You will see I am sharing on YouTube and Facebook many of my Intuitive Flow moments. This is piquing interest in yoga lovers. Is this a yoga class? Is this a random movement practice? Should I even be privy to this since it seems more a private monologue than a public lecture?
I want to encourage discussion of the idea that what happens in a class is not the formula for home practice. Does a yogi of 20 years think “I’ll do a set of yoga poses and that is my Hatha yoga”. I know I would be bereaved if that was all I wanted for my beautiful soul and tender Self.
In this blog I present the idea that what happens in many yoga classes can be best categorised as the ‘abc’ of hatha yoga. It is foundational learning that is necessary and useful, but not complete. It has not had the fullness of spirit breathed into it, because that is something that happens in a different space.
If what happens in a an average yoga class in the Western World in 2023 is really building blocks of learning, then I find myself wondering and asking the question… what happens next? At school, once we have learnt the abc’s we don’t keep repeating them each year. They are committed to memory, just as asana are committed to cellular memory, so we can use them to create something more meaningful.
Yoga poses as MEANING is my way of Being In Yoga.
Just as our abc’s are used to write words and sentences which then allow us the more meaningful ability to communicate and even create stories, Yoga practices can trickle through us into our inner most psyche. One’s yoga becomes attuned to those inner places where deeper truths, archetypal knowledge, music and poetry reside. It is a creative, unknown world where sponteneity is welcomed and authenticity has the full authority.
My yoga is definitely poetry. It took growth and maturation to move from rules to deep listening and self trust, but it is a step for yogis to take if they wish.
I will in time offer some useful break-downs of what is happening for me in Intuitive Flow moments, so the principles are well communicated.
But for now, to bring the ideas together I’d like to start with what is important to know:
“The approach is simple - a completely undefended looking and feeling into
the essential activities of life: joy, sorrow, breathing, loving, walking,
dancing, sleeping.
Meditation is diving into your entire sensorium so fearlessly that you go beyond it into the core of your being and rest there.
This is a yoga of delight, awe and wonder.
”
Yoga means Union. Meditation leads to absorption. A yoga class is an opportunity for a safe and sacred space to learn, but it is limited. I invite you to open to a personal practice, a yoga that can take your hand and walk you through the wilderness into awe. These paths are there for you to pioneer your way through until the toil turns to leisure and delight. The guiding principles are clear but they are pillars, not fillers. They leave a wide open space for the unknown. This is what the Japanese call ‘Mu’ the creative void or the dance of nothingness.
At this point in the evolution of yoga, we Yoga Teachers may have a lot more to learn and share than is currently thought possible.