Shortly after arriving here in Chiang Mai I realized that people have misconceptions about this practice, including why it's called "practice", and it's not just people here, it's people back home too, including members of my own family. I've been sitting on this for awhile...because where do you start to describe something so precious to folks who have never experienced it?
I started practicing yoga back in 2005. I went through a transition when I looked in the mirror one day and realized that I had gotten fat. I needed to loose weight and I needed to change my lifestyle & eating habits. I bought a membership to a gym because I figured unless I was paying for it, I wouldn't go. I was borderline obsessed with going to the gym and loosing weight. I was lifting weights, using the stair climber, treadmill and going once a week to an hour long yoga class. I started to really look forward to this weekly class, where I saw the same people attend week after week with the occasional newcomer (which tended to throw everyone off). The group of regulars became casual friends. I was starting to love yoga and after attending for just over a year, I approached the teacher, whose name is Maria, and asked if we could meet for a coffee to talk about yoga teacher training. As someone who chose teaching as my career path, it seemed like the next logical step for me. We met and Maria highly recommended the teacher training program that she completed at Moksha Yoga Center. She communicated that it was a challenging program, that it required a high level of commitment, but that it was one of the best decisions she had made. She recommended that I buy a class package and start practicing there to check it out. I was sold, I went home & looked up the program, budgeted how I would pay for it and bought a class package.
When I started practicing yoga, I did it because it felt good. I liked how I felt while I was in class and I loved how I felt after class.
When I started the teacher training program I started to learn why it felt so good. I also discovered that I had a lot to learn. I felt I was considerably behind my peers in my lack of knowledge regarding the history of yoga, I knew almost no Sanskrit and anatomy was a guessing game...but I did have committment and a strong work ethic (two skills I'm grateful to have learned from my parents). Then slowly with time & dedication, I learned what I needed to learn.
Yoga has so many benefits I cannot possibly list them all here in this blog post. Each asana (pose) has a list of health benefits that range from physical to mental & emotional. Yoga is partly science and you can take yourself through a sequence of poses designed for almost any purpose you may need or desire on any given day.
But for me, a large part of the draw is this; if I take care of my body and my mind I will be able to grow old without pain in my body. I will live a long, healthy & happy life. I will experience a deep connection to how I'm feeling at any given moment because I'm aware of the delicate flow of my breath. This same awareness of my breath helps me to find clarity when I need it, this same awareness of the breath can help me relieve headaches, fatigue, body tension & stress without taking pills or medication. Yoga helps to develop strength of both body & mind, a balanced lifestyle, and flexibility in how you approach life and your body functions.
I have seen too many people suffer. They suffer with poor body image and self medicate by popping pills for aches & pains both large & small. I have seen too many people suffer with addiction to foods & substances that kill their body from the inside out. I have seen the epidemic of obesity in the United States, which is unlike anywhere else in the world because people don't care about what they put in their bodies. I saw my own Mammie suffer tremendously with pain as a result of arthritis that was crippling and as I rubbed the medicated lotion on her knees which were swollen to the size of melons, I vowed to myself that it wouldn't happen to me.
My medicine...I choose yoga.
So let me clear up some of these misconceptions; yoga is not a cult, and it's not a religion, although for some it becomes a spiritual practice. Please, until you've tried it several times with several different teachers, don't call me "one of those people."
I don't understand the chantings & it seems like Buddha plays a big role in yoga. Being Buddhist is a religion of his own. For many that practice yoga, it does become a religion, through the chantings & Buddhism beliefs. You can call it a "spiritual practice".
ReplyDeleteI do believe that yoga can be amazing for your body, mind & soul through the exercise alone.
For me, I would not be able to sit through the chantings. My time would be better spent on praying to Jesus, someone that will answer my prayers.
