maintaining a domestic practice

"what is a domestic exercise?!" my pal Suzi from Portugal wrote, her irony now not misplaced in the facelessness of the typed web page. "well, I wager I may want to say that my kids are my Yoga, as my husband is likewise, or the dogs, or making the beds, or doing the dishes..."

however of path, aren't maximum of us house owners, with Yoga as the focal point of our lives being just behind round-the-international cruises and a fleet of sports cars in that ever-gift lottery win fable? in spite of everything, for most people folks it's no longer Yoga that feeds the kids, makes the beds, pays the bills...

"The kids move again to high school on Monday," Suzi continued, a hint of remedy in her words. "and then I will be able to put my mind again so as."

and that is when it struck me - what use is this Yoga component if it only works when we're unfastened to clear the time and area Christian yoga to permit it take effect? Who desires to experience the wonders of Yoga more, i ponder - the stressed enterprise executive as she faces the needs of an uncaring world, or the reclusive monk with hour after day after month to indulge within the greatest of India's philosophies? And if Yoga simplest works for those with the time to observe a strict and lengthy direction of behaviour, what use is it to the you or me in our regular lives?

And yet, how useful this Yoga aspect is was my first actual thought after my first ever Yoga elegance. So abnormal, I notion, that I should lie there in a class complete of entire strangers and yet be comfy sufficient to nod off. there was something in this Yoga component certainly!

skip several months forward and, tons as I nevertheless loved lessons, there has been something proscribing about the set times and locations, the postures selected by using the lecturers. something inhibiting within the pace of the classes, by means of necessity geared toward the slowest newcomers, and (again, with the aid of necessity) lacking within the philosophical shape that I now understand to be real Yoga. All in all, something that wasn't pretty proper.

At that time, the "a few is good, greater is higher" mind-set still ran robust in me, and that i attempted (with out plenty achievement) to go to greater training every week, determined to find that "greater" that eluded me. but progressively, over months (possibly years), the realisation came that it wasn't greater of the same I wished, however less - and more of something extraordinary. less them, greater me...

I took my first tentative steps towards a home practice quite early, after just a few weeks of training, when I acquired my first Yoga video as a gift. but like a teetering toddler it continued in bursts and stumbles for over 6 months before locating its toes in any manner. Even then (or even now) the falls are frequent, the merest social activities or most inconsequential running demands wreaking untold havoc on my accurate intentions. ought to this truely be what Patanjali had in mind?

however some thing in Suzi's words appeared to click on, a connection to the first actual sutra of Patanjali's finest work. In reality, the first actual phrase - Atha.

Now.

now not the next day, now not next week. now not when the kids go returned to high school, or whilst work eases up and lets you domestic before darkish o'clock.

NOW!

Yoga cannot take vicinity once more, it must start now with your goal to practice. clean for me to say as I take a seat on the keyboard, typing ideals and not possible goals for human beings I do not even understand! Or is it? where within the Yoga sutra-s does Patanjali say that Yoga must be a ninety minute elegance of asana-s? Or an hour? Or half of an hour? Does he even prescribe that we need to devote one minute to Yoga?

This fallacy, that we ought to set aside a block of time is 2d handiest to the triumphing false impression that Yoga equals asana. collectively they make a deadly combination. so that you're at home, the dog's barking, children are screaming and tearing up the joint, dinner's burning at the stove - proper now, an hour's asana practice is set as much use as a chocolate teapot. but are you able to spare sixty seconds? Or thirty? near your eyes (oh yeah, higher switch off that stove first!), take a deep breath and produce yourself just one step in the direction of calmness. feel better? Of direction. turned into that Yoga? For certain.

but what can we do to maximize the chance of a everyday, if now not daily, practice? to begin, I think taking an awesome lengthy observe yourself, your environment, and your wishes from Yoga, is an high-quality start line. that is a large a part of what Patanjali calls Svadhyaya or self-examine, one of the three critical elements of Kriya Yoga (the Yoga of action.) And the first query should be to ask your self what you are hoping to obtain from Yoga?

discovering your cause is a very important coaching for exercise, for that determines largely what you may do, and how you'll do it. if your desires are spiritual, a dynamic asana-based totally exercise is not going that will help you gain that - on the opposite, in case you look to Yoga as a means of bodily therapy, a exercise concentrated round chanting and prayer will likely now not meet your expectancies.