why do yoga?

[Guest guest]

sat nam all!

irmeda wrote about beginning with KY and things she said struck a chord

with me. i wanted to say some more.

i consider myself to be in the slacker-yogini school. i have a hard time

making myself do any yoga at all, sometimes. often, weeks go by and the

only yoga i do is to read the posts on this list. i try to get up early

(7:30 is early for me), but no way. i try to be disciplined, but then

the sun comes out. i even think i should read more about yoga, instead

of doing other things, but other things seem so much more entertaining.

i do wonder why we - and i know i am not the only one! - are drawn away

from doing things we know will make us feel good, and why we so easily

do things we know are bad for us. this is the crux of my current journey

(those who have been following my tale of hudson will understand, heh):

how to honor myself, not betray myself; how to nourish myself, not allow

myself to be abused; how to love myself, basically. i know that doing

yoga is a way to honor, nourish and love myself. yet i sometimes spend

hours playing solitaire on the computer instead.

the thing i want to point out now, is that there are a LOT of people

d to this list, and i'm thinking there are probably way more of

us who struggle with our practice than there are people who get up every

day at 4 am to do sadhana. one of the reasons i wrote in so much detail

about hudson is b/c i feel a little like i want to balance out the

stories of exhiliration and mystical experience with the doldrums that

are still reality for many of us. we don't need to feel bad about it!

it's just where we are! i do know, absolutely, that doing yoga makes a

change in my life. not necessarily fireworks and spiritual breakthrough,

but i know, i KNOW, that it helps me go in the right direction. even

when a particular practice makes me sad, i know it's still the right

direction, b/c when i post about my sadness and people rush to encourage

me and tell me that it is what my soul craves, i burst into tears, every

time. because i know they are right.

so, do yoga because even if it doesn't maybe always feel like it's

helping, it is! and for sure, it's not hurting! it's better than sitting

around eating cookies!! or having sex with someone who is not capable of

caring about you!! haha!

sat nam, sat nam, wahe guRU!!!

xxxoo,

seattle sue

P.S.! i listened in on gururattan's teleconference today and it was

AWESOME!! i was kind of scared to try because - well, i don't know why -

but i did it and ya'll should all come! it was AMAZING!! thank you

gururattan!! i'm sorry i don't know the name of the person who did the

work with affirmations, please know she is amazing too! thank you both!

and the people who called in!

[Guest guest]

Dear Sue:

 

Your notes are always so thought filled and real. Thank you. We all have

our struggles. You speak of yours and it is so refreshing!

 

We all need to face our habits that are not satisfying. When I fall into

habits I know are not the best for me, I watch myself go through that

experience yet one more time. I am kind of curious. Why am I doing this

this time? I let myself experience it fully instead of feeling guilty

about it. It is what I have chosen to do this time once again, but this

time I'll also bring awareness to it. And I have gifts coming from this

awareness. I too love playing games on the computer by myself or with

others. So I watch if I am connecting with the experience or am I aloof. I

am usually playing terrible if I am not connected.

 

Yesterday was such a day for me. I felt like crying and I felt like

screaming. I played some poker (fake money!) on the computer and I was

losing and losing. Then I decided to bring awareness to my game and my

life. What was I missing? I found myself beconing more aggressive. I had

nothing in my hand but I found myself being gutsy. Everyone that was

playing dropped out one at a time. I won that hand. I had a surge of life

flow through me. The point was there are things I was not doing in my life

that playing the game brought out. I call it poker yoga. (You know Hatha

yoga, Kundalini Yoga and now whatever I do with awareness becomes "that

which I do" yoga). I did not even have to know the solution. Just asking

myself the question: What I am not doing, what can I do? And I watch how

my body-mind wanted to play and I learned what I wanted to learn.

 

Whatever you are doing, do it without guilt, and start doing it

consciously (unless someone is going to get hurt). See how your experience

changes.

 

This morning I realized as I sat down for yoga that something else was

calling me. Instead of doing yoga, I wanted to connect more deeply, more

directly with God. I sat in silence for 30 minutes just watching what

happened in me as I intended to connect with God more deeply. I realized

something new: I have gone through life alone, building myself up by the

bootstraps, rarely finding anyone to truly support me or help me. Yes I

had some help and support in my life and more so recently than ever

before, but more often than not the people around me did not know how to

help, so I found myself alone and trying to figure it out alone. I learned

a lot that way. But this morning I realized why Yogi Bhajan himself had a

teacher in Guru Ram Das. I realized I did not have to be alone anymore.

Yes the yoga always helped. My aura is stronger and more stable than

before, my concentration and focus are more stable... lots of good things.

