Five yoga tricks
1. Stand on your head.
2. Balance your body perpendicular to the floor, standing on one leg.
3. Sit cross-legged for half an hour, motionless. Ignore any discomfort.
4. Transform pain into simply sensation.
5. Raise energy from the base of your spine out the top of your head.
What they all have in common
Yoda. The idea that our limitations are all in our head. Sure, I’ve heard the argument that accomplishing advanced yoga poses is just about alignment. But how do you get yourself to try them in the first place? We gotta get outta our heads. How do we do that? We let go.
It’s not a matter of trying. We can’t try not to think–that just brings our attention to our thoughts. It’s a matter of letting go of our thoughts, our fears, our resistance and doubt. It’s a matter of letting ourselves sink into that deep peace and strength that is always there inside our hearts.
It’s not trying to stand on our head; it’s letting our deepest inner strength carry us straight. It’s not a matter of trying to do Warrior III; it’s letting our trying and striving to balance go and just being in the moment of each breath. It’s not trying to transform pain; it’s letting go of our perceptions of it. And it’s not trying to work our base energy centre so our Kundalini can rise; it’s letting go our our ingrained thoughts about our physical body’s limitations.
As for sitting still for half an hour; I know it’s about letting go, too–but I’m still working on that one.
Interesting that ‘Yoda’ is so much like ‘Yoga’–or am I the last one to notice this?
2 Comments
That's interesting. I just took a class last night with a teacher who talked about NOT using the words, "I'm trying". Thanks for the thoughtful post!Namaste_Heatherhttp://namaste-heather.com
LOL!!!!