Dear Gina,
ReplyDeleteThere are some more misconceptions here about yoga. Buddhism has nothing to do with yoga, and Buddha plays no role in yoga. Yoga actually predates Buddha's birth by more than 2000 years. Yoga and Buddhism may come from the same part of the world, but they are completely separate wisdom traditions with completely different goals and lineages. In the thousands of hours I've spent taking yoga classes, in countries all over the world, I've never heard a teacher in a led yoga practice mention Buddha once.
The MAIN purpose of yoga, as stated in the classical texts, is "to stop the fluctuations of the mind." The goal of the entire practice, all the poses and breathing techniques, is to empty out the mind, and STOP thinking. There is no prayer involved whatsoever in yoga. Prayer requires people to focus their thoughts outwards, and project their intentions and devotion towards an external source, a higher God. Yoga is not concerned with what exists beyond the mat-it is a science designed to "quiet the mind" through a singular focus on the breath and body. It is not a religion because there is no theology underlying it, and no belief-system. You can be a Christian, a Muslim, an atheist, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a pagan, whatever, and still practice yoga and benefit from it. This is why yoga is so popular all over the world-it doesn't require any philosophical commitment from people, just a desire to move and sweat. All we ask people to do is breath deeply, and move their bodies in a specific way that has proven physical benefits.
The chanting sometimes found in yoga is not directed towards any deity, nor is it Buddhist in origin. Most classes don't include any chanting beyond the mantra "Om", and the purpose of chanting "Om" is not to pay tribute to any person or God, it is simply to center the mind with the breath before and after the physical movements. There are more Sanskrit chants that teachers sometimes include in yoga practices, but again, these are not religious in nature, they are rooted in the science of sound, and their objective is to bring sound to the breath so that your mental awareness is alert and focused. People in a yoga class do not have to chant, either, it's up to them whether they want to participate or not.
Yoga is 5000 years old, but it is not a religion. It requires no statement of faith or belief, no attendance of any gatherings, no baptisms or pilgrimages or tithe or acknowledgement of any power or deities. Yoga is simply a METHODOLOGY designed to deliver peace of mind.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGina,
ReplyDeleteThanks for giving me another opportunity to clarify misconceptions. In regards to the phrase "spiritual practice" that I used in the blog...I took some time to reflect on how I would define the term, I believe a spiritual practice to be an activity that brings joy, that helps to focus the mind or that leaves time & space for reflection (please remember this is my perspective) It's my opinion (and experience) that almost anything could be considered a spiritual practice, when approached with the right mindset and with the right intention. Examples being a walk through a garden and admiring it's beauty, making music by playing an instrument or singing a song, watching a sunset, learning to do something new, the ancient art of Japanese flower arranging, maintaining a bonsai tree, crocheting or knitting, running on the treadmill, the possibilities are endless! It's those moments, when you're lost in the midst of the activity, and you're struck with the realizations you didn't even know you were looking for... when you have "aha" moments, when you experience a glimpse of seeing things clearly.
I have this memory of walking home after teaching yoga in Chicago, I looked up into the sky and saw the most beautiful full moon spilling its light over the city and onto the sidewalk where I was walking, and in that moment, my walk home was a spiritual practice because the moment my mind acknowledged the beauty of the full moon light...all I could think was I am small, and there is something much greater and more powerful than me in this universe! How do you put these experiences into words without losing some of the meaning of the experience?
I would love to use my Dad working in his garden as an example here. He spends hours of time working in the yard, he uses both his body (in the manual labor of working the garden) and his mind (as he designs the space to look how he wants it to look). He gets so much joy from working his garden, especially after the work is done and he gets to sit in the back yard with his family and admire the beauty. I would say this is a spiritual practice, he may not, but for me, that's how I see it. How can you admire beauty in nature without seeing God in all of it?
Have you ever had one of those experiences, Gina? Do you have that sort of outlet in your life, where you loose yourself in it? One where you can activate both your body & mind and see the beauty of life that surrounds you? Perhaps you call it prayer...
I do, for me it's yoga.