Black sheep, white sheep, or just asleep?
Maybe you’re neither white nor black, good nor bad. Maybe you’re not even a sheep.Perfection in an asana is achieved when the effort to perform it becomes effortless and the infinite being within is reached. From then on the sadhaka (practitioner) is undisturbed by dualities. –– Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, II.47-48, translation by B.K.S. Iyengar […]
Weaken the afflictions to bring harmony into your life
What if you could remove discord from your life, and make it harmonious and ever so much simpler? Yoga philosophy says you can. How? You need to weaken the hold that the kleshas (afflictions or defilements), five powerful psychological drivers, have on your mind. At first glance, Patanjali’s list of kleshas in the Yoga Sutras […]
Release your grip by practicing aparigraha
How ironic that the subtlest and hardest to grasp of all the yamas, the moral restrictions that make up yoga’s ethical code, should be aparigraha – non-grasping. We can understand why grasping is harmful when we see a miser, or a person who takes at the expense of others. We can even see some of […]
Meet your I-maker, and feel less alone
In January, after several months of not taking a weekly yoga class, I started again, in a different space, with a different teacher. One of the great benefits of taking a break and changing routines is that everything looks fresh, and emotions you’d forgotten come back to the surface, ripe for examination. Somewhat to my […]