best to use what’s there. We may find the baggage from a relationship gone awry, but that too contributed to who we are. We may find the scars from from an accident, but they remind us that the body can heal. We may find a surplus of love that has never been spoken. We may find untapped strength. Who knows?
Whatever we find will be as unique to us as our fingerprints are. It is our raw material to inform how we live right now.
I associate opening to grace with the asanas of my yoga practice. When in fact, it can be extended to embracing life off the mat as well.
posted by Barbara at 11:21 AM
4 Comments:
I am just reading a book called "Autobiography of a Yogi", by Paramahansa Yogananda. All this wisdom overwhelms me. There are people who really LIVE a life of Yogic understanding, and that is terrific and so inspiring. To hear, that YES, our good thoughts are helping! And to be kind is RIGHT! I love that encouragement.
Beautiful!
Angela, I am reading "Autobiography of a Yogi" too! (small world!) I think that the thought of having all we need and being all we need means not coming from a point of scarcity. So much of the anxiety in my world comes from worry that we won't have "enough", when I realize we have all we need, I realize that I don't have to worry about how many things we have. I know that whatever we have will be enough. Barbara, if you really think about it, how many pieces of underwear does one person need? For some 200 would not be enough, for others only one or two would do. When we realize that enough is really perception, it helps to fill our heart with love and contentment rather than try and fill it with things.
That's something you often hear in Buddhism as well -- that we have all we need, and we are already complete. It's meant to show that desire is a delusion. I guess this is a lesson Buddhism draws from Hinduism!
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