“Look at the Self, not the Ego. If your throat is tense while doing an asana or pranayama, you are doing it with your brain instead of your body.” BKS Iyengar, Iyengar, His Life and Work, p.502
Yoga is a strict master. Practicing honestly makes us hold a mirror in front, to the side and from behind to see our selves without distortion. How hard it is to practice without the ego, the wanting to do better; to achieve a goal, to work harder and put more effort into it.But ultimately so much more is achieved when we practice for understanding and depth. This kind of practice is just as sweaty and intense, but it is a different kind of effort. Instead of an outward producing effort it is an inward peeling away of layers of stuff that get in our way. It is a search for inward freedom and space rather than an outward expression of a shape or an amount of time.
The beauty of learning to practice this way is that I find it spilling over into other aspects of my life and my way of approaching obstacles. I find myself mentally stepping back from problems and making room to consider what is happening and various ways of coping. While working through an age related, old injury in my lower spine, I would find myself being in something of a panic because of the irrational thought that the pain would be like that and get worse for the rest of my life. Then realizing that I had some control over the situation and that as such, that if it stayed like that I would be able to live with it. Then of course I did find ways to work it through and although it isn’t completely gone, I really and truly can live like this.
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