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.