The Practice of Yoga

“The practice of yoga is threefold: the state of yoga, the practice of yoga and the experience of yoga. They are not separate from each other. You do not practice to get to a state.” - Anand Mehrotra.

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“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” - Charles R. Swindoll

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"Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace." - Bhagavad Gita

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“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.- Nisargadatta Maharaj

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The practice of yoga is sattva, balance. But it is not static balance. It is dynamic. It is flowing. Part of perceiving this balance is cultivating awareness of, and presence of, your Shiva and Shakti qualities. This can been understood as Shiva being pure still consciousness, unbounded. And Shakti being movement, expression of consciousness.

These are not opposing forces but an expression of one intelligence.

Additionally, it can be viewed and experienced as the unity of polarities, the dance within each of us, of our masculine and feminine. Anand Mehrotra suggests we try this exercise:

Observe within your own psyche, in your own being these qualities:

• What is occupying your life more?
• What is the content of your life?
• See where you can balance the masculine and the feminine.
• Integrate, balance and make it present now.

Today's Mantra

SIMPLIFY, PRIORITIZE AND ORGANIZE

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Open Heart, Open Mind.

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Give it an honest effort.

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Simplicity. Peace. Integrity. Community. Equality.

(A Quaker SPICE mantra)

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Thoughts on Intention

from Lillian Benrubi, MSW

(Radical Self Love)

… Your “path has to be aligned with your intention.

We get lost sometimes, distracted by a road here and a road there. And that’s ok.

So today......what is your intention?  An exercise that worked for me years ago in a 7 month intensive program, with an accountability partner, was to set our intentions for the day, not only and sometimes not even in our actions, but in our “being”.  So it sounded like this......today my intention is to be patient, understanding, curious.....or today my intention is to be engaged, excited, and in humor....or today my intention is being grounded in myself, connected to myself, authentic.

The “intention” here is to set the tone, to feel the feeling of the "beingness" you are creating for the day, and to step into it.  It may last all day, it may last 2 minutes.  Just keep recreating the intention.  There were failures of course, but we just got up, wiped off the dirt and started over.  And whenever there was a pattern on not fulfilling on our intention, a block that prevented us from being in our intention, we reached out for coaching.  We arrived, closer and closer, each time, to the core of ourselves, to being in what we created, to the power of our ability to create whatever reality that resonated with us.

Don’t give up, don’t give in.....don’t even fight.....just believe in yourself enough to get up and start over, even if it means you need some extra minutes on the ground to care for the sores and bruises.....so that you can go on.”

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The Simple Writing Exercise Olympian Triathelete Gwen Jorgensen Uses To Succeed

"Every day I write down three things I do well and three things I can improve upon. Looking back at those three things I did well every day is something that can bring me confidence leading into a race." // This is a modified daily practice that is done with the The Five Minute Journal - https://www.facebook.com/FiveMinuteJournal