Yoga poses an interesting conundrum for many on the path to a variety of aspirations. This is because the majority of people discover yoga through the physical application of the asanas. They begin yoga as a form of physical exercise, and it is that, but it is also so much more. It is a way of living and a pathway to self-realisation. It is an ancient source of great wisdom and a portal to enlightenment. Living yoga on and off the mat, is an expression, which challenges some. Especially those that may have separated parts of their lives, with yoga limited to that time on the mat and the remainder of their lives not reflecting the essence of a spiritual pathway.
Living Yoga On And Off The Mat
Can you keep yoga in a can on a shelf labelled ‘physical exercise’? Perhaps, for a little while, but yoga breathes life into every corner of your existence. It is not possible to go deeply into yoga and remain uncommitted to the tenets of this spiritual pursuit. Of course, there is, also, those on the path who become lost in their spiritual ego, these are the people who boast about their devotion to their strict interpretation of an Indian yogic lifestyle. These folks spend much of their time criticising other students of yoga and bagging them as western fakes.
Yoga is uniquely yours and it is isn’t. The way yoga moves within you is distinctive to you, but each yogic tradition is, also, richly reflective of the culture it emerged from. Yoga is the ghost inside the machine; it is, now, a popular spiritual practice flowering during the most material age humanity has ever experienced. It is akin to our souls stretching out to be free from bodies encumbered with layers of material things holding us all down.
Living yoga on and off the mat challenges us all to find conceptions of ourselves beyond who we think that we are and what we consider that we possess and own. The reality is that all possessions and ideas of ownership and control are illusions. The worry that so many people feel about their material lives is a cosmic joke really. The breath inside our bodies and the witness state is all that exists in the moment. Yoga is a science, a way of realising truth in a world made up of maya. Click here to find out more.