Meeting with yogi Bhajan was incredible but I still met him with a strange

sense of being an outcast.

 

This morning I discovered I wanted to learn and study something new: How

to be in God space all the time and I felt worthy (where did the

unworthiness come from? this sense of being an outcast from God's world? I

don't know I just experienced that I was welcome back. It was up to me.) I

don't know yet who the teacher I want to connect with is: Jesus? Guru Ram

Das? Yogi Bhajan? Buddha? I just feel a smile inside of me knowing that I

want to search and seek him/her out. I find myself in the same space as

someone who just discovered that they deserve to be loved truly, kindly,

with all the gentleness and support they need and all the beautiful

respectful divine sex, and it is toward finding some divine teacher out

there that I would feel the deep connection I had been craving for

thinking it was denied of me.

 

I suspect we each have to find out what we really crave every moment. And

most of us go about our day pushing away the craving until one day it

becomes too strong and we finally listen and then we find the gold... or

perhaps it takes several attempts to find the gold, but we have started to

ask our self: what is this craving? And we follow the inner guide dance...

And it is joyful.

 

Blessings!

Awtar S.

Rochester, NY

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam

 

Wow, thanks Sue for that post. In some ways I don't feel quite so alienated

anymore; knowing that there are others out there that struggle with their yoga

practice as much as I do! You mentioned waking up at 7:30am to try to do

yoga, maybe you should consider doing yoga at night instead, like when coming

home from work. I use to find that I had more time and was more relaxed when

my day was done in order to really appreciate the experience.

 

Lately for me I've been reading through the posts imagining i'm doing yoga

than really actually doing it. I just love reading about others' experiences,

knowing what it feels like (or felt like, at a time). In fact, last week I

received Gurmukh's Kundalini Yoga DVD and literally sat there watching the

entire video on the couch, thinking to myself, "I can't wait to do this!"

 

To this day, I still haven't done it.

 

The days are busy, especially now just starting up a new full-time semester

at school, and the other times I just want to go out to the bars, be with my

friends, or read a book while sitting in a coffee house. I'll do a week of

yoga and then i'll be in like 2 weeks of complete revelry.

 

I love it when I do yoga because I'm doing so much for myself (and others, I

believe) on so many levels. But the revelry is also a part of me. I enjoy an

ice cream cone or a chocolate chip cookie. I enjoy being with my friends

polishing off a bottle or three of wine.

 

There was a time when all I did was yoga and meditate, rode through the

waves and felt just like a fish...best feeling in the world, but my friends

knew

nothing of it and i felt detached from them. It was a need of grounding that

eventually turned into laziness that kept me from practicing yoga on a daily

basis.

 

There is no doubt Kundalini can be an extreme transformation. But must one

give up the other things they love in order to reap the highest benefits? I

suppose the better question I should ask, is from all the things I've listed

above to the lowest and highest extreme...how much more could I gain from doing

yoga; knowing what is love and what is not. The answer seems to come to you,

if you listen, if you're determined to really truly find it.

 

Much Love, Ry

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hello Sue, wow are you ever prolific on the Big List at the moment, it's

great to see, they are fantastic posts sure to help people.

 

I've been debating the motivation thing with myself too - how come sometimes

one can make the decision to act, othertimes not? I think it's all about

mind control, but it's how you get that control. Is it about the postiive

results outweighing the negative satisfaction, i.e. if you *know* it's short

term gain, long term pain, and you *know* that motivating yourself to do

yoga is going to give you huge pleasure, why not pick the obvious one. I

don't know! Maybe it's when the balance swings - you get so heartily sick of

the pain and know you can make it go away with a bit of work, suddenly it's

not so hard. Weighing the results of the options before making the choice.

In other words, conscious decision. The problem is, getting your mind to

that consciousness - you need yoga for it! Sheesh what a catch 22. Bit by

bit, by degrees, little drops of awareness begin to change us especially

when we have a true intention to change overall and eventually.

 

Hey it's been so great to see you more positive and learning and growing in

absolute leaps and bounds. I know it's been so hard for you (and

unfortunately it'll keep being hard, but maybe eaiser!) so to see the change

in my friend is fantastic - keep it up!

 

I have had such a strong feeling that you are in the midst of significant

positive change, or something, can't explain it but there's a strong energy

connection I can feel with/for you at present. I'll let you knnow if I

realise more.

 

Sat nam

 

Love

Darren

ps I have been feeling that sadness again too but this is beautiful - it's

an overwhelming one that stems from Guru Ram Dass, Sat Guru, you name it,

flooding my heart chakra with love and support. It's just such a wonderful

feeling of support that the tears come. Funny how sadness is sometimes

actually gladness!