Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

postures as important as the destination of the finished pose.
    In addition to moving smoothly with a dance-like flow, there is another, more elusive, quality to discover and develop in the poses and through the transitions between them. I call it
laghima
, a Sanskrit word meaning to float or levitate. Great dancers or athletes seem to glide and float effortlessly through their movements. They have worked hard to attain their performance levels, but they are no longer forcing it. They are moving in grace and joy. Laghima is a combination of strength, flexibility, flow, and balance. It may be difficult to describe, but we have all seen it and any of us can learn it. This lightness and floating sensation also relates to balancing the flows of upward and downward moving energies, and the relationship of control and surrender described in the next chapter. Even a beginner can start learning to flow gracefully through the practice. Remember, Siva, the mythological first yogi, was also the great dancer. By learning to dance through our practice, we will find more benefit and more joy.

Personal Practice
    There are many ways to learn yoga—studying from books, teachers, fellow students, taking classes, or using the many videos available today. However you learn, it is important to develop a personal practice you do yourself. One of the great things about yoga is that it can be done almost anywhere, with little space and with no special tools or equipment. Some unique learning possibilities and qualities of experience can only happen when practicing solo. You can learn to follow your own flow of energy and to tune into your specific needs for that moment. Practicing alone can make it easier to get into a deeper inner space, communion, and personal flow. As you advance in your ability to maintain a personal practice, a special quality of experience can also develop. The innate intelligence of the body actually begins to guide the practice and an inner-directed process that can be very healing and nurturing begins to unfold.
    Group practice also offers particular advantages for learning and can be very valuable. We receive a lot of energy and inspiration when practicing with others. Group practice is synergistic—each participant seems to get more out of the class than he or she puts in. When practicing with a group or leader, however, it is harder to synchronize with and create your own inner flow as well as you can when working independently. Many students become so dependent on external supports for their practice that they cannot practice or continue on their own when necessary. For teachers, the strength of teaching is intimately related to the strength of personal practice. For these reasons I recommend that serious students—and certainly yoga teachers—benefit from their own personal sessions regularly. If you have the opportunity to take classes consistently, you may only work alone on occasion, but it is important to do so. Personal practice will lead to many discoveries, to self-reliance, and your yoga will develop its own momentum.
    When you approach yoga practice as a personal process of learning to listen, to work with, and respond to your own inner feedback systems, you become your own teacher. Discoveries unique to your body and your own special energy are available to you alone. Instead of just learning a particular series of selected poses, you develop a process of constant discovery that continues to grow and evolve. Personal practice may stay the same for a period of time, then it may change occasionally or more frequently during different periods of life. The varying circumstances of each day affects your needs and your practice. The context of yoga is your whole daily life and an entire lifetime, and in this context of practice grows and changes with you as you move through the circle of life. This broad context includes everything you are doing, and not doing, with your body, and how all these things affect you physically. Learn to use yoga to tune yourself physically and to balance all of the things you do.
    Yoga practice complements and balances all other activities, and inactivity, as well as providing the very unique benefits of Hatha yoga.Walking, hiking, athletics, long sitting, rest, and sleep are all part of the mix and part of the whole life context you work with in your personal practice. Looking upon your personal practice as continuously discovering and rediscovering, honing and fine