Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

pose, and I pointed that out. I told him about an old text I had read that said one could get many of the benefits of practice simply by sitting for a time each day in the Lotus pose. When I first read it I thought it was just glorifying the benefits of that famous asana, but later I realized that it was true. Sitting on the floor in any cross-legged pose brings flexibility to the hips, legs, and ankles while toning the spine and creating a flow of energy throughout the whole body. No matter how busy we are, we can find time to sit on the floor. Many yogis even enjoy sitting cross-legged in chairs. When done properly, sitting this way can actually be more comfortable and better for circulation.
    At the end of the day, before bed, it’s a good idea to spend a few minutes for an evening rebalancing and unwinding. Do some forward bends, twists, or stretches to relieve any tightness or tension in the body. A relaxed Shoulderstand can also be very helpful at the end of the day, too. There is great benefit to completing the day this way and it doesn’t take much time. Even a few minutes of calming poses will bring hours of better sleep and help to maintain overall flexibility and energy from day to day. As you begin to bring awareness of your body’s energies into daily life, you will find many ways to incorporate the benefits of yoga into the day without taking any extra time. In fact, it will add much time and energy to your days. In the same way, many of the principles explained in this chapter can be applied to other areas of living. Then all daily activities and the insights gained from them can contribute to yogic practice and to general well-being. This awareness andthese mini practices may take a bit more energy in the moment but will reward you with much more strength and energy in the long run.

Enjoying Your Practice
    In the section on discipline we discussed the importance of learning to enjoy one’s practice. As a teacher I’ve noticed that students who enjoy their yoga are the ones who stay with it over the long term. Some people make their practice, if not their lives, a constant struggle. They seem to be always pushing their limits, working on their form, or weighing and measuring themselves—trying to get to
where they should be
. Their approach becomes forced and tense. It has served me to approach yoga more softly—to learn to enjoy it. We need to work hard and with discipline, but we also have to lighten up and remove the tendency toward regimentation. I recommend, even to my newest students, that everyone spend some of their practice time working at a level they can enjoy and that they regularly stay within their level of enjoyment for entire sessions. Even for a beginner with limited abilities, there is an enjoyable level of practice. I have taught more than one person in a wheelchair who discovered more joy of movement than many of us may ever find.
    We can also work hard and still stay within enjoyment. We can all push the envelope and work near our maximum edges. Certainly we need to make special efforts at times in order to make progress, but if we always struggle to do our utmost, we lose energy and tire.
    We all have a range of movement where we must exert and another range where we can move more freely. I recommend practicing in the latter at least as often as the former. We can find that range of movement where we feel good, flowing in the joy of exercise and motion, and visit it often. We can learn to use yoga to get into higher, elevated states, making it fun, enjoyable. It’s a great secret for maintaining a lifelong practice of yoga.



The Dance of Energy
    Science has shown dramatically how energy and matter are part of a single spectrum. The two, like particles and waves, are, in fact, one relationship—what modern physicists call a “field.” All of life can be seen as a dance of the universal energy field. Hatha, the yoga of balancing sun and moon polarities, has its foundation in this transformative dance. The mythological source of this yoga of transformation is the god Siva, who is symbolized as the great dancer, dancing in a ring of fire. This image of a dancing divinity implies the cosmic dance of energy, birth, death, and transformation. Everything that enters fire is changed. Learning about the movement and flow of energy is one of the core principles of Hatha yoga.
The Energy Body
    In yoga practice we can experience both physical and nonphysical forms of energy.