Lose Yourself in the Moment!
One of the greatest things that yoga can give us is the ability to be more present in our lives. Ram Dass said it so clearly and so simply -- Be Here Now. Everything else is in your mind. All there is is this moment, right here, right now.
One of my teachers used to speak about breathing into every moment of your life because if you don't then you won't really be ready to let it go at the end.
That's the trick! That's what we are doing on our mat. That's what we are doing in meditation. How do we let go and get to the stillness? It's by fully engaging and concentrating on one object with such intensity that our concentration turns into meditation and we lose ourselves in the moment. Boom! Samadhi.
Lose yourself in the moment!
Engage fully with the Om. Listen to the sound around you. Feel the vibration coming from within -- and then surrender into the stillness that follows. That's your yoga class right there. One Om.
Ooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Stillness.
Yoga.
Be Here Now.
Krishnamacharya, one of our greatest teachers, said that yoga is about 'replacing old patterns with new patterns'.
What are you rehearsing? Whatever you practice and rehearse will become stronger. If you are rehearsing a pattern of being somewhere else and not here, if you are constantly disconnected, then it will get harder and harder for you to connect.
Yoga is teaching you in every pose to engage and become fully absorbed in one moment and then quickly let it go. Engage and become fully absorbed in the next moment and then quickly let it go. Moving moment to moment through your practice. This is yoga. Moving moment to moment through your life. This is how you will find peace.
If you really give yourself to the moment, if you are really living and engaging in your life and are fully present, when it's time to let something go, it's actually easier to let it go. Why are we holding on so much? Because we never really connect in the first place. We are kind of half in and half out.
Get in!
If you are only halfway in it in your life, when it's over you are aren't going to be ready to let it go. There will be a lot of suffering. But if you are really in it every moment, practicing really showing up for yourself and the people around you and you are really engaged and connected to the moment -- when it's time to let go -- it's
so
easy
to
let
go -- you just surrender and dissolve into the stillness.
When I see a student really go into the fire in a backbend or other challenging pose and really show up for themselves and get lost in the moment, get lost in the intensity -- when the pose is over -- that same student is in such a profound state of peace, calm, quiet. It's incredible to witness.
And when I see a student who is fidgeting and restless after a pose like this I know exactly what happened. They didn't really show up for themselves. They weren't really in it. They didn't go through it and get to the other side. They just phoned it in. They were half in it and half somewhere else. Their mind wandered to other things -- the next pose, the clock on the wall, 'what am I going to do later', 'I'm tired', 'kind of hungry', 'this pose is hard', 'is this class almost over' -- and on and on the mind goes.
Be Here Now.
Show up for yourself. Get lost in the moment. And then let it go. Surrender into the stillness.
