Well apparently there is a lot waiting to get out on the paper today, so here goes number two!
There is a phenomena in yoga called "Agni". I love it. It is essentially the burning discomfort we feel during growth whether it be physical, spiritual or emotional. It has been the topic of my internal discussion since the beginning of this course.
I need to digress briefly to set the tone here. There was some interesting information for me in the readings we were assigned for this course. The term "Yoga" has several different meanings according to what I have read. One states that it means "to be yoked", another says that it means "union". Yet another speaks about yoga as "the path" that we all take. Yoga is not postures, it is a path of life. How we all get to where we are going. For me, Yoga has meant the yoking, or union of myself with the Divine. It is the path that I choose to take to journey into myself, which depending on your belief system may mean the same thing for you. I believe that we are all strings of divinity upon which lives are strung like beads. The Agni is the fuel for self realization and awareness.
During a meditation that we did the first weekend I was very aware of how things that I am dealing with seem to stream to the surface when my mind is still like bubbles in a glass of champagne. I realized as I was standing and the floor seemed to be 2000 degrees that so much of what I think of as real is only a fabrication of mind. I had a complete discussion with myself in that moment that although my feet were telling me that I was standing in lava, I knew without a doubt that the floor was the same temperature it was at the beginning of the exercise. It got me thinking after it was over, how much of the rest of my perceptions get that distorted? How much of the rest of my way of thinking is simply my mind trying to get me to move away from something a bit uncomfortable?
Back bends. I don't need to say anymore because any of you in my class are already laughing. Back bends. 60 you say? Guess what! Agni baby! Because the number of back bends you can do is only limited by your mind saying are you kidding? More? Mind is the real blockage, more often than the body. That is the frontier I am playing in now.
Even meditation contains elements of Agni. A very close class mate of mind was telling me she couldn't meditate. The minute she tried she was flooded with a thousand thoughts. Not going to happen. Our Guru told her it is not about stopping the thoughts. It is about just letting things come up and observing them, seeing the patterns in what we are thinking. They come up at exactly the right time and in the moment we are prepared to release them.
Agni for me has been a purification process. A burning off of what no longer is required or no longer serves me. I realize this is such a unique and personal journey for each of us. And there is beautiful humour in that. The true challenge in agni for me is in the asanas, whereas for her it was in the meditation. Our strengths and need areas are so different and so perfect. I have the arms of a T-rex and binding was one of my goals in this training. I think I am the only one who could not bind. But I'll tell you, I can sit upside down in headstand forever. And some of the best yoginis I have watched struggle with that. Our challenges are not related to anything other than where we are at on our own map. That is why it is so important to resist the temptation to look up and judge where I am in relation to where others are on the board whether in my class or in my life. They are not travelling my path and therefore they are not markers I can use to judge my own progress. I have to look internally for that. And that is truly a higher calling.
Give it to the flame, for everything is transient. We are new beings in each and every moment.
Thank God for that!!!!! Here is to pure potential people,
In love and light,
Kathryn
There is a phenomena in yoga called "Agni". I love it. It is essentially the burning discomfort we feel during growth whether it be physical, spiritual or emotional. It has been the topic of my internal discussion since the beginning of this course.
I need to digress briefly to set the tone here. There was some interesting information for me in the readings we were assigned for this course. The term "Yoga" has several different meanings according to what I have read. One states that it means "to be yoked", another says that it means "union". Yet another speaks about yoga as "the path" that we all take. Yoga is not postures, it is a path of life. How we all get to where we are going. For me, Yoga has meant the yoking, or union of myself with the Divine. It is the path that I choose to take to journey into myself, which depending on your belief system may mean the same thing for you. I believe that we are all strings of divinity upon which lives are strung like beads. The Agni is the fuel for self realization and awareness.
During a meditation that we did the first weekend I was very aware of how things that I am dealing with seem to stream to the surface when my mind is still like bubbles in a glass of champagne. I realized as I was standing and the floor seemed to be 2000 degrees that so much of what I think of as real is only a fabrication of mind. I had a complete discussion with myself in that moment that although my feet were telling me that I was standing in lava, I knew without a doubt that the floor was the same temperature it was at the beginning of the exercise. It got me thinking after it was over, how much of the rest of my perceptions get that distorted? How much of the rest of my way of thinking is simply my mind trying to get me to move away from something a bit uncomfortable?
Back bends. I don't need to say anymore because any of you in my class are already laughing. Back bends. 60 you say? Guess what! Agni baby! Because the number of back bends you can do is only limited by your mind saying are you kidding? More? Mind is the real blockage, more often than the body. That is the frontier I am playing in now.
Even meditation contains elements of Agni. A very close class mate of mind was telling me she couldn't meditate. The minute she tried she was flooded with a thousand thoughts. Not going to happen. Our Guru told her it is not about stopping the thoughts. It is about just letting things come up and observing them, seeing the patterns in what we are thinking. They come up at exactly the right time and in the moment we are prepared to release them.
Agni for me has been a purification process. A burning off of what no longer is required or no longer serves me. I realize this is such a unique and personal journey for each of us. And there is beautiful humour in that. The true challenge in agni for me is in the asanas, whereas for her it was in the meditation. Our strengths and need areas are so different and so perfect. I have the arms of a T-rex and binding was one of my goals in this training. I think I am the only one who could not bind. But I'll tell you, I can sit upside down in headstand forever. And some of the best yoginis I have watched struggle with that. Our challenges are not related to anything other than where we are at on our own map. That is why it is so important to resist the temptation to look up and judge where I am in relation to where others are on the board whether in my class or in my life. They are not travelling my path and therefore they are not markers I can use to judge my own progress. I have to look internally for that. And that is truly a higher calling.
Give it to the flame, for everything is transient. We are new beings in each and every moment.
Thank God for that!!!!! Here is to pure potential people,
In love and light,
Kathryn
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