Sutra 1.2 and 1.3

From Alberto Villoldo, Yoga is vigilance, awareness and stillness of the mind. Yoga frees you from the drama, the tragedy, the saga your mind creates and allows you to experience your True Self. This is amazing and true, in my "old" stressful career and lifestyle, the drama and sagas that would develop out of my own creation would then cause suffering for myself and those around me. It would also keep me from really seeing myself or loving myself. Yoga opens the door to self care and self understanding as these sutras describe. So anytime my mind begins down one of these paths, I make a conscious choice not to take that thought path and adjust what I am doing and what I am thinking.

Sutra 1.1 Revisited

How many times as yoga teachers do we revisit this first sutra: With humilty we embrace the sacred study of yoga. This weekend was no exception, spending a weekend with Yoga Teachers, doing continuing education and learning and doing yoga with each other provides the frame work of this sutra. Embracing the process once again, enriches and freshens my practice. Each time I experience something new or create a new yoga connection speaks to me of this sutra.

Reserves for the physical self

As I stated in my last post I would be exploring ways that we can build those reserves and keep our lovely yogic positive energy up on an ongoing basis. We have to store up those reserves, basically planning and pacing ourselves.

With the physical self, we have times when we are extremely active, doing long days of asana or another activity and then we spend the next day spent and tired, not really able to fulfill what we need to on a physical level.

As we build reserves, we counter what we are doing to keep our energy at a level plane, and build our endurance. When I have heavy days of teaching, I take long walks during that same day or do restorative yoga. Two things that help my energy. On the next day, I will do something counter to the physicality of my heavier days, by doing water related exercise, meditation and breathing practice. This feels very good to the body and mind. My body feels better and mentally I am rejuvenated. Yoga asana practice, if you have been doing flow, do some Hatha-longer holds, explore a pose and have playful time, if you do quieter yoga or a more static practice do flow instead.

See how this works! Also, find joy and breath in what you do, it will help you and give your body a more well rounded physical practice. namaste'

Reserves for the Inner Self

Recently my Teacher brought to my attention, my ability to have "reserves" in my life created from my yoga practice. What are reserves? They are our ability, to have an endless amount of fuel for our yogic energy so that we can weave it into every part of life and maintain balance, centeredness, and the calm light and joy that we experience and put forth through our day. I have admired my whole life, those people who respond with wisdom, calm energy and have unswerving boundaries that allow them to be centered and happy.

How do we do this? First you to want to have it! Then creating it, reserves are feeding yourself well, and I mean REALLY well, it isn't being the perfect yogi, it is about what you are taking in as being nurturing. Water-what they say is true you need to drink plenty and consistently. Sleep, regular sleep habits are a must or developing these habits and be willing to change those habits that don't seem to work.

Taking care of the body, "the body is a temple" we have all heard that phrase, it truly is, whatever it is you do, tune into where you are at physically and make adjustments. It is so important, put the ego aside and welcome who you are and work with you what you were given.

And finally, the best for last, a regular yoga practice(or equivalent!), consisting of asana, meditation, pranayama and self work: reading, writing, and connection to your guide(higher power, god, guru etc). These things will continue to fill you up everyday and give you that extra battery when you need it.

As we continue to serve and be guided to help the greater universe the more love we can give ourselves the more we can give out. If you are interested in tuning in and want to create reserves in your life, I will offer ideas to help each category. Light, peace and love to all

Sutra 1.7: rays of consciousness

Sutra 1.7, begins to explore the rays of consciouness. Knowledge embraces personal experience, inference and insights from the wise. We interpret everything by how we
process our personal experiences. How do we react in a given situation? Can we see what we need to see clearly? Are our experiences clouded by emotions rather than reason? I have found when I am able to step back from situations, and resist an instant reaction, I tend to form more insightful knowledge and the ability to meet the person or situation in a more authentic manner. Even if I do have a personal experience to draw on, I want to see my growth and my ability to be flexible with where I am at at any given time. So incorporating wisdom and insight becomes a large part of this ray, knowledge.

