“Yoga is like music: the
rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create
the symphony of life.” B.K.S. Iyengar
Our human nature
has a tendency to fixate on the stress and the difficulties in life, rather
than the positive. Yoga is about making
you more aware of your own power to choose what you will focus on in your life,
and thus create. So, Yoga is more than just exercise!
When yoga postures
(called ‘asanas’) are combined with conscious awareness of the flow of breath
in and out of the body, this naturally releases and opens areas of the body
that feel tight and restricted.
The entire body is
a finely tuned receiver and transmitter of energies (thought and emotion),
recording and ‘remembering’ every experience we have.
Experience is not
just the outer event! Fundamentally,
experience is an internal event. How do we perceive what happens to us? What
thoughts and emotions do we create around an event?
If we create
resistance in our mind, this expresses through the body. With the passage of
time, resistant thought becomes physicalized in the body. It can, and often
does, lead to illness.
We most often
think of ourselves as dense physical matter, but it is more appropriate to
think of ourselves as light and information, expressing through a physical
medium. WE are light ‘in formation’. Quantum science tells us we are 99.99%
percent space, so it is pure illusion that we appear solid, and feel solid!
We are so much
more than the image we see before us in the mirror!
Through asana
practice, yoga becomes a moving meditation that helps us regain awareness of the
subtle nature of our Being, and allows us to see where we are holding onto
trapped energy and/or emotions. It is
not simply about the physical, although it begins from that starting point.
The breath is the
bridge between mind and body, and allows us to tap into areas that have become
‘rigid’ or ‘stuck’. Though the breath we can begin to release discordant energy
patterning and dis-ease from the whole body.
Thus yoga brings us our health
– physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
Sound, which is
tied to the conscious use of breath, is also an extremely powerful tool for
releasing and transforming negative energy ‘stuck’ in the cellular matrix of
the body’s tissues, organs and glands, and is often combined with yoga to bring
about even deeper healing.
Most of us are
aware of the benefits of music in helping the body and mind to relax and
unwind. Taken to a deeper level, the vibration of self-created sound, through
toning and chanting, can be directed to all the cells of the body, causing
profound changes in our internal state of being. Through this altered state,
every system of the body responds and begins to ‘fine tune’ itself back to a
state of harmony and wholeness.
Yoga, combined
with conscious breathing and sound (chanting mantras or vowel sounds), has a
deeply transformative effect. By mentally and physically directing the sound to
different parts of the body, we reconnect with those parts to heal and balance
them.
Many yoga students
end up having devotional practices, chanting mantras at the beginning and/or
end of class.
Yoga is for
everyone – young, old, fit or not. Do you have to be flexible or strong? Of
course not!
If the requirement
to start yoga was to put your legs behind your head, or to perform a
complicated arm balance (like ‘flying pigeon’), many of us would have never
become students or teachers, myself included.
Yoga and Sound are
both journeys of awareness leading to the path of Self-transformation. They
challenge us to go deeper.
Today, too many
people lack vital awareness of the inner body, subtle bodies, and the mind… those
which are unseen. The brain and intellect has become their primary focus, to the
detriment of everything else, and society relies too heavily on drugs, surgery
and a flawed medical model of the world which keeps much of humanity trapped in
unhealthy patterns of thinking, doing and being. This is why we are seeing a
grassroots movement towards natural healing, and a massive uptake in yoga and
other spiritual disciplines.
In spiritual
terms, an accident, injury or illness is a way of the body trying to get our
attention.
Due to the passage
of time, the vast majority of people feel that events happen to them, rather than because of them. Yet, we are always at
cause in what we draw to us. The Universe is utterly precise and unerring in
its wisdom, and we are part of that unfolding wisdom, even if our human selves
seem prone to error.
As we get older,
and more disconnected from our bodies, it seems that we have no real role to
play in healing them, but this simply isn’t true.
So many times I
hear, ‘oh, my back went… I was tying my shoe laces and it happened… must be a
sign of getting older!’
This false belief
that we ‘get sick’ as we get older is rife amongst us. It is hidden – subconsciously, we fear old
age, and death. We have become so identified with the form of the body, that we
think we are our bodies.
Yoga is an
invitation to, once again, regain that joyful, light and playful feeling of
being in the body. It is also about
conquering our fears about ageing and death.
The body is meant
to be a cherished home for the Soul, and it deserves much care and
attention. If we will simply listen, it
will tell us what we need to know.
If you contract
your abdominals during class, then you will regain vital awareness of that
area, and you will automatically do the same thing when tying your shoe laces,
well into your later years.
If you use your
fingers to grab and pull during class, you will develop an inner, textile
strength to them, and they will serve you into your later years, rather than
becoming weak.
If you do
backbends, your upper back will not ‘round’ forward as much (how many of us
suffer from ‘computer backs’?), and you will maintain a freer, open heart
energy.
Yoga classes bring vital awareness before we ‘need’ to experience an illness or accident, so we can heal the parts of ourselves that need attention.
Ultimately, Yoga
is about loving the Self.
Jaime Tanna
Founder and
Director
Join myself and Jennifer for a fabulous sunset
yoga class at the MBS Expo at the St. Raphael Resort in Limassol, Cyprus on Saturday, 14th March and experience the transformative power of yoga and
sound! 5-7PM
http://mbscyprus.com/
http://mbscyprus.com/
Other Energy Therapy Presentations at the MBS Event:
The Japanese Art
of Reiki (Workshop): Saturday, 12-2pm
The Art of Indian
Champissage (Workshop): Saturday, 2-3pm
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