Receive your gift in silence

what is your intention?

We go to yoga class. We start the class by making an intention. Then what?

Do we hold true to its energy every second of the class? No. We tuck it away in our heart and let it speak its own words to our soul.

be patient for the prana to do its work

For, the energy of a wish comes from within us and can hardly hide its wings when we are allowing the prana to circulate as we move our bodies in twists and waves.

What we feel comes from within. Before the words even articulate themselves to our being, we know what it is we are trying to say.

sometimes no words

Sometimes we are silenced. Sometimes this is a blessing. In this inability to find words, our soul is telling us to go deeper. Look into the still pond of your being. Do not always rely on words. Look to the swirling space that doesn't want to hear your words and give it your thanks.

There is more to living.

Namaste.

© 2010 Yoga Robin^®

underneath the surface of who i am: yin and yang of the heart

Picking up where I left off in my article on an inquiry into your nature…

The idea of participatory spirituality has some more juice in me at the moment. First, I’ve been on a tangent speaking of shyness and opening up about my true expression. As if in a bit of a conundrum, I go back and forth in my life between befriending stillness and befriending the gems inside me that I can only get to by stirring up the darkness to see what’s lurking beneath that surface.

From the words of a song, “I swear that I can feel you creeping underneath my skin. It feels like heaven to me sometimes.” The feeling is all-encompassing. There is a quality of light within the dark—a yin/yang. The love is what I feel.

I can feel a side of me inside reaching out for expression, asking gently to not vaporize the energy of the expression into an emptiness, thereby bypassing it all together. It is telling me that there is much to be learned in feeling this darkness that I hide within the armor I’ve built like a child building a sand castle.

Sand is a good metaphor for this armor. It is made of rock, symbolizing strength. After many years of weather it can harden to an impenetrable substance, but if air continually moves through the tiny spaces (e.g., breath) between each grain, the wall can easily be knocked down in its softness. A simple symbolic hand can do the trick with one violent strike. Alternatively, I could douse it with my watery essence in a waterfall, or a slow drip to eat away at it slowly.

A soothing Italian proverb leads the way in my life now:

Chi va piano va sano va lontano. Chi va forte va alla morte.

(Who goes slowly, goes healthy and far. Who goes fast, goes faster to death.)

Taking time with the precious gems is most important. They have been in the dark so long, so once they see the light do I expect them to acclimate immediately? Give them time to adjust and evolve to become one with me again in their new form, with light shone upon them.

If I do they will become like a dream that I’ve always imagined but could never reach. Not until now at least.

© 2010 Yoga Robin®

Follow the mist

Keep your mind opened to possibilities

Ever-changing, I seem in this moment to be in the middle of a silent breath between states.

Just as there are many forms of life, I notice that it is common for people to tag a style of being in the world, which then closes them off to other inspirations that could come spontaneously, from afar or from within.

There is a misty quality to knowing I am on the right path, regardless of the unknown.

I follow the mist........

follow your own truth

There are uncountable ways to grow and evolve. Each has his or her own way, and to follow another's way is to not fully engaging with one's own inner guidance. I am influenced by many modes of thought but always, in the end, I follow my own visions. 

In fact, my yoga practice has taught me this as well.

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Discipline: A spiritual practice

disciplined mind

I just returned from a Bikram yoga class. What sticks with me is not the power of enduring the heat, but the power of discipline to control the mind.

Bikram yoga, unlike the Vinyasa Flow yoga which I have 13 more years of experience with, has many rules that are not necessarily inherent in many people. In my life and in my yoga practice I am used to living organically, letting my life take me in a flow. When I am practicing yoga alone, I have no plans in advance for my practice. I let my yoga practice take me.

Sure, there is discipline required with many styles of yoga, such as Ashtanga. But the movement inherent in this active style, where you generate your own heat, and move your own prana makes for a more organic practice inately.

Back to Bikram. What I feel in these classes is the necessity for discipline, as I'm led along a distinct path and how the discipline itself becomes the spiritual practice.

stay present

It is important to notice where the mind goes in any yoga practice, but in Bikram it is more about needing to stay with the group, listen to the teacher on cue, not close your eyes, drink water only when told, rest in savasana over and over, to name a few

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Staying present

dealing with chaos

Staying present helps. It does help me to stay peaceful when life on my path deals me too much chaos.

Sometimes it seems like some force is behind it all, dealing me one blow after another or all simultaneously to get the largest effect. It is in these moments when I know that I am being shown a serious sign to listen.

find the lessons

To know the lesson, I need to refocus because staying with each moment, breathing patience, is the only way to get through the most chaotic times.

In this way I dive into the chaos and embrace it. I do not freak out.  Instead I laugh in a way. I invite each moment, dealing with it as it comes. In doing so, eventually I realize a miracle has occurred! I come out of the experience at peace and with a secret message...

find your personal power

From here in this space, absent of worries, I have more personal power. If I erase others' doubts and erase the pressures of needing to be more than I am, I can see the truth clearly.

To reach a personal space where I see people I care about as a resonance of my perfect heart beating, I feel freed of any negativity that could go along with feeding into chaos.

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