Sutra 1.5

Dividing into five, these rays of consciousness polarize as pleasant or unpleasant. I am continuing with the Rays of consciousness, this fascinates me and has given me great understanding of my own thoughts and influences. Nischala brings up a paricular point within this sutra concerning our belief system. As we have our fluctuating thoughts through out our day, these thoughts are steered by our beliefs and from there become pleasant or unpleasant.

As I move through my day encountering family, work related issues, and acquaintances I am usually confronted with an issue, conflict or news of some sort.
I can choose to respond or not, many times I do not respond, I have to think about how I will react to what is being said to me. Only then can I choose what path to go down. Especially if I am presented with something difficult, something that challenges my emotions and wants to trigger a reaction in me. We all have those certain things that can set us off. In those times, I can decide to make it all about me, how hurt I am, how wrong the situation is etc. but what really helps, is how can I achieve the best outcome, and create a better exchange.

And this is sometimes with myself, if I am exhausted and encounter an issue at work or at home, I need to choose what is best, and that is to set it aside until I can process it when I can be fully present with it. This will create a more pleasant situation. I have many times, not taken that route, and instead wanted the issue off my emotional plate and it proceeds to make the situation unpleasant instead.

My belief in space, a little time and rest, need to help me in those circumstances where I can step back. If I need to present a response, it has assisted me in beleiving and trusting in myself, thebelief that under these circumstances I can remain neutral and be positive. Namaste'

Sutra 1.4

At other times, we identify with the rays of consciousness, which fluctuate and encourage our perceived suffering. I can't tell you how I identified with this sutra over the years. First it took me a long time understand it, let alone recognize the rays of consciousness affecting me in my daily life.

It is a training of our conscious mind to begin to pull our selves away from the everyday fluctionations of being happy one moment, sad, angry, frustrated or negative the next and it is all affected by what we are doing at the time and who or what we are coming into contact with.

For me, my yogic mind or energy keeps myself in the moment with out attachment or distraction. Great example is driving, instead of just driving, the mind can wander, the cell phone rings, someone cuts us off and then we think about them and why they did that to us and so forth. How about just driving.....and nothing else. I do a great deal of driving to my places of work, and it can be very tedious. I have found ways to make me relax and focus so that I can stay present and just get to where I am going safely.

In my yoga practice, especially if done at home, early on when I began practicing on my own, staying on my mat was the hardest, I could be very distracted by other things or thoughts, I could start in Easy pose or Sukasana, and my mind would wander till I had been sitting for 10 minutes and not realize time was passing because I was so aborbed in my thoughts. Now it is great to be able to recognize what is happening and bring myself back to the present moment.

I know I am practicing yoga when I can consistently bring myself back to the present, change my attitude on a dime and have gratitude through out my day.
Joy to you and Namaste'

Sutra 1.1

Sutra 1.1 With humilty (an open heart and mind) we embrace the sacred study of yoga.
Everytime I read the sutras I re-embrace the study of yoga. I think of where I came from when I began yoga, stressful lifestyle filled with many ups and downs, I craved balance. Which is what I received when I attended my yoga class once a week. I was still exploring many differant avenues to find that one thing that would hold it all together, I didn't realize until I took teacher training, that the answer was yoga. I was drawn to it more and more often, going to more classes reading books and trying to practice at home. All these things added up to little by little I found more balance and more peace on a daily basis, and I continued to weave it into my life. My teacher training year was profound, I experienced growth but I gained more about who I wanted to become and yoga sent me on that path. So when I read this sutra Nischala begins by noting where we started and where we have come. I love the path, the many aspects of it, the differant styles and people I have met. This sutra is circular, as we embrace the study we become more open in our heart and mind and then we embrace it more. namaste' Denise

Yoga Sutras

I wanted to take the time to sit down and go through many of the sutras that were meaningful for me on a particular day. What ever inspiration comes to me. I, like many yoga practioners read and reread the yoga sutras finding new wisdom each time I go through the book. I have several sutra books the newest being "The Secret Power of Yoga" by Nischala Joy Devi. I wanted to use this book as my inspiration in blogging about the sutras. I hope anyone who reads this feels inspired by the sutras and to read and reread them to find daily inspiration. namaste' Denise