When Did Your Yoga Begin?
A thought experiment about when your yoga begins.
9/7/20263 min read
You have arrived for a yoga class. Maybe it’s at a nearby studio, maybe your home for a personal practice or to watch a yoga video, maybe you have a fitness center at your workplace. You were able to step away from what you were doing before and have made it to your yoga space. That is a great step. Congratulations!
You have arrived physically to this location. You have unrolled your yoga mat. Maybe you are excited about today’s practice. Or maybe it is just another thing on your To Do list. Take a moment to consider your feelings before a class and why you have those feelings.
Consider the question, “When did your yoga begin?”
Did you answer the question by thinking back to when you took your first yoga class? How many years ago was that?
But think about today. When did your yoga begin? Did your mind and/or body begin to anticipate today’s class earlier in the day? Maybe yoga for you begins when you arrive at the studio and unroll your mat. Or maybe your yoga begins when the teacher begins to lead the class into a moment of quiet stillness, allowing your mind to enter the same space where you have physically arrived.
Class begins: we breathe, we stretch, we move the body. Maybe your yoga begins when you take a shape that you only do in a yoga class, a certain stretch or twist. Do you like this shape? Does yoga begin when you find a comfortable shape, or is it only yoga when the pose creates a deeper sensation? Maybe yoga begins in a challenging balancing pose when you begin to wobble a little bit. Life has many wobbles along the way.
Breathe. Focus.
A physical yoga practice (asana) is meant to be challenging physically. For some people it is stretching or twisting. For some people it is balancing or holding a pose for more time than is comfortable. For some people the hardest part is being still at the beginning or the end of a class. The teacher is offering pose shapes for you to find your own personal challenge and notice the response of your body and your mind. Maybe you consider yoga to have begun when you feel this challenge, an edgy feeling in body and mind.
But consider the idea that your yoga experience began before coming to your mat. What brought you to a yoga practice today?
Maybe your yoga began when you had a meaningful conversation with a friend or co-worker and really listened to them.
Maybe it was when you were stuck in traffic and you took a deep breath and knew that the traffic would clear shortly.
Maybe it was when you held the door for someone or smiled at someone, acknowledging their humanity.
Yoga is more than shapes and poses on the mat. It is how we treat ourselves and treat others. The first two limbs of yoga in the Yoga Sutras are the Yamas and the Niyamas. These ethical principles, practices and observances are guideposts as to how to live a fulfilling life which betters yourself, those around you and the world.
The five Yamas, self-regulating behaviors involving our interactions with other people and the world at large, include
Ahimsa: nonviolence against others as well as against yourself
Satya: truthfulness in deeds and words
Asteya: non-stealing of physical things or of time, yours and others
Brahmacharya: restraints in behavior
Aparigraha: non-possessiveness, non-greed, not grasping for what you do not have
The five Niyamas, personal practices that relate to our inner world, include
Saucha: purity of thoughts and actions
Santosha: contentment in your situation
Tapas: self-discipline, training your senses
Svadhyaya: self-study, inner exploration
Ishvara Pranidhana: surrender to a higher power
Practicing yoga is more than just participating in a yoga class. Being a yogi does not mean you have to become an ascetic monk at the top of a mountain. Being a yogi is being a thoughtful, caring person living in the world with other people and living things. Caring for yourself, other people and the world.
There are many great texts on the Yoga Sutras and the Yamas and Niyamas. I encourage you to seek these ancient texts and incorporate these ideas into your life.
It is not as important to know when your yoga began as to know that your yoga does not end at the end of a yoga class.