Yoga in One Syllable

I’ve just come inside from watching a great grey theatre of thunderclouds roll in from the south and over our house. It’s a rare event for us to get thunder in the middle of winter, and in the moments before the rain finally swallowed the view, as the white cockatoos and the electric-green king parrots swooped through the sunlight to a backdrop of rain-laden clouds, I enjoyed one of those surprise moments of being suddenly swept away in the magical pattern of life.

As the seasons ebb and flow, as the leaves fall and frosts carpet the ground, we adjust our lives and habits to the changing world. We pull the ugg boots out of the cupboard, feast on warming root-vegetable soups, and spend extra minutes every morning trying to coax ourselves out of warm beds. Despite all the busy-ness in our lives, a part of us always remains connected to the natural events happening around us.

Yoga has its own role to play in helping us to become aware of our connection to this web of life. It gives us the tools to remain centred in the “now”, by calmly observing what is happening in our body, our breath and in our mind. It’s here, in the understanding of the mind, that yoga offers its greatest gifts.

Our minds constantly processes the information we take in through our senses. This information provides the basis of our actions and decisions. But when we use the information, are we responding creatively, or simply reacting?

To get to the truth – to truly use the mind, rather than let it operate on reactive autopilot – we need to slow the mind from its habitual busy-ness. For if we’re perpetually busy planning, expecting, imagining, remembering,  all the other infinite varieties of activity  there is no space for just being. To be still, to be quiet, to be calm. To be in the present moment.

When we understand how the mind works, we can live in the present moment all day, every day. Here are three simple yoga techniques to try:
•    As you do routine tasks – cooking dinner, cleaning your teeth – try to observe all the sensations in your body.
•    Before you begin any new task, take one full deep breath: watch the breath as the air flows down to into the deepest part of your lungs expanding the bottom ribs, then the middle ribs and finally up into the collar bones. Inhabit the breath. Watch again as it flows back out.
•    Take a step back from whatever you’re thinking about. Witness your thoughts as they pop to the surface of your mind. Watch them come and go without judgement or prejudice.

Every time we practice these simple techniques we’re bringing our mind back to the present moment. In the present moment we develop a sense of relaxed peacefulness. There is no space for our past to worry us. Nor do we get pent up about the things we are yet to achieve.

What remains is plenty of space for us to become more connected with those around us and more aware of who we really are. And that quiet thunder rumbles and resonates through every part of our lives – winter, spring, summer or fall.

Image by mark: