Practicing
yoga is not about following rules. Yoga is simply suggestions for living a
healthy and peaceful life. These suggestions are not to be followed, but to be understood.
If you understand
rules you will follow, but if you follow rules understanding will never come.
If you understand
the rules of yoga, or for that matter the rules of life, then following the
rules will come automatically as a backdrop to your life. You won’t think about what is right or wrong
you will simple move in the right direction.
For example desire-less-ness
is a suggested direction to be followed in yoga. If you follow it as a rule you
will kill all desire, and if you kill all desire you will be desire-less However, you will also be dead
because desires are not only desires they are the flow of life. We desire to
eat, to sleep and to love. To be without desire, in yoga, is to be without
discontentment. Contentment is one of the suggested rules of yoga.
Here is a
story about rules. A man was hired to be a doorkeeper at a museum. Before he started
he was handed a book of rules and told to memorize them. The first day on the
job a man came to the museum and the doorkeeper told him to leave his umbrella outside.
“But I don’t have an umbrella,” said the
man. The doorkeeper said, “In that case
you will need to go home and get an umbrella because the rules say unless a
visitor leaves his umbrella outside with me, he cannot be allowed in the
museum.”
Rules are to
be understood not followed blindly.
Remember rules
are to not be followed blindly. They are to be understood and when you understand
the rules of life you will flow with life effortlessly without the attachment of
desire. You will simply move in the right direction.
It is okay
to have desires, just don’t let them control your life. If you let them control
you, you will need rules and rules followed blindly destroy life. Understand
the nature of life and then follow its natural flow. If love is not in your
life today don’t obsess over it. Let the energy of life flow and be the love
you seek.
Doctor Lynn
If you came to my yoga class- you
would practice:
Are you
quiet and respectful (phones off) in yoga class because it is the rules, or do
you understand the significance of being quiet and respectful. Both allow you
to find peace and humility; two very important aspects of yoga. Don’t be quiet because
I tell you to be quiet. Do it because you understand why.
If I ask you
to take a deep breath, do you do this by following the rules, or do you understand
that deep breathing is a necessary part of practicing yoga. It is not a rule to
be blindly followed. It is a suggestion
that if followed will improve the nature of your body, mind and soul.
Sava Sana is
practiced at the end of yoga class. Not as a rule to be followed, but with an
understanding that the ultimate goal of yoga is to work toward bringing peace
to the body, the mind and soul. Be at peace.
Namaste
May you go
with health, happiness and peace.
