Friday 29 July 2011

An invitation...

Dear fellow Yogis,

As late summer draws closer, the late afternoon sun starts to descend and slant ever lower and quicker, and we can start to feel the days shortening around us.
Take some time over the next few weeks to consciously be in the moment. This is of course a good deal easier when we're on holiday, away from the pressures of our job or daily routine. So it is in fact the perfect time to set aside a few moments throughout your day to really 'BE' where ever you find yourself.
  Many people find the idea of some form of mediation sounds wonderful, but the practicality of actually manifesting it quite a challenge. Meditation can take many forms, and is a versatile practice, as it can be done pretty much anywhere. If you walk regularly and find yourself out amongst fields, trees and open spaces, take a moment to pause. Slow your steps and find somewhere to sit and just breathe. Close your eyes and notice the sounds and sensations around you. If you can draw your mind away from it's usual incessant chatter, you are on the road to cultivating some control over it's meanderings. Even if this control only lasts a few seconds, if you practice (and we all need to practice this!) in time it will get easier.
Why is this necessary? Why bother, what's the point? Is there a point to meditation? You could argue that there isn't. You could argue that the fact that there is no point, IS the point. Why should everything have a point, or a reason or an end result? Isn't it often just as much about the process? Living in such a goal-driven society this can be a hard concept to embrace at times.
Perhaps one of the most significant results of a regular meditative practice is a gradual quietening of some of the louder, more disturbing voices in our heads. Many of us frequently have unnecessary conversations with ourselves about things, people and events that aren't constructive and only cause us to experience more Duhkha which I touched on in my last post. We dwell on past happenings ( and indeed, anything that isn't happening in this very moment, even if it took place a few minutes previously, is in the past), we also fabricate future scenarios, building sand castles in thin air. Meditating on the moment you are in, helps bring you back to the now, and the actual nature of things as they truly are. The nature of something remains undisturbed by what goes on around it. We all have this natural state at our very centre,  and the more we persevere to quieten the noise in our heads, the more we can come to this place. It's not easily found when the volume dial of the mind is cranked up to ten.
Start with your breath. Yoga teaches us to 'Yoke' the body and the mind by using the breath. It is our greatest tool, and provides a magical link between the physical and the mental and emotional if we employ it often. Put in the simplest of terms, all that Yoga is asking us to do is to consciously breathe. On our mats, every movement is transformed into a meditation as we link these three elements. Off our mats we can still practice Yoga by uniting body, breath and mind. Much of the crazy world around us can positively discourage this union, so make time to explore it.
Bring yourself back to your breath and experience yourself as you do this. Witness the nature of yourself in the moment, breath to breath. Doing this regularly you are not only truly practicing Yoga, but you are connecting with a place within that remains undisturbed by the turbulence of life. Picture this place as similar to the depths of the ocean, unmoved by the currents and tides at the surface.  It is yours to explore when ever and where ever you chose. You are invited, so come on in, the water's lovely.
Julia ❤

1 comment:

  1. What a lovely post Dear Julia, and so eloquently put. If only more and more on our planet would take the time to slow down, look inside and be still.
    I'm nearly finished reading Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now' and would quote a paragraph from Beauty arises from the stillness of your Presence - "Because we live in such a mind-dominated culture, most modern art, architecture, music, and literature are devoid of beauty, of inner essence, with very few exceptions. The reason is that the people who create those things cannot - even for a moment - free themselves from their mind. So they are never in touch with that place within where true true creativity and beauty arise. The mind left to itself creates monstrosities, and not only in art galleries. Look at our urban landscapes and industrial wastelands. No civilization has ever produced so much ugliness".
    That's not true of you.
    Love, D

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